The Dinner's cultural moment!

If you can keep upright when all about you
Are falling in and blaming it on you,
If you can trust your helm when all crews doubt him,
But be prepared for his capsizing too;
If you can cover up the beat and keep your nerve
Or being tacked upon, don't lose your cool,
Or being headed, don't forget the right side always pays,
But once ashore don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream of winning
But not feel gutted when Tom or Will wins yet again;
If you can meet with PRO and Chairman
And help them make the call to cancel for the day;
If in the protest bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the rudder blade you paid two hundred quid for, broken,
And overnight rebuild it - with duck tape and with worn-out tools:

If you can back your judgement
And bang the corner counting on a shift or bend,
And get it wrong, but sail on to the bitter end
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your helm long after all is gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the helmsman's grunt: - 'Jib in!'

If you can dash out of the caravan to save your kit from rain and wind,
With nothing on - and have no shame,
Or play two rounds of ten pin bowls without a single strike,
While all around display the fruits of mis-spent youth;
If you can fill the unforgiving week
With seven days worth of distance run,
Yours is Burton Week and everything that's in it,
And see you in Torbay for the Millennium!

Tom and Abigail Hayhoe (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
18th August 1999