Aunt Sally

If you're British and of a certain age, Aunt Sally is a character from Worzel Gummidge. She's a fairground doll in the TV series who is used as a target for a stick throwing game and is beloved by Worzel, a scarecrow. In the modern game the doll is just a wooden skittle.

Aunt Sally in the pub garden

It's a bit like a coconut shy. The wooden 'doll' is on a metal post and you have to knock it off with a wooden stick. It's mostly played in Oxfordshire and parts of some surrounding counties and has pub leagues- games played in pub gardens on a Thursday evening in spring and summer, alternating between home and away- some of which are taken Extremely Seriously. My husband's team doesn't. If they win the beer leg they're happy.

There were many Civil War battles in this area and a theory is that bored soldiers invented the game using bayonets and enemy helmets (there are more grizzly versions of this theory) at this time. The swivel the doll sits on certainly has the dog leg that a bayonet does and the game appears to be 17th century, which fits, so it is possible.

A clean hit
Photo- Bampton Aunt Sally 

Two teams of eight take it in turns to throw with six sticks each. You can choose your weight of stick, a bit like a bowling ball. Sticks are 1-2lb in weight. You stand behind the throwline- the oche ('ocky')- thirty feet behind the post and try to knock the doll off. It is very important to drink lots of beer at the same time. A member of the opposite team referees and you must hit the doll cleanly ("doll!"), not the post or the swivel the doll sits on ("iron!"). If you don't hit any in your throw you get a 'blob', marked by an asterisk on the score board, and you get fined 50p which towards the annual Christmas party. There may also be heckling from your team mates.

A few blobs in there...

There are three legs and then the all important beer leg. Regardless who has won the first three legs and therefore the match, the team that win the beer leg get bought a drink by the losers. This is why our local team also call Thursdays 'Buy a Stranger a Beer' night...