Below is my transcript of an interview with Gayle Lofthouse (sitting in for Richard Stead) on BBC Radio Leeds, at 07.20 Thursday 1st August.
You can listen to it for about 3 weeks if you go to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07gdvd3
You have to register with the BBC, then I am 1 hour 24 minutes in.
I’ve taken out most of my eh, um’s and arrh’s. If I’ve cut dialogue I’ve put (cut)
Gayle had been talking about jelly babies.
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Gayle: …we going hear about something that’s going to be happening at Bolling Hall a little bit later on today. The Yorkshire Hat Throwing Championship get underway, I think, at 11 a.m.. So we’re going to find out a bit more about this because the man behind this is Glyn Watkins. Welcome to the show Glyn. Hello!
Glyn: Hello Gayle… I was going to say that I hope the jelly babies cleared your palate and given you an energy boost.
Gayle: Well a lot of runners have jelly babies, don’t they? First of all: Bowling Hall, or Bowling Hall?
Glyn: You see I’ve had arguments with the British, eh, the Bradford Antiquarian Society many years ago. I mean it’s East Bolling, if you live in Bradford… (cut) It’s spelled Bolling Hall in East Bowling, so obviously two completely different names aren’t there?… Whatever you call East Bowling that’s what you should say the name of the Hall is; yer know. Somebody wrote it down and it’s the obsession with how it’s writ, not how it’s said
Gayle: Exactly
Glyn: Have you ever tried to write York-sha dar-lect daarn, it gits reet hard!
Gayle: (laughter) Your absolutely right. Glyn, tell me all about the Hat Throwing Championships. When did it start, and why did it start?
Glyn: The started ten years ago, on Ilkley Moor, Bar’ tat… when I decided to do something during the Ilkley Literary Festival, when they didn’t even short list me for the roll of Poet on Residence
Gayle: (sympathetic noises, followed by chuckling during Glyn’s next few lines).
Glyn: So I started an Uncut Fringe, and it just came into my head. So I started the Transnational Incorporated Federation of Formally thrown Hat Associations to oversee it. So T.I.F.F.T.A. is now the World Hat Throwing organisation:.. and it’s about getting hats on target; so when you threw your bobble hat at Nick he says it skimmed his head. Well, if it had stayed on his head that would, indeed… although, strictly speaking it’s a moving target, that would have counted as free hatting, which we’re we’re not running competitions for free hatting yet. It’s only on stationary targets.
Gayle: I see, Glyn, for anyone who missed that, I’ll do a little bit of my own version of hat throwing, that I did earlier this morning, so here we go:
Goes to recording
Well, good morning. Here we are at BBC Yorkshire. So we’re in the very empty Newsroom at the moment. I’m in front of a picture of a dry stone wall. A beautiful Yorkshire scene behind me. So we’re going to have a little go at Hat Throwing. So I’ve got a bobble hat. I that that… won’t hurt somebody if it hit them clean in the eye, whereas a peaked cap, a top hat, that might cause some damage.
So I think the idea is, when you’re doing Hat Throwing, you have to aim at something. It’s got to land somewhere. So I thought I would use the producer of BBC Radio Leeds Breakfast Show, which is the Ginger Wizard, Nic Wilmshurst. So, hat in hand, a very, very big, fluffy bobble hat, the kind of hat you really don’t want to wear on a warm summer’s day; but it’s got quite a bit of weight behind it so I reckon I can absolutely wang it!
Are you ready Ginger Wizard?
Nick (in distance. : I am, yes!)
Gayle: Right. OK. I am going to chuck the hat at you. And if it hits you I’ll consider that a big win. How far away from me would you say you are?
Nick: 12 feet.
Gayle: I reckon I can do 12 feet! Here we jolly well go. One! Two! Three!… And GO!
(distant exclamation!)
It didn’t even skim yer, but I reckon I could have thrown that a lot further. That’s done, what? 15 feet? Something like that? I could do better than that, I reckon, with a bit of practice, I could really smash this.
Returns to live interview.
Gayle: The video for that, which is going to be a viral sensation, obviously, will go on @radioleeds, our twitter feed: but Glyn, how did I get on. Did I stay within the rules at all?
Glyn: Well, the thing about the rules is, the way I run it, is that you get a reasonable number of chances, and as soon as you get it on target, that and the next 2 count, and then you carry on until you miss. So if you get your wrist action right there’s some potential there. Obviously you need to come to Bowling Hall, after 11 this morning, and you need to give it a go.
Gayle: Well, exactly.
Glyn: I’ll take a photo and put it instagram. I might take a film, if I can manage that!
Gayle: Can you turn up with your own hat then?
Glyn: You can do. T.I.F.F.T.A. rules say it’s got to be safe to throw, and no metal is allowed, especially in bowlers. And any hat abuse will result in disqualification from that day’s event; and any hat fighting will result in a Sine Die, life long, ban. The dark underbrim of hat fighting is something we really need to stamp out.
And by the way, I am the author and publisher of the Wayne Jacobs Little Red Head Book, celebrating Red Headed Footballers and the Mysteries of Red Hair.
Gayle: Oh wow!
Glyn: (cut) but if you come to the hat throwing I will bring some spare copies, I have one or two left. Available to the general public and people who like red headed footballers and red hair.
Gayle: And finally, what will the winner get?
Glyn: The winner will get the deep satisfaction. All Grand Hatting will receive a certificate, but because it’s points total, the winner can’t be declared until the competition closes. So bradwan.com if you look on there as soon as I get home and manage to get the results up; … and I am going to try and get it on Instagram. I have a whiteboard where I’ll be keeping a running total, … (cut) check @hatthrowing, you should see the on-going development, and the nail biting…
Gayle: Glyn, Glyn, I’m really sorry to stop you but I’ve got to go to the travel. I feel we could talk about Hat Throwing all day. Have a great day, Thank you so much for coming on. Take care
(Travel intro music plays)
He was going to talk till 8 o’clock wasn’t he? Let’s get the latest on the roads. How’s the roads look David?
David: You can’t knock someone with a passion, can you?
Gayle: Ah, No
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The Glyn Watkins Show Page. 
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