Dwile Flonking

Yesterday’s Eastern Daily Press declared: ‘Dwile Flonking is coming back to Halesworth for the first time in fifty years this summer.’

Dwile flonking is played outdoors by two teams. One team joins hands and forms a circle. A member of the other team (the flonker) stands in the middle holding a beer-soaked cloth at the end of a stick (a driveller soaked in dwile).

The flonker rotates in one direction; the opposition dance around the flonker in the opposite direction. The flonker attempts to ‘flonk’ the others by flinging the driveller from the stick to hit them. Points are awarded depending on where it lands.

The game is played in two halves with each team getting a turn at flonking and a turn circling trying to avoid being flonked.

Players dress in rural ‘yokel’ style… There’s strange terminology, random rules and forfeits… Turns are decided by the toss of a sugarbeet,

The story goes that in 1966 a manuscript of the dwile flonking rules, dating back to 1585, was found in an attic in Beccles, and the game was revived for the Beccles summer fête.

The Suffolk County archivist investigated. No evidence of dwile flonking before 1966 was found. The 1585 rules were thought to be a hoax… the game was invented for the Beccles fête… it continues to this day in towns and villages across East Anglia.

In the 1960s, local brewery Adnams awarded a pewter trophy, like a chamber pot, to the winning dwile flonking team. The Blyth Valley Dwile Flonkers retained the trophy for winning it in 1968, 1969 and 1970, donating it to the Halesworth Museum in 2012.

Searching for some deep and meaningful lesson… Dwile flonking’s not mentioned in my Bible! However:

‘Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.’ (Proverbs 20:1)

‘Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.’ (1 Corinthians 10:31)… including dwile flonking in Halesworth.