History
The Prize of the Shiny Trombone has been part of the Tonsley story since 2006. Its life before Tonsley is lost to history, but its arrival is better documented. Woolfy found it on eBay and, when it first appeared, it was rather unloved and anything but shiny. After a considerable amount of polishing and buffing by our resident expert, the transformation was complete, the name was inevitable, and another thoroughly unnecessary Tonsley tradition was born.
At first, the Shiny Trombone was something you actually wanted to win. In 2006, it was associated with Champagne Moments – acts of brilliance, courage, style or, as the contemporary record put it, “moments of sheer class”. On its first outing, the Tonsley Ski Team Tour de Tignes 2006, it existed alongside an entirely separate and much less desirable Dick of the Day award, whose unfortunate recipient had to ski the following day wearing a knock-off Ferrari racing jacket (politely restyled as Fanny du Jour for the occasions awarded to Ness and Claire).
Then the Trombone disappeared into the cupboard for three years. When it reemerged in 2009, quite how or why is unbeknownst to all of us, but the once-coveted prize had crossed to the dark side and become associated with the competition nobody wanted to win: Dick of the Day. From then on it travelled from golf tours to cricket tours, stag weekends and assorted other Tonsley adventures, frequently accompanied by the additional indignity of the inevitable Fuzzy Lip the following day.
Over the years the Trombone has been awarded, borrowed, stolen, worn, carried, busked, forgotten (worthy of a nomination in itself!) and, on at least one occasion, used to turn a professional three-man band briefly into a four-piece. Some of its finest moments are well documented; others survive only in photographs, fragments of old reports or increasingly unreliable memories.
This is its story – not simply a list of winners, but the continuing biography of one of Tonsley’s more peculiar institutions.
AWARDS
John Woolf
Operation Yelsnot – Chapter II 2006
Champagne Moment
Winner of Operation Yelsnot – Chapter II with Ras Beca’s Race.
Jodie Morgan
Tonsley Ski Team Tour de Tignes 2006
Champagne Moment
Recorded officially as ‘fearless endeavours’. No doubt something to do with a steep slope, but emblematic surely for her ultimately taking on Tim as a life-long partner. Gutsy indeed.
Paddy Bruce
Tonsley Ski Team Tour de Tignes 2006
Champagne Moment
In a week long game of Murder initiated by Christian, which incorporated every moveable object in the chalet, some bizarre homicide locations and a trail of dead bodies from mountain top to supermarket, Patrick won through in the survival of the fittest (or the most devious).
Big Mikey
Tonsley Golf Society – Get in the Hole Challenge 2009
(Day 1)
Dick of the Day
After hitting John Southall in the butt with a golf ball.
Joe Bruce
Tonsley Golf Society – Get in the Hole Challenge 2009
(Day 2)
Dick of the Day
After not being able to find his ball, having parked the golf buggy over it.
Anton Barlow
Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2010
Dick of the Day
After hitting the same tree not once, but three times!
Richie Duncan
Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2010
Champagne Moment
Technically, the Shiny Trombone was not awarded to Richie, but he did win Champagne Moment for waking some old duffer who had passed out in the bar with point-blank use of the said trombone.
Taily
SOLOIST
Presented by default to Taily for being the Stag. Or, as more accurately recorded by the crime report: ‘…one of the last great bachelor hold-outs of the Tonsley family, Martin Telemachus (“Taily”) Twist, was to draw a line under his life of unremitting sleaze and marry a beautiful and accomplished American.’ Taily rather took to the ‘prize’ and used it for loss-making busking, eccentric dancing (see video in the event) and creating general nuisance, all to the intrigue of by-standing Americans.
Woolfy
Tonsley Tornados Summer Tour 2010
Dick of the Day
For stalling the minibus on the level crossing on the way to the match. Woolfy protested the award, claiming instead that it should have gone to the person who panicked and in a falsetto voice pleaded for him to start the van again.
Paul Bruce
Tonsley Tornados Summer Tour 2010
SOLOIST
Another voluntary entry in this hall of fame, this time on the Tornados Tour night out, when we were all treated to seeing Paul venture onto the stage to play the trombone with the band. Having provided the audience with a few “trumps” and joined in on a couple of choruses, his spell was broken by the bouncers and the band was one trombone player less by the end of the song. Shame.
Floody
SOLOIST
Hardly voluntary, rather this time demanded of Floody for his stag as an essential item on an onerous kit-list by his hilarious best-men: of course, the Shiny Trombone. Possibly slightly overshadowed by the three-piece tweed with snorkel, mask and flippers (also mandated).
Joe Bruce
Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2012
Dick of the Day
For getting the tee times wrong and getting everybody to the club an hour too early. Muppet. (And the first double recipient of the Prize of the Shiny Trombone.)
Eddie I
Tonsley Tornados Summer Tour 2012
Dick of the Day
For reasons sadly not recorded, although it is noted that it was awarded for the first of two nominations! It can’t have been for a fourth duck in a row, because this time he did actually score a run. And again, the Tonsley Brass Section entertained an evening at Granville’s nightclub, though without quite achieving the notoriety to fluster the bouncers this time.
Andy Moxon
Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2015 (Day 1)
Dick of the Day
For trying to establish whether if he were to nominate somebody where the infringement was not of the day itself, might he be likely to be nominated himself.
Woolfy
Tonsley Golf Society – Winter Tour 2015 (Day 2)
Dick of the Day
For emphatically believing he’d won his four ball to then discover he hadn’t.
NB. A close run call, and only following a Stewards’ Enquiry to check the scores. Held briefly in the meantime by Jerry Salsby: for hitting the first tee shot of the day 6 foot sideways, then falling over, in front of 15 unsympathetic onlookers.
