Isle of Wight

Episode 3.11
7 March 1985

1 2 3 4 5

Contestants

Christine (Chris) Weston-Smith, primary school head teacher, and husband John, secondary school geography teacher; from Kingswood, Kent 1

Hint to the Treasure

Something up the garden path

Start Position

Hovering off the coast of Cowes

Clue 1	To a majestic home with a Kipling connection, where the game’s afoot: what once was straining in the slips now stands stonily among the statues.
Leads to	Osborne House – on a stone statue of a greyhound in front of the house 2

Clue 2	Churchill’s “intriguing parcel” was royally sealed here, and some donkey work ensures the next delivery.
Leads to	Carisbrooke Castle – in the bucket of castle’s well 3

Clue 3	Cross an Arab-sounding watercourse to a hooded height where the Commando network leads Annie up the pole.
Leads to	Robin Hill Adventure Park – at end of children’s adventure park 4

Clue 4	Past the Hiawatha man’s fountain and a crustaceous pub to a seaside tradition in mint condition.
Leads to	Shanklin Old Village – on a stick of rock in The Original Old Village Rock Shop 5

Clue 5	It’s beside the point, but a smugglers’ glen leads to an amazing finish with a little man from Zurich.
Leads to	Blackgang Chine – on a gnome in the middle of the maze 6

Result

The contestants won the treasure with 15 seconds to spare

Notes
1	When the location of the treasure hunt was revealed, Christine and John rather sheepishly admitted that they knew the area quite well, having been there on holiday only the week before.
2	Osborne House was originally the home of Queen Victoria. Rudyard Kipling’s father designed its Banqueting Hall and Durbar Room. The reference to “straining in the slips” is a quotation “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips / Straining upon the start” from Shakespeare’s Henry V.
3	After the defeat of the Cavaliers in the Civil War, King Charles I was imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle. A donkey in a tread wheel has long been used as the means of raising the buckets from the castle’s well.
4	The Arab-sounding watercourse is the River Medina. The “hooded height” refers to Robin Hill (Robin Hood, height).
5	There is a fountain in Shanklin Old Village which commemorates a visit by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of the poem Hiawatha. It is outside a pub called The Crab (“crustaceous pub”).
6	“The point” is St Catherine’s Point. The smugglers’ glen is Blackgang Chine (ravine) which was used by smugglers. The “little man from Zurich” refers to the phrase “the Gnomes of Zurich” which British Prime Minister Harold Wilson used disparagingly to describe Swiss bankers.

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