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Alberto Esteban Ignacio Gispert is traditionally accepted as being the father of Hashing, although in practise he was probably only one of a small group who helped to create Mother Hash and in doing so established that special atmosphere that would become ‘hashing’. ‘G’ was born in Kent on the 31st July 1903, the youngest of seven children of Spanish parents (the family had a home in Barcelona). He attended St Joseph's Academy in Blackheath, where he might well have been introduced to the sport of the paper chase. On leaving school he joined H S Baker & Co, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1928. He then applied for an overseas posting with Evatt & Co who sent him to Malaya.
‘G’ had taken part in
several paper chases before being transferred to KL, where he is
credited with forming the group that would eventually take the name
'Hash House Harriers'. It should be noted that ‘G’ never held any
official position on Mother Hash and some of
the early runners do not appear to have even heard of him, suggesting he
was away on leave for a lengthy period. Indeed there is some suspicion
that in later years Lee, and possibly other hashers, overstated the role
Gispert played in founding the Hash, this being their way to honour the
only member of their band who had died in the war. A noted un-athletic
man, his major contribution
He married his wife, Eve, in 1937 and his son, Simon, was born the same year. There seems to have been something of a scandal surrounding the marriage.G’ was in Australia when Japan launched their surprise attack on South East Asia. He rushed back to Malaysia, where his experience as a captain in the Volunteer Reservists earned him a secondment to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regiment. The allies retreated to Singapore and on February 11th, 1942 Gispert's small unit was sleeping in a trench at Dairy Road Farm when they were attacked at about 4.00am. ‘G’s body was never recovered.The family memorial is in Brockley Cemetery, South London and his name appears on the memorial wall in Singapore’s Kranji War Cemetery. Updated thanks to Prof
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Many Hashes around the world now celebrate ‘G’s birthday on 31st July or the anniversary of his death in February. The original, and most significant event is the annual run from the Singapore War Cemetery at Kranji. This takes place on the nearest Sunday to February 11th .
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GabonHashing has never really caught on in Gabon. Pog H3 of Port Gentil was founded by Rob ‘Red Lobster’ Lidster but it is uncertain if they are still active. Yenzi H3 were based on an ‘oil terminal in the middle of nowhere’ and ran twice a month from 1987 until the mid 90’s. Libreville H3 is a new kennel, running in the heat and swamps since January 2004
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Tunc ‘Gadget’ Eresen has been hashing with Bicester H3 since 1991 and with Oxford (where he is a Co-founder) since 2002. His Mother Hash is Istanbul. He was previously known as Beep Beep.
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Galvin, EricEric Galvin was a pre war Hasher who worked for the Malay Mail. He was the regular source of paper for the trail and, as the hash developed, was able to help promote the group by publishing details of their next run. Eric continued hashing after the war and was Joint Master during 1946-47.
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Gambia
Banjul H3 started in
January 1980 as a men
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GarfieldMarty ‘Garfield’ Hanratty is a veteran Hasher whose career started in Seoul in the 1970s. He then moved to Jakarta, when Indonesian Hashing and Garfield were both at their wildest. However Garfield will always be best remembered for his service to African Hashing. He served as GM in both Addis and Harare and helped co-found the first African InterHash, an event with which he remains closely associated. Garfield was also Chairman of Vice at Goa InterHash 2002 and on 21st July 2005 started the New Babylon H3 in Baghdad. His broken bones at Chiang Mai 2006 suggest Hashing New Babylon style is a dangerous activity. |
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Barry ‘GBH’ Pope was born in mid-Wales but after joining the police force spent his working life in Reading, Berkshire. He started hashing in 1988 when invited to go along to a run with the Royal Berkshire H3, ‘to lose weight’. One run was enough to convince him he had met ‘the nicest, craziest bunch ever’ and he was a converted hasher from that moment onwards. Early in his hash career he was named GBH (standing for Grievous Bodily Harm) because, in his own words, ‘the GM set me up, mainly by insulting my job and birthplace, and when I wouldn't wind up, the circle suggested I threw him out, so I grabbed him in the fireman's lift and duly put him out on the pavement.’ Now committed to hashing, GBH became a regular on the Berkshire committee and had a spell as GM around 1993. He also fondly remembers his times as RA ‘especially for my repeat after me song... and for my underpants trick amongst others’. By now GBH was a keen hash traveller, clocking up well over a 1,000 runs in countries all over the world and regularly attending every InterHash since Cyprus in 1996. He was also founder of the Fukwits (First United Kingdom World InterHash) and the Sod-Off H3. At the 1999 UK Nash Hash, GBH was somewhat surprised to find himself elected chairman for the UK InterHash bid and this was the start of five years of campaigning that brought InterHash to Cardiff in 2005. GBH will, of course, always be remembered for his outstanding performance as Chairman and GM of that event. He has now moved to the Wye Valley in South East Wales where his wife Circuit Breaker runs a B & B.
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GenealogyHaving retired to KL in1993, Bill ‘Tumbling Bill’ Panton started work on the genealogy of Hashing, tracing all kennel roots back to Mother Hash. The initial stage of the project took 3 years to list 2000 chapters in 181 countries. It was not only an important piece of Hash research, but reinforced interest in researching and recording the history of Hashing. |
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General Teeth‘General Teeth’ started his Hash career on Easter Monday, 1976 with Wellington H3 and was named Colonel Teeth, as he was a Colonel in the Army dental corps. He stayed with Wellington until 1979 and then went down to Christchurch, where he was co-founder of the local Hash. Was elected GM of New Zealand and promoted to General Teeth before moving to Brisbane. He was a regular at InterHash in the eighties and present at 12 of the first 14 New Zealand Nash Hashes. |
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The original Tbilisi H3 started by 'Big John' collapsed in 1998 but was restarted in August the following year. They run biweekly on Sundays.
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Hash Classic - The First ever German Hash! With thanks to Mountain Rescue |
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Remember the bad old days when two mighty armies faced each other across a divided Germany? Well the good news was that with all those troops, Germany became the first country on mainland Europe to adopt hashing. Many of the early kennels such as Laarbruch H3 or Bergen-Hohne were military orientated and the local NAAFI became a common venue for the RV. A good example of these classic hash days are Rheindahlen H3, a hash for ‘officers and gentlemen’, that attracted packs of 80 in some of the best hash territory in Europe. The military bases have now been cut back (although they still provide hashers for the kennels in the Sembach area) but diplomacy, business and the Germans themselves adopting hashing – including many ex-pats returning to their homeland – means things remain healthy. Today there are around 28 hashes in 22 different towns and cities, making Germany one of the top ten hash nations on the globe. Individuals such as ‘The Wolf’ and ‘Pink Panter’ have made a major contribution to hashing around the world, while at home there is a well-established Nash Hash and events such as Octoberfest Hash and the Vineyard Hash have acquired a worldwide reputation. However at the same time some of the smaller kennels have died out recently - including Wuerzburg and Nuremburg and a few others are only just surviving. The northHamburg is the biggest Hash. They are actually the Hamburg Hansestadt Hummel Hummel H3, which makes them the H7. Nearby Lunenburg H3 are no longer active. A little further south Hanover H3 date to 1984 with ‘Old Rock’ and ‘Easy Rider’ the early guiding lights.
Frankfurt and the southFrankfurt H3 is one of Europe’s most famous Hashes. They organised EuroHash in 2001 and in 2005 and celebrated their 1000th run by staging the German Nash Hash for the third time. They have a semi-independent Frankfurt Vineyard branch to organize a couple of wine hashes very year. There is a kennel in the beautiful city of Heidelberg. The great legend here is Douglas ‘Dr. Feelsgood’ Sims, who is on 460 plus runs. Stuttgart H3 founded by Doug ‘The Slug’ Steward run every other Sunday. Munich H3 might claim to rival Frankfurt as the German Hash. They were founded in the early nineties by Denise ‘Legs’ Price, via Strasbourg and Vindobona. An hour south of Frankfurt is Semach, a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern and home of a giant NATO airbase. The local Semach hash was founded in 1999 with four runners who agreed to meet biweekly - although they were unsure whether that meant twice a week or once every two weeks! They are still going with packs 10-20, including a military presence.
The Ruhr Valley
Combined Rhine Area
Pack (CARP)
is a joint
hash that
occasionally brings Dussedolf H3, Cologne H3 and
Bonn H3 together. These
three might be considered the focus point of hashing in the west of the
country and joint hosted Nash Hash in 2006. Many of the smaller
Hashes are now inactive or, as is the case with the
West Rhine H3, just about st
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might
well have been in fostering the non-competitive nature of the event.
