Fingernail Contest in the New Forest – Part 2

In honour of the truffle the main contest is a digging competition where people must use their bare hands to remove seven feet of soil in as short a time as possible. This contest takes place in hard ground where the initial incisions have to be made using the fingernails. Judges inspect the hands of the competitors before the contest to ensure that no-one has filed their nails to a point to gain advantage.

This contest was won six times in the 1930s by Bertie Smallman, who was held as a POW by the Germans during WWII but escaped by digging a 3-mile tunnel from his camp. After the war Smallman became an emergency gravedigger in the Hampshire area, who was called in either when epidemics overwhelmed the existing gravediggers or when he had to dig the grave of a fellow gravedigger.

The longest fingernail contest has been held since 1132. 10 prizes are given to individuals with the longest fingernail on each of the 10 fingers and thumbs. Individuals have their own ideas about how to grow a long fingernail: olive oil is used, as is baby oil and turpentine. A 16^th Century vet, Jimmy Cowans, swore that placing his hand inside a cow’s anus for 30 minutes a day hardened his nails wonderfully. Few people were prepared to disagree. Cowan did win five times between 1582 and 1598; however, more often than not at the time of the contest he had a very bad nosebleed due to his nervous habit of picking his nose and so was unable to take part in the contest.