I dislike snails. They’re slimy, deposit unsightly globs of mucus all over your perennials and primroses and are a nuisance for farmers. They move strangely: dumb, lugubrious and yet oddly purposeful. And they’re just so damn slow. Everyone knows that they’re slow.
The existence of something called the World Snail Racing Championships, staged at Grimston Cricket Club in the village of Congham, near King’s Lynn in Norfolk, therefore came as something of a revelation. If a creature as slow as a snail can race competitively, anything is possible – perhaps even overcoming my molluscophobia. On hearing about the tournament, the notion of a pilgrimage crystallised in my mind. Instead of spending a large amount of money on some New Age snail-exposure therapy, or engaging a psychoanalyst specialising in gastropod aversion, the answer became clear. I would attend the World Snail Racing Championships, witness the inconceivable, and conquer my discomfort in the presence of creepy-crawlies in the process.
The English tradition of competitive snail racing was founded by a man called Tom Elwes after he happened upon a contest in France while on holiday in the 1960s (clearly the locals had grown bored with eating the snails and decided to repurpose them as cabaret). In Norfolk, the annual event is staged as a fundraiser for the local church; it also coincides with a charity cricket match. Each year intrepid racers make the journey to Congham from far-flung parts of globe (there were some expected from America this year), every time bringing different tactics to the competition, along with different diets and different shell-to-slug ratios to optimise their mollusc athletes.
According to the organisers, though, the time to beat was still that set by a local lad over 30 years ago. Archie, a speedy garden snail from Longham – just half an hour’s drive from Congham – achieved a Guinness World Record in 1995, covering a 13-inch course in two minutes flat. They also informed me that the race, now in its 56th year, was going to be live streamed across the world for the first time. There would be enthusiasts watching in countries from Saudi Arabia to Japan.
“One of the snails better be called escar-go-go-go or I’ll be mad,” a friend texted.
Channelling the spirit of the snails, I arrived at the racecourse at a leisurely midday. Speaking to officials, I was told that the first heat of 18 would take place 1.15pm. But then came the surprising offer of becoming not just a spectator but a participant – or a coach in charge of one – when a woman encouraged me to register for the race. If I didn’t have a snail, she said, I could rent one from a damp, heavy, black box for a transfer fee of £1. “They’re just lovely really,” she cooed, and registered me for race 14.
The key to designing a race in which a snail has any chance of squelching to the finish line is, first, to make the racing surface extremely damp. Snail slime is an example of a non-Newtonian fluid – when you apply a slow pressure it acts as a solid, but when you apply a fast pressure it acts as a liquid. Snails use their muscular “foot” in a wave motion to thrust themselves (very slowly) forward, which keeps their slime flowing as a lubricant. I watched as the snail “masters” (not referees) drenched a white tablecloth in water drawn from the local spring well, and chortled over a tinny speaker to spectators that only water from a well in the nearby village of Congham could be used to grease the track.
The second trick is to use an illusionary cucumber. “They go absolutely bananas for cucumbers,” said Ian Haynes, one of two masters who took their custodian role very seriously. Snails were placed in a red starting ring and would qualify from their heat to win a place in the grand final if they were the first to get an antenna over the black finish line. To entice them to participate, Ian – decked out in an official kit composed of a children’s snail cap, pink shorts and white polo with the event’s logo and his name embroidered on it – smeared the finish line with half an organic cucumber. “It absolutely has to be organic,” he said.
Last year’s winner was a snail called Bilbo Sluggins, his name engraved into gastropod history on a silver tankard stuffed with romaine lettuce leaves. The trophy drew plenty of lustful gazes at the race track, with various snail jockeys eyeing up the big prize. They included two experienced snail racers from France – but of course – wearing white dungarees, dark blue jackets and black berets. They had brought over a handful of snails for the race, each one given a name as if it were a pet, they explained, to get it through customs.
Other racers had brought their snails in lunchboxes stuffed with leaves and branches. I squinted at one box, which had so many sticks placed inside I thought they had built a training gym. No time to dwell on this performance-enhancing scandal, however, as my heat was soon to start. I picked out my snail, which was vigorously twisted around a branch, absolutely furious at me for ruining its siesta. “I need to improve my player development fast,” I thought to myself, as I delicately placed my snail on the starting line along with 14 others. A sticker with the number “198” on my racer’s shell marked out mine from the other competitors.
“Ready, set, SLOW!” cried out Nicholas Dickinson, the other snail master, to cheers from the crowd. A group of snails are most commonly referred to as a “walk”. For the first minute of the race, no such activity took place. Some snails trawled around the starting ring; others decided to let themselves go and copulate. My snail, whom I had nicknamed Shotgun Shell, refused to perform for the baying crowd. Could I blame it? Not really. Overcoming my snail-scepticism, I sympathised. I decided its actions were a protest against the injustice all snails face from humans, and the prospect of either being crushed or slathered in garlic butter sauce.
Out of contention, I handed my snail back to the registrars and soon it was time for the final – the big one. Eighteen snails finished their hydration break and lined up. The favourite, Beans, was up against Jude Shellingham, but it was Snailor Swift who slithered over the 13 and a half inches to the finish line first, after three minutes and 13 seconds. Beans was gracious in defeat, in as much as a snail can be gracious about anything, having no discernible facial expressions.
“Well satisfied to be his own/Whole treasure,” wrote the 18th-century poet William Cowper of these inscrutable creatures in “The Snail”. And, as I arrived back at King’s Cross, my unease around snails tempered, my mind turned to the strange crowd of English people who insisted on putting them through their paces. George Orwell wrote that we are a country of gentle hobbyists, “a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans”. He went as far as to suggest that this was some sort of inoculation against the “regimentation” of fascism. I’m not sure about that: I think the snail-racing community had gathered to forget how expensive their weekly shop had become. But Orwell was right that the liberty that matters most is the liberty to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you. So he has another hobby to add to his list: we are a nation of snail-racers.
[Further reading: Aunt Sally, Oxfordshire’s secret addiction]