The Lost Bastard
of great haxby
An Official BAFBA Documentary
A film by Paul Cucumbre
* KLAXON SOUNDS *
The 'Hombres have eaten luncheon, paid the bill, and are ready to roll.
Theirs is a complicated tale of miscellany, bespoke footwear, schadenfreude, unfiltered wheat ale, and Boules - but who are these guys, and what exactly are they playing at?
Sombre Hombres are more commonly known as the Boules enthusiasts/admin bods, Ouseph (Dr Joseph Ouseph) and Pitkin (Iain Mountjoy).
They have been friends since an incident at an ice skating rink in 1978, and have worked part-time at the British Amateur Freestyle Boules Association (BAFBA) since 1978/79 1990. Comrades and compadres through all seasons (except Summer), the meeting of Ouseph & Pitkin was both fortuitous and deeply distressing. In fact many has been the time when they had wished this whole ridiculous and painful farce had never been set in motion. It has been a veritable tapestry of emotion from the git go.
Some suggest that the actual term 'sombrehombres' is redacted from an old nautical refrain meaning '...he who laughs and fun'.
Others believe that it was coined by the Persians, who would shout this out when alone. Both is a nonsense.
'Sombre Hombres' really means nothing at all, and yet everything at once; it is reserved for disheartened companions, beleaguered by the frustrations of the universe.
'What are they trying to accomplish?', one might ask; or equally 'Why do they dress that way?'. These are questions that are entirely valid and yet also profoundly annoying.
To paraphrase Rousseau, man is born free but everywhere he is in chains. Sombre Hombres exists because and for these chains.
They will provide no answers, no solutions and little hope to those who seek such things.
It is most plausible that you are thinking "do they understand 'joy' and 'kindness'"?
Well perhaps you could ask them...