Theme Park Burst Main Hailed As Best Ride All Day

A theme park near Windsor lost its water on Sunday.

Four cars had gone down from Haddenham that morning, leaving the Parkway car park at an hour nobody has since been able to justify, and they arrived to find the gates open, the rides turning and, by one o'clock, a staff member in a high visibility tabard walking backwards in front of them with his arms out like a man herding geese. The party was escorted, courteously, through three themed zones and out into the overflow parking. They described this as the single most immersive forty minutes of the day.

"You go on the water ride and you know where the water is. This, you had no idea where the water was, nobody did, and that is the thrill," said Dennis Kewley, a retired loss adjuster from Churchway, who has not been excited by a fairground since decimalisation.

By the time they reached the second car park barrier the Haddenham group had begun rating it. The slow build. The uncertainty. The man in the tabard, who they agreed had real stage presence and was being wasted on hydraulics.

A woman in the party said afterwards that she had queued ninety minutes earlier for something that went upside down twice and had felt nothing at all, which she now suspects says more about her than the ride.

"It had a beginning, a middle and an end, which is more than you can say for my marriage," said Valerie Oughtred, of Station Road, who was buying a flapjack at the time and did not wish to expand.

The group got back to Haddenham shortly after six and went to the green, where the tap by the cricket club was working perfectly, and nobody said anything about it, because that is how it is at home.