Barry: How I became a nettle eating champion

Ms Hodges said :”They give you cider as well, so I was dipping it but this year I had a lot of water.”

Despite eating so many nettles leaves, Ms Hodges said it was not her mouth that hurt.

“Your hands are just on fire, which obviously they would be because you’ve just grabbed a bunch of stinging nettles – even now I’ve got little bits in my fingers.”

She does not have a game plan, she said – nor does she do anything after to ease the pain.

“I just ride it out,” she said.

So the question of everyone’s lips is, can she do it three years in a row?

She said she’s going to compete and will try to outdo her current record.

The tradition dates back to the 1980s and was held at the Bottle Inn at Marshwood, which has since closed.

The championship began when two farmers had an argument in a pub discussing who had the longest stinging nettles in their field.

The longest-nettle competition eventually turned into the World Nettle Eating Championships when one of the farmers, Alex Williams, promised to eat any nettle which was longer than his.