Thanks are due to our member Cliff Ford who kindly produced these meeting reports.
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September 2018. Charter of the Forest. Myc Riggulsford.
This was an interesting and in depth talk by Myc. He explained that the Charter of the Forest of 1217 is a charter that re-established for free men rights of access to the Royal Forest that had been eroded by William the Conqueror and his heirs. It was originally sealed in England by the young King Henry lll, acting under the regency of William Marshall, 1st Earl of Pembroke. It was in many ways a companion document to the Magna Carta and redressed some applications of the Anglo-Norman Forest Law that had been extended and abused by William Rufus.
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Forest to the Normans meant an enclosed area where the monarch had exclusive rights to hunt etc.. It consisted of trees, heathland, grassland and wetlands. Land became more and more restricted as King Richard and King John claimed greater and greater areas as royal forest. Royal forests were the most important source of fuel for cooking heating, charcoal burning, pannage (pasture for pigs) turbury (cutting of turf for fuel) etc., which made life as a peasant very hard.
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Myc gave us a lot more interesting facts which sadly I haven’t space to relate here.
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October 2018. War Graves Commission. Alan Pateman-Jones.
We had an interesting talk with some fabulous pictures of Commonwealth cemeteries in various countries. The Commission was founded in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission and the name changed to Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1960.
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Owing to wear and tear on the grave stones they are replaced as necessary and some 2300 are replaced every year. The funding needed to maintain and cover staff costs amounts to 61.5 million pounds per annum. This is covered by grants from various governments throughout the world.
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The Cross of Sacrifice was designed to imitate medieval crosses found in churchyards in England with proportions more commonly seen in the Celtic Cross. Cemeteries with more than 1000 burials normally have a Stone of Remembrance designed by Edwin Lutyens with the inscription “Their Name Liveth for Evermore”. The Stone was developed by Rudyard Kipling to commemorate those of all faiths and none respectively. In contrast to the Cross of Sacrifice the design for the stone deliberately avoided “shapes associated with particular religions”.
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Alan's talk was most interesting and enjoyed by all.
January 2019. West Country thatching. James Marshall.
James began by giving us a brief history of how he started his career in thatching by helping his father and then taking up an apprenticeship at 15. He has now been 30 years in the trade and qualified for 21 years.
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He explained the materials he had brought with him; straw which came from Winkleigh and water reed which came from Hungary! He then demonstrated how to tie up the straw in bundles which are called ‘dollies’ and are used to place around the perimeter of the roof, namely eaves. Next was the water reed which is stiffer and more difficult to work with, but is the main material for the roof. The old cob wall spars (which are made from hazel and twisted to form a vee shape) are pushed through the thatch into the cob whilst it is still wet. Regarding the spars, some are now plastic and much cheaper than hand made hazel ones.
James showed us some of his basic tools, such as shears with a wavy edge to create a shaped edge, a tool called a ‘drift’ to shape the reed and a mallet.
Nowadays, James explained, there is no apprenticeship, only time served counts at present.
This was a very interesting talk enjoyed by all.
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February 2019. George Newnes. Jonathan Edmunds.
Jonathan presented a very interesting and detailed talk about George Newnes who was born in Derbyshire in 1851 and died in June 1910 aged 59.
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In 1857 he entered commerce in the fancy goods trade working in London and Manchester and married Priscilla Hillyard in 1875. His career in publishing began in 1881 when he founded Tit-Bits. The magazine was like a mini-encyclopedia full of extracts from books and various publications in an easy-to-read format. He funded the magazine by opening a vegetarian restaurant in Manchester. Tit-Bits had reached a circulation of 700,000 by the end of the 19th century.
One of Newnes best known publications was “The Strand Magazine” begun in 1891 in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was first able to publish his Sherlock Holmes mystery series. He founded several other publications such as The Westminster Gazette in 1873, the Wide World Magazine in 1888, and Country Life in 1897.
In 1885 he was elected MP for the newly created constituency of Newmarket which he held for 10 years before his defeat by the Conservative Harry McCalmont in 1895. He re-entered the Commons in 1900 as MP for Swansea and held the seat until retirement in January 1910.
Newnes built a large home called Hollerday House in Lynton, North Devon which was destroyed by fire 1913. He played a major part in the development of Lynton and Lynmouth, building the cliff railway to join the two towns and also provided the town hall and other amenities.
We all enjoyed this excellent talk by Jonathan.
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March 2019. Braddick Family - Part 4. Sharon Snell.
This was another interesting story of what we could call now the “Braddick Dynasty”. Sharon began her talk by running through her previous three parts and explain again how her family tree developed. She covered her great grandfather, grandfather, mother and father who were married for 65 years. Sharon did not go into the family business to start with but decided to train as a dental nurse when she was 17 years old, then a few years later joined the family estate agents but not until she passed a full interview for the job!
In 1974 the ballroom was built onto The Pier House restaurant and is very successful as a venue for weddings, etc.. 2009 to 2010 brought changes to The Pier House and it was significantly extended to how it is today. In 2016 the family purchased Seafield House to be converted to holiday accommodation.
Sharon became the first local Rotary President which she is quite proud of. From 1998 to 2011 she worked at the reception desk booking holidays for families and dealing with various problems. Her husband in 2003 was diagnosed with terminal cancer which was a very sad time.
Once again Sharon treated us all to another fascinating insight into her family tree and has now brought us up to date. Several members asked if Sharon would perhaps write a book about her family and she said sometime perhaps in the near future - so we are all hoping!
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April 2019. Grandmother's Journal - a WW1 nurse. Bobby Farrington.
This was a story of a grandmother who had a fascinating and sombre experience of nursing during WW1. She had to nurse soldiers some of whom were mentally scarred and had horrendous wounds.
She was born in Sheffield to a fairly well off family and was brought up to be an independent character. She decided to go into nursing and was well trained mainly at Addenbrookes Hospital Cambridge and worked her way up to the top of the nursing tree just below Matron. She was approached whilst at Cambridge by two men “in suits” who asked her if she would consider nursing in France. Her friend Alice was keen to go but she wasn’t so sure. The hospital matron told her it was a privilege to be asked to nurse in the ‘Great and Glorious’ war!
She decided to go with her friend Alice and they were met in France by a Red Cross ambulance and after a noisy and bumpy ride arrived at the ‘hospital’ which consisted of a group of tents in the mud. The noise and the smell was awful; she did get used to the noise but never the smell. The scenes she saw were horrible; the suffering of men and of course horses, is not something I can describe in this review but was entered in her journal.
Working in the hospital theatre there were 4 tables all fully occupied with surgeons running from table to table attending to the soldiers terrible wounds. Nurses and surgeons were exhausted but had to keep going.
This was a thought provoking talk bringing home to us all the futility of war.