Thanks are due to our member Cliff Ford who kindly produced these meeting reports.
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September 2019. Nurse Edith Cavell. Tony Miles.
Most of us have heard of Nurse Edith Cavell who was nursing in WW1, but Tony gave us a more in-depth talk on her amazing life and tragic death.
She was born in 1865 in a small Norfolk village called Swardeston on the 4th of December. On leaving school she first became a governess to an English family because she could speak French fluently, and later to a Belgium family.
In 1895, aged 30, she applied to become an Assistant Nurse at the Asylums Board in the Strand. In 1897 200 cases of Typhoid fever had been confirmed in Maidstone and 42 people had died. Edith and five other nurses from London were sent to Maidstone to help with the emergency. The fever was blamed on the hop pickers' toxic waste which was getting into the water supply. The epidemic was eventually overcome in January 1898.
Returning to London Edith continued her training and was asked by Dr. Antione Depage to train nurses in Brussels. Later Belgium was invaded by the Germans during WW1 and Edith continued to treat wounded soldiers of both sides. She set up various escape routes for British soldiers to return home. On the 5th August 1915 Edith was arrested and imprisoned at St. Gilles Brussels and eventually tried and convicted of spying. She was executed (shot) on 12th October 1915 at 7 a.m. alongside Philippe Baucq, a fellow resistance worker. Her death caused a surge in army recruitment in England and the German civilian population were also outraged. Eventually Nurse Cavell's body was brought back to England and buried in Norwich Cathedral. There is a memorial to Edith Cavell near Trafalgar Square London and in Brussels.
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October 2019. Family history and publishing your story. Rosy Teale.
Rosy began by telling us she was born in Birmingham and always wanted to move to Devon, which she has now accomplished.
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To publish anything or to get an agent is extremely difficult as many agents look for a celebrity of some sort, but often their name is just used and the book is ghost-written by someone else! Another alternative is to self-publish by creating your own website and selling your stories of about 30,000 words. Getting your stories printed is an expense as most printers are not keen on short runs.
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Regarding family history, Rosy said there are various ways of approaching it, such as a family tree, how big should it be, how many family members should be involved and how many family members will be consulted. Where to start? It should have some structure, such as setting it out in decades, writing down memories, and with some backdrop to events to make it more interesting. Three key things to double-check are grammar, spelling, punctuation, and lastly font size and style.
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Rosy has her own website www.rosyteale.com where her books can be purchased and some will soon be available as an e-book.
This was an interesting talk and I am sure any budding authors will be raring to go!
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November 2019. Barefoot on the Cobbles. Janet Few. (Thanks to Margaret Bolt for this month's report)
Janet gave us an insight into the detailed research for her most recent book "Barefoot on the Cobbles". It began with discovering that an ancestor had been charged with manslaughter. Weaving historical, social and recorded fact, she brought this lady to life; a victim of circumstances, one with whom we could sympathise.
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January 2020. The Devon Lieutenancy. Mark Parkhouse.
Not everyone knows what the ‘Devon Lieutenancy’ is or what its function entails. When Mark arrived in full uniform complete with sword we knew we were going to get a full and interesting explanation.
Mark, who is a Deputy Lieutenant, told us he has 15 years service and each county throughout the country has at least one Deputy and probably many more. Devon is a large county and has about 95 Deputies.
Lord Lieutenants and their Deputies are a link between the monarch and the local community and are all non-political, unpaid volunteers with no expenses paid for travel, etc.. Their main job is to meet and greet visiting royalty and ensure everything goes smoothly, celebrating the achievements of the people of Devon such as honours and awards, etc., helping to promote Devon communities, culture, business and charitable success, supporting the Services, Reserves and Cadets and involvement in the recruitment and conduct of magistrates.
Mark informed us that the current Lord Lieutenant of Devon is David Fursdon, supported by a Vice Lord Lieutenant, and Mark is one of the Deputies appointed.
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This was a very interesting and detailed talk which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
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February 2020. Local ghostly experiences. Sue Pengelly.
This was an interesting talk by Sue who is an experienced medium and well known locally. She began by telling us she started to see people others could not see when she was about 10 years old, and her psychic powers developed from there into adulthood.
Sue’s stories were fascinating and you could hear a pin drop in the audience! Everyone was spellbound as she told of helping police to solve crimes including locating a stolen car, although she said she is not always successful. Another story was of a lady in Barnstaple who was renovating a bungalow and ran out of money to finish the job. She decided to sell the bungalow and thought it was haunted as she felt a presence there. She asked Sue to help her and Sue made contact with an old man who used to live there all his life and loved the bungalow. He didn’t want it sold and said if she lifted the floorboards she would find a tin box containing £500. The lady had this done and sure enough found £500 in a tin box. This allowed her to finish the renovations and she still lives in the bungalow. Sue also visits hospices to give comfort to patients wishing to contact departed loved ones.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the talk. As I said earlier, the talk was fascinating and Sue was warmly applauded at the end.
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March 2020. Launch of Avril Stone's Year 2000 photos of High Bickington. (Thanks to Margaret Bolt for this report)
The society celebrated 20 years since being formed by inviting everyone to view newly-displayed photographs in the Community Centre at High Bickington on Saturday afternoon, 7th March.
The photos were taken in 2000 by founder member and current President Avril Stone when she was recording everyday life as it was at that time, and gathering memories and material for her excellent book of High Bickington. The society was formed to help her achieve this by contacting former residents and applying for a grant to fund extra pages because so much information and old photos had been produced, almost enough for two books!
Avril kindly offered a selection of her photos to the society, who have framed and hung them in the Community Centre on the wall by the stairs. They are permanently on display whenever the centre is open; a fitting place for this record of a time when the Property Trust was set up and a new village hall planned, which became the Community Centre.
The society’s chairman Colin Muddell welcomed everyone, thanked Avril for the gift of the photos, the Parish Council for their generous grant and the Community Centre for allowing the photos to be displayed.We are also grateful to Michael Ford of BJ’s store for his generous discount on the frames, enabling us to complete the task within budget. Fittingly, Michael’s great uncle Sid Squire is featured in the photos!
The Rev John Carvosso, our founding chairman, congratulated the society on reaching 20 years and growing in popularity. Avril was presented with a bouquet of flowers before we enjoyed refreshments and reminisced in the Pyncombe Room.
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