Quester 1 learning how to blow Roman glass at Quarley

 

THURSDAY STROLLERS 

Our last article saw us with a couple of strolls left over from our Summer programme and the Winter programme up to Christmas being planned. Sue led a very pleasant stroll from the Half Moon and Spread Eagle in Micheldever, an area we have been to several times now.  David and Beryl stood in for Wendy and Clive who were unable to lead the last stroll of the Summer Programme. David and Beryl adapted a walk we had done earlier in the year from Crawley near Winchester, a new area to the Strolling group.
September saw Anna  returning to one of our favourite venues the Red Lion at Clanville and a new venue was found by Brain and Molly at Wilton, near Burbage. New venues continued in October  with Alan and Ena leading a very pleasant stroll from the Ampfield Golf Club and Ann leading a stroll from the Queen Charlotte in Andover on a glorious sunny day.
Brian and Helen led the first stroll of November with Sally and Jacky leading a stroll from Broughton towards the end of the month. For the first  time with a stroll, the December 6th event had to be cancelled due to bad weather, this was perhaps not such a bad idea as we had found out that the incumbents of the Oak at Smannell were actually leaving that week, Morgan and Glenys, who were to lead this stroll hope to return to the Oak once the new publicans have settled in.
Twenty three members put their names down for our Christmas stroll from the Crook and Shears, Clatford which was led by Rosemary ably assisted by Defor the dog . A gentle stroll along the course of the Sprat and Winkle railway line to Rooksbury Lakes and back, worked up an appetite with many of us sitting down to yet another Christmas meal.As group leader for Thursday strollers I would like to express my thanks to all of you who have given up your time not only to lead our strolls but also “reccy” the stroll in advance.

Morgan Hughes-Owens

GENEALOGY  GROUP 

A variation on “I’ve danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales”. The great-grandfather of one of our group was a bishop (unlike most great-grandfathers who all seem to have been “ag labs”) and she told us at our November meeting that she was off the next day to Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Unfortunately she will not be meeting the Archbishop, merely his assistant archivist.
We await our January meeting of the group to hear of her visit which we hope was successful. A large part of our meetings are spent in exchanging information based on our researches and visits. Our meetings on the third Wednesday afternoon of the month start at 2.00pm and last for about 2 hours. A common grouse is that, as retired people, we have so little time to devote to our hobby. Nevertheless we do enjoy our monthly get-togethers and are always ready to welcome new members.
If you are thinking about starting your own family history research now is the time to join us. A lot of the fun is in helping each other, no matter how long we have been trying to find those elusive ancestors. One lesson that we have learnt is that, while the internet is a valuable tool in our researches, it is still so important to visit the relevant County Record Offices and other record sources (like Lambeth Palace!).
By the way - a contact that Pat has on one of there family trees has a useful friend to help him in his research. He says his name is Percy – Percy Verance!

John and Pat Barrell
 

SINGING GROUP 

After having sung for our bangers and mash at the Visually Impaired Club’s New Year’s Day Lunch, we were delighted to be asked to perform again at their Summer Party on 1st August for a fee of ham salad and strawberries and cream all round.  Of course, this meant we had to prepare an entirely new repertoire and we needed all the intervening seven months to select what we hoped would be an interesting mix of songs that were familiar enough to our audience for them to be able to join in.  Our sophisticated programme ranged from Flanders and Swann’s Hippopotamus Song through Irving Berlin, the Carpenters and Andrew Lloyd Webber to the football fan’s anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone, where we were completely out sung by the magnificent voice of the VIP’s own Nora Creedy, so we just had to invite her to lead us in an encore.  Feedback from the audience following the party was that they had thoroughly enjoyed the singalong, and our thanks go to the director of music, Betty Smith, for all her hard work, and to David Baugh for his percussion accompaniment that really made things go with a bang.

Andover U3A singers perform to the VIP's

 

SAGA ROSE 

Brian and I were recently invited on a tour of the Saga Rose.  I received and accepted the invitation when I was still organising outings.  We were very impressed with the ship and the facilities offered.  The food was delicious.  Saga offer discounts for a party of 10 or more.  If there is a group of members who are interested in one of the SAGA cruises (or a SAGA holiday) and would like to take advantage of the discount please contact me and I will put you in touch with the relevant person. 
I frequently receive brochures from other companies offering discounts for groups.  Again if you are interested I will let you have the details.  I am not organising anything myself.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your good wishes during what has been for me my 'annus horribilis' year.  I am still having a little trouble with the ankle so am not able to join the walking groups yet but, hopefully, now that I have finished the chemotherapy for a time I can concentrate on this.  I am always pleased to hear from members.

Margaret Edwards  
 

CRAFT GROUP 

An average of six members have learnt to make tassels and for the last two meeting have been learning beadwork. We recommence on the last Friday of January, the 25^th, at 2pm in the small room at Burghclere Down Community Centre. Some will be completing their beadwork but if this does not interest you please bring some craft of your own. We look forward to meeting new members of  the group who perhaps would introduce us to something new.

QUESTERS 2 

Well I think we need to update you as to what we did for our September venue which was to the Wadworth Brewery at Devizes that Keith Harvey organised for us. This was a little different as it was an evening trip, we had a wonderful time. Although the journey there was a bit long the scenery was through beautiful countryside. To start off we were introduced to the four Shire horses and shown the beautiful livery and wagons on display before being escorted to the brewery where we had (as always) an excellent guide with a lovely sense of humour. We also had a talk by the head cask maker, I'm still not quite sure how they are made but it was fun anyway. We guess this will be the last year to visit the building as the stairs are a bit of a health and safety hazard, but hey things like that make it more interesting! Of course the best bit was sampling the various beers with most of our group having a go at pulling a pint. You could tell how well everything was going by the noise level and our smiles. The return journey was just as delightful as there was a beautiful full moon to light the way home.
October was quite a different outing to the norm as we visited a multi-faith Retreat. Most of our group were a bit doubtful, even nervous thinking they might be converted to some mysterious religion. As it was there was some slight confusion when we arrived as they have only once before had a group like ours visit them. But with our usual luck we struck gold with our guide (talk about the luck of the Irish!) We first of all looked around the little Chapel that belonged to the original owners of the Mansion House, then had a tour of the beautiful building with it's breathtaking views. It really is something else again and as I have mentioned we couldn’t have had a better guide as he was so enthusiastic, we loved every minute there. 
We joined up with Questers One for November visiting the National Trust headquarters building in Swindon, (just by the Retail Outlet!) A place to be envied by anyone who has ever worked in an office, everything you could think of has been designed for absolute comfort. The most amazing thing I thought was the lack of sound; I also liked the idea of the little areas of various sizes for meetings and get-togethers. It must be hard to concentrate though if you are on a diet when the smell of lovely food wafts up towards you at lunch time. So yes another successful visit and yes if you are wondering, we once again had a brilliant guide. Thank you again Questers One.
We had a superb Christmas U3A lunch in December, with more than enough to eat and drink. The singing was delightful and fun when we all joined in. The Raffle also was excellent with many good prizes to be won. The committee as always was brilliant as nothing had been overlooked, thank you.
We have just recruited five more new members to our merry band and hope they will have as much fun with our outings that we have
Happy New Year everyone. 

Sue & Eric Kennett      

QUESTER 3 

We were extremely fortunate to have chosen one of the only dry, sunny and warm days in July for our visit to the Hampshire Lavender Farm at Selborne.  After meeting our guide, we were taken to one of the fields of approximately 10 acres, and shown a range of varieties of lavender – too many to mention – that are used in a variety of products such as perfume, shampoo and for bunching.  We were given a free hand to wander through the lavender and then meeting at the raised beds where new species are trialled.  We were shown the area where the lavender oil is extracted – normally around 25 ltrs.  per acre and selling for around £24 per ltr., but this will be greatly reduced this year due to the inclement weather, selling for only £10 per ltr.  After our visit we all returned to the marquee and were given a wonderful cream tea, the last of the season.  At the end of the visit, members wandered through the farm shop where a vast array of items and plants were on sale.
September saw our group visiting the BBC Studios at Shepherds Bush, leaving early in the morning.  We were met by our two guides Zoe and Andrew and were split into two groups. 
Our first stop was a view of the newsroom, employing about 1800 staff which is divided into sections.  The central “pod” receives all the news items from journalists via telephone, laptop, satellite etc. which is distributed to the relevant sections such as “Breakfast”, 1 o’clock news, 10 o’clock news and News 24.  The newsreaders are no longer just presenters but very experienced journalists who work long hours behind the scenes compiling the items.  Also located within the newsroom is a group of very experienced travel agents.  Their job is to arrange transport at very short notice (whether it be plane, road or rail) together with accommodation, car hire etc. to enable the reporters to reach locations as quickly as possible. Following a full explanation of the newsroom, we moved on to view several of the studios.  These can be hired by outside bodies and in one studio, set-up was being carried out for the new afternoon show for ITV hosted by Alan Titchmarsh, and shown every weekday.  Shows such as this are costly to produce and to cut the cost of studio hire,  a few shows are transmitted live while others are recorded.  The main studio – which gives the impression on TV as being large – is in fact smaller than portrayed and the sets are constantly changing, for example “Come Dancing”, “Children in Need” and other large events.  We were shown a few of the “props” used in programmes such as Holby City and Eastenders which lined the walls of a corridor along with photographs of the many well known presenters.  The weather studio – which is only large enough for the presenter and a camera – was viewed together with the blank blue screen on which the map is projected.  Zoe gave us a demonstration of how to become “invisible” by raising a blue cloth in front of the weather screen, and lo and behold she disappeared!  That is why presenters are not allowed to wear blue clothing on TV.  We then made our way outside to the “concrete doughnut” which is in the heart of the BBC and shown how the building has been extended over the decades.  Through another door and we were in the original reception area of the 1960’s which was very innovative in design and decoration and is so pristine that this could have been built yesterday.
At the end of the tour we were taken to a visitors studio where we were given the opportunity to present a news bulletin using the autocue - which rotates at a speed according the newsreader’s voice – and to take part in a mini quiz.  We were taken back to the main reception area where we thanked our guides for a most interesting and entertaining tour.
After this visit we made our way round to the London Eye where a small group took a flight, while the remainder of the party spent time visiting other attractions such as Westminster Abbey and Palace of Westminster.  We arrived home in the early evening. 
Due to inclement weather, our proposed visits for October and November were cancelled but they will be re-scheduled for next year.

Neil Silverthorne

  

ART GROUP 
The Art group has had a very successful year and some very good work has been done. We ended the year producing our own Christmas cards. Our thanks go to Veronica for allowing us to paint in her beautiful garden, and to others who help me to run the group.
The new season starts on 8th January, and the programme up to Easter will concentrate on developing drawing techniques.  We hope to make the programme more interesting by including demonstrations and films. Attendance has dropped because our meeting times clash with other group meetings, so we can accommodate many more members.

David Smith

Walkers 1 find a lost dog

STROLLERS 2 

We have had another good year and membership has remained constant. We normally have between twelve and twenty people attend and everybody is expected to take a turn in organising a stroll and to find a suitable place to park the car and have a lunch afterwards.
We have for the first time had to postpone three strolls this Autumn because of bad weather, but on two occasions still met for lunch on the day.  The cancelled strolls have since taken place.
Places visited this year include Goodworth Clatford, Vernham Dean, Abbotts Ann, Longparish, St. Mary Bourne, Dunbridge, Collingbourne Ducis, Tangley, Mottisfont, Wherwell, Wootton Rivers, Kings Somborne and Freefolk..
On the 4th December the group enjoyed a get together at The White Hart, Stoke which included a game of skittles and an excellent Christmas Lunch arranged by Betty and Ken Hamblen.
We have decided to open membership to another five people, so if you are interested in joining our very social group, please contact us on 01264-362485 or e.mail bgorchard@tiscali.co.uk.

Brian & Gill Orchard 

Strollers 2

A  LITTLE  BRAIN TEASER  

                                                                        

ACROSS

     1     Notice holy man crossing river (4)
     3     Small rodent used room in a strange way (8)
     8     A half of humanity? So be it! (4)
     9     Get too close behind rear entrance (4-4)
   11     Girl in small room on one dish of pasta  (10)
   14     Note duelling-sword in tent (6)
   15     Modern vessel in east coast city (6)
   17     Those in charge make fellow grow old and fellows start to tire (10)
20 Race in funny Roman hat (8)
21 Nobleman is not quite betimes (4)
22 Lesson with prof is test about core elements of autos (8)
23 Chaos in canteen (4)
         

     

DOWN

1 Shortage of cars smashed up over conurbation  (8)
2 Colourful shrub found in North Pole and Eritrea (8)
    4     Prophecy - or a clue you said is missing (6)
     5     Shirker makes graduate hang around with Queen (10)
     6     State destroyed a hut  (4)
     7     Some guaranteed entry to Paradise (4)
   10     Philanthropist has face bent or messed up (10)
   12     After quiet drink, meet white man in N.America  (8)
   13     Skies the limit for abstainer and student in this game (8)
   16     Dad traps a deity in temple (6)
   18     Time up for discharge (4)
19 Supporter beginning to tease spoilt kid (4)

Answers in the next Newsletter!

 Editor                                                                   

Have you heard of FISHERTON .ANGER near Salisbury Railway station? Can you pronounce it? Fisherton Anger - A 13th and a 19th century connection solved.
I went to the reference library and asked a member of staff for help in my quest. The librarian produced a late nineteenth century ordnance survey map. From the existing main line station, which opened in 1857, there was shown a single track goods line. This went to the market and the terminus of the line was where the library stands.
The main road from the station to the city is called Fisherton Street and the area near the station is called Fisherton, which means the village of the fishermen. It is a community that is about 150 years older than Salisbury. The village expanded when it found it was on the main road connecting Wilton and Salisbury. These were the most important towns in south Wiltshire. Inns, houses, shops, a friary, the Infirmary and the county gaol  soon lined the street.
Whilst looking at the map I saw that the land near the station was called "Fisherton Anger". I returned it and asked about the unusual name and how it had come about. "You mean Anger" the librarian said. "It is pronounced to rhyme with "ranger". It is Wiltshire dialect".
I then obtained an information sheet about this name from the librarian. The suffix Anger is derived from Richard, the son of .Aucher, who held the manor in I242 until early the following century . The family also held two manors in Essex at Waltham. These passed out of the family's hands. In the 14th and early I5th centuries the surname was misread as Ancher and .Aunger and by 1553 in the Patent Roll as Anger which is where I started by mispronouncing the name!
The next stage was to contact Essex County Council Record Office regarding the .Aucher family and their manors in that county. I was sent an extract from the Victoria County History of Essex which was most informative. The manors of Shingle Hall and Copped Hall (the name means Peaked Hall probably referring to the turrets surmounting the building) in Waltham Holy Cross were held in the 12th century by .Aucher the Huntsman, for services to the king. However, by 1350 the family had relinquished any interest in these estates. This confirmed and augmented the information that I had obtained in Salisbury library.
The final question - had the family made its mark in Essex as they have in Wiltshire with their holding of a manor in the 13th century? I looked in the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names by E. Eckwell. Fisherton .Anger was there but there was no mention of a locality which had had the family name added to it in Essex where they had once lived.

John Platford 

NATURE GROUP 

Rain threatened to spoil our day at Lymington nature reserve in September but luckily it stayed away until we were enjoying lunch in the local hostelry. The reserve lies just outside the town in an area of former saltpans which had become derelict. In recent years some of these pans they have been turned into freshwater lagoons so that now they are a haven for many small fish, insects and small mammals which in turn attract many species of bird. A number of ducks and waders were feeding in these waters, as well as in the Solent, which borders the reserve, when we visited. A number of our members had the thrill of seeing a stonechat for the first time when we watched a pair searching along a ditch for their lunch. Stonechats are perky, colourful members of the thrush family and the red, black and white plumage of the male stood out brightly when he perched on a wire fence whilst you could hardly see the female as she searched the grass tussocks for a tasty morsel. The oak trees at the exit to the reserve had produced a bumper crop of acorns, which, together with an abundance of blackberries was providing a good pre-winter banquet for the resident blackbirds and jays.
In October members visited the Great Bustard project on Salisbury Plain. The first part of the Landrover ride to the hide was along good asphalt farm tracks but we had to turn off these nearer the hide and travel along a very deeply rutted mud track which gave us a rather hairy bumpy ride. However it was well worth the experience. The bustard is a very wary bird so the hide was some 400 metres from the enclosure which is a large field enclosed by a wire and plastic sheeting fence to a height of three metres, set on the other side of a valley to the hide. Being on a slope it was easy to watch the five young, half-grown birds which were in the enclosure. The fence keeps the birds safe until their size, plumage, strength and maturity allows them to fly over it to make a new life out on the Plain. Some of us were very lucky to see one bird flying although he did not go outside the fence. Despite their large size and ungainly appearance (something like a turkey), they are strong fliers and birds from the project have been recorded in France. New chicks are brought over from Eastern Europe each autumn and after a period of quarantine in holding pens, they are released into the enclosure from which they fly out into the surrounding countryside when ready. However , foxes take a large toll on these birds but the scheme is proving a success and the species is once more taking a foothold in Britain having been absent for more than 100 years.
Our trip to Blashford Lakes nature reserve in November started with a bang, literally. As we left the Hampshire Wildlife Trust’s field study centre to walk the 100 metres to the nearest of six hides, there was a bright flash immediately followed by a very loud and sharp crack of thunder overhead, which in turn was followed by heavy rain and hail. We were very pleased to get to the hide which we reach in record time! As the weather cleared and it became brighter during the day we managed to see and identify 40 species of birds including green and greater spotted woodpeckers, brambling, siskin, shovellers and goosanders. We also found a number of scarce lichens and fungi. An altogether eventful and enjoyable day.
The annual ‘at home’ December meeting had ‘grasses, sedges and rushes’ as the subject. Members were able to study specimens of a number of species, from very short to specimens over a metre in length, after which they had a turn at identifying other specimens with the aid of books and a key which Beryl had shown them how to use. This brought home to us all the difficulty in accurately identifying even common grasses from those similar but less common, and considering there are over 250 species in the British Isles we would have huge problems trying to identify them all.

Dave and Beryl Laurillard 

 

The Lights Theatre in Andover