On Thursday 4th November, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, Imam Monawar Hussain, made a special award to Karen Foreman and Blewbury Good Neighbours for all the good work they’ve done during the pandemic.
In a ceremony at County Hall, the award was one of 21 presented to individuals and groups throughout the county, chosen from over 60 nominations. Says Karen: “I was delighted to accept the award on behalf of the Blewbury Good Neighbours and the whole village. We’ve all ‘done our bit’, helping with shopping, prescriptions, dog walking, getting newspapers, telephone calls and tech support, along with a million other little things, that kept us all going. Lots of the volunteers have said that helping others was really good for them too: they’ve made new friends and it really helped with their mental health. So thank you to you all, well done, and we’ll keep going, as we’ll all need a helping hand one day!”
Attendees at this year’s Remembrance Sunday gathering at the London Road War Shrine were rewarded with the gift of a beautifully refurbished commemorative stone.
Over the years, the original inscription “We will remember them” and the dates of the two World Wars had almost completely faded – but now the whole monument has been properly cleaned and repainted on an entirely voluntary basis by local stonemason Ryan Morris. Ryan has form in Blewbury when it comes to doing great stonework for free, as it was he who put the ancient milestone on the A417 outside Savages back together again in 2019 after it was broken in half. Thanks Ryan – we owe you one. In fact, make that two!
In September, the Church Choir bade farewell to Caitlin Smith as she leaves to study at Exeter University.
We are so grateful to Caitlin for her time with the choir of nearly 10 years! In the photo, Caitlin received flowers and a gift with some of the choir.
If you love singing and want to join a Choir, we are very fortunate to have two in the Village! For Blewsing, please contact Sheila Loy for further details: 850537 or www.blewsing.org or for the Church Choir, Sharon Phillips on 850817 or office@churnchurches.co.uk
The Courage Game is a fictionalised account of the life of Gladys Hazel, the infamous ‘Militant Suffragette’, who lived in a bungalow in Westbrook Street from 1939 to 1959 and is buried in Blewbury Cemetery. It is written by Gladys’s great-niece Jeni Whittaker.
The novel starts in Blewbury in 1950, where Gladys who was by then retired decides to write about her very eventful life. Her life story was something of a secret until Jeni Whittaker’s father Peter Waterfield discovered her account, when he was clearing out a potting shed in Devon many years after Gladys had died . Jeni used this account as the basis for her novel, which will make fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in Blewbury, the Suffragettes, or even what life was like for a young independent woman born in the late 1800s.
The publicity for the book states:
‘Gladys grows up in a large family, convinced she is the odd one out especially compared with pretty Rita, the sister closest to her. Then elder brother Jim invents a new game he calls the Courage Game, in which all seven of the children will be tested for their ability to keep a stiff upper lip.
Little does she know, she’ll recall this game later, comparing his little hand-made badges to those handed out by the W.S.P.U, the suffragettes. The poverty of Ireland in the 1890s is capped by the terrible conditions of the Birmingham slums where she first works as a teacher.
Heartsick at the hardship she sees all around her, she’s driven to change it, but only the Pankhursts seem to offer any hope of a woman’s voice being heard – providing they win the right to vote, that is. Enthusiastically, Gladys throws herself in, juggling her job, her burgeoning love life and her work for the suffragettes. But how long can one woman keep walking such a line without losing her balance?’
The Courage Game is available from all good booksellers.
Blewbury School is delighted to announce Miss Jo Reeder as its permanent new Head of School, who will join the School from September 2021.
Jo Reeder will for her first year be working alongside Miss Lisa Austin who will continue as the School’s 0.5 Executive Headteacher. There was a lot of interest in this position and Jo Reeder emerged as the successful candidate from a strong field of a large number of applicants. Everyone involved in the process was delighted when Jo accepted the post and confirmed her availability to start in it in September.
Jo herself has said that she is thrilled with this new opportunity to work with Lisa Austin and the rest of the School’s staff. She already lives nearby in Wantage, where she completed her ownsecondary education at King Alfred’s School. She is currently Deputy Headteacher at St Philip and St James’s Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School in Oxford. Prior to moving to that school in 2015 she was a class teacher at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell Church of England Primary School, so she is very familiar with the local area.
Jo states that she sees the School as being on an exciting journey, and when she visited it recently could already seethe fruits of the hard work the staff have put in during this difficult time. She is keen to support the staff to further this when she joins them. She also comments that the School is set in beautiful surroundings and she is aware of the strong community spirit that surrounds it. She is looking forward to drawing on what the local area has to offer.
She is passionate about teaching and her ambition is for Blewbury School to flourish. She enjoys baking, music and going to the theatre, and in lockdown she took up yoga and building giant Lego models.
Jo will be visiting the School and the village before she starts in September and we will I am sure all look forward to welcoming her and wishing her every success in her new position.
Due to Coronavirus restrictions in force at the time, Blewbury Pre-School unfortunately had to postpone its 50th Anniversary Party on 17th July. We will let you know the new date as soon as possible.
Since lockdown last year we’ve been unable to do any of our usual fundraising events – that’s the best part of two whole academic years where we’ve been unable to fundraise as normal.
We’ve therefore devised the Blewbury Pre-School Lottery to raise funds in a COVID-friendly way, and we’re delighted that the first two draws went ahead as scheduled in July and August. The next draw is due on Thursday September 2nd and the last day for new sign-ups to be eligible for this is Sunday August 22nd.
If you would usually have supported one of our big evening events, or perhaps bought a few raffle tickets or some of our merchandise, could we ask you to please consider joining our Lottery? There are still plenty of numbers available, and if you sign up now you will be eligible for draws from September onwards.
For those of you not aware of how the Lottery works, for £5 per month members will be entered into a monthly lottery with a chance to win one of three cash prizes. There will be a 50:50 split between prize and fundraising money. It’s an annual membership, and we plan to sell a maximum of 200 lottery numbers each year.
We have been genuinely heartened by the positive response to the Lottery so far, and it is clear that so many of our community are committed to ensuring that this pre-school will continue to survive way into the future. Thank you to everyone who has already joined. We look forward to welcoming more of you!
Blewbury’s Zak Corderoy will be competing in the 2021 Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship on board Binch Racing’s new Yamaha R6.
Having finished an impressive 3rd overall in last year’s championship after three 2nd place finishes and one 3rd place finish, Zak and the team are aiming high for 2021.
As one of the most popular feeder series for the British Superbike Championship, the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship is a very strongly contested series with amazing equipment plus riders who form the next generation of stars for the British Superbike Championship and beyond.
“Following a great year racing-wise for me in 2020, it’s a pleasure to team up with Binch Racing for 2021,” says Zak. “It’s a team that has a great track record on the road racing scene, and I have no doubt we can do great things together on the short circuits. The race season can’t come soon enough, We have our eyes firmly set on the championship and I can’t wait to get out on the Yamaha.”
Dave Binch, Project Manager at Binch Racing, couldn’t agree more: “Ultimately, we want to win races and with Zak onboard the Binch Racing Yamaha R6 we are giving ourselves the best chance of achieving this goal. I am over the moon to have signed Zak. He is a great talent and who knows we may even tempt him to ride one of my bikes at the Isle of Man TT in the future. However, for the time being our challenge is preparing ourselves to give the best chance of podium success in the 2021 BSB Pirelli National Superstock 600 championship.”
The Bulletin will be following Zak’s progress throughout the year, and you can keep up via social media @binchracing
A massive thank you to everyone in Blewbury who supported me throughout my Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle.
Everything went smoothly, which was unexpected and I completed
968 miles in 10 days.
We managed to raise a total of £4,730 for MIND, which will do an incredible amount for a number of people. The just giving page remains open so it is possible to donate if you want to at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/paul-sibley2
The Geo(rge) Knapp memorial, a splendid old survivor in St Michael’s churchyard, is back in place, after two months of technically very demanding work.
The principle problem was damp-rot (see picture below), which had entered the structure at several points and was so severe and accelerating that, if restoration had been delayed for another year, in all likelihood it would have been impossible.
It was necessary to replace the top and bottom rails with fine sycamore, and the top and bottom edges of the board with an inch of walnut. This was a hair-raising process, as the boards were crumbling almost as fast as they were worked upon (rather like an OXO cube!) At least 8-10 flaking and unstable previous re-paintings of the lettering had to be removed, which revealed that the letters had “drifted” slightly from their original positions. It was amusing to discover that the sign board itself was an old, re-used, Elm floor-board!
The finials which surmounted each side-pillar were seriously damaged, and letting water in at each end: these were replaced with butt-jointed (and pegged) close-grained walnut. In addition, four drip-rails were added to the main rails to deflect rain run-off. Over many years a great number of nails and screws had been bashed into the rails, which had caused great damage…and let in even more water.
The main consideration, after removal and replacement of all rotted timber (which included the lower ends of the side-pillars, which had been buried and needed considerable strengthening), was to render all the joints of the assembled structure totally waterproof. Then came the enjoyable part of the project: the “re-antiquing” of the new work to match the remaining original parts. Decades of previous experience had shown that stains are generally useless for this type of work, and flexible waterproof acrylic colours were used. These have excellent adhesion and resistance to fading. Both the grain character and colour were painstakingly recreated, even to the extent of a couple of fake bird-droppings and several straggling lichen patches! All joints, rail surfaces, finial tops and side-post buried-ends were given 8 coats of flexible waterproof acrylic varnish, but only after the entire Memorial had thoroughly dried out, and all mould and rot destroyed. Phew!
Many thanks to Peter Saunders, Father Jason, Marianne Suhr, and Calley for their help and support.
What fun Worzel’s Weekend was! Thank you to the 24 households that put time, energy, and bundles of creativity into their scarecrows.
We know that many people greatly enjoyed walking the scarecrow trail, and it was wonderful to do something as a community in a year of many cancelled events. Judging was made enormously difficult by the high quality of scarecrows across the board, but the three winning entries are shown here. The main photo above shows On The Beach at Bankside, winner of ‘Most outstanding in their green field (most imaginative use of junk materials’. Next, below, is Woody on Staycation at Brooks End, ‘Overall Winner & Most Shared Scarecrow #worzelsweekend’
And finally, here is Amity Island at 2 Eastfields, winner of ‘Furthest afield (on holiday) scarecrow and most ingenious choice &/or representation of a holiday destination’!
To see the complete set of scarecrows, head over to the BVS Facebook page.
Winners will receive their prizes in due course. Thank you to Style Acre tea room for sponsoring our Most Shared Scarecrow category with a voucher.
While we aren’t in a position to put on our usual autumn events (Comedy Night and Bonfire Night) due to COVID, the BVS Committee is resuming our monthly meetings to start brainstorming and planning what we can do as soon as conditions allow. We would be delighted to have some new faces and fresh ideas on the committee – you can commit as much or as little time as you like with no pressure. In a usual year, we put on a wide range of events in the village for all ages, and depend on many volunteers to make them happen. If you would like details, please contact us at blewburybvs@gmail.com.
