On Wednesday 17th September we welcomed Georgette Vale who became Julian of Norwich, the first known authoress in the English language. She then became Margery Kemp the first known auto- biographer in English. Whilst Julian remained enclosed in a small cell Margery travelled widely in this country and across Europe. A very informative and enlightening performance.
This year’s competition was judged by the Town Mayor on Sunday 17 August.
The competition is something run by the Watton Society which no one knows they have entered, as the criteria is “Gardens that can be seen from the road with an excellent show of colour from flowers or shrubs in bloom” The Society committee members plus some other members are given an area of the town to look round and select properties that fit the criteria.
These are then given to our president the mayor to judge. This year there were 48 properties selected, and the mayor Gillian Turrant chose Caroline and Andrew Bailey of 2 Mill Road. She also selected 4 other properties as Commended. These were 10 Hamilton Close, 6 Priory Road, 43 Priory Road, and 29 Saddlers Drive. The Town Council were also given a Commended for the excellent display of planters and hanging baskets around the town.
Thank you to everybody who helped us with this competition this year.
This month we had an outing to Dale Farm in East Dereham. We were given a guided tour by the owners Graham & Sally, of their beautiful garden and lake. This was followed by refreshments of tea/coffee and an excellent selection of cakes.
This month we had an outing to the Watton Museum. We were given the history of the hall and how the museum came about. We were then shown around the 3 rooms of the museum and told of what was kept in each then allowed to browse in our own time before returning to the main room for refreshments.
We would like to express our thanks to George Collins and the team for a very interesting and informative evening.
This month we had Andrew Clark back, this time to give us a talk entitled “A Short History of Measurement”. He took us through from Biblical Measurements to the present-day Metric Measurements.
He spoke of the segment in the back wall of Trafalgar Square, which has measurements from those mentioned in the bible to the imperial measurement, which all fit a part of the average human body. He then went on to say how the French before Napoleon went to a system of 10 which has now spread around the world with only a few countries not using the metric system of 10. A very interesting and informative talk.
Our March Meeting was hit with a last-minute cancellation due to our speaker Peter Goodrum having to spend most of the night at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital with his wife who had been taken ill during the night and was set for a clinical assessment in the afternoon.
We were grateful to Hazel Gillingham for stepping in at the very last minute to give us a talk on Mary Seacole, the other nurse in the Crimea. This proved to be an interesting talk as we learnt so much of her life and extensive travels. We were very grateful for Hazel taking up this slot with less than eight hours’ notice.
At our February meeting, we were given an illustrated talk by Malcolm Trayhorn entitled
“Nostalgia, a trip down memory lane”
He took us from farthings through to the present-day monetary system, he brought along some of the old coins we used to use. He talked about the changing in fashion from the mini skirt and bellbottom trousers to the modern day. He also spoke about transport from steam to the present-day cars and buses and how the price of fuel has increased from the 60’s at £2.00 a gallon to the present price now in litres of around £1.50 a litre equating to around £7.00 a gallon. All in all a very interesting talk.
On the 18th of December we held our Christmas meeting to which we welcomed The Watton Shanty men. They entertained us with Shanties, Traditional Christmas song, Carols, Poems and with a Wind Synthesizer.
This was enjoyed along with Non-alcoholic mulled win, fruit juice and mince pies.
Our last meeting was our film night when Phil Slater came along with his 16mm & 8mm projectors to show us a selection of clips we had chosen from his catalogue, these were the Mississippi Showboats, some Kings of Speed, the Norwich Royal Lady River trip, the Home Guard Christmas Tea and Charlie on Guard. We also had a film of a Watton Carnival from1959. This was of special interest to one of our newer members as she was in this carnival dressed as a Knight.
Our last meeting was our AGM which was attended by our president the mayor.
Reports were all received, and the committee all re-elected for another year.
Following the official business of the AGM we were given a short talk by David Dent on the plans to demolish Wayland House and rebuild with a Digital and Creative Media Centre. This would include a Cinema – Film and audio studio with editing suite – Game development laboratory and testing facility – Community Café – Serviced business office for local entrepreneurial start-ups. – Meeting rooms, and Housing for Library Service, Art Gallery, Wayland Partnership, Wayland Chamber of Commerce. David answered questions from the floor before we finished the evening with our annual Quiz where all won a prize.