Newbury Fringe Festival

The weather forecasters always get it right when it comes to awful weather and they got it spot on for Sunday 27 May as heavy rain and strong winds had been predicted for the Fringe Festival. At 0845 am, I received a phone call from a disconsolate Gina Houghton who told me that those involved in Art on the Park which I would be visiting at 10 am that morning had decided to call it off due to the wet and stormy conditions.

The timetable for our next appointment at the Fringe was the Morris Dancers outside the Library at 11 am so I, together with Edwina Cooper, the Mayoress and Carol Currey, the Mayor’s attendant, walked down from the Town Hall to meet the Morris Dancers. Fortunately, the lashing rain stopped and we were able to enjoy 20 minutes of their dances. We were told by the Morris Dancers, who incidentally came from Oxfordshire, that the tradition was centuries old and that their dances and songs originated from their own county, which is the general practice amongst other groups. Time prevented us from staying longer but we were told that the Morris Dancers’ next port of call was to entertain the residents of Fairclose, a centre for the elderly.

We then walked to Victoria Park over the canal bridge and past the empty and rather forlorn Bandstand where the bands would have played. They had been moved indoors due to the potential of live power and water combining which would have made the playing of electronic instruments somewhat eye-watering. Our first stop in the park was the face painting tent. This was our first opportunity I have had to see how it is actually done. We were told that all the paints have to be non-toxic and washable, for obvious reasons, and there was already a young girl face being painted as a cat and it was being very carefully created as a slip could be disastrous. I declined the offer on the grounds that I had too many creases.

The Creative Arts Festival 2007

I was invited with Edwina Cooper, the Mayoress, to attend the Creative Arts Festival at Newbury College on Thursday 24 May. This was to view the work of 1st and 2nd year students who were on a 2 year B Tech diploma course.

We were accompanied throughout the evening by one of the first year students who was able to describe each item of art in respect of types of paint, the materials used and in respect of photographic pieces, how it was created and how the finished product was mounted. We were also able to meet some of the students who were able to describe in detail their exhibits. There must have been 30 or more items on show on the ground floor, and they all were very interesting and imaginative. The colours of some were quite striking.

There were many more exhibits upstairs and in addition, there were complete rooms given over to particular themes. Some were a combination of coloured materials supplemented by water features while others were more sensory in their presentation. It was a fascinating evening and we were almost the last visitors to leave. I sent a letter of thanks to the student who was kind enough to show us around.

Mayor's Cup Cricket Competition

Rain is the main enemy of cricket and days before the 20 May when the Mayor’s Cup Six a Side competition was due to take place, it had precipitated almost continuously. However two days of sun and wind had dried out the ground and the competition was definitely on. At 9a.m. there was great activity outside the Lamb Inn in the Enborne Road. Stores were being loaded onto a van; extension leads, a large barbeque, a gazebo, cricket kit (essential), a barrel of beer (essential), a fridge, trestle tables, table cloths and other kit for the bar and barbeque which would be operating during the day. Once at the Wormstall ground, the bar and cooking area were soon operational and ready for business. The cricket pitches at Wormstall and Luker had been well prepared by the St Bartholomew School’s ground staff and soon the teams assembled for the briefing at 9.45 a.m.
For those not au fait with the rules of 6 a side cricket, I should say that there are some variations from the normal game. These are:

Each side bowls 5 over of 8 balls i.e. each fielder, except for the wicket keeper, bowls one over.
Batsmen can be out in all the usual ways but there is no leg before wicket – LBW.
In the event of a bowler delivering a no-ball or wide, the batting side is awarded 2 extra runs and the next ball is deemed a free hit for the batsman i.e. he cannot be out bowled, caught or stumped.
Even if the batting side has overtaken the earlier batting side’s total, they continue to bat until the last ball of the innings as bonus points are awarded for scores exceeding 30 or more plus points for winning.
In this competition, there were 8 teams, divided into 2 leagues of 4 teams, each playing 3 games. The winners of each league, and this was the team scoring the most bonus points, would go into the final. The runners up in each league would play a further game to determine the 3rd place in the competition.
My team played all three games on the Wormstall ground and I regret that we lost all of them, mainly because of the number of 4s and 6s scored off my bowling and my inability to score more than 8 runs per game. Our best all round player was Ian Grose who was consistent with both bat and ball. I suspect that his school teaching included some net practice!

Time and space preclude any details of each game. Suffice to say that St Barts Teachers team won the cup deservedly with a very consistent performance throughout, winning all their games. For the second year running, the Lamb came second while the Police were a creditable third.

I must thank everyone who took part in the competition. It was played with the utmost sportsmanship and friendliness which is what cricket is all about. I must also thank the members of the Lamb Cricket Club for their organisation of the day, the licencees of the Lamb Inn for providing the bar, the three ladies from the Lamb for cooking the excellent barbeque, Tescos for providing the food, the umpires at both Luker and Wormstall grounds for their unbiased adjudication of the matches and the scorers at each ground whose efforts were absolutely crucial to the outcome of each game. My thanks also to the grounds staff for preparing the pitches which survived the onslaught down to the last ball of the day. Last, but by no means least, a big thank you to all the friends and spectators who came to give their support to their respective teams. With their patronage of both the bar and barbeque, the amount of surplus money which will be donated to support cricket at St Barts School will exceed £400. I look forward to the 2008 competition when I will return to play for the Lamb, assuming that I am selected for their squad.

AGM of Newbury and District Multiple Sclerosis Society

I was invited to attend the Fortieth Annual General Meeting of the Newbury Branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society which took place at St George’s Hall on the afternoon of Saturday 19 May. I met the Chairman Roy Rainer who introduced me to the other committee members. I noted that there were around 25 members present.

The AGM was run on the same lines as every other and it was amazing to hear of the numerous activities and fundraising events the society had been engaged with over the last 12 months. Equally amazing was that they had raised some £27,000 from donations, fundraising events and subscriptions. It is fair to say that they are all dedicated to their society but as usual, they are always looking for more volunteers, particularly younger members, to help out.

Towards the end of their meeting they introduced a guest speaker, Mrs Lynn Green from their National Centre at Rickmansworth who gave an inspirational talk on the Need for Volunteers. So if anyone reading this short report has a few hours to spare each week or month, The Newbury MS society is a really worthy organisation to join.

Annual Concert of Hungerford Town Band

The Corn Exchange was the venue for my next engagement which was the Hungerford Town Band annual concert. Having attended a previous concert, I had expectations for a good evening’s entertainment.

Tim Crouter, the musical director and conductor, had prepared a robust and varied programme and the first piece Glemdene was rousing and the full force of a brass band resonated throughout the Corn Exchange (and possibly halfway along the High Street). The next piece was a cornet solo played faultlessly by the principal cornet player, Isabel Cook. After three more pieces, the senior band took a breather to make way for the B band. This did not infer a lesser quality band, but it was the band of very young players. It is difficult for someone as ancient as myself to guess the ages of young people but I reckon that some were around 8 or 9 to the more mature 15-16 year olds. They played 3 pieces; Three songs from the New World, Greensleeves and a Nursery Rhyme Selection. They played these delightfully and with great confidence. They were excellent ambassadors for the Town Band and for young people generally.

After the interval, a rousing rendering of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture was followed by a euphonium solo of Blaydon Races by Andrew Tilley. He gave a faultless performance of a difficult piece which stretched the range of the instrument and his technical ability. Tim Crouter said that he had spent some years as a bandsman in the Grenadier Guards band. He is certainly the best euphonium soloist I have heard for many years. We were then treated to a change of style in the form of a Mambo No5 – I am sure you will remember A little bit of this and a little bit of that from Prado, Bega and Zippy. No one however took the conductor up on an invitation to dance in the aisles!

Charity Cycle Ride to Normandy

On Wednesday 16 May, I went on my first engagement which was at the Royal British Legion in Pelican Lane. There I had the pleasure to meet three cyclists, Gareth Greppellini, Martin Purnell and Hamish McEwan who were about to embark on a charity cycle ride to Normandy. I also met the Newbury President Lt Colonel Michael Westropp and his wife, Chairman Robin Hicks and Vice Chairman Bill Hopkins. Speaking to Gareth, he indicated that this was not the first time that he had undertaken this ride. All three were very fit and despite the overcast conditions, were looking forward to the challenge of some 200 miles to their destination, where they would lay crosses on graves in one of the war cemeteries.

It was heart warming to meet three young men who would brave the elements (and some hard saddles) to honour the fallen in this way. We wished them a safe journey.

Mayor Making

Mayor Making is a mixture of the old and new. Pageantry combined with a 21st century Town Council meeting , with councillors robed up, the town’s civic insignia on display. The Mayor wears the 1884 chain and pendant, with the Mayoress/Consort and Deputy Mayor wearing their respective pendants. The procedure of handing over to the new Mayor is well established and is followed by the new Mayor's acceptance speech which gives the flavour of his programme for the year, any views he has on events in the town and details on his chosen charities for his term of office.

At Mayor Making on 13 May in my acceptance speech ,which incidentally should be politically neutral (if there is such a thing), my thoughts were on the town’s heritage. My first concerns were about the destruction of many of our historic buildings both in the past and currently. Although our older and finest buildings are now given some protection by being given Listed Building status, others are not. The Town Council’s Conservation of Historic Buildings Working Group is busy in identifying other buildings considered worthy of conservation and submitting them either for national listing or for local listing status. The Town Design Statement published some 2 years ago identifies the need to preserve areas of the town, particularly those gateway roads into the town which have large well designed, high quality houses with extensive gardens, from demolition or unsympathetic development. I endorse the Council’s stance in trying to preserve the Town’s historic and architectural heritage. My own role is to record the architectural and historical aspects of Newbury’s hotels and pubs, some of which are hundreds of years old. This includes photos of both the exterior and internal features and will take some time to complete.

Newbury has been blessed over the centuries by the amount of charitable work and funding by either wealthy individuals or by organisations or groups focused on specific causes, designed to enhance the lives of those in need. This continues to this day and in a recent survey, some 5132 volunteers were working for an extraordinary range of charitable organisations and groups in the Newbury area. We must not forget that the churches in the town also raise a great deal of funds for charities both at home and abroad. I will be delighted to meet and to give my support to as many of these volunteers and groups during my term as possible.

My third aspect of the town’s heritage is its love of the arts, which in truth has only evolved in the last 200 years or so. There was a playhouse in Northcroft Lane before a theatre was built in 1802 in Speenhamland but neither have survived. Other halls and cinemas were built later to hold productions but the town now relies on productions at either the Corn Exchange or the Watermill at Bagnor outside the town boundary. As the town’s only cinema closed many years ago, the Corn Exchange shows films as well as hosting a range of musical productions. The building of a new cinema in Cheap Street is due to start later in the year. I look forward to the Fringe Festival which includes Art on the Park which is preceded by the Newbury Spring Festival which includes nationally recognised orchestras and musicians. There is also a Gala Concert by the Southern Sinfonia on 13 October in the Corn Exchange. There is a range of other music performed in the Corn Exchange and elsewhere. The Town Trail has two works of art and the second one was recently installed on the Robin Hood roundabout.

I announced that I would support three charities. The first is the Mayor’s Benevolent Fund which gives financial support to the townspeople in dire need of support. It also supports the annual Mayors Drive and Tea party for the over 75 year olds. My second is the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmens’ Families Association (SSAFA) which provides a wide range of support to servicemen and women and their families, including motorised buggies and other equipment to those needing such support. My third charity is to champion the reforming of the interior of St. Nicolas Church to enable it to address the needs of the 21st century. Unlike other countries which give financial support to their churches, Britain does not and when there is a need for a significant refurbishment, the churches have to fund it themselves and rely on external fundraising. Considering this is one of our oldest buildings, I believe this is a very worthy cause.