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West Ashton Magazine

Autumn 2017 Iss:55

Flamingoes

Scarecrows

And Much More….

In This Issue...

Our community magazine keeping you up to date in West Ashton, Rood Ashton, East Town, and Dunge.

White Horses

Skittles

A Wedding, a Christening,

The West Ashton Magazine is published quarterly by the West Ashton Parish Council. WAPC has devolved full authority for the magazine to an independent volunteer Editorial Group formed for the sole purpose of producing this magazine. The intention is to inform and entertain the residents of West Ashton. The magazine is distributed free of charge to all residents of West Ashton village. The Editors warmly invite you to submit reports, articles and photographs relating to past or future village issues and events, or any subject that may be of interest to the readership. The editors reserve the right to edit any submissions and make corrections, omit material or do minor reorganisation to any submitted work and reserve the right to reject any submissions. We prefer typed or electronic material. Photos will be returned on request. All material published in The West Ashton Magazine, including adverts, editorials, articles and all other content is published in good faith. The West Ashton Magazine accepts no liability for any errors or omissions and does not endorse any companies, products or services that appear in the publication. All material is accepted on the understanding that it is copyright free. The West Ashton Magazine accepts no liability for any subsequent copyright issues. The West Ashton Magazine cannot accept responsibility for and does not endorse views expressed by contributors. We want the content of the magazine to be primarily editorial, but we will include small advertisements for local businesses based in West Ashton. The West Ashton Magazine does not accept responsibility for the accuracy of claims made by advertisers. No part of the magazine may be reproduced without the prior written consent of The West Ashton Magazine. Editor: Leya Walker - 01225 590361; Leya_w@yahoo.co.uk Editorial Team: Jo Watkins, Janet Sweetman, Paul Workman, Tim Le Mare. All contributions welcomed. Please send any contributions, in the first instance, to Leya Walker. Short stories and poems will also be considered. You must live or work within the West Ashton parish boundaries. Front page photo of a Fieldfare scrumping Bratton Road c/o Richard Covington

PRINTING OF THE MAGAZINE IS SPONSORED BY

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Barbecue Beachcombing Bees Butterflies Countryside Festivals Flowers Fresh/Air

Hikers Lawn/Mowers Moors Nature/Reserve Picnic Walks Wilderness Woodland/Trail

And how are you all doing out there in the blustery weather of our so called summer? If there was any doubt about global warming and climate change you just need to look out of the win-dow. What have you all been up to? I don’t know about you but we’ve had to cancel a few outdoor activities, in-cluding the white horse walks (see article later), due to the down pouring of rain. Still, at least the sun does come out and the gardens don’t need you to water them. Talking of gar-dens, Holly has been especially busy in hers…check out her latest tips. In this edition, whilst we are lucky enough to have our usual contributions, there is a broadband update and lots of Your community news. We also have an invitation for you to participate in the School Scarecrow Trail, if you have a spare plot in your garden. I’ve never been a fan of August, too many tour-

ists along with tourist pricing, people away at different times and either too hot (or this year too cold) and rubbish TV, haha. However, there is more op-portunity to get out and about and see the great outdoors. My friend and I had the most amazing experience over at Dyrham Deer Park where 20 stags grazed their way towards us, quietly, then past us. Have you had any truly insipiring experiences like this we could put in the magazine? Next edition the theme is Athletics -inspired by the amazing IAAF event at the Olympic park – wish I’d gone, did anybody else go? Do a write up? Well everyone enjoy the Fall (as the Ameri-cans say) and our next edition (mine and Tim’s penultimate one) will be out in December. Take care, Leya

Hello Folks,

By Margaret Workman

W S E I L F R E T T U B

O E D E U C E B R A B E

O U I L N A T U R E H A

D S S E N R E D L I W C

L F Y L O W A L K S G H

A P R O A S E E S T N C

N I T E E V R E S E R O

D C N R S S I E K E F M

T N U N A H A T W N O B

V I O W S I I O S O E I

W C C A L E L O R E M N

S E A L L F P S S O F G

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School Stuff

Amazingly, the 50 club has been

able to hand over £600 to the vil-

lage hall towards its maintenance

and improvement. We now have

98 people that participate in the

Club. If you didn’t already know,

50% goes towards the Village Hall

and 50% goes towards the win-

nings. So a bit of fun and a commu-

nity outcome!

It’s not too late to participate. If you have a spare £12 and want to take part contact Sylvia Preston on 01225 765858 or Jackie Bradley 01225 754100. Sylvia Preston

there’s still time to sign up!

Ahhhhh, the English Summer; where you can get sun burnt and soaking wet in the same afternoon! Luckily, the sun shone for FOWAS's annual Family Fun Evening in July. The weather was glorious for all the children and parents to enjoy the festivities. Attractions included the usual inflatable bouncy play equip-ment, BBQ, bar, glitter tattoos, face painting and tombola. Following last year’s success, we were also lucky enough to offer donkey rides and our very own ice cream van! Trowbridge and District Youth Band provided musical entertainment, which really created a summer fete atmosphere with their stunning playing.

Through the support of many par-ents, children and staff the event

was a huge success which raised lots of money, to help enhance the school experience for the children. A huge thanks to all involved! It was a privilege to be amongst all the smiles, laughter and sticky faces. I feel so proud with how hard every-one worked together to create such an enjoyable event.

September promises to be an excit-ing start to a new school year and we are looking forward to welcom-ing our new Headteacher, Mrs Hux-ham. We are feeling optimistic as we move towards the new term with many opportunities for FOWAS to support our wonderful West Ashton School!

Mari Webster

Friends of West Ashton School Mari.webster@hotmail.co.uk'

The 50 Club …

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The Armchair Birdwatcher

Village Hall 50 Club winners

MONTH 1ST PRIZE (£20) 2ND PRIZE (£15) 3RD PRIZE (£10)

MAY Andy Morse J Bonnery-Maciver Megan Pane

JUNE Daphne Peat Sandy Daniels Dean Robertson

JULY Jackie Bradley Ray Strie Anne Ogden

There isn’t much news on the birds at the moment, broods have hatched and flown the nest. The whole blue-tit family visit several times a day, the second brood of swallows are in flight, and the usual visitors still keep me entertained.

Two of my girls took me to the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust at Slim-bridge in July. It was the most beau-tiful day - the sun was shining & it didn’t rain! We had a light lunch in the café and then toured the grounds; all was much improved since my last visit in 2010.

So many species of ducks from around the globe, I especially liked those with red or blue beaks and beautiful markings. Also saw swans, flamingos, shrike, cranes and ot-

ters. Sadly, the kingfishers were elu-sive. I think my favourites have to be the Caribbean Flamingos.

Before leaving, once more to the café for a welcome cup of tea, and then to the shop for a few purchas-es. A really enjoyable day.

The Sweetmans

Caribbean Flamingoes©J Sweetman

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I feel this is a good time to bring you all up to date with the few changes we have made on the farm.

Larkrise now offer accredited courses in ASDAN and City & Guilds, to all our students; these start at Entry Level. We are in the process of implementing our own Larkrise Animal Care Course to all students from the age of 16 years and upwards. This involves devel-oping an education programme for students of school age – to be able to familiarize themselves with making up a portfolio of activities they do on the farm, incorporating numeracy and literary skills.

Our Apiary project, which was started in 2012, is now being man-aged by ‘The West Wilts Beekeep-ing Association’, with Geraldine Lenert and Chris Rawlings support-ing seven Hives; they’ve already produced 20 jars of honey this year.

Our Farm Club runs every other Saturday, with a total membership of 150. There can be up to 30 chil-dren attending a single session!

Thanks must go out to all the vol-unteer helpers, including parents, that stay and help as well. Need-less to say that without our lovely volunteers the Farm Club could not run. If you would like to know more about the Farm Club then just go to our website http://www.larkrisefarm.org.uk/

We are halfway through building a Rabbit and Guinea Pig village. The area is already in use but still awaits the village setting. Thank-fully, we do now have a safe seat-ing area for the public and stu-dents to have their lunch and pic-nics whilst watching the Guinea Pigs scampering about.

Those of you that have young chil-dren may have seen Larkrise Farm featured on Cbeebees this past week. They came to do a day’s filming on the children working with the Donkeys, having pony and carriage rides and mucking out sta-bles! Luckily the weather was with us and the sun shone; it was a wonderful day and we have set up a link on our website so all can watch it.

Up with the larks, at Larkrise Farm

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As reported in previous issues we raised enough money to complete the roof of our equine handling ar-ea. This was kindly opened by Anne Dunham, the Para Olympic Dres-sage Rider, on the same day as our fete. Having this area has allowed us to provide RDA lessons all year round, whatever the weather.

Larkrise RDA group has a total of 28 Individual Riders, compared to 17 riders last year, 16 group Riders from 2 schools and 15 Carriage Driv-ers who attend different weeks throughout the month.

Last week saw our Annual AGM. It was well attended and saw the presentations for the following vol-unteers and students.

Certificate for Outstanding Contri-bution by a volunteer this year, went to: PETER NORRIS

RDA volunteer of the year went to: MOLLY HARROLD

Larkrise Group RDA Rider that has progressed the most this year, went to: RHYS DOWNTON

Student of the Year Award for 2017, ie the student that has shown con-

siderable progress is: TREY PREECE

The Future looks very positive for Larkrise Community Farm and Larkrise RDA Group, but without the support and help we receive from communities and individual volunteers the farm would not run as successfully has it has done over the past years.

So Thank you.

Wendy Self Farm Manager

Photograph of Trey Preece ©Larkrise Farm

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‘I am writing to let you know that I will be moving on fairly soon to train as a PC. I have thoroughly en-joyed getting to know you all and I hope that I have served you well as your local PCSO. I don’t know yet where I will be posted but with any luck I’ll still be in this area.

I am not yet sure who will be taking over from me, but I will let you know as soon as I do. My last day in post will be the 11th August. Ellie Porter I’m sure you would all join me in wishing Ellie the best of luck –what a fantastic adventure! Leya

Your Community

Picture supplied by Jo Watkins

A perfect day for a wedding… It was perfect weather for the wedding of Jade (nee Morse) and Nick Chandler on Saturday, 17 June. The sun shone and the day went like clockwork. The bride and groom looked wonder-ful and left the church in a beauti-ful horse drawn carriage. Revd. Allan Coutts led the service. Jean Robertson

Bristol Baby Hearts This poignant Fragile Angels Me-morial to the Bristol Baby Heart Tragedy stands in a secluded spot in Clanger Wood and is inscribed with the names of over 140 babies. Underneath is written 'Our Uncon-ditional Love will be with Our Ba-bies Forever'. Jo Watkins

A Farewell to Ellie

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Players for West Ashton ladies skittles team from September - April. Enjoy light hearted social evenings with us. No experience necessary. Interested? Ring Sharon Shiles 01380 870196. AND New Editor for West Ashton Magazine to take over by Spring 2018. Do you have fresh ideas on how our magazine should be presented and run? Or are you a good administrator? Have you been a journalist/writer in

the past? The Magazine goes out once a quarter and takes about 4 weeks to pull together with help from the team. If you are interested please do get in touch Leya_w@yahoo.co.uk To go with the new editor a new pub-lisher. A few skills with a key board and an eye for fitting together the edi-tor’s submissions before posting it off, very easy with the “Microsoft Publish-er” supplied. tim@lemare.co.uk

Beryl Webb (1921-2017) Bratton Road A remarkable lady with a remarka-ble past. Astute, spirited, Beryl had led a life packed with adventure, fun and friendships. A petty officer in the Second World War, she had served her country in Gibraltar, Spain, and afterwards, in peace-time, trained as a teacher. A com-mitted and active member of our village church, she worshipped at St. John's for many years, and was supported towards the end of her life by her family and many loyal friends from the church and com-munity. Kate, Beryl's goddaughter, described her as good company, a wit, a raconteur and great fun to be with, a truly fitting tribute.

Peter White (1931-2017) Bratton Road Born in Parkstone, Dorset, Peter moved to this area at the age of five when his father took over James Long monumental masons in Trowbridge. Peter consequently took over the business at the very young age of 21, and also founded Brandon Tool Hire, selling both businesses when he retired. As par-ish councillor and village hall chair-man, Peter had seen many changes to the village over the years. A keen music lover, he enjoyed playing the piano. In later years, he enjoyed his holidays in Portland with his wife Bing. He will be sadly missed by Bing, children and grandchildren. Jo Watkins

In Memoriam

Wanted

Village Hall News

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This year’s village hall AGM was held on the 16th August when the outgoing chairman, Tim Le Mare addressed a large audience of local residents who had attended. Tim’s theme was to thank all those on the committee who had made sig-nificant contributions to the run-ning of the hall, fundraising and entertainment during the previous year. The financial report by Rachel Hobbs showed that the finances are in good order with a substan-tial sum of money in the coffers that will help to secure the future of the hall. In Summary the key activities dur-ing the year were: Repairs; Im-provements and thoughts for the future of the hall. For example the entrance porch is much brighter, new inner doors, the floor has been repaired and sealed, and the latter is intended to avoid the tedi-ous task of using the polisher. There was a very positive view by villagers that the hall was looking modern, the finishing touches would be to replace the curtains. For the future? well the bar needs refurbishing with the objective of

making it more modern and se-cure. Thank you to Tim Le Mare who took on the chairman’s role and steered the committee through some choppy waters. Tim implemented a new audio system, Broadband, LED strip lighting, set-ting up the website and creating the online booking system; a jack of all trades and willing worker. A full committee was returned. There were a lot of helpful com-ments and questions posed to the committee at the AGM. It is hoped that the new committee can put on free events, whether that’s “pub evenings”, or the Last Night of the Proms, which is scheduled this year for the 9th September. There’s the Friday coffee morning, kindly set up by Margaret Work-man and despite a few doubters has been a great success, thank you Margaret. Several comments have been along the lines of get-ting a younger generation involved in activities at the hall, which would bring a breath of fresh air to the events and hopefully encour-age more local people to hold their own events.

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In September 2016 I began to run a coffee morning each Friday at the Village Hall. There were to be no set charges, no pre-booking and no re-quirement to come, or stay, for any length of time. If any profits were made, they would go to the Village Hall funds. Armed with a puzzle book to occupy myself for an hour or so, I boiled a kettle of water, set out two to three tables, arranged biscuits on plates and waited… No puzzles were completed that first Friday and I have rarely man-aged to complete one on a Friday morning in the eleven months that have followed. Several villagers turned up - and have always turned up since - sometimes just a few, sometimes in larger numbers. The lowest number has been eight, the greatest twenty three. Ages have ranged from nine months to 90 years. There have been locals,

friends, visitors, members of sever-al different organisations; all have been friendly, joined in group dis-cussions or had quiet, more inti-mate chats with friends. Always there has been laughter and a re-laxed atmosphere. Several times it has been later than twelve noon when the hall has been cleared, but there have always been willing hands to help tidy away tables or wash up. Hopefully, everyone has left with the same feeling of com-panionship that I have left with - happy to have created a place to meet and chat for an hour or so, in a small village with so few other meeting places, no strings at-tached. The Village Hall has profited by over £300, such is everyone’s generosity. Thank you to you all, long may it continue. Margaret Workman

Coffee Mornings – Twelve Months On

There have been a few unfortunate instances with bookings, which the committee are addressing. The online system will continue but with the addition of a mobile phone number to aid the ‘non IT’ amongst us. The hall is well received by the

customers and users. Let’s work together to make the hall a place where all villagers will want to go... Thank you, Richard Covington (Chairman)

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The aroma of barbecued sausage and beef burgers filled the air for the annual Village Hall BBQ and Skittles evening on Saturday, 15 July. Although the weather had tried to dampen the event and at-tendance numbers slightly down, the evening proved to be a friendly get-together and enjoyed by all.

At the end of play there were three folk with the highest score, and strangely, they were all sat around the same table! The two ladies and one gentleman played off; the tension grew; would it be petticoat power or masculine mus-cle reaching the highest score! The final ball was thrown and a winner was established.

Lyn Pybus had the final highest score and was awarded the Cyril

Sweetman Memorial Cup, plus a bottle of wine. The presentation to Lyn was made by Cyril's three daughters, Janet, Angela and San-dra, who had kindly come along to the evening’s proceedings. Thanks must go to our stalwart chef, Rich-ard Covington (who looked very becoming in his special apron); the barman Laurie Richardson; Sylvia Preston the score mastermind and raffle and 50/50 club entrepreneur and Jackie Bradley for collecting food and raffle mon-ies. A huge thank you must go to our young team of William and Charlie Ludwell who did an excellent job of being the evenings "sticker uppers", ably helped by Dad (Ben). Thanks to all those attending and for making the evening such a success.

Jean Robertson

Village Hall Annual BBQ and Skittles Evening

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Parish Council Matters

West Ashton website http://www.westashton.org.uk/ please send any comments to Nikki at westashtonpc@outlook.com

Cont.

Website West Ashton Website http://www.westashton.org.uk/ please send any comments to Nikki at westashtonpc@outlook.com Housing Site Allocations – There is a Wiltshire Council draft Housing Site Allocations plan consultation, reporting that a further consulta-tion had been requested due to the summer holiday period. Con-cern was expressed that Wiltshire Council had issued the final draft so late in the consultation period. Councillors noted that the draft plan did not have a direct impact on the parish of West Ashton but that it was important for infor-mation to be made available Neighbourhood Plan – A consult-ant has been appointed to under-take a Landscape Appraisal. Once complete the plan can be submit-ted to Wiltshire Council. Biss Barn and Farm – The felling of the trees or more dramatically “ The Chainsaw Massacre”.

Although the wood did not seem to have an agreed name. A repre-sentative of the Woodland Trust has stated it is officially designated as ancient woodland. The trust’s letter submitted in March 2017 ob-jected to planning application 15/04736/OUT - Outline planning application for Mixed Used Devel-opment Comprising: Residential (up to 2,500 dwellings - Classes C3 & C2); Employment (Class B1, B2, and B8); Two Local Centres (Classes A1 - A5, D1, C2, and C3); Two Primary Schools, One Second-ary School, Ecological Visitor Facili-ty, Public Open Space, landscaping and associated highway works. Full planning application for Yarn-brook/West Ashton Relief Road and the access junctions | Land south east of Trowbridge. The Woodland Trust objected to this planning application on the basis of damage and potential loss of ancient woodland.

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A number of ancient woods (designated on the Ancient Wood-land Inventory (AWI)), and the wildlife they support, within the vicinity of the proposed develop-ment could be significantly affected by the proposals These woods are as follows: Unnamed ancient woodland at Biss Farm (grid ref: ST872567) Biss Wood (ST877567) Flowers Wood (ST875553) Green Lane Wood (ST881575) Picket/Clanger/Round Wood (ST876542) In the objection letter to Wiltshire Council over the Ashton Park devel-opment the Trust’s concern was the developer’s claim that the wood should not be designated as ancient woodland because it had ‘degraded in quality to the point that it should no longer be consid-ered ancient woodland’. Many pa-rishioners have also expressed con-cern at the wholesale felling of trees both at the Farm and latterly the Barn. The Forestry Commission has been involved along with Wilt-shire Council. The Ashton Park and A350 re-routing have been delayed waiting for the Habitat Regulations

Assessment (HRA) to be published by Wiltshire Council. The HRA co-vers environmental impact and of particular interest the variety of and rare bat species in the area that could be affected. As this is an ongoing matter it is prudent not to expand on this any further for now. Broadband – Openreach has confirmed (17/8/2017) that the second phase of build in the West Ashton area, affecting the majority of Orchard Close, as well as the Bratton Road run up the hill to the vicinity of the East Town Road junction on the left, is now live and accepting “Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)” or-ders. At the time of writing it had only just gone live but any resi-dents that have registered on Wilt-shire Council’s “When Can I Get It” service, should have been automat-ically contacted by email to advise them of the fibre upgrade oppor-tunity. Any residents wishing to upgrade will need to contact their chosen Internet Service Provider (ISP) in order to upgrade their service.

Cont.

Cont.

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their speed will not automatically improve. Although BT has installed the network, it is an open network and all ISPs will have been offered the opportunity to provide their services across the improved infra-structure. Please note that whilst ISPs will have been given this op-portunity, it is down to each individ-ual provider as to whether they take up the offer and this is outside the scope of Wiltshire Online to in-fluence. Wiltshire Council would always recommend the use of a broadband comparison website to help to find a package that best suits needs and to identify those ISPs offering a service to their premises. Residents scheduled in future build phases, particularly those in the re-mainder of Orchard Close (those near Yarnbrook Road) and the premises along Yarnbrook Road itself to register for the free “When Can I Get It Service” also. The registration link can be found here - https://www-wiltshireonline-org.azurewebsites.net/index.php/broadband-rollout/when-can-i-get-it Good News at last... Fly Tipping – Contact Wiltshire Council on 01225 777234 or online

at: http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/parkingtransportandstreets/roadshighwaysstreetcare/mywiltshirereport.htm This seems to be less of a problem for the time being in the parish but when it happens it is generally from East Town and in to the lane back to Bratton Road. Wilts Council News Letter http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/council/parishnewsletterhome.htm Traffic calming – This is still on schedule to commence week begin-ning 16th October 2017. New lighting will also be installed by the village hall. Don’t forget Bratton road will be closed with access only for two weeks. The Speed Indicator Device (SID) unfortunately does not work and is proving difficult find anyone to re-pair it. Community Speed Watch – More volunteers are always welcome but if the traffic calming is effective then this might not be so neces-sary? Richard Covington, Parish Council Chairman

Cont.

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Looking for a new project for those winter months?

Why not try The Textile Studios at Steeple Ashton? The Wiltshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dy-ers moved to the Steeple Ashton studios seven years ago. The Guild is a thriving concern with a couple of members from West Ashton, other surrounding villages and throughout Wiltshire.

The core activities are Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing for which there is a dedicated and fully equipped studio. In addition, other textile areas include a Patchwork group, which meets all day twice a month; a monthly Sewing Bee, members of which are now proud-ly wearing their creations; and, from October, a Handicrafts/ knit-ting and crochet group, who plan to start with some beading.

All the crafts include an education-al aspect with tutoring, demon-strations and guest speakers etc. The Guild had a successful exhibi-

tion in the summer which was highly praised.

The textile studios are located be-hind the village shop at St Mary's School Building, High Street, Stee-ple Ashton BA14 6EU and boast disabled facilities. Please visit us for a look around the studios or to arrange a free trial session.

Wiltshire Guild of Spinners

Contact: valerielaverick@hotmail.com badgersberyl@icloud.com

Have you got that Autumnal feeling?

The guild website can be viewed on this link: www.westwilts-communityweb.com/site/Wiltshire-Guild/

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In 2016, my friend and I took part in the National Trust’s Stonehenge and Ave-bury challenge. This consisted of walks in each area between three to five miles long. We thoroughly enjoyed them (Avebury more than Stone-henge) and accessed areas of Wiltshire that we hadn’t visited before (the Na-tional Trust is doing the same thing this year if you are interested). This year we decided to do Wiltshire’s famous white horses. The aim is to complete a circular walk of about five miles in length up to the horse - but it never really ends up this way! It’s been an interesting journey. We started in March with the West-

bury white horse, setting off from the

back of Bratton. As this horse is so fa-

miliar there were no surprises except for the weather consisting of wind and rain. Suffice to say we were able to warm up at the lovely Pickleberry café. We followed that by a walk on the sky-line of Marlborough, and were joined by a friend of mine from Somerset. We ended up walking on from the Marl-borough white horse (as it’s practically in town and very small) and getting lost. Six miles later we went to the pub! May found us in Broad Town trying to track down a very small horse etched into a hillside which, if I hadn’t looked up at the time, we’d have missed. One of my favourite walks has been the Cherhill white horse. We went from the village that lies just behind the hills. The rape seed and wheat grass swirled rustled BY the wind as four of us wad-ed through nettles and overgrown footpaths to the top of the hill. And the views…

Walking Wiltshire’s White Horses – The Great Outdoors!

Behind the Cherhill monument – Wind in the wheat

Cherhill White horse

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June found us up the top of Pewsey Vale and July, Alton Barnes. All of which had incredible views. We still have Uffington, Hackpen and the two Devizes horses to do by the end of the year, whilst plan-ning next year’s project. Doing these walks has been hard, not only are there steep hills on some of them, but the footpaths, sadly, are now mostly unmarked, or fenced over, and no-one is cutting back the foliage so they are tricky to negotiate. However, if you stay on well used trails, such as the Ridgeway, it’s easy. The views are incredible, breathtaking and far reaching. Most-ly, though for me – it’s been the cama-raderie, the sharing of points of views, the discovery of unknown places, and experiencing just being… in the great

outdoors. And breathe… Leya Walker If you are interested in doing a similar project there is a Wiltshire white horse website which we used as a ref-erence point. http://whitehorsewalk.co.uk/ Pictures©Leya Walker

Clouds racing over the Pewsey Vale

A lovely surprise!

I would like to express my thanks to the WI for the wonderful party

they gave me for my 90th Birthday…what a lovely surprise!

Also to all the friends who came to the party and all the lovely gifts. I

had a lovely time opening them all.

Also, my thanks to my daughter for the beautiful cake she made.

Thanks to all once more,

With best wishes from Edna Morse

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Pottering in the Garden

There is so much to be done, especially with the amount of wet weather we have been ex-periencing; although I can, and do, take myself off to the Greenhouse and produce some cuttings of per-ennial Wallflower, to replace those that eventually become Woody, also Fuschia (hardy variety), as these come back every year, look fabulous trailing over a wall or in front of one; a really good exam-ple of these can always be found outside of Joan Vince's garden wall. It was Joan who started me off with some cuttings from hers, don't confuse them with the ones for Hanging Baskets as those are not Hardy and you would loose them during the Winter. Vegetable Garden I am certainly enjoying my Runner Beans, picking daily, a little tip - never leave odd ones on the plant for collecting seed as it is far bet-ter to keep two plants especially for this purpose - as left on they will just make the new ones go stringy more quickly. Now, I al-ways buy new seed as they really

do give a more reliable plant. Broad Beans are all safely gath-ered in, blanched and quickly cooled in ice cold water, patted dry and then frozen for my use during Winter. This is one vegeta-ble that freezes really well whilst still retaining its freshly picked fla-

vour, unlike Runner Beans which I prefer to eat during their growing season. Now is a good time, as I am writing this on the 6th August, to sew that last batch of lettuce, either mixed or cut, in the greenhouse - if you have one - or failing that a growing pot of rooted small leafed salad from Lidls.

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HERON ESCAPADE The Heron, (a regular visitor to my garden) has forced me to set up some protection for my fish-pond (for those times I am away). I used hooped netting (normally for keeping rabbits off my greens) which I placed around his usual fishing area. It appeared to be working, until one day I looked out of my window to see he had fallen in and was under the net. This panicked him into 'Take Off Mode' which looked like a trampoline (in reverse) as his head was hitting the net as he tried

to take off, but instead forced him back into the water. In a panic, my first instinct was to go out and help him but I realised that this could panic/stress him further. I had no option but to watch until he very cleverly forced, through his con-stant take-offs, one of the netting stakes out of the ground and flew away to freedom. I have not seen him since and, strangely, neither have I seen the fish? It leaves me puzzled as to which of these spe-cies has a memory? Holly Westlake

MY TIP FOR THIS QUARTER: If you are adding any new plants to your garden, Why not choose Echinacea, and add some phosphate to the soil. This will help activate the roots to grow into their new environment. I have just plant-ed a new one as they have a long flowering period; even when the petals have fallen the cone centres are lovely in an autumnal flower arrangement. They also have me-dicinal properties which aids your immunity for winter, a natural

product to keep you free of colds and fevers, available from any Health food Store!

Holly Westlake

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When I knew I was moving to Rood Ashton Hall I knew one of the only drawbacks about the loca-tion would be the broadband. Alt-hough I was moving from a village in rural Somerset, I had become used to the luxury of fibre broad-band. I knew, from the previous owners of the hall, that the ADSL broadband available there was pretty poor, with speeds around 2mb. That’s when I asked a friend for advice and he recommended I look into 4G broadband. It turns out that EE(BT?) offer a great home broadband service which uses 4G technology to deliv-er it, rather than fixed land lines. This is more expensive than regu-lar broadband (there had to be a catch) but if you want the speeds and your land line can’t deliver them, there really isn’t any other decent option. Sadly, there’s no such thing as unlimited data when using such a service, so you have to find a plan that works for your

usage. Personally I pay £75 per month which gives me 100GB, which is more than I need, but you can pay £25 per month for 10GB. I get speeds of up to 60MB, and nearly always above 20MB, which is very good and more than ade-quate for streaming HD video con-tent. When you sign up for such a ser-vice, you are sent a bit of hardware (free of charge) which does the same job your router would nor-mally do, only it doesn’t plug into the phone line. It has an internal antenna which does the 4G part and acts as a wi-fi hotspot so your devices can all connect to it. Since I use a mobile for all my calls, there was no need to have a land line at all, so I’m saving all the associated line rental costs. There is more information availa-ble at the link below; hopefully this might help somebody looking for high speed broadband.

Tim Dawson

Broadband without a landline?

http://shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/4g-home-broadband/details#

For the latest news on Broadband see pages 15 and 16.

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St John’s Church

The seasons have brought a mix-ture of services – in May, we had Rogation Sunday - when prayers are offered for God’s blessing on the fruits of the earth, sea and on human labour; Ascension Day when Christ ascends into heaven;

June saw Pentecost - the birth date of the Christian Church; end of July saw Lammas - the feast of first fruits - marks the beginning of the harvest where loaves of bread and corn are taken to the church to be blessed. June offered a gorgeous day for

the beautiful wed-ding of Jade and Nick Chandler, whilst in July there

was a baptism of a lovely bouncing boy, Finnley Eli Nichols. St John’s Church now heads on into Harvest Festival Season at the end of September, with the Har-vest Lunch being on Sunday, 8 Oc-tober, when the speaker will be from the MacMillan Cancer Sup-port Charity. Tickets are now available from Sylvia Preston.

June saw the laying at rest of Vis-count Richard Long who died on 13 June. (He was the 4th Viscount Long). The service was held in St Mary’s

Church, Steeple Ashton, on 29 June and interment in the family crypt at St John’s, West Ashton. He was 88.

Viscount Richard Long

Cont.

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He came from a family with long associations, political and other-wise, with Wiltshire going back to the 16th century. (His ancestors built Rood Ashton Manor and both West Ashton Church and School). He had been brought up in Steeple Ashton; being one of four children (3 sons and one daughter), born to Eric and Gwendolyn. His elder brother Wal-ter, died in action in Greece making Richard the heir to the title. Richard was educated at Harrow School and between 1947 and 1949 did National Service in the 1st/2nd Battalions of the Wiltshire Yeoman-ry. He had strong connection with the British Legion. In March 1957 he married Margaret Frazer and had three children, Sarah, James and Charlotte. After his father’s death, in 1967, he inherited both the title and Steeple Ashton Manor. In May 1979 Richard was appointed Lord in Waiting to her Majesty the Queen. One occasion that gave him immense pleasure was in that role of greeting King Hussein of Jordan (whom he had been with at Harrow). He enjoyed the high

society life of London and was made a Freeman of London in 1991. In 1984, Rich-ard’s daughter, who was an actress, tragi-cally died aged 18 in a road acci-dent; soon after this sad event Mar-garet and Richard divorced. His second marriage to Catherine Miles-Ede also was dissolved. He met his present wife Helen in the House of Lords and married her in 1990. They lived in Herefordshire. He commuted to London to attend the House of Lords.

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It was then he noticed the grey and white splodges of chewing gum on the railway platform and pave-ments, this in turn led to his cam-paign of discouraging people de-positing their chewing gum on the ground. Although ridiculed by

some, he was ahead of his time in focusing on environmental issues. He was appointed a CBE in 1993. A legend in the House of Lords for his integrity and for his work in the Whips Office, plus his kindness to everyone. Richard and Helen

moved to Newquay and lived on a rock called The Island, on-ly accessible by a 100 ft long suspension bridge. It was report-ed that when Ann Widdecombe came to visit she would not walk across the suspension bridge and had to be entertained in a nearby hotel. In latter years, Richard and his wife moved from Newquay (2006) to Jedburgh in the Borders and spent many happy hours in his garden riding his sit on mower. Vis-count Long was a loved and popu-lar man, not only by his peers but by everyone who met him. Vis-count Long and his wife visited St John’s Church in July 1996, when the Church celebrated its 150th an-niversary. He planted a commemo-rative beech tree within the Church-yard. He always sent a yearly Christmas card to the Church and will be fondly remembered on his visit to West Ashton in 1996. Jean Robertson

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Apple and Courgette Loaf Serves 8 200gms butter 200gms caster sugar 2 eggs 150gms courgettes (about two small ones) 1 small apple 200gms plain flour 1/2 tsp baking powder Pinch ground cinnamon Pinch of salt 60gms pecans 80gms sultanas Preheat oven to 180c/gas 4. Butter and line the base of a loaf tin 20cm x12cm x9cm deep. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Lightly beat the eggs then gradually beat then little by little into the beaten mixture. Coarsely grate the apple and cour-gettes. Squeeze them with your hands to get rid of the excess mois-ture, then add to the mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and gently fold into the mixture. Chop the pecans and together with the sultanas stir into the mixture. Transfer into the prepared loaf tin and bake for about an hour until golden and firm to the touch. Allow to cool in the tin before turn-ing out.

Jo Walton

Recipe

By Margaret Workman

Barbecue Beachcombing Bees Butterflies Countryside Festivals Flowers Fresh/Air

Hikers Lawn/Mowers Moors Nature/Reserve Picnic Walks Wilderness Woodland/Trail

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Other Useful Numbers Contact Information

Builder Paul - New build, extensions, renovation specialist, alterations.

01225 753997/07799 563347 19 Bratton Road,

Butcher Free delivery to West Ashton customers

0117 986 3260 banablebutchers@gmail.com

Chimney Sweep I J Marshman 07831 684273

Foot Reflexologist Annie Ritchens 01225 752002 Mob 07967630429

Garage Services Briken Motors Garage….MOTs, servicing etc, 01225 755203

Good neighbour Co-ordinator Emma Curtis 07584 101092

trowridgegnc@communityfirst.org.uk

Judo Classes Age 8+ W. Ashton School 7.00-8:30pm Fridays.

Mike Healy 01373 822349 www.zenjudoclub.co.uk

Library The Mobile Library visits Orchard Close 3 to 3.30 pm

www.services.wiltshire.gov.uk/MobileLibrary/Library/Stop/57

Logs Logs for sale. Ben Pike 01380 870808

Milkman Michael Bullings Dairies 01225 776494

Newspapers Seend Post Office deliver 01380 828250

Parish Council Chairman: Mr Richard Covington Clerk: Nicola Duke

01225 761904 01373 864127

Police Concerns

David Bradley Neighbourhood Watch Scheme. Village Co-ordinator Alex Trombetta PC3925 Community Coordinator

01225 754100 Non-emergency No 101

Refuse Community skips in Canal Road, Trowbridge for larger items.

http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/ rubbish-collection-days

Seamstress & Soft Furnishings

Clare Humphries, curtains, dress-making and alterations

01225 767703 Mob 07929 122631

St. John's Church Services Sundays 10.30am. Rev Allan Coutts 01225 754826

West Ashton Boomer-angTaxi Service West Ashton to Trow-bridge.

Taxi service. Mon-Sat West Ashton to Trow-bridge. Price each way: adult £1.60; child 80p; children under 4 free. Bus passes can be used.

Morning pickup 9.30am, return 12 noon Or 2pm. Tel: 0800 371297 to book.

West Ashton C of E School Head Teacher 01225 754354

West Ashton Ladies Skittles Team Mrs. Sharon Shiles 01380 870196

West Ashton Oil Club Craig Nichols 01225 774476 Email: craigmnichols@hotmail.com

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What’s Coming Up

Social Dancing Most Sundays at 6pm Mr. Kevin Burge 07933 771205

Dance Class Tuesdays at 10am Dee Dee Wilde 01380 871608

Dog Training Thursday’s at 6.30 Ken Scott 07867 820497

Pilates Most Wednesday’s at 5pm Amie Hawkins 07738 449245

Tai Chi Monday’s at 10.30am Brian Wooding 01985 213474

Wives Group 19.30am 1st Wednesday

of the month Marlene Pike Sylvia Preston

01380 870272 01225 765858

WI Fourth Wednesday of the Month Eileen Eggleton 01225 769636

Yoga 2.15 gentle 6.15 intermediate Most Monday’s duration 1.5 hours

Angeline Nicholson 01380 830458

Regular Activities In The Village Hall

All Village Hall events are with a licenced bar and a raffle

Tickets From Sylvia Preston 01225 765858 or Jean Robertson 01225 760368

October

August

September

For more information on dates go to www.westshton.org.uk/hall

1 Harvest festival service in the Church at 10.30am

6 School Children’s Harvest festival service in the Church 9.30am

8 Harvest Lunch Village hall 12.30 for 1 - tickets £13

25 WI South Africa with slides with Mark Fitchett 7.30 V. Hall

6 Wives & Friends Club - Season’s first meeting - Paul Workman on Stubbs the painter - V. Hall - 7.30pm

9 Live last night of the Proms, Free family event, bring a picnic & flag 7.30 V. Hall

27 WI - Wiltshire Scrapstore - craft activity, Open to visitors. 7.30 V. Hall

November

11 Music Night “Folk Music” 7.30 V. Hall

22 WI Christmas workshop with Verity Scott 7.30 V. Hall

December

1 Christmas Concert in the Church 7.30

3 Christmas Christingle in the Church 4pm

17 Christmas Lunch tickets £12.50 Children £6 12.30 for 1 in the V. Hall

31 New Years Eve live music from ‘Us Two’, buffet, tickets £15 7.30 for 8 V. Hall