Newsletter December 2012
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Friends of roundhay park PRESIDENT: MARJORIE ZIFF MBE CHAIRPERSON: JULIA WILSON Friends of Roundhay Park, PO Box 129, Leeds LS8 1WY website: www.forp.co.uk Email: [email protected] Emails to the Editors: [email protected] Newsletter December 2012 PhotographãHelen Harper In the autumn of 1913 the Oakwood about the state of the clock and the amount of Clock was installed in its current money needed for its refurbishment. Lots of location at the edge of Roundhay discussion has taken place and it is clear that action to Park. save the clock is paramount. Members will therefore be pleased to know that the Oakwood Traders and Will we be celebrating its Residents’ Association, with FoRP support will be Centenary next year in some style? working to ensure the preservation of the clock. It will however be a major task finding the money to It is certainly valued as a local save the clock and everyone’s support will be needed. landmark and as a shelter and meeting place by young and old alike. In the meantime let us enjoy on page 3 some of the Oakwood would not be the same history of the clock kindly provided by fellow FoRP without the clock but members will be member Helen Hodgart. aware there are growing concerns NewsletterTHANK YOUDecember ALAN JACKSON – You will2012 always be remembered When Alan contacted all his many clubs and societies in late August to tell them of his diagnosis with a rare thyroid cancer, nobody expected that by mid November he would be gone. Alan’s selfless contributions to FoRP and to the Roundhay community have been immense. We will all miss him, and our thoughts are with Michèle and all his family. Most of you will know him as editor of this newsletter – a role he and Michèle performed with great enthusiasm, humour and creativity for the last 6 years. Alan was one of the earliest FoRP members, and pictures of early working parties show him helping to create the Friends Garden. He was a regular at working parties until the last few weeks of his life, and was also active in the working parties planning group. His many other contributions to FoRP included helping to produce and sell our greetings cards and calendars, organising and selling our Val Bell prints, involvement in new membership drives, manning stalls at Oakwood Farmers Market and at Roundhay Live. He was a brilliant salesman and spokesman for FoRP. At the October Oakwood Farmers Market his personal sales accounted for 35 out of the 94 calendars sold on the day! Many FoRP members joined as a result of encountering Alan (including our chairperson!)! He chose the Mansion as the venue for his funeral. There could be no more fitting and lovely place to celebrate the life of a man who cared so much about the park and gave so much to it. Alan in 20’s style New Year 2010 Thank you Alan. All condolences from FoRP members will be passed onto Alan’s family Opinions expressed in the Newsletter are not to be taken as official FoRP policy 1 Editorial and messages Friends of Roundhay Park Julia wilson Calendar 2013 Excellent Christmas I would like to say a big thank you to presents Peter and Carol for accepting the challenge of stepping into Alan and There are still some copies of the 2013 Michèle’s shoes as editors of our calendar available if you have not yet bought December newsletter and to Tony one. Priced at £7.99, they are available from Quinn for taking on the role of Visitors Centre, Tropical World, City webmaster. I am sure we have got ● Top Tennis in Roundhay Stationers at Oakwood, With Love (also of Park many exciting developments to look Oakwood), also Headrow Galleries. They can forward to in the coming months in ● A Wolf In The Park? also be purchased online or by emailing both of these areas. [email protected]. The calendars are delivered ● Interesting Celebrations - free of charge within LS7, LS8, LS16 and Oakwood Clock FoRP is going from strength to LS17. Outside these areas, add £1.25 for one ● Treasure Hunt! strength as we increase our calendar, £1.50 for two or three calendars and membership base, but we still need £2.00 for four calendars to cover postage and ● Bonfire Night at Roundhay more people to step forward to take Park packing. (Any numbers above this, please active roles. contact David Binns on 0113-293-2893). ● Working Party Groups, and other reports While we always need people who are happy to get their hands dirty and to clear, plant and dig with our We welcome your articles of working parties, we also need people up to 800 words who are happier to keep their hands accompanied with photographs wherever clean! If, for example, you fancy possible. Copy due date for being part of the team planning our the next publication 20th calendars for 2014 and beyond or if March 2013. you would like to be part of a rota of We also welcome your bite people giving out membership sized items. Please send both leaflets when we have our working to [email protected] parties, we would love to hear from you. The autumn colours in the park have PHOTO COMPETITION been spectacular this year (perhaps a result of all the rain) but I think the We are currently running a photo competition spring is going to be even more to find images for the 2014 calendar. This beautiful as a result of our bulb and seems a very long way off at the moment, but, spring flower planting in 2012. But to meet printing deadlines, the competition will first we have Christmas to look close on the 30th April 2013. forward to! From the competition entries, 12 images will be selected by an independent panel of judges Wishing you a wonderful Christmas to make up the calendar. The photographer and New Year. will be credited in the title and will receive a free copy of the calendar. Julia Wilson December 2012. There are two categories for entrants – 16 and under, 17 and over. Hopefully you will fit into one of these groups. Full competition details can be found on the entry forms, which are available from Tropical World and the Visitor Centre, by contacting FoRP by email ([email protected]) or by telephoning David Binns on 0113-293-2893. 2 The Oakwood Clock - A Celebration in 1913 Oakwood Clock has a rich and fascinating history. The North Leeds News reported on events in 1913: OAKWOOD CLOCK AND SHELTER ‘The erection of the clock and shelter at Oakwood has been a lengthy process, but within a few days the public will have access to this new convenience. There will be no formal opening ceremony – the shelter will simply be thrown open to the public at the ceremony’. On the 21st of November 1913, it was able to report: THE NEW SHELTER AND By kind permission of Leeds Library and Information Services CLOCK: INTERESTING CELEBRATION. ‘A number of old Oakwood residents, including Do you know your birds? Where it used to be! several prominent tradesmen, who used to foregather in their leisure moments on the One of our members, Poet Marmalade - in Leeds Market benches near the tram circle, and whose (pen-name) writes: headquarters are now the Oakwood shelter, ‘Observing or feeding the wild-life, I am have recently celebrated the opening of the latter often asked, or overhear conversations by by a successful dinner. The gathering took place people who are unsure what kind of ‘duck’ at Miss Barber’s cafe Oakwood Parade, and their children are looking at. In this corner dinner was laid for fifteen. Those present were I hope to identify regularly some of the Messrs. S. Musgrave, W. Wood, E. Firth, more common birds you see in the park,. W. B. Kirk, J. W. Pickard, J. Wilcock, E. starting with the Aylesbury Duck. There Chapman, T. I. Preston, R. Barber, J.Nunns, are two larger white W. Kirkby, J. W. Hopkin, Calam and ducks with yellow bills Griffin. Mr. Guardian Wigglesworth was and orange feet on the present by invitation. An excellent repast was Upper Lake. They served, to which the goose and plum pudding always swim together imparted quite a Christmas flavour. An and appear devoted to informal discussion took place on the subject of each other. I am pretty the Shelter, and warm appreciation was confident that they are expressed of the new structure. Amongst the Aylesbury Ducks. This pair is somewhat suggestions made, which it is hoped will be unusual in that Aylesbury Ducks are considered in the proper quarter, were the domesticated ducks, farmed mainly for asphalting of the area round the shelter, and their white feathers. If you are wealthy the removal of the tram stage nearer to the enough to sleep on a feather pillow, shelter. It was also suggested that the chances are it is filled with the feathers of Tramways Committee might allow the these delightful creatures. Wherever they linesman to sweep out the shelter every came from, they obviously prefer the morning. An interesting feature of the freedom of the park to being number 32 gathering was the fact that eight of the company on a Chinese takeaway menu’. averaged 72 years of age’. By kind permission of Leeds Library and Information Services 3 One of our members, Martin Banham obtained this postcard from an Past postcards antiques market in the early 1970s. Dated 23 December 1909, and posted from Holbeck to an address in Alverthorpe, Wakefield the writer says: ‘ Looking forward to seeing you both on Xmas day; don’t forget the trams etc.