For all enquiries (including burial enquiries) please contact us on: Telephone: 01691 886502 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.selattyn-gobowenpc.org.uk Parish Clerk: Jan Morgan-Birtles Cemetery and Facilities Officer: Charlotte Parry If you would like to advertise in the next edition of the Parish Roundabout please send your information to the Parish Clerk (contact details above) with a cheque made payable to ‘Selattyn and Gobowen Parish Council’ by 14th August 2019. We accept written details, Word documents or jpeg format. It costs £50+VAT for an eighth of a page, £100+VAT for half a page and £200 +VAT for a full page per year. The Selattyn & Gobowen Parish Roundabout is published 4 times a year and distributed to over 1800 homes in the area. We always welcome contributions from people living in the parish or if you would like to have a photograph or piece of artwork on the cover, please get in touch with the Parish Clerk (see contact details above). The deadline for the next issue (Autumn) 14th August2019. All articles and advertisements are published in good faith. Selattyn & Gobowen Parish Council cannot check all details in the articles and any views expressed may not necessarily reflect those of the council. Neither can we be held responsible for the actions of any advertisers now or in the future. Parish Council meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month except August when there is no meeting. Details of agendas and minutes of previous meetings can be viewed on the Council’s website www.selattyn-gobowenpc.org.uk. Current agendas are also posted on the parish notice boards in Selattyn bus shelter, outside the Library on St Martins Road, outside the Co-op in Gobowen, in Pant Glas and, outside The Last Inn in Hengoed. Please respect your amenities Dogs should be kept on leashes when on the Playing Fields. Please always clean up after your dog. Photographers—would you like to see your photo of the area on the front cover? Send them to: [email protected] and the best will be used. Please note: Portrait is better than landscape! Supported by Cover image: Old Oswestry Race Course 2 Gobowen Youth Cafe Community Hot Meals The meals service continues with deliveries The youth café meet on a Monday evening on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday each from 5.00 p.m. – 6.30 p.m. at Gobowen week—this includes bank holidays, Christmas Pavilion and playing fields. and New Year where appropriate. The session is free of charge to attend with a café offering hot and cold food and drinks. The high standard of food from the Items range from, toasties, pot noodles, orthopaedic hospital is much appreciated by sandwiches, cans of pop, biscuits, ice cream our clients. The hospital has recently and waffles and much more. supplied extra chilled meals for a housebound resident, enabling a meal to be Whilst at youth café, youngsters are offered a provided 5 days each week. wide range of activities, football, dodgeball, On our recommendation, the hospital is now kan jam, field games, pool, table tennis, table supplying meals to a day centre in Oswestry hockey, consoles, board games and music. one day each week. The sessions are tailored specifically for There are currently 20 volunteers, who cover young people aged 10 – 16 years old. a maximum of 5 week months. Some take on Refreshments, activities and a range of sports two duties per month but most teams of two do one duty each month. will be on offer for young people aged 10-16 At the time of this report, we deliver to five years. addresses in Gobowen, Babbinswood and For more information please contact Wayne Meadowbrook Court bungalows. Age and Greenshields, email: illness has reduced our client list but we are [email protected] satisfied that those who have moved to nursing homes are receiving the extra care Holiday Activities 2019 they need and deserve. Monday 22nd July Monday 29th July Kath Griffiths—Volunteer Co-ordinator Monday 5th August Monday 12th August Monday 19th August Note from the Clerk: Monday 26th August - Bank Holiday I have received, on behalf of the service, on Gobowen Playing Fields 11-2pm. For any several heartfelt thanks from clients’ relatives unforeseen changes—please regularly check for the service and the care given by the our website and Facebook page volunteers. This service would not run www.tnsfc.co.uk/foundation or email: without our volunteers and the Parish Council [email protected] is most grateful to them. Indoor facilities will be arranged in the event of bad weather and all sessions with the Charge for a meal remains at £4/meal (inc. exception of Youth Clubs will include a free VAT). healthy lunch. 3 Oswestry Heritage Gateway on the and fantastically well-informed, he Old Oswestry Hillfort WW1 ‘Battle’s provided a rousing and poignant commentary to the occasion. He Over’ Beacon Event Light up ‘100’ on seamlessly linked together activities taking the southern rampart of the hillfort place some 800 metres apart on the hillfort On a fine and clear night last November, and playing field, despite the odd hitch! over 600 people watched as a beacon was The Hillfort Choir, led by Oswestry town lit on Old Oswestry hillfort to mark the councillor Mike Coppock, set a wonderfully th 100 centenary of the World War 1 nostalgic tone to the occasion with a Armistice. tender and beautiful rendition of the WW1 Organised by Oswestry Heritage Gateway, song ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. the event concluded a poignant day of Dave Andrews, reader and poet in Battle’s Over commemorations, which took residence at Oswestry Library, then read place across the UK on 11 November 2018. Wilfred Owen’s most famous war poem Residents from the parish, Oswestry town ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and his last and nearby villages assembled on Gatacre letter home before his untimely death just recreation field in the shadow of the 3,000 days before the Armistice. year old monument for a special The Hillfort Choir underlined the now programme of songs, poetry and reflective mood with a moving rendition of ‘Remembrance Glow’ for our WW1 fallen. ‘Abide with Me’. The 12-strong ensemble The hillfort group would like to thank was made up of members from various Selattyn & Gobowen Parish Council for its local choirs, accompanied on guitar by heartfelt and generous support in the form Barry Edwards, also an Oswestry town of a £200 grant towards the event. The councillor, and musician Gary Foote on success of the evening also benefited from double bass. the participation of the Council’s hillfort A second reading by Dave Andrews representative, Mike McKenna, who kindly engaged the audience with the warmth served on the steering group and also and honesty expressed in a letter home helped with the event set-up and from the Western Front by 13525 Private stewarding on the night. Frank J Jones. A series of his letters during We would also like to thank Neil Symon of WW1 service have been donated to the the Hengoed Community Group for parish memorial project with the providing information from the parish permission of the family. memorials research project to include in James Bond then gave glimpses into the the programme. lives of some of the fallen soldiers James Bond of BBC Radio Shropshire researched in QUBE’s Men on the Gates hosted the programme of events from WW1 memorial project. 6.30pm to 7.15pm. Ever the professional Activities then adopted a more ceremonial 4 tone, on the playing field, local remembrance of the end of the war and schoolchildren sounded WW1 military the many that lost their lives or were whistles loaned from Oswestry Town wounded, as well as the efforts of the Museum, while members of 1165 Oswestry many men and women on the home front. Air Cadets replied using their whistles on I am sure that seeing the local beacon the hillfort. Whistle-blowing on the shining bright in the setting of Old frontline signalled the command to ‘go over Oswestry, one of our own local the top’ during WW1. connections to the Great War, will create a poignant and special atmosphere for all At 6.55pm, the haunting sound of the Last those in and around the area.” Post pierced the night air played by bugler Kath Gavan of Porthywaen Silver Band. As The evening was well received by those she played, the 1165 Oswestry Air Cadets who came, with many sharing wonderful performed a banner display on Gatacre. comments and reviews on social media. A minute’s silence was observed as the Old Oswestry has poignant connections beacon safety team prepared to light the with the Great War. A system of practice beacon at 7pm in unison with cities, towns trenches dug into the top of the and villages around the country. Cath earthwork, which survive intact today Gavan played the Reveille and the cadets though buried, were used to prepare illuminated ‘100’ on the ramparts while troops from the nearby Park Hall military their counterparts completed their banner camp for action on the Western Front. display on the playing field. Wilfred Owen was stationed at Park Hall in October 1916 around the time he At 7.05pm, bell-ringers at St Oswald’s wrote the poem ‘Storm’. It would be his Parish Church joined in a national chorus of final return to his place of birth before bells - ‘Ringing out for Peace’. On the being killed in battle in November 1918.