Serving the communities of Ditcheat, East Pennard and Pylle HELEN BUSHROD LOOSE COVERS, CURTAINS, CUSHIONS, etc. Made to your requirements FREE ESTIMATES Tel: 01749 860546 Travellers Rest Stone, East Pennard (on the A37) 01749 860069 Higher Farm, Sutton, Nr Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet, Somerset OPEN ALL DAY BA4 6QF from 12.00 noon Opening hours Mon-Sat: 7.30am to 6.30pm Traditional pub food Tea / Coffee For Sunday Roast Tool Hire Quiz Nights/Skittles/Pool/Darts & B & B en-suite rooms Repairs. Tel 01749 860199: Mobile www.travellersrest.org.uk 07771632221 How To Find Us Turn off the A371 Castle Cary to Shepton Mallet road, between Moff Motors and The Brook House Inn, and then take the first turning left to Sutton. Follow this road until you see our signs on the right, and then turn right. Hope to see you soon! 2 Letter from the editors This Month Hmmm… we clearly need to be careful what we wish for. 100 Club 19 I’m currently sitting in 28˚C, surrounded by a once lush Advertiser Index 58 garden now full of plants beginning to keel over. Alhampton News 5 Tomorrow’s forecast is 32˚C (nearly 90˚F in old money); Alhampton Railwy 6 it won’t only be the plants finding it hard to keep upright. Camelot U3A 31 Church Services 41 It’s so hot you can bake biscuits on your car dashboard and anything sitting in the back seat would suffer the Diary Dates 4 Ditcheat Art Group 20 same fate; it takesDates just twenty for your minutes Diary for temperatures Ditcheat Ch. Rota 54 inside a car to double. Ditcheat P.C. 47 Ditcheat School 14 So, if you need to chill out in the coming months, there’s D. Village Lunch 18 E.P. Church Rota 53 a willow workshop at Pylle on Aug 17th (p36); Happy Is there an event that should be listed here? Please let Dog Show 26 Landings has its Fun Day on Sept 11th (p26); the Baker Fun Run 12 [email protected] know otherwise it’s unlikely to Family is organising a Fun Run in Ditcheat on Sept 18th Garden Section 23 appear here. to raise funds for Child Bereavement UK (p12) and it’s Letter from Lily 13 Local History 25 the start of a round of Harvest Festival celebrations. Mothers' Union 15 Natural World 27 Puzzle Answers 55 And we hope you liked last month’s front cover (a local Puzzle Pages 43 photograph rather than Clip Art, for those not Pylle News 35 aesthetically sensitive.) It’s a style we plan to continue Rendezvous 15 and we would like to invite readers to send in photos that Thank You 32 Theatre Trips 50 have a link to the Benefice – portrait orientation, suitable for an A5 page and not so ‘busy’ that the cover text won’t be clear. You’ll get a credit on the inside page. We look forward to some interesting displays of local talent. The magazine will reappear with the October issue. Until then, the Team wishes you a wonderful two months. Margy Cockburn Tim Sanders www.fossetrinitynews.co.uk The Fosse Trinity News is a community magazine. It is financed by advertising and donations. It is delivered FREE to every household in Ditcheat, Alhampton, East Pennard and Pylle. We welcome any contribution from anyone in the community of any age! The editors reserve the right to edit. th Send copy by 15 of each month to [email protected] For enquiries about advertising in the magazine, please contact John 01749 860457 or email [email protected] Closing date 10th of each month Cover Picture: © Rose Hubbard 3 Dates for your Diary Note: Please check with the event organisers listed below Every Week whether these activities are affected by the Jubilee Hall being closed throughout August. Pilates (9.00) Diana 860224 Tai Chi for Health (10.30) Richard 880308 Mon Clubbercise Fitness (6.30) Kylie 07707 778948 Ditcheat Badminton Club (8.30) James 860355 Ditcheat and Pylle Singers (7.00) Di 07831 289945 Tue Art Group – Fortnightly (10.00) Liz & Stewart 860755 Ditcheat Badminton Club (2.00) James 860355 Wed Ditcheat Short Mat Bowls (7.00) Martin 860780 Ditcheat and Pylle Singers (7.00) Di 07831 289945 Thu Keep Fit (9.15) Diana 860224 Fri Pilates (9.15) Mo 07815 748518 August 2016 Fri 12th 8:00 Bat Walk Bridget 860240 Wed 17th 8:00* *=reserve date Wed 17th Pylle Willow Workshop Page 36 Wed 31st Pylle Ladies Page 35 September 2016 Tue 13th Rendezvous Diana 860224 Sun 18th Child Bereavement UK Fun Run Page 12 Fri 23rd Pylle Harvest Supper Page 35 Tue 27th Ditcheat Village Lunch Page 18 Fri 30th Camelot U3A Page 31 November 2016 Wed 16th 12:30 Ditcheat School Community Meal Richard 860329 Is there an event that should be listed here? Please let [email protected] know otherwise it’s unlikely to appear here. 4 Alhampton News. Weren’t we fortunate with the weather for the village party. For days beforehand forecasts of various types had been consulted with hopes swinging one way and another. In the end it was a dry, sunny day and when it got to the stage that it was almost too hot, the sky obliged by clouding over. I am glad I live in this kind of village. A casual conversation in the pub leads to an event like this with the chance to chat to all sorts of people that one often only sees in passing. Thanks are due to so many but, particularly, to Stephen and Jinny Wessel, for welcoming us to their lovely garden, and to Mark Curtis, who looked after the transport of tables. And also to all the people who helped set up and brought along such a feast to share. Everybody helped so no-one was left with too much to do. After a conversation the other day, Linda Stalley dug out her booklet of memories of Alhampton, produced in 2009, which records a conversation between three residents who had lived in Alhampton nearly all their lives. She used her legendary powers of persuasion with her former employers, Harris and Harris, Solicitors, and they kindly printed 75 more copies; they will be on sale for £1 in aid of Alhampton Chapel. We were also looking at her ‘millennium album’, when she photographed nearly all the residents of the village at their front doors, and commenting on the number of changes in the last 16 years. She had both of these at the party for people to buy/look at but I am sure, if you missed it and are interested, she would be glad to show you. Contact her on 860426. Further to the bird life reports in last month’s issue, we saw a spotted flycatcher at the pub the other day. It obviously had a nest in the creeper at the front of the pub. I don’t remember seeing one so clearly for years. Alhamptonians meet, as always, on the first Thursday of each month. Someone is always at the pub from about 8.15 but feel free to come as early or late as you like and stay for as long or short a time. I understand we have new management at the pub – welcome to the village and best wishes from all of us. We are lucky to have a pub so support it if you can. The History of the Alhampton Miniature Railway Back in the mid-1960s, when studying in London, my daily walk took me past a small shop, just off Sloane Square, that fascinated me. This was no ordinary shop; the window display and everything glimpsed beyond comprised a collection of miniature steam locomotives of every type and scale, together with related bits and pieces such as valves, tools and trucks to ride on. No cake shop in the world could have seemed so beguiling to an impoverished young lad of mechanical bent uninspired by his very dull degree course. One day I plucked 5 up the courage to go in. The genial owner, no doubt recognising the type, steered me past the enormous Royal Scott (all 10 feet of it) to an engine he said I could build in a small workshop. Once running, he told me, this little machine would pull me and several others along a track and give years of pleasure. I bought the drawings and a set of heavy pieces of cast iron for the wheels and cylinder blocks, copper sheet for the boiler and numerous screws. Some years later it was finished, proving to my parents that the childhood struggles with Meccano had not been in vain. Locomotives in those days didn’t come as kits, you had to build everything from scratch. At this time I had little interest in railways so the engine sat in a box being put out on display just occasionally. Eventually it was spotted by a friend and his passion for railways opened my eyes to possibilities now that I had a small garden in Herefordshire. Sadly his enthusiasm didn’t extend to hard work with a shovel but, somehow, a little railway was built, together with a couple of small waggons and the engine, and the shop owner’s prediction came true. The move to Alhampton in 1994 meant the railway would have to be rebuilt and I had already started construction of a much larger steam locomotive of my own design having little idea of where it could be run, if at all.