FULMER NEWSLETTER December 2014 – Issue 56 www.fulmervillage.org LIST OF ADVERTISERS Bucks Prestige Cars, Mark Roberts 07436 548784 Brunel Gallery 01753 662323 Chiropody, Adriana Rozek 01753 652754 Dog Walking Service 07922 577699 Hamptons Estate Agents, Gerrards Cross 01753 886464 Helping hands – Care Service 0808 1801021 Hibiscus beauty salon, Wexham 01753 664166 Plumbing/electrics, Tom Kehoe 01494 580518/07716 440916 South Bucks Physio, Wexham 01753 664114 Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens 01753 523744 We are very grateful to our advertisers, many of whom have been supporting the Newsletter for a number of years. Please remember to tell any of the advertisers that you have seen their advert here. The advertising income with a contribution from the Parish Council helps us fund the Newsletter and secure its future. If anyone would like to advertise in a future issue, please contact Susie Simkins on 662537 or by email to susiemsimkins@gmail. From Dominic Grieve QC MP As I write this piece, the rain is falling outside and the long-range weather forecast predicts a wet winter. I hope it may be mistaken as my trips round the constituency show me that ground and river water levels remain high after last winter’s offering. Fortunately much of Fulmer being an old settlement was wisely placed in dry locations, something which modern development often ignores. Firm foundations both terrestrial and moral are a good place to withstand the vicissitudes which daily life throws up for us. I am conscious that the year has been not without its challenges. The prospect of the start of development at Pinewood is a source of anxiety and we must strive to ensure that the process and the end result preserve Fulmer’s charms. The maintenance of a cohesive community in a world of change is another. And for me personally as much as for the electorate, a looming election year will see hopes and fears for the future debated and expressed as political parties set out their stalls and those we strive to serve have an important opportunity to tell us what they think. But before we reach that I that this Christmas will see the village able to share together in the seasonal rejoicing at the possibility, despite our imperfections, of redemption through our Saviour’s birth, a Christian festival accessible to all of goodwill. I wish all Fulmer residents a very happy Christmas and New Year. FIFTY YEARS A FULMERITE By coincidence the 50th Anniversary of my family moving into Fulmer was on the 24 June, two days before my 90th birthday. We had bought Huyton Fold (the name of my boyhood home in Lancashire), the year before and as our family was growing, we converted the three bedroom house into five. The original had been built seven years earlier and stood in three acres of grassland, looking rather isolated. The reason for the three acres derived from the fact that Harold Colebrook, who lived at Fulmer Hall and who had done so much to modernise Fulmer Village in the ‘30’s, was alarmed that, before the Town & Country Planning Act and before the advent of the Green Belt, there was no protection against development and he, therefore, persuaded the families who owned the land to agree that no new properties would be built unless they stood in a minimum of 3 acres. The previous owner had not been interested in creating a garden and so we were faced with establishing a lawn by levelling out a steep bank; starting flower beds and a fruit and vegetable garden and planting trees, hedges and shrubs. It took many years but enabled Elizabeth and I to claim it as ‘All our own work’. Early on we set about discovering Fulmer and the community in which we had come to live. I describe this in the following article. When I was co-authoring (with Ken Peters), ‘Fulmer’s Fallen’, the stories of the 19 sons of Fulmer who lost their lives in two World Wars, I reconstructed what life in Fulmer would have been like for those who left it for the battlefronts in World War I (Fulmer’s Fallen has just been reprinted and is currently available). By the standards of today, conditions bordered on the primitive and life was hard. Fulmer was very much a rural community and travelling any distance was unusual and those who lived here were very interdependent. But there was a very identifiable community spirit, which must have established some of the traditions we enjoy today. How Fulmer life has developed in the intervening century has been well chronicled in Michael Saxby’s Histories of Fulmer, Pauline Hedley’s History of Fulmer Church; the pages of the Fulmer Newsletter; the dramatic presentations of Fulmer life devised by Ken Peters and produced by Merry Rushton, Fiona Gray and Diana Mann and so many items in the County Archives in Aylesbury, the comprehensive form it now takes being the fruits of the work carried out by the Archiving team which operated in Fulmer between 2005-2010. On two occasions at meetings convened in the Village Hall, residents have been asked whether Fulmer should remain an active and vibrant community or serve as a dormitory village and traffic thoroughfare and on each occasion there has been a resounding ‘Yes’ vote for it to remain so, accepting that this entails the need for residents to give active support to the various organisations which are part of our community life together. And our community life in a small parish remains rich. With Fulmer Day; the activities initiated through the Black Horse and the Church; the Infant and the Nursery Schools; the Village Hall; the Annual President’s cricket match and the robustness of the Youth Football, enhanced by the new Pavilion at the Recreation Ground; the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme; winning this year the Sword of Excellence in the County’s Best Kept Village Competition; the recent introduction of the Civic Awards; our association with the Riding for the Disabled Centre on Framewood Road and the Teikyo School; the Family Activity Day; the Christmas and Harvest Suppers with the drama productions while not forgetting those anonymous people who do so much for the elderly people living in our midst, all this is the constant evidence of a community that is breathing and breathing well. It is all part of the Fulmer Torch - may it burn brightly for many years to come. It is not the province of an Introduction to be quite so personal but perhaps I can claim for this to be exceptional. Since founding the Fulmer Newsletter in 1986, I have written the Introduction and compiled the Personalia pages, which have included tributes to those who are sadly no longer with us. Ronnie and Susie Simkins have agreed to take over the latter. At the end of June, we not only celebrated our 50 years in Fulmer but also, at my 90th birthday party, we launched my autobiography, ‘A Brewer’s Tale’ which covers not only my family life and career in the brewing industry but also so much of my involvement in Fulmer community life. I feel this is the moment to lay down my pen with regard to the Introduction with grateful thanks to all those who have supported me in an eventful period of Fulmer life. EDWARD GUINNESS BEST KEPT VILLAGE - Hurrah—we won the Best Kept Village Competition again this year. The judges gave us a score of 95 out of a possible 100. Several areas got maximum marks, and no area got less than 9 out of 10. The areas which got 9 out of 10 were: hedges and ditches, the Village Hall, the Playing Fields, ancillary features and overall appearance. Amongst the judges’ comments were: Obvious pride taken in the village………no litter.….neat hedges….fresh paint….informative Notice Board…..very attractive pub. Following refreshments in the Black Horse, Countess Howe, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant, presented the Gurney Cup to Richard Marshall and the Sword of Excellence to myself. The Judging Party included Richard Pushman, the Competition Chairman, and Ruth Powell, the Competition Administrator. Fulmer has won the Best Kept Village more than any other village in our category and hopefully with the efforts of the Volunteers, householders and The Black Horse we can keep up an excellent appearance and succeed in the Competition again next year. RONNIE LAMB FIFTY YEARS IN FULMER – THE EARLY YEARS Huyton Fold was situated in Windmill Road next door to the Old Rectory from which in 1964 the Rev. Rex Lloyd was retiring as Rector of Fulmer; he was succeeded by Rev. Bill Taylor. He and his family moved there shortly after we had come to Fulmer and on their first evening I went down to see if they required any help. Sitting on a sofa – about the only piece of furniture to have arrived – were the three sisters, Margaret, Valerie and Mary. Valerie was training as a physiotherapist and when qualified she went to East Pakistan, as it then was, and out of a population of 77 million she and one other were the only trained physiotherapists. Valerie was later to found the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in Dhaka, in what had become, Bangladesh. People in Fulmer were very active in supporting her work and the Friends’ of the Centre was founded with John Morrell, who had come to live at the Old Rectory, as its Chairman and myself as Vice Chairman. The Friends received tremendous support through the country and were able to send tens of thousands of pounds annually to establish the charity in its early stages.