No. 59 Cheers to Local Brews! Welbury’s Own Copenhagen Stout and Upcoming Events

Quiz of the month …

Who from Welbury (resident here at the time) went away to fight in the second World War, and how many? Of course many served by working on the land and railway, so few went away to fight. Our oldest resident Alan Hollis fought at El Alamein and elsewhere in WWII but he was then resident in Brompton.

Answers from last month (as far as we know; tell us if you know better).

Where? The meadow cranesbill (Geranium Pratense) was on the roadside going towards Tilesheds Farm. More small patches were on the Deighton road and on the Roman road from Appleton to Deighton. They seem to be vanishing here due to excess verge cutting at the wrong time, but they thrive at Ellerbeck.

Superslug at Garden House 06-08-2014

Have you ever seen the like? Compared with 28 mm
diameter 2p piece, this is some 127 mm long even as it shrinks up while disturbed. It was well over 130 mm (5.2 inches) when moving along.

Show: Sarah Smith writes: Many thanks to all who entered, helped and came to the Village Show. The entries looked wonderful this year and particular thanks to all the children and of course their parents for their hard work, the children’s classes were excellent. The Show raised £170 which has been split between the Village Hall, the Church and the WI.
… AND THANKS to you, Sarah, doing a great job as Show Secretary.

Deighton Lane: the County has approved resurfacing three sections of Deighton Lane in its provisional work programme for the current financial year.

Weather from Rod:

Although we had the wettest day of the year on July 5th with almost 17 mm of rain, we also had the hottest day of 2014 on July 26th with a maximum of nearly 32 °C. This seemed rather unusual until I looked at last July’s weather which showed exactly the same trend – the wettest and hottest days of the year to date, both in July. In 2013 though, it was more extreme with a huge amount of rain on one day (45 mm) and a high of 33 °C on another day. So, tropical Julys are becoming the norm!

In the first week of August, the warm wet theme has continued with another very soggy day on the 2nd (16.5 mm of rain) and a high of 27 °C on the 5th.

Late summer lilies at Garden House 09-07-2014

Silver Bay
by
JoJo Moyes

I make no apologies for reviewing another book by this author. She is a brilliant writer and her books are a pleasure to read. This is yet another poignant and romantic tale which leaves the reader feeling emotional, moved and yet completely fulfilled

It is difficult to review the book without giving too much away. It concerns Liza McCullen who is
seeking to escape her past but is never going to succeed in doing so.

A glass patio table is all very well except when the central plastic sleeve weathers and breaks. It’s not easy to find a replacement, which is needed to protect the glass from the pole carrying a sunshade.

After failing with bits of scrap plastic tube, lids or discs, here an old piece of pane edging strip did the trick, cut to size and bent into the small circle, with a dab of Vaseline to help it on.

Yes, it’s Tom Jones lookalike Tom Morgan beside the Roll of Honour in St Leonard’s.

Tom is one of the historians looking at cases for Doubly Thankful Villages who had no-one killed in action in either world war.

One soldier on the Roll was killed. He was John William Stead who was a passenger clerk at Welbury but whose home was at Bedale, as far as we can tell.

Welbury had just missed Phase 1, which has seen fibre optic links to East Harlsey band West Rounton this year. However we are in line for Phase 2 to be installed in 2015 subject to confirmation in
October this year. Phase 2 will be mainly fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC),

Fred and Hannah were married in St
Leonard’s Church, Loftus, on 20 June 1896. Fred, a gamekeeper, was one of 9 brothers and 1 sister born at Botton Grove Farm, Danby. Hannah was his first cousin and was born in India in 1868 where her father worked
as an engineer, presumably for the railways. I believe her mother (also Hannah) must have died in childbirth or soon after, as from the 1871 census Hannah and her sister, Annie
Frank, two years her senior, were living back in Castleton with their maternal grandparents, John and Mary Robinson. I also discovered on
this visit that Hannah had been baptised in Danby Church as early as June 26th 1869.

As was a gamekeeper’s life, Fred and Hannah seemed to move around a lot in their early married years. Their eldest daughter Mary, my grandmother, was born at Holywell Farm, Loftus, in 1897, Dorothy two years later at a cottage on the Normanby Hall estate near Middlesbrough and Lily the youngest in 1902 at Scrawby in Lincolnshire. With a young family Fred probably thought it time to settle down and so they went to live at Kilton, near
Brotton, in fact Kilton Castle Cottages. I was absolutely thrilled to discover on my visit that the cottages have hardly changed since a
photo I have was taken when Fred and Hannah lived there between 1912 and 1921.

Sadly Lily contracted TB and died aged only 18 whilst they were at Kilton and so they came to Glebe Farm which had been bought for
them by Fred’s brother Harry who farmed at Picton House Farm, Picton. My father, Denis Wall, spent many happy holidays on the farms
in Picton and Welbury in the early 1930s and made friends with George Gaines. In 1936 tragedy again hit Fred and Hannah when Dorothy died aged 36 years after suffering with rheumatoid arthritis. From the burial records I discovered she is indeed lying at rest in Welbury churchyard but with no stone to mark her grave.

Shortly after this Fred and Hannah moved again, this time to live by the sea at Redcar for their retirement until sadly Hannah developed dementia. As their only surviving daughter Mary was living in Totteridge, Herts, the decision was made that they should move south to be looked after by Mary and her
husband. I can’t help feeling how they must have hated this, to be so far from their native Yorkshire.

Robinsons at Glebe Farm family print c. 1930s

Once Hannah’s condition worsened she was admitted to Napsbury Hospital, an asylum in St Albans where she spent the last period of
her life until she died on 3 July 1951 aged 84. Fred continued to live with Mary and died peacefully in 1959 aged 89. Happily Fred and Hannah are both buried together in the very
peaceful setting of Totteridge Churchyard but again in an unmarked grave.
I hope you will agree with me that it is quite a touching story of a little girl more or less orphaned at birth returning by ship from India
to be brought up by grandparents, losing two of her three daughters at very young ages and ending her life in a mental asylum far from home.

Penny Marrone

The picture on the right has an interesting history. It shows young Denis Wall on the right and his sister Lily on the left. Decades later George Gaines had kept a copy in his wallet until it broke in two. He mentioned it in a letter to Denis Wall in 1988 when they were planning to meet up, and

The picture on the left also shows Lily and Denis Wall (left and right) and again the one in the centre remains a mystery, possibly a cousin from the Robinsons at Picton. The Moores confirm the location. Liz says “The actual water trough is still here and used for flowers and bulbs.

and Winners …
R: Val Barker far right with the Welbury Challenge Cup for the most points in all garden produce categories
Below: Tina Race with her trophies
Below right: Cath Goode gives a quick pose to camera! There were of course many other winners.
See the short note on page 2.