No. 61 Indian Summer Bliss: Celebrating Autumn's Warmth Under the Jubilee Oak

Indian summer evening Jubilee Oak after a mild and dry September 30-09-2014

Coming up …

More details in church gazette and separate wel-e-bulletins

Tue 14 Oct NH Windfarm Action Group meeting, 8 pm Appleton Village Hall

Thu 16 Oct WI 7.30 Village Hall

Sat 18 Oct Churchyard tidy day

Sat 25 Oct Church cleaning day

Sat 01 Nov East Harlsey Safari Supper

Fri 7 Nov Welbury bonfire, light up 6.30, fireworks from 7 pm at Lyndale

Sat 8 Nov Appleton bonfire, light up 5.30, fireworks from 5.45 pm at Rec’n Ground

Fri 28 Nov Christmas Fair, joint event at East Rounton Village Hall

Sun 30 Nov Children’s Christmas part

John Naylor …

John passed away peacefully at the Friarage Hospital on 5 September 2014 aged 87 after a long illness. He came to Bramley Cottage in 1977 with his wife Anne, who died in 1998, and sons Michael and Andrew, who remain at Bramley Cottage. A contingent from Welbury attended the burial on 12 September at St Botolph’s Church, Carlton in Cleveland, in a double grave with his wife.

Phil McDonnell …

Phil passed away peacefully at home on Wednesday evening 1st October 2014 after a long battle with cancer. The funeral will be on Friday 17th October starting at Teesside Crematorium in Acklam, Middlesbrough at 11.55 am, followed by a short blessing in St. Leonard’s church Welbury at 1.30 pm. Family flowers only, donations if wished may be given after the service to benefit Macmillan Cancer Support.

Quiz of the month …

Roman Road? Can you name Welbury’s Roman road? That’s not just the stretch called Blind Lane between Deighton and Appleton, but the Roman road as a whole?

Answers from last month (as far as we know; tell us if you know better).
Why Copenhagen? The fine stout brewed at the Duke of Wellington is named after his war horse which he most famously rode at the Battle of Waterloo.

Snippets …

See bulletins and church gazette for more

Above: Summer swallows in the garage at Rosedene

Picture from Norma Hutchcraft 2014

Below: tarmac machine by Alan Hollis’s 10-10-2014

Weather from Rod:

After a couple of very wet of months,
September was unbelievably dry, with just 15 mm of rain, the driest month since April 2013 (10 mm of rain). It couldn’t have been more different from last September, which was the wettest month of 2013 (74 mm of rain). It was also warmer than last September with an average monthly temperature around 1 degree higher at 14.3 °C. The maximum daytime temperature was over 26 °C on the 4th and the coldest night dropped to 5.6 °C, unseasonably high for September: August’s minimum was less than 5 °C.

To date, October has been much wetter, with 29 mm of rain up until the 14th, most of this falling on the 6th (16.5 mm). It’s also been cooler, with the lowest night temperature of the autumn on the 2nd (2.4 °C).

Road repairs: several patches of Appleton road were laid with tarmac in a single day on 10 Oct. How long will the edges of the full width surface last (without foundations) when tractors and cars pass? (pic opposite)

History club: Deighton local history club was well supported on Thursday 9th Oct. A wealth of local archaeology will be explored next summer. Contact Dave Coulthard.

Book of the year …

The One Plus One
By
Jojo Moyes

As regular readers will know, Jojo Moyes is a favourite author of mine and I was eager to read this, her latest novel. And, yet again, I have not been disappointed. This book is poignant and totally compelling – I couldn’t put it down!

Our heroine is Jess Thomas who is a single mother, juggling two jobs and two children, one
of whom is her stepson. Things are rather chaotic for her, to say the least, as she strives to do
her best, finding life’s ups and downs hard to cope with on her own.

Jess has a gifted daughter and her stepson is the victim of school bullies. How can Jess help them to lead happy lives and achieve their potential? Enter Ed Nicholls – a man whose own life is in disarray! He does, however, want to help.

So, two lost souls meet in unpromising circumstances. This is the type of scenario which brings out the best in Jojo Moyes. This is a great book, a wonderfully romantic read and a satisfying story. I urge you to read this delightful tale of two people’s worlds colliding – but, as always, keep the tissues handy!!

Sarah Hoiles

WI Monthly Report (September)

From Dervor Hanson

The original speaker cancelled, the hall was locked when we arrived, the projector refused to work, the Secretary was on holiday, the President left early, but we still had a really interesting and enjoyable evening. Guy Hinton shared with us his experience of spending six weeks walking along the Via Franigena, a pilgrim way running through Northern Italy and Tuscany to Rome. On the way he met with many other pilgrims of other nationalities and stayed in the traditional accommodation provided in monasteries and hostels all along the route. The competition was for an unusual bottle. Next months’ speaker will be Alison Scurrah with a card making workshop. The competition is for a pet picture.

Mend of the month …

After a hip operation, I had occasion to use an old-ish blood pressure monitor that fits on the wrist. The monitor itself had not been used much and was in good condition but a metal connector for the batteries was loose and corroded, so the monitor wouldn’t work even with new batteries.

As it was the + to – connection, simply stuffing the space below with aluminium foil, enough for compression, did the job well enough. The picture shows the loose link in front of the foil repair.

Welbury in the Wars

Stories of those serving in World War 2 … Part 1

Last month’s wel-e-news identified the 10 people from Welbury who served in WW2, drawing on the Minutes of 5/1/45 of the Welbury Entertainments Committee 1937-1945 plus letters of thanks from soldiers for Christmas gifts sent from the committee. Now we have also found a list of 7 people who were sent gifts for Christmas 1942, which confirms the forenames of May
Aconley and Arnold Pratt, completing the identity of the 10 who served in WW2. The three in the 1945 list and not in the 1942 list were Doreen Beswick, Ken Blake and Cecil Curle, who enlisted after 1942. The three were born in 1926 and too young to enlist in 1942.

William and Florence Aconley lived at 2 Railway Cottages with most of their 8 children during the war. The eldest son James was married and living in Romanby but his daughter Jean (now Jean Horner, born 1931 and still living in Northallerton) remembers it very well as she frequently visited her grandparents in Welbury. Jean confirms that two of her aunts (sisters at
Station Cottages) served in the war and survived: Laura Aconley in the QAs in Africa and May Aconley, the youngest of the family, in the WRAF serving in Cornwall.

The QAs were the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), renamed in 1949 as the Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC). Jean Horner remembered that Laura Aconley was one of the first three nurses to be dropped into the Africa campaign and was met by Montgomery. Laura married a major. The QARANC web site lists L Aconley with her service number as a Sister in 1945 with 3 service medals. The
Aconley boys worked on the railways on ammunition trains and were not called up; they would also help out the farmers especially at harvest time.

Just along from the Aconleys, the Beswick family lived at 4 Railway Cottages. Arthur Beswick had served in WW1 in the trenches and was sent home with rheumatic fever and worked as a signalman. Arthur’s daughter Doreen Beswick joined the WRAF at age 17 in 1943 and served for 3 ½ years until she married a Leeds man. Doreen is still living in Leeds at age 88 and able to report these details. She served at RAF Faldingworth in Lincolnshire in the
bomber campaign with 300 Polish Squadron, then moved on to Ludford Magna and later to Wickenby and then to Scotland at Pitreavie Castle, which was used to coordinate operations of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force Coastal Command. She worked below ground “down the hole” in the bleak castle. Doreen was born in Deighton. The family came to Station Cottages around the Jubilee year (1935). Her younger brother Peter was born here in 1937.

George Cecil Curle completes the quartet from Station Cottages who served. The Curles lived at No. 1 and the Smiths, who had no-one serving in WW2, at No. 3. While he was known as Cecil in Welbury, it was George (nick-name Curley) in the Navy on HMS Violet (K35) where he served for three years from 1943, in the thick of convoy work in the Atlantic, Med and Indian Ocean.

He was finally demobbed in December 1946 after six months on HMS Allington Castle. An interesting web site has the HMS Violet crew list
and pictures like these.