Dear Members.
The last meeting June 11th, was our open air ‘Walk-an-Talk’, & our guide was Philip Smith. Once again for those of you that missed this opportunity to be entertained by our worthy Hon Member, missed a very entertaining & educating walk around this historic village of ours. Always entertaining to listen to, Philip was able to point out a few of the extremely interesting places around Sherington, there were also snippets of humour that only he could know about, like ‘Don’t go down Water Lane, they will stick pins in your bicycle tyres’…. About Parsons Lane ..About Calves End. ….The places where the surveying men can set their sights from; bench Marks & a multitude of other obscure facts that can only be learned by being part of a village for so many years, or having a teacher like Philip Smith.
Contrary to most predictions, the majority of the guided villagers did end up in the village hall for tea or coffee & biscuits, and the weather, that was predicted to be heavy showers, stayed fine. Maybe it could not face the wrath of ‘The Smith’. Anyway we must thank Philip for this very exciting Walk-an-Talk. We had a good turnout of approx 38 persons. One of whom was Peter Bennett the chairman of Milton Keynes Heritage Association & another guest Dianne Sutton, who ordered her ticket over the internet, by E-mail, another first for Sherington.
We have had some old Sherington photographs loaned to us by Milton Keynes Local Studies Centre, to copy & record. Also photocopies of the 1901 census to be transcribed. These have been passed on by Ruth Mearden, who runs the MKLSC, she always puts to one side any Sherington goodies that come to her office & passes these on to me at the first opportunity. Those of you who came on our visit to MKLSC will remember Ruth. We have gained great credibility over the past 2 ˝ years amongst the local historical beings.
We also had another very useful PR exercise at the Church Fete on June 22nd. We featured this time some of the photos of Ernie Rickett. Kindly loaned to us by his daughter Lindsay. Ernie was a great monochrome photographer, his 2 passions in life were photography & flowers. We thought this would be a fitting tribute to Ernie who died a few years ago & Rene his wife who passed away earlier this year. The couple had lived here for a number of years, in School Lane, but were not well known by many of the villagers. Both of them were founder members of the Bowls Club, but when Ernie died Rene found it difficult to get out into the community again, after her period of mourning. There was a great interest in all of the photos exhibited, some of which had won major awards in the country. All of them were well presented & of stunning quality and much admired. Our archives were again displayed on this occasion, & were of great interest to many people. We are still gaining credibility in Sherington & have had some accolades from areas that were slow to recognise our work, but it is all gradually coming together.
Pearl has undertaken to gather together all of the Thursday Group photos & programmes etc. This will compliment our growing data bank of village activities.
Kay has undertaken to start a new file on the Pre-School photos & history. This also will add to the village organisations archives.
Synopsis of data gathered.
1) 10 pictures from the local studies centre.
2) Another photo album from Philip Smith, (Water Lane floods etc)
3) More wedding photos.
4) More Sherington people photos.
5) A lot of conveyance documents.
6) The Edith Lucas paintings are on CD Rom.
7) A new archive started for the Jubilee celebrations.
8) A transcribed copy of the 1901 census for Sherington.
9) A new archive started for Thursday Group.
10) A new archive started for the Pre-School.
11) 1901 Census for Sherington is now transcribed.
12) The second composite photo picture, from the Millennium project is now complete.
It is good to note that Sheila & Jesse Line have re-joined us, their input as "Old villagers" was really missed during their absence. Thank you Peter for your prodding.
You will all have noticed that the old barn is now but a mark on the ground & a pile of rubble at the back of Mercer’s Farm. We have quite a few photos of its passing & these along with the building of the new development, will be put into the ‘Cow Barn’ file. There is now a policy document under review with MK Heritage Assc. Dealing with the problems that local societies, such as ours, may encounter with ‘At risk’ buildings. The main point with this is to keep our eyes & ears open to local plans, a list is published weekly from MK planning office & this is the document to consult. But a plea to you all, if you hear of any proposal to demolish , modify any buildings or boundaries or trees or anything, please let a member of the committee know, so that we can check it out & at least photograph its passing. The Barn has been lost for ever, but if we can be instrumental in saving for posterity anything else, it will be to our credit.
Next meeting, a general meeting will be on Tuesday July 9th at 8pm. Sherington Village Hall.
N.A.