More information regarding Shalstone HERE
The annual Harvest Supper on 17 October was, as usual, well attended, and offered a new menu this year of lasagne and curry. Thanks once again to everyone who contributed their time and energy to make the event so successful; both the church and Reading Room are only able to meet essential running costs every year due to your generosity. A larger group than ever also enjoyed trick or treating at Hallowe’en, with creative and scary costumes from all age groups. Many thanks as well to those who organised and took part in the Remembrance service on 9 November in the church.
Our next large gathering will be at the village carol service on 21 December in the church at 6.00pm, followed by seasonal refreshments. As always, please follow village social media, and look at the noticeboard as you pass by, for additional social events to come.
Upcoming services
- Sunday 7 December – 10.30am Village Worship
- Sunday 21 December – 6.00pm Village carol service
- Sunday 4 January – 9.00am Holy Communion
- Sunday 1 February – 10.30am Village Worship (Candlemas)
- Sunday 8 February – 10.30am Benefice Holy Communion with choir
Church cleaning
December - Elspeth and Trisha
January - Amanda and Kathy
February – Fiona and Janet
Cogitations…The Old Codger aka GPP
Hoover Washing Machine
The more that I sit and cogitate, the more thoughts come to mind; things that I had forgotten but that are, perhaps, worth repeating, even if they are of no consequence.
In the 1950s, Hoover brought out a little washing machine which heated the water and had a mechanical mangle attached to it. When you had done your washing, you could squeeze the water out of the clothes with the mangle and then tip the water away. Mrs Sear, at Number 19, rather fancied one of these machines so they acquired one. Between the houses, numbers 18 and 19, there was a well and, between the cottages and the well, were two cobbled paths. Mrs Sear used to trundle the washing machine from the back door, out to the well, fill it up, trundle it back over the cobbles to the house, do the washing, use the mangle and then tip the water down the drain.
Just before our first daughter, Caroline was born, we realised that a washing machine would be very useful for us, too. At that time, there was a traveller family living at the bottom of Lenborough Road in Buckingham, by the name of Buckland. Mrs Buckland and her daughter would tour round the local villages in search of scrap metal, for which they paid small amounts of cash. I saved all the pound notes and change that Mrs Buckland gave me, in return for scrap from the farm and, when I had £50, bought our first, second hand, Hoover washing machine, just like the one that Mrs Sear had.
With all of the modern technology, we don’t know we are born, these days.
Buckingham’s Charter Fair
It happens that, the weekend that I’m telling you this (but not when it is printed) is one of the weekends of the Buckingham Charter Fair. Farmers used to be mindful to plant their winter wheat, if they could, between the two weekends of the Charter Fair because winter wheat needs vernalisation – meaning that it has to have a period of frost to give it an ear. Without vernalisation the ears don’t happen. The Fair would open at two o’clock on the Friday afternoon and children would be taken there by their parents. I remember taking our children to have a ride on the dodgems. It was such fun.