Ludlow Ledger (Issue #9)

ISSUE 9 – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 – FREE

Ashford Carbonell’s fishing syndicate Castle Gardens’ 2-ton gun Mackenzie & Smith Ludlow’s sculpting legend: Adrian Jones Linney croquet club Bentley’s wine merchants Travels with Aubrey

“With that, there’s a tug on the rod. A bite, a bloody bite! I’ve actually caught something. I reel it in somewhat incompetently as Sam grabs the net, and a young female brown trout emerges.”

I’M standing on the bank of the River Teme, not far from the A49, I’m trying to learn exactly what it is that makes thousands of men and some women sit – every week for hours, days, even whole weekends – down by a river in pursuit of fish. The enthusiastic Sam Jones, acupuncturist, remedial massage therapist and recently-appointed Chairman of the Ashford Carbonell Fishing Syndicate, is doing his best to explain it all to me, but the roar of motorbikes and the sudden gale that’s blown up is snatching his voice away. For the moment at least, I’m none the wiser.

Mercifully, the wind drops, the motorbikes disappear and Sam starts putting hooks on to lines and digging out a box of little ballbearing things; hooks and line I’m familiar with but Sam grabs the line and bites the little ball thing on to it. For one confused moment I think Sam’s going to pick his teeth

with the hook, but no, he’s just tightening the weight on to the line.

“I could use pliers but… “ he shrugs with a grin. He’s brought a whole mini picnic: bottles of Ludlow beer, comté cheese, good bread and posh pickled onions that look like tiny hats. It’s at this point that I decide I quite like fishing.

Sam’s been keen on fishing ever since he was a kid, growing up within spitting distance of the Teme: “I cut my teeth on the River Teme really.

I didn’t have a rod licence then, but would dig up worms at home and dangle them in. I wasn’t as keen as a kid as I am now.” He’s not kidding, now he will fish anywhere he can – in the sea, rivers, ponds, you name it. The most he’s ever caught is 11 fish in one go (he only kept two, the rest were too small to eat). He’s also caught a salmon overnight, in Scotland – and once caught a huge salmon in Ireland; he now hopes to take the ‘triple crown’ with a Welsh

fish this autumn. It’s fair to say he’s pretty keen on fishing. Yet he, and the rest of the 60-strong syndicate, are real sticklers for rules and legislation. “I used to fish to eat but now it’s more of a sport, it’s more about conservation, for the river and the riverbank.” The subject of poachers and migrant fishermen who illegally take from the river gets him hot under the collar. He tells me about Operation Leviathan, a recently launched West Mercia Police campaign to raise awareness of fish theft and illegal angling.

Some migrant workers who fish to eat aren’t aware that it’s an offence to take from rivers and waterways without permission. It’s a bit of a hot political subject, but it seems that the poachers are the real issue.

After all, the serious poachers know exactly what they’re doing – and the consequences for the river.

Getting started in fishing isn’t as straightforward as you might think

– www.ludlowledger.co.uk –

either. You can’t just turn up and give it a go wherever you like. You need to have a rod licence from the Environment Agency to fish in England (except the River Tweed) and Wales, you need permission to fish, and you also need various bits of equipment which, as with any hobby, range from inexpensive to top of the range. Sam’s got a couple of rods which he fishes with, but he points out that they can be bought for around £30 from local suppliers like JMC Tackle on Ludlow’s industrial estate. You can also buy a pint of maggots for around £2.80 – that’s a lot of maggots. Sam buys small amounts and keeps them locked up in a plastic container, double wrapped in a paper bag.

He jokes that it’s a test of love as to whether your partner will put up with maggots in the fridge. The maggots will last for a fair few days

Continued on page 14 >

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Voted Britain’s Best Food Hall 2014

Food that’s miles better

Celebrating 10 years of great wine in the heart of Ludlow. Thanks for all your support and here’s to the next decade.

Mass produced and supermarket foods are made in factories using ingredients from all over the world.

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On Friday 25th September, the Strutt & Parker team in Ludlow will be ‘Pedalling their Patch’ – as a team relay covering 150 miles – a distance equivalent to the circumference of the area their office covers.

To sponsor us, and to support this fantastic cause, please visit justgiving.com/Strutt-and-Parker-Ludlow.

With thanks to Gym HQ Tenbury Wells for their support.

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CONTENTS

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MEET & GREET 4

Market Square wine merchant Bentley’s

5 Our town’s celebrated horse sculptor: Adrian Jones PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE 6-7 LUDLOW LEGEND

Forty horses of Broad Street, licensing of No 14, the Christmas shoeboxes of Poyner’s, and a week in Somerset with Doghouse magazine

LETTERS 8

Northumberland Branch of the Ludlow Ledger Appreciation Society, solar farm suggestion, and a beached boat update

CROSSWORD 8

18 across: swims with helium-inflated bananas

OBSERVATIONS 9

“In this particular case, it may have more to do with the fact that a local beekeeper has stopped keeping honey bees less than half a mile away.”

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9 PROFILE 10-12 No 4 Bull Ring: Mackenzie & Smith SHOPPING 13 Decking one’s self out, for any occasion, the most charitable way COVER STORY ... CONTINUED 14-15 Casting from the banks of the Teme with Ashford Carbonell’s Fishing Syndicate MEMORIES 16 Travels with Aubrey LANDMARK 17 Ludlow’s 24–pound calibre naval gun from Russia investigated OUR STORY 18 GARDENING

“...on one of the branches, my brother had carved the words: ‘Batman is thick’.”

Ann and Alf remember: “On Rock Lane bank there was a very large elm tree which had grown through the road side wall of the house, cracked it from top to bottom, and its roots had penetrated through the dining room into the hall way.”

19 Rooftop Theatre’s The Tempest SPORT 20 REVIEW

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Liz heads down the Linney for a spot of croquet

Editor’s notes, hello again MANY quiz why there is little more than thin air hanging from the sign brackets at 14 Corve Street; home to the Ledger – with people found pondering at the door, wondering whether or not they’ve landed at the right address. Either that, or heading to one of the neighbouring shops... asking how one gets to greet this town’s paper.

The reason for the lack of sign is simple: I am awaiting news from the Shropshire Council whose permission I seek to hang the sign and an exterior tavern lamp.

Thankfully the absence of signage has not affected visitor numbers, with many people popping down to the office to chat about advertising or to collect back issues. And many have swung by to talk through potential stories...

Ex-Probation Officer, Ian Hankinson from Corvedale, was one such visitor who came to announce his recently released CD of his own recordings, and author Mark Lawley popped by with his book Wildlife in the Marches. Both of these will be featured in greater length – hopefully in issue 10.

I also had the pleasure of being called on by Mrs Davies, who brought with her a photo, which now sits on my desk, of her husband (Terry Davies) as a toddler, with his mother and grandmother surrounded by headhigh lupins. It was photographed at the back of 14 Corve Street, which was his grandparents’ home at the time; they rented most of the house (with White Cross Insurance taking the two front ground-level rooms) from around 1935. Here lived “Grandpop and Grandma, my father and Uncle Stanley,” read the accompanying letter, written by Terry “who also rented the Wye Valley Garage at 29 Corve Street and two coal merchant outlets at the Station Drive depot.”

Enclosed with it were various headed pieces of paper, denoting JH Davies & Sons (phone number: Ludlow 23) as ‘Coal Merchants and General Hauliers’ along with a family tree of information ... explaining that ‘Grandpop’ died around 1944 – at which time his Grandma promptly returned to South Wales, where the family had ties to the

areas of Caerphilly and Abertillery.

Memories of 14 Corve Street (remembered by a four-year old Terry) include his Grandpop clearing the chimney by firing his shotgun up it; with his Grandma cleaning the bathroom, “which was entirely fitted out with brass and copper – polished completely every week. In my imagination it looked like a battleship engine room.”

The best memory for me was hearing that the tiled passageway, leading from the left-hand front door, was for the workhorse, which walked the corridor into the cobbled courtyard beyond, to his stable at the rear of the house. If anyone has a picture of this (or indeed have any other stories relating to 14 Corve Street, from any period) it would help build a full history of this building, and I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers, Jon Saxon editor@ludlowledger.co.uk Office – 01584 872381 Mobile – 07795 244060

Editor’s notes image} Richard Stanton |Print} Guardian Print Centre, Manchester | Letterpress printed masthead} Dulcie Fulton: mostlyflat.co.uk

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Ledger stockists

LUDLOW 55 Mill Street Ludlow Aragon’s Cafe Church St Assembly Rooms Mill St Baker’s Cafe Tower St Barber Jacks Lower Galdeford Bentley’s Castle Square Bindery Shop Bull Ring Blue Boar Mill Street Castle Bookshop Market Square Castle Lodge Buttery Castle Square Charlton Arms Ludford Bridge China Garden New Rd Church Inn Church St Cicchetti Bar Broad St Codfather Sandpits Corve Garage Bromfield Rd Countrywide Weeping Cross Lane Crumbs Tower Street Ego’s Wine Bar Quality Square Fish House Bull Ring Guild Hall Mill St Harp Lane Deli Church St Homecare Temeside La Jewellery Parkway Mews Leisure Centre Bromfield Rd Ludlow Brewing Co Station Drive Ludlow Ledger 14 Corve St Ludlow Touring Park Ludford Ludlow Train Station Station Drive Mascall Centre Lower Galdeford Mod Lang The Woodyard (Corve St) Myriad Organics Corve St Olive Branch Bull Ring Poyners Broad St Queens Lower Galdeford Red Hair Studio New Rd Renaissance Centre Tower St Rockspring Centre Sandpits Rose & Crown Church St Sam’s Cafe Lingen Ind Est Silk Top Hat Gallery Quality Square St Laurence’s Church College St Swifts Bakery Corve St Tiger Lilly Bull Ring Tourist Information Mill St Unicorn Corve St Vaughan’s Sandwich Bar King St V Cafe New Rd Wheatsheaf Lower Broad St Woodyard Gallery Woodyard ----------------------------------------------FURTHER AFIELD Aardvark Books Brampton Bryan Apple Tree Onibury Bennetts End Hope Bagot Boot Inn Orleton Brightwells Auction Leominster Cleobury Café Cleobury Mortimer Community Shop Aston-on-Clun Country Centre Cleobury Mortimer Courtyard Antiques Presteigne Crown Inn Newcastle-on-Clun Crusty Cob Cleobury Mortimer Discovery Centre Craven Arms Fiddler’s Elbow Leintwardine Lamb Inn Stoke Prior Ludlow Food Centre Bromfield Market Hall Cleobury Mortimer Mortimer Stores Wigmore Nelson Inn Rocks Green Old Downton Lodge Downton Plough Inn Wistanstow Roebuck (pub & shop) Brimfield Sun Inn Leintwardine Tourist Information Tenbury Wells Village Hall Ashford Carbonell Village Shop Lydbury North Walton Court (Cafe) Leominster If you fancy becoming a stockist of Ludlow Ledger please do get in touch: stock@ludlowledger.co.uk

Bentley’s Wine Merchant

Allowed to breathe text} Liz Hyder | image} Richard Stanton – MEET & GREET – IN a prime location, overlooking the market square in the heart of town, sits the family-run wine merchants Bentley’s. This autumn, as the Food Festival takes over Ludlow, Bentley’s celebrate their tenth anniversary – not bad for an independent first set up during the last recession. Will Bentley, the cheery and fast-talking founder and owner, takes me on a whirlwind tour telling me, as we go, the unlikely story of how he went from City financier to wine expert and Ludlow stockist.

Step inside Bentley’s and the space itself isn’t massive but the variety is incredible. As you scan the shelves, it appears that almost every bottle is different. It’s quite something. Will tells me they stock between 700 and 750 different lines, from quaffable £5.99 wines right up to high-end vintages at over £250 a bottle.

“Lots for a small shop,” grins Will.

Especially when all the staff have to be able to talk about them all. Will also compiles wine lists for various restaurants and other outlets around town, from Bistro 7 to Parkway and, more recently, to the renovated Blue Boar. Bentley’s also provide individual wines to even more outlets, including the Michelin-starred Mr Underhills, but 70 per cent of their business is from people walking through the door – locals and tourists alike.

It’s odd to think that, despite Ludlow’s reputation for good food, there was no independent wine merchant here ten years ago. Will thought so too and that’s why, after

much research and planning, he decided that this was the place for his new venture – prior to that Will had spent 13 years as a wage slave to the world of finance, in London and America. Even back then he’d always appreciated wine and, when some of his friends spotted a wine school at Berry Bros & Rudd on a Monday night, a group including Will signed up for the inaugural six-week course.

“Masters of Wine would come and talk to us and it was a good laugh. It was a beginner’s course but we were taught by some of the best tutors you could imagine, one of whom is still a very close friend,” he explains.

From there, Will completed first an intermediate and then an advanced course. As others from the original course dropped out, feeling like they’d taken it as far as they wanted, Will’s passion for wine just kept on growing and soon he was studying for professional qualifications accredited

by WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust). Unsurprisingly, there came a point when Will realised he was more interested in wine than finance, so he handed in his notice and went to work at Bibendum (the renowned wine merchants) for a year to learn the trade. As he puts it: “It’s no good knowing about wine if you don’t know the trade. Where do you get the wine from? What margins? How do you transport it? How do you stock it? And people had just started to sell wine online, it was a great place – and time – to learn.”

Will thrived at Bibendum and, after passing his diploma with flying colours

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You can come to me or I can come to you

(he was one of the top five in the country), he is now just one step below a Master of Wine. Put simply, there aren’t that many people in Britain who know more about wine than him.

On the day that he and his wife Helen signed the deeds on the shop in Castle Square and the flat above it, Will was offered a permanent job at Bibendum – he turned it down along with a wine tour of South Africa, a prize for his top results in the diploma. And then Helen dropped a bombshell, telling Will she was pregnant. “That was quite some day,” Will laughs at the memory; “it was a bit of a whirlwind,” he admits with a grin.

In a brand new building (sympathetically designed to be unobtrusive in a conservation area), the shop was an empty shell and they had to do a lot of work kitting it out. “It wasn’t ready to go when we moved in at all. We had to get phone lines installed, put in the shelving and organise supplies...” They eventually opened their doors for the first time a week before the Food Festival in 2005.

“It was very hectic, we had an opening bash but I have to say even five years later, people who live on Mill Street just round the corner would come in and say ‘ooh, how long have you been here for?’” he laughs, shaking his head.

It’s not just Will in the shop though – Nick Jenkin and Karole Nicholson “have been instrumental in our success” and have been part of the team since the very start, having approached Will after seeing a ‘coming soon’ sign outside the shop before it even opened. Helen also helps too now that their son, Matthew, is a bit older. Even Will’s dad used to help out and is much missed, having died earlier this year. At some stage in the not too distant future, Will intends to take some younger people on to the staff and he is thinking about opening longer hours. “It’s been ten years and we need to up our game,” he says thoughtfully. “Our website’s not very sophisticated, it works and we’re in the top 5 per cent of independents in terms of what we stock and sell online, but there’s always room for improvement.”

As well as wine, Will’s also very interested in food and Nick’s a trained chef. Matching foods and wines is something that Bentley’s pride themselves on and it’s one of the reasons why they work with restaurants on wine lists too. In the shop at the moment, you can find everything from saké to unusual whiskies and even, at popular request, a retsina. “Food and wine together is something we excel at,” says Will. “Any business needs several Unique Selling Points, although a pedant would point out that you can only have one of course. We have a very wide range of wines and spirits in the shop, we match food and wine, we can advise on events and the wines you buy here are not wines you’re going to pick up in a supermarket.”

In order for a wine maker to supply a supermarket, they need to produce around 10,000 cases. That’s a lot of wine. Bentley’s might have the odd wine mass-produced like this (“very few” according to Will), but for the

main part, their stock is from much smaller producers.

Will does admit to having sleepless nights when he found out that Majestic Wine were opening in Ludlow three years ago, but actually Bentley’s profits have risen every year since then, so it’s not adversely affected them. “Because of the nature of what we do, we’ll never be competing head-to-head with the likes of Majestic. For us, just five cases from a small producer we’ve probably met is a meaningful amount – you can see and taste the difference.”

With chains like Pizza Express and Wildwood moving to Ludlow, Will is kept busy with his work with local restaurants and bars. “We’re working with independents to up their wine game in town, asking ‘how can we do something different?’ With Parkway, they specialise in tapas and that’s a USP, so let’s make all their wines Spanish, the entire wine list. And at the Blue Boar all wines are available by the glass, even the premium range, unusual for a pub. We do everything we can on the wine front to make each place we work with a unique offering. We often get asked in the shop for food recommendations, where should we eat and it’s a big advantage being right in the heart of town,” he admits.

Will clearly loves his job and works hard to keep Bentley’s on its toes as a successful small outlet. “When you run your own little business, you’re mainly thinking of sales and where, what and how to sell,” he says. They also have a rule that they never sell stock they don’t actually have – contrary to many others in the wine industry. “If it’s not physically here, it’s not for sale,” says Will, before telling me about an incredibly expensive Brunello that came in and was sold out in less than 24 hours. Will and the team know the tastes of their regulars and if something rare comes in, they can give the heads-up to the select few who they think might be interested. “It’s a good thing to sell it to your mates,” says Will, “it means you might get a chance to taste it.”

Tasting is something Will is very keen on doing and, to make their tenth anniversary, he’s going to be opening a selection of fine wines from Matthew’s ‘birth cellar’ in the shop for tastings, wines that Will and Helen bought around the date of Matthew’s birth and have kept cellared to mature.

None of these wines will be for sale, it’s just a thank you to all those who’ve supported them over the years and continue to do so but you’ll need to be on their mailing list to find out exactly what is being opened and when.

Handily, 2005 was one of the best years for many wines including Burgundy, Claret and Rioja so there will be treats aplenty in store to raise a toast to the past ten years – and the next ten of course, which leads me to wonder how Matthew will feel about the raid on his cellar in the years to come. Will laughs. “He’s yet to show any interest in wines or in the business, but then....” he pauses for comedic effect…. “he is only ten.”

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Adrian Jones

Celebrated English sculptor of horses text} John Barratt – LUDLOW LEGEND – SET in the wall of St Laurence’s Church, overlooking the churchyard, are two memorial tablets – the one to the poet A.E. Housman is popular with visitors from around the world.

Much less well-known is the man remembered in the other plaque: Adrian Jones – soldier, painter and sculptor – who, in the days when the British Empire was at its height, was one of its most popular artists.

Adrian Jones was born in 1845 on the 9th of February, son of James Jones, a Ludlow veterinary surgeon, soon to exchange a home in Corve Street for the more fashionable 32 Broad Street.

The young Adrian quickly developed a keen interest in art, though, as he still remembered many years later, his father dismissed it with the comment “art means bread and cheese in a garret.” Adrian evidently enjoyed his early years in Ludlow, “the most delightful and picturesque of towns”, though he also remarked, perhaps a touch sardonically, “Ludlow has never lost her self-respect, indeed she impresses it upon her residents at all hours of the day and night through the medium of the chimes in the belfry of her church.”

As he grew up, Adrian was involved in various country sports. He took part in ratting with terriers (though he rather disliked this), he went ferreting for rabbits, and he followed the Ludlow Hunt, giving birth to a fascination with and love for horses, which played a major role in his later life.

Following the wishes of his father (“emphatically the man who mattered”), Adrian was educated at Ludlow Grammar School, where he spent much of his time drawing and painting. Then, again at his father’s behest, Adrian attended the Royal Veterinary College in London. But he had already decided: “I had no intention of practising” as a country vet. Instead, when he graduated in 1867 at the age of 21, Adrian joined the Army Veterinary Service, which promised much more adventure.

He served, first, in India with the Royal Horse Artillery. It was a time of relative peace in British India, and the duties of a young army officer were not particularly arduous; Adrian reported “having such a good time as only comes to a carefree young man in the best health”, horse racing and hunting among his main pleasures. But within a few months Adrian was involved in one of Queen Victoria’s “little wars”

– an expedition to rescue European prisoners held by Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia; this involved an arduous 380-mile march through mountains to Theodore’s capital at Magdala.

Supplying the troops and keeping the hundreds of horses and other transport animals healthy proved a tougher challenge than the enemy and the brave warriors of Theodore proved no match for overwhelming British firepower; they were overwhelmed in a one-sided battle at Magdala, with 2,000 Abyssinian casualties compared with 20 British. Entering the town, Adrian was one of the first to discover the body of Theodore, who had committed suicide.

Back in India, Adrian’s health was affected by bad food and water and, in 1870, he was ordered home, where he resigned from the army and married his first wife, Emma. For a time running the Swan Hotel in Monmouth but, a year later, Adrian was fit enough to resume army life, this time as the veterinary officer of the 2nd Dragoon Guards. Stationed in Ireland, he was able to indulge his love of horse racing and hunting to the full, and he began to produce his first paintings, nearly all of which were of equestrian subjects, including well-known racehorses; by 1879 his work was being favourably mentioned in the press.

In 1881, with the outbreak of the First Boer War, Adrian was posted to South Africa. By the time he arrived hostilities were over, although he produced a number of sketches of South African life, published in a London magazine.

In London again, Adrian met the sculptor Charles Birch, who made the comment: “It seems to be a pity that, with your love of art, your knowledge of animals, and remarkable eye for form, you do not yourself take up the career of the sculptor,” and he encouraged Adrian to “find my true destiny”. Adrian’s first piece was a statue, modelled of his own hunter, which he sent to the Academy entitled One of the Right Sort.

In 1883 his wife Emma died, and he immersed himself in army life and art. In 1884-5 Adrian took part in the unsuccessful attempt to rescue General Gordon from Khartoum, and, although he was not at any of the battles of the campaign, he learnt a good deal about the management of camels. When he returned to England, his Sudan experiences were reflected in his work (notably a sculpture of a Camel Corps Scout), copies of which were bought by a number of officers, but his favourite

subjects continued to be horses.

Adrian was becoming increasingly involved in the London art world.

Usually wearing his military cloak, he enjoyed the comradeship of London ‘clubland’ and was a familiar figure in the Chelsea Arts Club, as well as various gentlemen’s clubs. But he still remembered his Ludlow roots fondly, and produced several paintings of scenes around the area, among them Plough Horses in Harness near Ludlow, showing the Castle in the background.

An unusual work from this time was a sculpture called The Last Arrow, in which a Native American shoots a buffalo. An Indian from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus, then in England, modelled for Jones, and was rewarded with cigarettes and a coloured handkerchief.

In 1886 Adrian joined the 2nd Lifeguards of the Household Brigade which meant a costly lifestyle and he supported it by sales of art commissions, especially paintings of famous racehorses. On 10th June 1891, he retired from the army on half pay and, in the same month, married his second wife, also called Emma and, in appearance, remarkably like his first wife. Emma gave him many years of “the happiest companionship”. The

family took up residence in Chelsea, next door to the Chelsea Arts Club, and Adrian built a studio in his garden.

He was busily occupied during the last decade of the 19th century with continued demand for his equestrian paintings and sculptures. A common love of horses and hunting brought Adrian the rather surprising friendship of Edward, Prince of Wales – “the best friend I ever had”, Adrian would recall.

Adrian was, by now, including people among his subjects. There was a dramatic painting of the ill-fated charge of the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, and an increasing number of memorials and portrayals of generals. In 1904 he produced the South Australian Memorial (to the Boer War) in Adelaide. Jones offered the ‘master’ of the memorial to Ludlow Town Council who, after some quibbling, agreed. The plaster figure, painted bronze, was positioned, with considerable ceremony, in the lobby of Ludlow Town Hall. In another demonstration of his affection for the area of his birth, Adrian was one of the Founders of the Shropshire Club in London.

At this time Adrian produced his most famous work, the great Peace Quadriga on the top of the Wellington

Memorial at Hyde Park. When it was unveiled by King George V in April 1912, it was Europe’s largest bronze statue. Adrian was disappointed by the lack of public interest, who may have been distracted at the time by the loss of the Titanic. Ironically, two years later the First World War broke out. Adrian produced a series of oil paintings of leading generals and, after the war, he was commissioned to sculpt a number of war memorials. He was now in his late seventies, and the work, which he was best known for (often military in subject) was less popular in the aftermath of world war.

In 1935, still at work, Adrian was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Society, the highest award for a British sculptor. He died in 1938, aged 93, and his ashes are buried in St Laurence’s churchyard, Ludlow.

Today, in Ludlow College, the head of the horse from his South Australian War Memorial, and a bronze statuette of Colonel Dowla are preserved. It is fitting that Ludlow’s “Man who loved Horses” is commemorated at what was once his old school by a bust of Adrian himself created by Shropshire artist Jemma Pearson.

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2016 calendars, 40 horses and charity shoeboxes

Since issue 8 of Ludlow Ledger text} Jon Saxon – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – SINCE the previous issue of Ludlow Ledger I can proudly announce that 14 Corve Street has been awarded an alcohol licence – for which a purchase of celebration ensued, in the shape of a delightful 1Victorian tavern lamp which will, hopefully, keep the future Ledger sign company, once the necessary permission has been sought from the Council. Now I have ‘change of use’ to battle through, and some further work to the kitchen, before there is any sign of my proposed parlour pub opening.

Another purchase was a book with the title of Tavern Treasures. Written by Charles E Tresise in 1983, the book covers pub collectables from ornate mirrors and optics, to horse brass and hand-pulls. I found the chapter on the latter the most amazing – of all the public houses in the whole of the British Isles, it is The Church Inn of Ludlow that is used to illustrate the earliest beer engines still in use as

they were original intended. In this case: “The Church Inn has an 1895 solid brass beer-engine, with ornate lever action and porcelain handles – in perfect working order. The friendly proprietors of this family free-house serve a different ‘visiting’ real ale each week using this installation. Wadworth’s from Devizes, Bass and Marston’s from Burton, Buchan’s from Bristol and Robinson’s from Stockport are among the many cask-conditioned beers offered.”

The Church’s current landlord, Floyd, has no recollection of this elegant beer device, which suggests that it may have been decommissioned when the old pewter-topped bar was removed from its original site – in the frame that spans from the first curve of the bar to where the piano stands – opening up what was a public bar, snug and residential quarters into one open space, in the 1970s. I wonder; does anyone have any memories or images of this fabulous-sounding engine?

Talking a little more of pubs, if I may: the Ludlow-based pub magazine,

Doghouse, has recently spent time in Somerset – taking in some of the county’s finest drinking establishments for the next edition. If time permits, this will be out before Christmas, meaning you’ll be able to grab your copies from the usual town-based stockists: La Jewellery, Ludlow Brewing Co and direct from 14 Corve Street. You can also order online: doghousemagazine.co.uk Also out in time for Christmas (following the success of the 2015 offering) will be the 2016 Ludlow Ledger calendar – available for preorder by visiting 14 Corve Street or emailing: editor@ludlowledger.co.uk.

When published, the calendar will be offered at a number of in-town stockists, including Ludlow Brewery, Castle Bookshop and, again, available direct from Ludlow Ledger.

And keeping with Christmas, we couldn’t mention Ludlow and the festive period without mentioning 2Poyners’ charity shoebox campaign.

Many of you, of course, will already be well versed with Poyners ongoing support of this charity run by Samaritan’s Purse – the world’s largest children’s Christmas project – which gives everyone the opportunity to put together a Christmas present shoebox for a boy or a girl – with three age groups for you to choose from: 2-4, 5-9 and 10-14.

“Sadly we don’t get many boxes for the teenagers,” says Poyners’ Margaret, “...we supply the giftwrapped boxes and the leaflets for you

to take away, which explain what to do, which you can come and fetch from us right now, through to the cut-off date of 20th November, when all boxes need to be returned.”

The basic principle is to fill your shoebox (which have been collected and donated by local shoe shops and cobblers) with a selection of items.

These items include: a toy – dolls, toy cars, stuffed animals (with CE labels), even harmonicas, yo-yos, skipping ropes and balls; school items – pens, pencils, pads of paper, solar calculators and colouring/picture books; hygiene items – toothbrush and toothpaste, bar of wrapped soap, hairbrush or flannel; other items are also strongly encouraged – hats, caps, scarves, sunglasses, wind-up torches, wrapped sweets (with a sell-by date up to at least March 2016) and hair accessories/ jewellery set. In addition, you may also enclose a note to the child, along with a photo of yourself or your family. For further information, please pop in to see Margaret and Jean at Poyners.

Poyner’s are also staging an independent fashion show on September 17th at 7pm at Broad Street’s Methodist Church, comprising clothing from Ludlow’s independent clothes shops (Bodenhams, James & Co, Expensive Mistakes, The Wool Shop and Smarti), to help raise additional funds for the Castle Square War Memorial. You can support Ludlow’s independent shops and the War Memorial efforts by grabbing a ticket, priced £5.00, from Poyners.

In late July (which seems an age

ago now) 40 horses made their way up from Ludford Bridge to Ludlow Castle, in memory of the many local horses that were requisitioned by the British army to serve in WW1, never to return to English soil.

In total, across the country, close to 500,000 horses were lost to this war – including the Clydesdale horses, favoured for their gun-pulling ability – many of these animals were the lifeblood of rural farms, often very much a part of the family.

Throughout the build up to Ludlow’s 2015 commemoration of those horses lost, it was a pleasure to see so many shops lending their front windows as a display of respect.

We have quite a number of empty shells on our streets at the moment, with a few others emptying their stock before joining them. There are three along High Street... Victoria Prints, opposite the long-empty building that housed Farlow Estates and, a few doors up, The Spirit of the Indes. On the other side of the Buttercross (next to Barclays bank) on King Street, is the recent closure of Gifts and Chocolate.

By the time issue #10 of Ludlow Ledger rolls off the press lets hope we’ll be announcing four or so exciting new independent businesses filling these currently vacant properties, rather than further national chains.

On that note, work is now well under way at what once was The Marches: Bar & Kitchen, on Castle Street. The interior has been fully scooped out (long gone are the fixtures and fittings) with much manpower, on all floors,

7

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6

feverishly working away to transform this prominent corner plot into a 3Pizza Express.

As this issue was going to press there was a knock at the door; with local author David Evans handing over a fresh copy of Dawdling in the Dale – a new book, described on the front cover as: “a photographic study of the social and local history in the rural Corvedale valley” – which is available to buy from Castle Bookshop in Castle Square.

From Bourton to Ludlow the book traces the River Corve, with a plethora of black and white photos, including the Munslow Stocks, the rebuilding of the Corve Bridge following a flood of 1896 and the arrival of 4W H Smith & Sons in the 1880s, before relocating up the hill, from the town’s train station to the Bull Ring in 1905.

Just gone is Ludlow Art Society’s major exhibition of 2015, which opened to the general public from August 22nd to the 31st, following on from the preview evening – which Ludlow Ledger were kindly invited – accompanied by a whopping wheel of brie, and a generous offering of wine.

Beyond the table of nibbles, generously laid on by Lesley Connolly and Alan Hobbs, stretched a display of local artwork – engulfing the chancel of St Laurence’s church – with a route that weaved you in between Anthony James’ oil San Giorgio, Venice, the battleship panting Glory by Jim Bailey and 5George Loades’ Lunch Break at Woofferton ... among many others.

Now in its twentieth year, the 2015

6Ludlow

Food Festival will take place on the 11th, 12th and 13th of September, again featuring close on 100 small, independent food and drink producers from the Marches, inside the familiar venue of the town’s castle.

Over the three days, expect chef talks and showcases (this year including Ludlow’s born and bred Warwick Kidd), the usual trails for sausage, ale and loaf on the Saturday, and the Sunday market in Castle Square.

Though it shouldn’t come as new news to anyone who happens to live in Ludlow (if, like me, you received an A5 leaflet through your letter box), those further afield may be interested to learn of a new café in town... ‘an affordable, friendly environment’ so the leaflet reads. Known as the Pea Green Café (at Ludlow Mascall Centre on Lower Galdeford) it is open 10am to 4pm from Monday to Saturday; with free Wi-Fi, ample parking and both eat-in and take away options. There is even an OAP’s lunch every Thursday.

Stockist numbers are on the rise, we are proud to say, expanding the paper’s reach into new territories, now welcoming Lydbury North, Newcastle-on-Clun and Stoke Prior, near Leominster. If you like the idea of Ludlow Ledger being stocked in your local shop, pub, library – or similar public space – then please do get in touch – either by emailing the paper: stock@ludlowledger.co.uk or saying hello in person, at 14 Corve Street.

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Images on p6 and 7} Richard Stanton (1, 2 and 3); sourced by David Evans (4); George Loades (5) James Watkins (6)

8

Just a small selection of your kind emails, letters, postcards and social posts from Facebook and Twitter

Letters to the Ledger We’d love to hear from you – editor@ludlowledger.co.uk

– VIEWS & COMMENTS – I LOVED the back-dated subscription copies of Ludlow Ledger; delights on every page. Can I be on the mailing list please? No year is complete for me without a day in Ludlow (I used to live in Nantwich and come down the A49 with eager anticipation). Now, I offer my services as President of the Northumberland Branch of the Ludlow Ledger Appreciation Society.....

Ken Veitch, Brampton, Cumbria Though you can indeed subscribe to the paper’s mailing list via the website: ludlowledger.co.uk – to receive relevant updates – I have, in this case, added your details manually.

--------------------------------------------------

LET me say I enjoyed the article on the solar farms (p4 Ludlow Ledger #8) and agree with the point of view expressed. The writer mentioned Mortimer Forest, which made me think maybe Forestry Commissionowned land would be suitable for solar farms. In Mortimer Forest there are south facing slopes, which look into other parts of the forest; a solar farm sited here may well be secluded from the country surrounding the forest.

It would be seen by visitors to the forest but would add a point of interest to the otherwise uniform conifer plantation; information boards could be provided. Furthermore, since the land is already Government owned, it might be possible to cut red tape in terms of planning, building and subsidy.

Jonathan Catling, Leintwardine -------------------------------------------------I HAVE relished issue 8 of Ludlow Ledger, which was passed on to me by a friend, and wondered if there are back issues available?

I think it’s a brilliant idea – delightfully executed. Hearty congratulations. It’s particularly appreciated since, living out of town, it introduces ‘country mice’ to parts which other journals do not reach.

So, very best wishes for Ludlow Ledger’s continuing success.

Ella Whitehead, Aston Munslow

Back issues of all the editions to date can be obtained by either ordering online: ludlowledger.com/archive, or by popping along to the office to collect, for free, in person: 14 Corve Street, Ludlow – opposite Swifts bakery.

-------------------------------------------------NEVER fear the cliché... I remember being taught at art college. As I walked along by the river the other day three ducks flew overhead upstream in strict formation. There they were, flying ducks above my head.

As a tragically-hip, inner-London mid-sixties child I had a vague terror of all things suburban; classifying anything that remotely spoke of convention as abhorrent, deciding within the grooviness around me that conventional attitudes and behaviours were outdated and risible – like three flying ducks on a living room wall, for instance, and garden gnomes, of course. Yet, watching these three birds in flight, the beautiful reality was that it was a charming and uplifting sight.

I count myself so lucky to live near the river and most evenings all I can hear from my garden or an open window is the soothing, eternal, rushing current, occasionally punctuated by an owl hooting from the Whitcliffe woods. There’s a palpable silence surrounding my house, a

here “...which is w re Pukaki’s futu lies: she will ky provide quir for tion accommoda ng overnighti potters.”

silence which envelopes and comforts me. I can walk into town in the evening and enjoy that enveloping silence as it rests over Ludlow. I cherish it as one of the reasons I love it here.

Another suburban cliché rises up: “Moving to somewhere for a bit of peace and quiet.” But should not the right amount of peace and quiet be the aim of all? I’ve looked along Bell Lane towards Mill Street sometimes, when there’s not a person or car to disturb the view and, in its stillness, it seems like a painting.

Soon after I first moved here a friend told me she had stood in the Market Square one evening when again there was no-one about. She dropped a pin and heard it. There I go again. Silence and stillness, it’s just lovely. Cliché?

I’m not afraid.

Chloe Alexander, Ludlow -------------------------------------------------JUST ordered a subscription to Ludlow Ledger – easily one of the best local newspapers in the UK. Great writing and original perspectives.

Dr Jonathan Eaton, Newcastle DON’T forget, you can find out the answers to the previous issue’s crossword on the back page of this Ludlow Ledger.

ACROSS 5 First, apply paint (5) 6 Man has vehicle for sport (9) 10 Artist concerned with colour of night sky in Paris (6) 11 Harry led riot, drawing arms (8) 12 Cheshire cat possibly in hotel, entertained by king and queen (7) 13 Seeks water and soaks (6) 14 Dog, animated by phone ring (7) 15 Always one hundred and eleven (7) 18 Swims with helium-inflated

bananas (6) 20 Casual earning within limits (2,5) 21 Lifeless after nasty prod: stunning (4-4) 22 Planet predicated in Qur’an usurped (6) 24 Vessels (9) 25 Army NCOs hiding in hedge at regular intervals (5) DOWN 1 Some veneer tends to lift, eg pine (4) 2 Character bearing gold welcomed by bird at sex shop (8) 3 Doctor Who taken into church by Rural Dean and pastoral worker (7) I ENJOYED seeing the photo of my boat ‘Pukaki’ in Brian Thompson’s ‘What and Why’ in issue 8 of Ludlow Ledger – I wonder if he knew that by the time the issue came out the old girl had sailed away?

I also wrote a couple of articles for West of the Clee, which I enclose, concerning the boat and its history... as well as its interesting future. The breathless tone, pitch-perfect for a parish magazine, is unsuited for your esteemed and learned periodical but it does show that there is some further copy in the boat’s story if you wished to pursue it.

Also: Did anyone recognise, I wonder, the source of the description of The Mr Pernickety Pie? It’s a heavy paraphrasing of a speech Benjamin Disraeli gave concerning William Gladstone. Apologies if that factlet appears later in the Ledger.

Henry Chance, Middleton ...SHARP eyes will have noticed that at long last, and rather sadly, the sailing boat on the side of the B4364 coming into Middleton off the Ludlow-Clee Hill road has now gone ... having been bought by Garry Jones (a ceramicist at Walford, between Leintwardine and Brampton Bryan).

This all happened after Garry drove past the boat one day and stopped to

4 Roar like a bull ring that hurts (6) 7 Broken Tardis has a virus problem in instrument (12) 8 Mediaeval throne of Edgar dissolved by royal order (9) 9 Diarist to take one out of physicist’s book (12) 12 State in great chaos in charge of old people (9) 16 Doctor involved in raucous banter with troublemakers (4-1-3) 17 Leaves are gathered here by taking in dead elder and rowan initially (7) 19 Music and dance after joint (3-3) 23 Language of Asian men across road (4) ask the owner whether if it was for sale. John Whitehead, who – with his son Andrew – runs the joinery business where Pukaki was dry-docked, said it was and a deal was done.

Garry crafts rather amusing and imaginative pieces (mostly of farm animals) which are well worth a look.

He also runs pottery classes and has people to stay over for them, which is where Pukaki’s future lies: she will provide quirky accommodation for overnighting potters. The big difference with this plan, however, is that she will actually be afloat: Garry has a large pond which, amazingly, rises and falls over the year so Pukaki will once again experience the tides of her youth (albeit in fresh water, miles from the coast).

Garry, as it happens, already has an existing motte in the garden and he plans to create a new one so that land-sailors can access Pukaki via a gangplank. So, along with the rest of us who enjoyed seeing a big boat so far from the sea, John Whitehead will miss Pukaki, which has become something of a local landmark.

However; he says that, now she is gone, the timber delivery lorry can reverse up to the workshop without sticking out on to the road.

9

Participate

The collective thought text} Simon Pease

– OBSERVATIONS – I HAVE an inspirational science teacher in the 60s to thank for giving me an interest in nature and I think I have a lot to thank him for, although sometimes I find it slightly depressing.

I’ve noticed a sharp decline in the number of Common Blue butterflies on a patch of land near the house this year. I have also noticed that whilst my back garden has a good number of bumblebees, there have been very few honey bees, whereas in previous years there have been many.

It would be easy to try to draw simplistic conclusions from these observations, but the fact is, although what I see correlates with observations made in the wider world, I can’t be sure that the lack of honey bees is due to the use of neonicotinoid pesticides. In this particular case, it may have more to do with the fact that a local beekeeper has stopped keeping honey bees less than half a mile away. Why did he stop? A combination of things I think; age, and the constant struggle with sickness in his bees, which of course may take us back to pesticides. The last conversation I had with him was about Himalayan Balsam, generally thought to be a ‘bad thing’, an invasive foreign species. The beekeeper, however, found the balsam beneficial for his bees; plenty of nectar, and filling a gap in the sources of nectar and pollen from native plants at this time of year.

These are complicated issues, and the truth is the number of complex issues seems to be increasing in our world.

Turkey comes into the war against the so called Islamic State (let’s be honest, it is a war), but uses the opportunity also to attack the PKK, Kurds who are proving to be one of the most effective forces on the ground against the IS. Is that good or bad? Our government relaxes a ban on neonicotinoids, in part because the alternative pesticides are said to be more damaging to bees. How do we know? How do we make sense of this as individuals? I suppose the honest answer is, we don’t, or at least many of us don’t; we leave it to others we believe to have better knowledge or information than we do about the particular issue. The problem with that is, we don’t know which of these issues may have a profound impact on us as individuals. If there were no more honeybees, or if IS succeeds in spreading its influence, all of us probably will feel the impact.

Just go back to the honeybees for a moment. When they swarm and set off to find a new site for the hive, scouts go out to look at possible sites and then return to the swarm and are able to give information about the sites they have found. The swarm, as a collective entity, in effect begins a process of voting on which site to go to. It is a potential life or death decision for the colony. In time, a majority builds up for one of the possibilities, and that site is chosen for better or worse. As individuals, none of the bees knows which is the right answer, but they all participate in the process. On the whole they get it right, obviously, or we wouldn’t have bees at all. The bees may not know it, but they trust the process that evolution has created. If they didn’t there would be a space for ‘don’t knows’ in the swarm.

One of our problems is that it is too easy to be a ‘don’t know’. Better to have an opinion, take part in the process, and trust to collective wisdom.

Editor-in-Chief Jon Saxon Sub editor Sally Newman-Kidd Photographer Richard Stanton Authors Liz Hyder, Simon Pease, John Barratt, Jane McIntyre, Alf Jenkins, Prue Britten Nicki Lewis-Smith, Floyd Willson Lloyd Crossword John Jarvis Cartoon Roger Penwill

Gardening

Childhood roots text} Nicki Lewis-Smith | image} Yarah

– GARDENING – OUT of all the trees, I think that it has to be the majestic copper beech that tugs at my heart strings most...

Perhaps it is because there was a splendid one in the garden where I spent my childhood. The branches were perfectly spaced for climbing and performing acrobatics and, over the years, they sported not only the inevitable swing, but an assortment of precariously built platforms and tree houses at varying heights. In the summer, the ground beneath its huge canopy was scuffed hard and dry by the feet of numerous children and high up, on one of the branches, my brother had carved the words: ‘Batman is thick’.

Now, as I am no longer 10, it’s the sight of those glossy, deep burgundy leaves set against a blue sky, that makes me gasp – the massive statement that a mature copper beech tree makes wherever it is located.

Stand up on Whitcliffe on a sunny day (or any non-winter day come to that) and you will see several copper

beech trees dotted across Ludlow.

The largest of these (I believe) has a girth of approximately 20 feet and is probably well in excess of 200 hundred years old. It is situated in one of my gardens – it is the garden. Not only do I rake up huge heaps of its bright coppery leaves every autumn, but also sack loads of beechmast. Once the mast starts to drop on the lawn it’s like walking across crunchy nut cornflakes and, for a few weeks each year, I’m afraid that this particular fagus syvatica f. purpurea falls out of favour.

But at the moment, I enjoy its majesty – the coolness on a hot summer’s day as I work at peeling away any encroaching ivy tendrils, then the glorious sight of, not bare ground trampled by children, but masses of delicate cyclamen uncurling before the big leaf drop. Then in the late winter, a carpet of aconites, snowdrops and later, a blue haze of scilla sibirica ... Sigh!

If I started my horticultural career from scratch, I think I would like to work more with trees. To be an arborist or a tree surgeon perhaps.

I could wear the hi-vis harness, the spiked boots and the hard hat – although I do feel that the latter might not protect me if I fell out of the tree on to my head. I do still climb trees – there are a couple of big bramley apple trees that I clamber up into to prune. I swear profusely throughout the process, but, while I still can...

I also wonder (while I still can) should I return to my childhood garden, scale that splendid copper beech tree and see if my brother’s statement about Batman is still there?

I daresay the bark will have long ago eaten his words.

I could also see if the walnut tree is still there ... a huge lower limb had broken leaving behind, at the perfect height for a small girl, a pony...

------------------------------------------------Nicki Lewis-Smith is an award winning garden designer and consultant, based here in Ludlow: (check Nicki’s advertisement on page 16 of Ludlow Ledger for further details).

Publisher Son of Saxon 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA 01584 872381 www.ludlowledger.co.uk jon@sonofsaxon.co.uk Printer The Guardian Print Centre Media Park, Longbridge Road, Parkway Estate, Manchester, M17 1SN Paper 100% recycled 52gsm 76ISO improved Berliner newsprint Online Website: www.ludlowledger.co.uk Twitter: @ludlowledger Advertising There are a number of different ways to explore advertising in Ludlow Ledger: Download ludlowledger.com/advertise Email ads@ludlowledger.co.uk or Phone 01584 872381 Office Discuss advertising in person at 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA Legal All rights reserved.

No part of Ludlow Ledger may be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, without the strict written permission of the publisher Production schedule ISSUE 10 Editorial: 25th September, 2015 Print: 3rd November, 2015 ISSUE 11 Editorial: 20th November, 2015 Print: 5th January, 2016

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10

Mackenzie & Smith

Dancing with woods text} Liz Hyder | image} Richard Stanton – PROFILE – IF you walk through the Bull Ring regularly, you can’t have failed to spot Mackenzie & Smith, a small Dickensian, wonky windowed little chocolate-box shop next door to The Bindery. If, like me, you’re fairly nosey, you may have also peeped in through the window at the half restored antiques, the neat rows of chisels and tools, and maybe even caught a glimpse of furniture restorer extraordinaire Tim Smith hard at work.

Ostensibly, Mackenzie & Smith specialise in the restoration of 17-19th century furniture and clock cases but, in reality, as with many things Ludlow, Tim turns his hand to a wider variety of antiques than this implies.

As I’m welcomed into Tim’s workshop with a friendly grin, I step back in time over the threshold to a warm and cosy little space, crammed full of interesting looking, well, things.

Everything has its place, from chisels to awls, from tiny mouse-sized keys for tea-chests when tea was a precious and expensive commodity to huge keys at least a hand-span wide and, of course, wood. Lots and lots of pieces of wood. There’s a half restored table in sections, a personal long term project, and a doll sized chest of drawers that Tim is busy restoring the veneer on at the moment. Frankly I could spend hours on end in here, just getting Tim to explain what all the tools are, where they came from and what they’re used for.

“I’ve always been interested in antiques,” says Tim, softly, over a cuppa in his kitchen behind the workshop. He confesses that, as a boy, he used to go off rummaging in the fields to dig up and track down old household items that interested him.

“I’m a hoarder, yes,” he says with a proud grin before confessing that his mum gave him a pair of waders as a birthday present when he was just a lad purely so he could wade further into the river in search of treasure. But treasure for Tim isn’t gold or silver, it’s simply interesting things from the past, in whatever shape they might take, from hand-blown old glass bottles found under his backyard to medieval tiles from an old monastery, Tim has an interest in the past that drives his passions but is also utterly infectious.

The young Tim’s passion for the past led to him selling some of the items he unearthed. “Enamel signs always sold well and, back then, you could find them all over, in hedgerows, in ditches…” he says. He easily turned a profit from those early sales as a youngster, but it was never his dream to be a dealer; for him the really interesting job lay in working with wood – making and restoring furniture.

A mahogany specialist, his passion for his material is evident.

“I’ve always wanted to work with antiques. Every piece is different, every piece brings its own challenges and rewards,” he reveals. His clientele are mainly local (from within 30 odd miles), and he takes work on a case by case basis, depending on his availability and the piece that needs restoring.

He has a particular passion for Queen Anne mahogany and has restored various pieces from that period. When I ask about fakes, he’s very diplomatic: “I have very rarely worked on fakes but I have a rule that I will always say, if I’m asked (and I’m not always asked) whether it is fake or not … that I will be honest.” He explains that there can be legal wrangling if, say, he said something was a fake and the original seller said it wasn’t. “I don’t want to get involved in anything like that,” he says. “I’m interested in the pieces themselves, in the workmanship, in

restoring them to their original state, as they were meant to be.”

He tells me of a time when he once worked on a fake that was so well made that it had him completely fooled until he took off one of its bun feet and realised it wasn’t in fact the period piece he’d thought. His favourite story though is a terrible home repair where someone had wreaked havoc on a table leg, replacing the foot with a lump of resin, which was then subsequently painted over to disguise it. He shakes his head sorrowfully at this one – “an utter shambles,” he sighs – but I’ve laughed so much at his tales of reallife-comedy, botched jobs that my tea’s long since gone cold.

So now, I can’t help but ask, who and where is Mackenzie? For there is only Tim Smith in front of me and no sign of (and indeed very little space in the workshop) for anyone else. “Ah yes,” says Tim with his trademark grin, “Mackenzie…” Tim reveals that he first worked with Kenneth Mackenzie in Harrogate in a workshop run by Tim Phelps. Tim then moved down to London, to a rather fabulous sounding ‘rabbit warren’ workshop (Plowden and Smith), that housed a myriad of different artisans working away on everything from porcelain and silver to period furniture. “The furniture department was then being run by a fraudster with a handlebar moustache who wasn’t a cabinet maker at all. He was eventually rumbled and, after a general punch up, was frog marched out of the building in a half Nelson, much to everybody’s delight.”

“We were all based in a corridor,” says Tim. “I wasn’t allowed up much to the porcelain department, they were all female and those of us working in wood were all male…” he breaks off with a wide eyed innocent look that is utterly undone by his naughty giggle. For some reason, this reminds me of a rumour that I’d heard about Tim being a secret salsa dancer … of which, more later.

“Mackenzie and I planned to go into business together whilst we were still in Harrogate and we eventually ended up setting up shop here in Ludlow,” says Tim. He already knew the local area as his parents were based not far from Ludlow. “There’s something special about it as a place, all the hidden houses and little alleyways, it’s a magical town with layers of history all on top of each other.” Sadly, things “didn’t work out” (as Tim puts it – ever the diplomat) with Mackenzie, and they parted ways. Tim stayed put and the name remained too, even though Mackenzie himself has long since moved on.

When Tim shows me the neck of a really rather beautiful old glass bottle found in the yard out the back, I remember that he actually lives here, behind and above the shop. But then I realise there is almost no backyard.

You’d struggle to swing a cat. What about storage space for all the pieces he’s working on?

“I have the workshop as my storage space,” says Tim, “and I have a little space upstairs for wood storage.”

I’m utterly flummoxed by this. How on earth can he restore big pieces of furniture in there? “Oh, there’s plenty of space,” he says cheerfully, “I’m very organised.” And sure enough, he manages to do it time and time again.

How? I don’t know, but the key to his amazing workshop is knowing exactly where everything is; every tool has its place. Many of his tools are handmarked with the name of the original owner embossed in the handle, some of the tools have up to three or four different names on where they’ve changed hands over the years. Tim has his name marked on them too, following on this age-old tradition.

11

12

Upstairs, in a bright but narrow box room that is Tim’s wood-storage space, rows of beautiful pieces of wood are neatly stacked up and labelled. Tim pulls them out, one after another, handing them to me. Yew, rosewood, elm, mahogany, woods I’ve never heard of as well as more familiar ones – some of the pieces are decades old, some are no longer even commercially available, but Tim keeps hold of them.

After all, he never knows when he might need them. Each piece that Tim hands to me has its own story, from what it might be used for, to the history and geography of where it grew, to the individual colours and grain. It’s all utterly fascinating and I realise how little I know about wood.

Despite Tim modestly claiming that he’s a mahogany specialist, it’s clear that his knowledge, respect and passion for a whole range of woods makes him an expert in a lot more than just a single area.

Which brings me neatly on to salsa.

“Oh yes,” says Tim, “I have done a bit of salsa. A friend started doing it as he thought he might get a girlfriend out of it and I went along with him.”

Tim even travelled to Birmingham for classes but found it a bit of a commitment. An old dance teacher friend of mine once said salsa was the hardest dance to learn. Tim nods in agreement. “It’s not the easiest dance,” he says, cheerfully, “but I do

enjoy it.” It’s proved to be too time consuming in terms of travel though so, for the moment at least, the salsa is on standby.

Whilst Tim tackles each piece in his workshop individually, he sometimes comes up with ingenious methods for preserving elements that others might throw away or simply not bother with.

My favourite example of this is his tale about oysters, not the edible kind, but a special type of veneer using thin slices of branches as decoration. A particular piece that needed restoring had a whole set of oysters that were warped and twisted, popping out from where they should lie flat. How, he ruminates, could he mend them?

Replace them, I suggest tentatively, but Tim shakes his head. He simply soaked them for ages, weighed them down to flatten them out, then, when dry, he just put them back where they should have been.

So, with one foot very firmly in the past, would Tim like to actually travel back in time? “Oh yes,” he says confidently, “very much so.”

Any particular time period? “1806,” he says. Wow, that’s specific – why that particular year? “Not necessarily because it was a perfect time in history (with the Napoleonic wars and all that) but because of the charming objects the people left behind them...”

Tim, perhaps surprisingly, doesn’t mind at all that his workshop is so

public. In fact, he rather likes it. When I suggest that it might be distracting with all the nosy parkers like me pressing their faces up against the window, he shakes his head. “No, I like it, seeing the world outside. People passing, taking an interest in the work.

I don’t always have time to stop to talk, sometimes I’ve given people short shrift if I’m busy,” he laughs, guiltily.

“But if I do have the time, I’m more than happy to explain what I’m doing, I like seeing passers by going about their day.”

Tim’s keen to share his knowledge and experience but apprenticeship schemes are expensive to run and, sadly, it’s not feasible for him to take anyone on at the moment. “There’s not much money in antiques these days,” he laments.” There were at least five times more antique shops in Ludlow when I first set up than there are now.”

Thankfully though, there are still lots of people who appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of old furniture and, as long as there are, we’ll need experts like Tim to maintain and restore it. Just don’t ask him to french polish your piano or varnish your Ikea furniture eh?

-------------------------------------------------Mackenzie & Smith, 4 Bull Ring, Ludlow, SY8 1AD – 01584 877133

13

Renaissance Centre

Antique & Modern Pre-Loved Furniture Hundreds of Paperbacks & Rare Books Also be sure to visit the Flea Market next door!

Find us at 7-8 Tower Street, Ludlow Open Monday-Saturday 9:30am-5pm Supporting the Furniture Scheme www.furniturescheme.co.uk Charity No. 1082068

Secondhand bargains of Ludlow

Charity begins text} Jane McIntyre | image} Richard Stanton – SHOPPING – YES, that’s a chihuahua in her pocket, and yes she’s pleased to see you – even more so if you have a root through the rails and spend a couple of quid at the Forest Dog Rescue shop on Old Street.

It’s the tenth, and newest of Ludlow’s charity shops, and a passion for pets and people meant Linda Harvey was probably destined to manage it and its sister store on the High Street.

Rossy and Chico (he’s the little chap in her other pocket) sometimes keep her company in a busy round of duties that includes legging it between the two shops, cleaning, sorting, pricing, and making sure the kettle’s nice and hot for when her volunteers arrive on shift.

“I love my job, and my girls,” she says. And her dogs too. It’s that compassion for canines that drives Linda to make as much cash as she can from the donated goods on display.

“We don’t have targets here, as such,” she says, “and while we’re always fundraising as hard as we can for the kennels, our prices are probably among the lowest in town.”

One classy looking turquoise wrap dress and a silky black top later (all for under a tenner) and I’m inclined to agree... and the fact that Ludlow’s charity shop tally has hit double figures suggests I’m not the only one happy to walk in someone else’s shoes.

Take Charlotte Chilton. She’s 31 and probably has bargain browsing in her blood. “My mum would always look in charity shops when I was little,” she said. “I’d stand outside or up the road a bit, thinking how uncool it all was.”

Now she’s clearly a convert. A whistle stop tour of her rented Ludlow flat takes in a bed and a sideboard from the town’s Furniture Scheme; a seascape painting for a fiver; a packed pantry with charity shop pots and pans; an Armani cardigan; and a classy coffee-

table book on Art Nouveau. “I love showing off bargains to my friends,” she laughs. “See this? Just a pound.”

Jane Irvine’s another addict. She’s in her forties; a teaching assistant with nursery and reception-class pupils – so things can get messy. Bargain-priced charity-shop finds help her look smart, without worrying too much about paint and crayon stains. She’s even managed to pull together an entire Ladies’ Day ensemble for the races; a designerbrand wool cardigan, a scarf and a necklace from Ludlow’s Blue Cross shop completes the look.

Frances Clarke is assistant manager there and, separately, the local artist behind the Ludlow Charity Shop Trail Map (an innovative, free guide for visitors, and a possible model for other towns to copy). Frances admits that she hasn’t always been a fan of charity shops. She got hooked into this branch by a dress near the door, and she applied for her job. She says she loves how shops have changed and, being ‘quite green,’ loves that each is its own little recycling unit, too. She agrees that a generation ago there was a certain stigma about charity shops. A sniffiness, maybe? “In some places, you’d walk into a wall of must,” she recalls. “Now, everything’s steam cleaned and colour co-ordinated.

There’s great staff training and customer service.”

Steam cleaning’s not the only way they keep the place feeling fresh. Items here have a two-week shelf-life before being moved on to other shops in this charity’s chain.

Blue Cross manager Lesley Shephard talks of targets to be reached. “We won’t make them with mis-matched stuff – this is a retail business.” Lesley’s worked as an independent trader and says she’s passionate about the survival of the High Street. She accepts that there will always be some people

who moan as ‘another’ charity shop is unveiled. “I’d ask them what else would be there,” she says. “It’s all very well having the ‘pretty’ shops, but people need to use them.”

Charity shops are different. They need dedicated volunteers and they need donations. Most staff I spoke to admitted they’d had a few heart-sink moments while opening the donated goods: black bin bagged clothes not fit to sell; half empty paint cans from shed clear outs; odd shoes. But, Lesley assures me, as we blink at an unworn, cream leather dress from French Connection, there are generous items too, demanding realistic price tags.

If that’s part of shops’ duty to donors; There’s a widespread kindness to customers, too – I spot staff taking time to listen to stories about poignant family connections with their charity, some serving customers a cuppa in a quiet corner, and I hear about the day at the Sue Ryder store when they got an impromptu rendition of Yessir, that’s my baby by customers Bob and Frank – having grabbed a ukulele that was on display.

Elaine Humphreys manages the Tower Street branch of Sue Ryder. She insists that whatever Ludlow shoppers think of charity shops; they should at least, try them. “Think about it,” she says, “there are no big department stores here but you can pick up all kinds of brands – from Marks and Spencer, to Monsoon, to Jack Wills.

We’ve had people rushing in to pick up a suitcase for their holiday in a week’s time because they can’t get to bigger shops in Hereford, and we’ve had a lady kitting herself out for a wedding.”

On the face of it, the future for charity shops is smelling sweeter. Many stores have salaried managers, helping shops create their own identities and earning their place on the high street.

They pay their rent and (often slightly reduced) rates; they understand their customer base; and they pitch prices accordingly. Window displays change regularly and look professional and fresh, and inside, those vital volunteers are gaining great retail experience.

All talk of teamwork, variety and fun, but make no mistake – in Ludlow, at least, charity shops mean business.

Company No. 4041051

52 MILL STREET, LUDLOW www.blueboarludlow.co.uk

14

– COVER STORY – < continued from the front page but a good rod can last a lifetime, as Sam says, “as long as you look after it properly”. This means not treading on it or shutting it in a car door, apparently two of the most common ways to break a rod.

Women are apparently better at fishing, I’m told, because the fish can smell the oestrogen. I raise a somewhat sceptical eyebrow at this and Sam laughs guiltily … he thinks it’s just a modern myth too. Out of the 60 in the Ashford Carbonell syndicate, there’s only one female member, but Sam says he’s hoping to get more soon.

And with that, the rod’s ready to cast. “Don’t worry if you hit a tree,” he says helpfully.

There are lots of different methods of fishing I find out. Even I’ve heard of coarse and fly but, even within that, there are more. Coarse fishing, Sam enlightens me, originated as a derogatory term by posh folk who preferred ‘game’ fishing (fly fishing for trout and salmon) and looked down their aristocratic noses at any other practice as ‘coarse’. But that’s not all – within coarse fishing as a category, there are various different methods to catch those elusive fish. There’s ledger fishing, where there’s a weight holding the bait down below the water. There’s a swim feeder with a little holder not far from the hook full of wriggly maggots or whatever else you want to put in (anything from bread to corned beef or bacon). Then there’s a spinner, a small metal thing that looks like a squashed key-ring, which spins in the water as you reel it in, mimicking a small tasty fish for bigger tastier fish to catch (confusingly, spinning can also be used in fly fishing too).

I can’t keep up with it all, but the main thing that strikes me most is how meditative it is to be down at the river watching the water flowing, keeping an eye out for tell-tale fish activity. “Various members have really busy lives,” says Sam quietly, “so it’s a chance to switch off, be somewhere undisturbed and quiet for a bit.”

We’ve cast out and now the rod is propped up on a holding stick on the river bank. “We’ll give that 20 minutes or so,” says Sam, flopping down on to his picnic blanket and opening a beer. A female goosander (identified by a battered old copy of the Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain) floats down near us and then shoots off in panic when she spots us. “It’s not all about the fishing,” Sam had said to me earlier and I see what he means. It’s also about being outdoors, enjoying the beauty of the countryside, spotting the wildlife, having some time out from everyday life. And the Teme is a thriving place for wildlife, a Site of Special Scientific Interest along its entire length. You might spot otters, dippers, kingfishers, goldeneye (hums the Shirley Bassey song) and water vole. There are also mink that like nothing better than munching on water voles but, thankfully, there’s a mink hunter who minimises their number.

Conservation plays a large part of what Sam (as Chairman) does, working with a PhD student studying the decline of barbel in the Teme.

They work with the Environment Agency on aquaculture to understand better and improve the environment.

It really isn’t just about the fishing.

2015 is a landmark year for the Ashford Carbonell Fishing Syndicate, who celebrated their 45th year this summer. Sam tells me that they have around two miles of riverbank in and around Ashford Carbonell and the age of its members range from teenagers right up to men in their seventies.

Sam’s only been a member for two years and has had a pretty meteoric rise to Chairman, after the previous Chair invited him to take over in February this year.

The riverbank is used all year round but coarse fishing is closed through spring from 15th March until midnight of 15th June, and fly fishing from 8th October right to the 17th March.

There are heavy fines if you fish at the wrong time, up to a staggering £50k for coarse fishing out of season. Yet, throughout the year, there’s plenty of

work to be done. Sam and his team strim certain areas, reinforce paths, cut steps and sympathetically improve the banks. Sixty members is a high number but Sam feels it gives them more lobbying power and creates a greater sense of a community amongst them. “A camaraderie of fishermen, that’s what I’d suggest for a collective noun,” he says as he prepares a rollup. “This is the first year we have bank licences and without them, you can’t protect the fishing.”

“Do fish feel pain?” Sam suddenly asks and before I can answer he tells me about their nervous systems and how the lateral line means that they have less pain in their mouths. Which is good if a hook has just gone through it. It’s at this point that Sam decides to re-bait and casts out rather close to me, making me slightly nervous of getting a face full of maggots. “What’s the best time of day to fish?” I ask and Sam laughs. “That’s an age old question,” he sighs. “It depends who you ask. You’re not going to get into fishing if you actually just want fish…”

At this point, Ricky, the cheeky-chap bar manager from the Chang Thai, joins us. Like me, he’s never been fishing before and Sam, a good friend of his, invited him along to give it a go too. Ricky rubs his hands gleefully.

“I’m not going to catch a bloody shark am I?” he giggles.

Having caught precisely nothing so far, we relocate to another patch, “a helluva pretty spot,” as Sam says, on the syndicate’s stretch of river in the shadow of Ashford Bowdler’s dinky church. Sam, like other riverside fishermen, moves around a fair bit when he’s fishing, trying his luck in different patches. The Teme is, excuse the pun, teaming with a wide range of fish, from brown trout to chub, carp, bream, perch, rudd, barbel, pike, roach, grayling and even salmon.

Oh and eels and lamprey eels too.

Yet numbers are down from a few decades ago which is a real concern.

A combination of low water levels, overfishing out at sea, obstacles such as weirs without salmon runs, and runoff from silage seem to be the main factors, although it’s difficult to know for certain.

Ricky is given a rod with a float, I’m given the rod with the swim feeder and off we go, casting into a deep dark pool in which dark shadows of fish can be seen – chub and trout according to Sam’s expert eye. Bubbles rising to the surface aren’t good indicators, in the current the water is oxygenated so it might just be a river burp rather than a trout. A few trout suddenly jump clean out of the water to catch late May flies, flinging themselves upwards and splashing back down to disappear.

It’s quite something. “Oh God, I’ve got to chuck it out there,” I hear Ricky mutter to himself as he casts out again. “There’s so much technology now in fishing,” muses Sam. “There’s fishing line out there that’s invisible under water, with any breaking strain you want, with rods that can be engineering to land any sized fish.”

Sam’s also a fan of fishing in the river in his waders. “I like being in the river a lot. You’ve got to be careful, it’s fairly slippery in places but that sense of stalking the fish, trying to walk like a heron…” he drifts off, a big happy smile on his face. How big a part does luck play though? Sam shakes his head. “There are some brilliantly skilled fishermen out there, I just dabble in it. Skill plays a big part.” At this point, Ricky needs help, he’s tangled his line into a rather lovely giant knot. “If you don’t like tangles, don’t go into fishing,” says Sam, dryly.

We wait and watch by the pool and I’m genuinely surprised to clock that we’ve already been out for well over two hours. “Last two times I was out I drew blanks,” Sam says mournfully, “but then the time before that I caught two.” And with that, there’s a sudden tug on the rod. A bite, a bloody bite!

I’ve actually caught something. I try and reel it in somewhat incompetently as Sam grabs the net, and a young female brown trout emerges. Sam uses a disgorger to remove the hook from her throat and I hold her in my hands – this strong, beautiful, wild animal

wriggling and slipping in my hands.

Silver and green and flecked with pink spots, it’s quite something to hold her in my hands, feeling her muscles under my fingertips. I silently release her back into the wild, opening my hands and watching as she disappears back into the depths of the deep pool.

It’s utterly magical and strangely emotional.

“It’s the potential really,” Sam muses as we pack up to leave a little later (after I’ve had a go at ‘cheeky spinning’ and managed to lose two of Sam’s spinners to the rocks of the riverbed). “The electricity of it, when the fish takes the bait, the commonality of experience, of catching something. The interaction with wildlife and just being outdoors, re-connecting to being a kid again. I don’t think it is a cruel sport; we’re environmentally minded and have a real respect for what we catch. Even if they’re not Brain of Britain.”

And what about the other newcomer’s experience? “I really enjoyed it,” says Ricky bouncing up and down on his heels. “It’s just nice being somewhere quiet and beautiful.

Next time, I’d do it for longer.” And you know what? So would I. Sitting by the river, watching the currents flow, seeing the wildlife and that beautiful moment of holding something wild in your hands. But, as we all know, it’s not just about the fishing, is it?

15

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Page 14 and cover text} Liz Hyder | images} Richard Stanton

16

Remembering my friend

Floyd’s travel companion, Aubrey text and image} Floyd Willson-Lloyd – MEMORIES – AUBREY Alfred Edward Rupert Weller (known to all and sundry as ‘Aubs’) featured in one of the first print runs of the Ludlow Ledger. So pleased was he with the erudite coverage of a brief portion of his life that he felt entitled to have further remembrances in this excellent journal. Although not planned, he achieved this end shortly afterwards by dying – thus securing a well-written obituary in a later volume.

To keep his memory alive further, I have been charged with recounting my sometimes humorous and sometimes frustrating Travels with Aubrey.

-------------------------------------------------1997. I should have sensed that things were not going to improve after the taxi picking us up in Ludlow reversed over Aubrey’s night bag, and creating (on further inspection at the airport): a brown sticky mess of Aubs’ medication (rendered useless), three, now empty, plastic bottles containing hair shampoo, suntan cream and shower gel; a broken electric toothbrush and a Harry Potter paperback.

The first day at our resort in Mallorca was mainly spent sourcing new prescription medicine, after which all seemed to be going well – apart from a minor interlude of patching up Aubs’ nose after he walked into a pine tree whilst captivated by a three-legged Jack Russell chasing a cat along the promenade. Having drawn the short straw on bathroom use that evening, Aubs agreed to join us in a bar called Coconuts. About an hour later Aubrey appeared, wearing a flowing saffron coloured kaftan, genuine Ecuadorian Panama hat, a round blue catering plaster on his nose and a very large Romeo y Julieta cigar in full stoke. His attire was further complemented with a bright green cocktail, which clashed terribly with the elastoplast. His dress attracted a great deal of attention from all, except ourselves, who tried our best to ignore him.

We left him (as best we could) to his own devices, and he quickly drew the attention of a German chap with poor English. We overheard Aubs telling this chap what he did for a living ... he explained that, in Mallorca, one of the delicacies at the table is conejo (rabbit); although there are plenty of these

animals on the island, it is extremely difficult to get them out of their burrows so (he said) he was running a very successful business importing ferrets into the Balearics (one of which had bitten him on the nose).

-------------------------------------------------2003. Aubrey and I decided to travel together to Guernsey for the birthday celebrations of a mutual friend, Hugh Bygott-Webb. We arrived at Birmingham airport and went to check-in where a tall, bespectacled gentleman requested our passports.

He proceeded to examine them carefully, then us, and then the passports again. Bending over and looking over his glasses, he enquired politely which one of us was Miss Deborah James? (Aubrey’s wife’s live-in carer). Fortunately Aubs had a photo driving licence with him, which was, after a few telephone calls, accepted as identification to travel to the Channel Isles. Further problems arose at baggage check.

As we were only going for a few days I was carrying a light, shoulder, cabinbag. Aubrey, on the other hand, had a large Samsonite case and a full set of left-handed Pings (golf clubs) with a right-handed number 3 for awkward tree shots, tucked into a full-sized Bellair golf bag, covered in stickers and further enclosed in a fibreglass, flight-approved travel case. I never did find out how much he had to cough up for excess baggage.

We checked into our hotel (on the far side of the island and next to a nine-hole golf course) and, at reception, were asked to access our rooms via the dining room, as the corridor was being decorated. ... I went first through the open double doors to the dining room, towing Aubs’ suitcase. He followed, doing a passable impersonation of Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, with his golf bag over his shoulder … and managing to smash eight longstemmed wine glasses and a flower vase which had previously been on a well-laid table. I left him to explain and went to my room.

Changed and refreshed we met in the bar and booked a taxi into St Peterport. Having done a little research with the Good Beer Guide, I asked the driver to drop us at the

Cock and Bull, which I had learnt served Ringwood’s Old Thumper. The choice was met with great enthusiasm.

About three pints later, I suggested a well-reviewed fish restaurant on the harbour front, which we walked to.

Pâté to start followed by lobster salad sounded good, but after the starter Aubs went missing. Ten minutes turned into twenty and I fruitlessly searched the toilets and the pub next door. As I re-entered the restaurant I noticed a sign indicating a private dining area on the third floor, and my hunch was right. There, with a group of 24 American businessmen and their partners, was Aubrey (three Old Thumpers and a few G&Ts down) doing his full Rat Pack review.

I apologised that my ‘Grandfather’ had bothered them and accepted the proffered tip, which went well towards our dinner.

The following day, before Hugh’s party, we played golf on the hotel course. It would be easy for me to say, now, that I beat him. I didn’t – but two rented clubs and a putter against his full set did pretty well.

Hugh’s birthday (an informal BBQ), in the grounds of his country house, was excellent: Hugh and most of his guests wore t-shirts, shorts and trainers. I wore jacket and jeans.

Aubrey? Aubrey wore a full DJ with red cummerbund, bow tie, black patent shoes and a red carnation buttonhole. Priceless.

-------------------------------------------------2004. B.A.T.S. (Big Al’s Travel Service at the Nelson Inn) had arranged a group to Cork for a week. Aubs, Paul Box and myself could only manage a long weekend with them so travelled separately from Birmingham airport, where, in the departure lounge, Aubs produced his ‘travelling cocktail cabinet’. A beautifully hand-stitched leather case which I believe he had liberated some many years ago from a pre-war Lagonda. He handed out three of the four crystal tumblers, cut slices of lemon, poured three well measured gins and added tonic – stirring them all with a solid silver cocktail spoon. How he managed the ice I do not know, but it was definitely better than queuing at the Wetherspoon’s bar.

We booked into an excellent hotel in Blarney where we had three of the four rooms that shared a private terrace with a clutter of cats. Saturday morning involved full breakfast, coffee and orange juice on our terrace. One of Aubrey’s pet hates was cats. Where he got it from, I do not know, but he single-handedly disposed of all the curious moggies with a multi-coloured, plastic, mega-blaster water pistol – thus allowing us to enjoy breakfast in peace.

We all got a mini-bus from Blarney to Cork for the day. This mainly involved ‘shopping’ in Cork’s Patrick Street where our search for real ale

was mainly unsuccessful. A fairly liquid lunch consisting of Guinness and crisps preceded a walking tour of the city. We soon encountered a now familiar sight in city streets – a living statue ... a tall gentleman in very impressive make-up portraying an Indian chief with full headdress, silver costume and plastic tomahawk. Aubrey had not experienced a living statue before and was intrigued; examining the motionless ‘statue’ up and down, 360 degrees, before whooping and leaping up and down in pantomime style – performing a full ‘playground’ war dance in front of the now terrified statue. Hastily throwing a few Euros into his collection box we decided to frog march Aubrey off to a new reservation before it got ugly.

We travelled to the airport late Monday morning for our return to Birmingham. No sooner had we checked in had we lost him. We eventually found him, having blagged his way into the small V.I.P. lounge where he is holding court with a well known pop band telling tales of derring-do in the movie industry, with the likes of Dicky Attenborough and Sean Connery (with whom Aubrey starred in the Time Bandits).

-------------------------------------------------2011. The autumn of this year saw a return trip to the North of Mallorca.

We had an apartment, whilst Aubrey had booked himself into the Hotel Sis Pins (now known locally as the No Pins, since the hurricane of 2002).

Saturday morning, at about 11am,

Aubs phoned me. So shortly after his throat operation he used few words: “need wheelchair”. I asked him what the hell he had done and got the short reply “gout”. I remembered that a pal of mine in the port had recently used a wheelchair whilst recovering from a broken back. I rang him and fetched the wheelchair.

I picked Aubs up and hastily pushed him to the medics’ clinic in the square, where the lady doctor confirmed his self-diagnosis and wrote out a prescription for suitable pills. “These pills will take a while to take effect,” said the doctor, “so I am going to give you an injection to relieve the pain until then.” Talking to me from her ante-room, whilst she prepared a syringe, she asked me to: “get Mr. Weller on to his feet, bend him over my examination couch and remove his pants.” Friends maybe, but this was a call too far... “You’re by yourself now Aubs; I’ll see you next door in the bar in a few minutes.”

-------------------------------------------------2014. My final journey with Aubs was last September when, sadly, he had a one-way ticket to Ludford Memorial Gardens to meet his wife Gillian.

To comply with his wishes, this was a secular performance attended by a small number of friends and family, and conducted by a member of the Magic Circle. Later that day we listened to jazz, drank real ale, and told endless stories of Old Aubrey.

ISSUE #8 Stanton’s Castle Bookshop Battle of Britain hero: Laurie Whitbread Trying tai ji Being pernickety about Ludlow Solar farm debate Canadian fiction: No Known Grave Bennett’s End revisted Proposed parlour pub Tiananmen Square to Market Square ludlowledger.com/archive

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17

Castle Gardens’ gun

Getting to know our 2-ton Russian text} John Barratt | image} Richard Stanton – LANDMARK – GUARDING the gateway of Ludlow Castle, the Russian gun is a familiar sight to Ludlow people, and a great attraction for visitors, especially young ones. But how many know the story of this cannon or that it was manufactured by an Englishman?

The plaque on the gun carriage explains that it was “captured in 1855 at Sevastopol”. The Crimean War of 1853-56 was Britain’s only European war in the century between Waterloo and the outbreak of WW1, and was fought between, on one side, Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia, and, on the other, the mighty Russian Empire.

Not for the first or last time, the allies found the prospect of invading Russia a formidable task and settled for a landing in the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, with the objective of capturing the big Russian naval base and fortress of Sevastopol. The siege lasted for over a year; the defenders were determined and the fortifications made more formidable by over 3,000 cannon, some of them landed from naval ships in the harbour. In September 1855 the French stormed the great Malakoff redoubt (fort system), key to Sevastopol’s defences, whilst the British failed to take the equally strong Redan redoubt, but that night the Russians evacuated Sevastopol and the allies took possession of the town and its vast arsenal of munitions and cannon.

When peace came in 1856, many of these prizes were removed by the Allies and the British Army wanted some of the captured guns as trophies, though the government was unenthusiastic. An Anglo-French Commission was set up to share out the spoils, and around 1,000 brass and iron guns were shipped back to Britain and put on display at Woolwich Arsenal in London. Some of the guns were presented to senior officers, but there was considerable delay in deciding what to do with the rest. Officers who had fought in the Crimea urged that they should not simply be melted down so, in January 1857, Lord Panmure, the Secretary for War, proposed to Queen Victoria that “small numbers of the iron ordnance may be granted to such cities and towns as have proper public places to put them.”

Around 300 guns were distributed in Great Britain and the Dominions (including Australia, New Zealand and Canada) and part of the barrel of one of the brass guns (which were of better quality than the iron) was melted down to provide metal for the newlyintroduced Victoria Cross medal.

In June 1857 Hereford became the first town in the Welsh Marches to

receive one of the Russian guns. It arrived amidst great rejoicing, and other towns, including Leominster, and Wrexham (though, surprisingly, not Shrewsbury) also successfully applied for a gun. In Ludlow, Mayor Francis Richard Southern took the lead in the Council’s deliberations and a successful application was made on 6th August 1857. The Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway Company agreed to transport the cannon free of charge and, late in November, it reached Ludlow.

There doesn’t seem to have been the degree of enthusiasm felt in other towns, and it is probable that Ludlow obtained its gun through the influence of Lieutenant Colonel the Honourable Percy Egerton (known as ‘Hellfire Herbert’), the second son of the Earl of Powis, a Crimean veteran and one of Ludlow’s MPs. Its arrival was not greeted with the ceremony which had been seen in other towns and, for some time, there were even doubts about where it should be sited. The Shrewsbury Journal of 25th November 1857 reported that the: “great trophy of national valour” had arrived by “goods train” on the previous Saturday. “Its weight is 2 tons without appendages. A vast number of persons have visited the Station anxious to catch a glimpse of this powerful instrument of destruction and an early day is talked of for its permanent abode…” The gun was left outside the railway station for three weeks and then was drawn to Castle Square by “three powerful horses.” Its first siting was found to be causing an obstruction to the market so, in February 1858, the Council resolved to move it to the western end of Castle Street, adjoining Castle Walk, where it remains today.

The Hereford Chronicle reported that: “A platform of solid masonry has been raised on which the gun is erected, surrounded by an iron palisade and an ornamental chain cable attached to six standards or iron columns, surmounted by a cannon ball.”

Though described by the author of one 19th century guidebook to Ludlow as: “one of those stupid trophies from Sevastopol”, the Russian gun has remained a sight of Ludlow ever since.

After World War I it was joined, for a time, by a German companion (a field gun captured in 1917) but this, along with all the other Crimean guns, except that of Ludlow, was sent for scrap metal in World War II. So what do we know of our Russian gun? Embossed on its barrel is the double-headed eagle crest of the Russian imperial House of Romanov.

The trunnions (the protruding pieces of the cannon attaching it to the gun carriage) have a good deal of information engraved in cyrillic script. The right hand trunnion tells

us that it’s a 24–pound calibre naval gun, probably one of those added to the defences of Sevastopol from the warships in the harbour. It weighs around 2,000 kilograms and was cast in 1799. On the left hand trunnion the symbols ALKSND-ZVD indicate that it was manufactured at the Alexander Foundry at Petrozavodsk, which was 300 miles north of St Petersburg. The number 35 on the barrel may have been put there by the British Army as an aid to identification in its records.

When, in August 1857, the town of Birkenhead applied for a gun, it was reported that Lord Panmure of the War Office had offered to make two guns available to the town, and his letter explained that the available cannon did not have their original carriages. Whilst the cannon would be a gift to the town, the War Office would have to charge for constructing their carriages; two types were available: a metal carriage costing £19 and a wooden one which would cost

£16. The Birkenhead Commissioners decided to order one of each type of carriage. It is likely that Ludlow would have chosen a wooden gun carriage and a contemporary photograph of one of the Birkenhead guns suggests that the wooden version that Ludlow’s gun stands on now is still the original one supplied by the War Office.

Artillerymen through the ages have often given names to their guns, and Ludlow’s is sometimes given the nickname ‘Tom’, though it is uncertain whether its original owners christened the gun.

The Alexander Foundry was established in 1774 by a Yorkshireman, Charles Gascoigne, who had been director of the Carron Foundry at Falkirk in Scotland. At the time Tsarina Catherine II of Russia was recruiting technical experts from abroad and, in 1786, Gascoigne emigrated to Russia with a number of his men and technical equipment. He set up the Alexander Foundry which

proved very successful, manufacturing large numbers of guns for the Russian army and navy. Gascoigne remained in Russia until his death, in 1806, having been made a Knight of the Order of St Vladimir and given the prestigious rank of General.

A modern day footnote is that Gascoigne is also regarded as the founder of the town of Lughansk, the mining and industrial town in the Eastern Ukraine which has been the scene of so much recent fighting. A commemorative bust of Gascoigne was erected in a public square there; I wonder if it still survives ...

-------------------------------------------------Much of the information used here is taken from the excellent research by Roy Payne and Roger Bartlett for the article: Britain’s Crimean Trophy Guns: The Case of Ludlow and the Marches, in the publication History, vol. 99 (2014).

Legacy Lighting 1ST – 4TH OCTOBER 2015 This 6th Arcadia Festival is extended this year to include film and poetry, with the theme Youth, Age and Love.

Devised and directed by composer/pianist Eleanor Alberga and violinist Thomas Bowes, the concerts are hosted in the historic 14th century Leintwardine church, its fellow Norman church in Kingsland, and within the delightful rural setting of Downton – again bringing superb musicianship and three compelling programmes to this ancient and beautiful part of Herefordshire.

For more information on guest artists, our poet-in-residence Pele Cox and the poetry event 3pm Saturday 3rd October at Aardvark Books, Brampton Bryan; the screening ‘Late Quartet’ 3pm Friday 2nd October in Leintwardine and all other fringe events please visit: www.arcadiamusic.org.uk

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18

Ann & Alf’s story

Dhustone to Ludlow: 1962 to 1970 text} Alf Jenkins

– OUR STORY – INITIALLY my thoughts were preoccupied by finding a new home for Mum and Dad. My sister Marina and I discovered that property in Ludlow was beyond their resources, resulting in them having to decide on Leominster; we were relieved to find they had lovely neighbours. In hindsight, it was fortunate that my parents moved from the Dhustone Inn when they did, because so much happened so quickly there – a depleted workforce meant that trade dropped dramatically; the stone quarrying industry was reorganised and Mr Clarke’s railway closed. They would have been very dejected to witness all this happening.

At this time Ludlow Comprehensive School was at a transition stage, with most of it being moved from Lower Galdeford to Burway, very near to my old Grammar School sports fields. However the handicraft, home economics and needlework departments remained at Lower Galdeford until their new premises were built. My colleagues here were a splendid bunch and we developed an excellent, happy working relationship.

Pam Snead was in charge of home economics and Jenny Hewins (née Powell) needlework. Both were extremely competent, talented ladies, who loved a bit of fun and got on really well with Bill Smith and me; Bill, the metalwork teacher, was a lovely, easy-going, North-Country fellow with a wonderfully, dry wit; he would often make some comment to create a laugh.

At break, when he was able to fill his pipe with Saint Julian tobacco, light up and puff away, everything in the world was serene in his eyes. Thanks to his pipe he soon became known as ‘Whiffy’ by the boys; he was also known as ‘Buff it’ because, if a metal article needed polishing, Bill (in his north country accent) would say, “Aye lad, buff it up”.

Pupils came directly to us for all the morning sessions then walked to Burway for afternoon lessons, whilst Burway pupils walked to us at lunchtime. Our team at Galdeford had considerable autonomy – the Head left it mainly to our professional discretion; we began launching pupils on appropriate courses for GCE examinations, and I established an engineering drawing course for first year pupils at Burway. I missed the wonderful facilities at Fairfax and the excellent workshop I had established there, but I was looking forward to repeating, eventually, the exercise at Burway. One great plus and pleasure was to be back hearing the familiar Ludlow accent and the dialect of Clee Hill and Wheathill boys and girls too. It made me feel at home.

Discipline was no problem at Galdeford, though some of the 15-yearold boys in their last term didn’t always see the necessity to buckle down and give of their best. Like most other areas, Ludlow had its long-established families who had not always seen eye to eye and, as a result of tension, it was not a happy sight to see one girl dragging another along the playground by her hair.

Wigmore High School building was under way during my first year at Ludlow and so Ludlow saw its last intake from Orleton Village. Those boys and girls were a lovely bunch – I knew them and their families and felt a special affinity with them. It has been considerably gratifying to watch them grow up, have families, contribute to our communities and become, without exception, good citizens – but I cannot believe that they are in or near their 60s.

Ludlow Festival had just been established and it was an exciting

challenge to be asked to co-ordinate – with the Art Department and Miss Thelma Carter – to produce appropriate artefacts to advertise Ludlow Castle’s Shakespearian play and fringe activities.

As the date for moving approached, Bill and I had a couple of weekends and a few weekdays preparing all the machines and equipment for loading.

We were aided by a few 15 year olds – lovely, willing lads, respectful and helpful but not of the top flight, therefore they did not suffer too greatly by missing a few academic lessons. We were labouring away, taking rag bolts out of the floor to release lathes, and we really needed a drink so we asked Mervyn to pop to the next room and make a cup of tea. He returned a few minutes later to say it was ready, but we were at a crucial stage of levering a lathe off the floor so I asked him to keep the tea warm. A couple of minutes later I shouted to Mervyn but he didn’t reply and I went to investigate as he came rushing out of the door.

He was quite distressed and blurted, “I was keeping the teapot hot but I’ve had an accident. It’s blown to pieces.”

I followed him in. The china teapot was in smithereens and tea leaves were splattered up the wall. The poor, agitated lad had put the teapot on a hot ring with disastrous consequences.

Fortunately Mervyn was not injured and, looking back, it was a rather amusing episode.

At about this time Bill’s wife, Norma, secured a post at Bitterley School as cook. Bill had managed to buy a semidetached cottage in the village and the family was very pleased. Bill could travel the three miles to school easily and Norma could walk the few hundred yards to school daily, with their small son Michael. Prior to this Bill had been renting a property at Wheat Common near Richards Castle and, on the day of the move, he was most anxious about Sandy, their beautiful golden retriever.

Sandy found it very difficult to settle and, during the weekend, had tried to find her way back to Wheat Common.

When leaving school on the Monday Bill told me this story and asked me to keep an eye out for Sandy, in case she had slipped away again. I was still living with Mum and Dad, prior to leaving the Dhustone Inn, and I had offered a lift to a colleague – Phyllis Edwards – who wanted to visit her parents in the hamlet.

I proceeded from Ludlow up and over Angel Bank and, as I neared the Dhustone Lane turn, low and behold there was Sandy trotting along quite unconcerned. I asked Phyllis if she would mind walking the short, remaining distance home while I captured Sandy and returned her to Bitterley. I called Sandy and she bounded up to my mini-van and eagerly jumped into the back as I held the door open. As I drove off talking to her, she put her paws over the back seat, tongue lolling out and happily looking out of the windscreen.

I retraced my route down Angel bank, turned off to Bitterley and arrived at Bill’s cottage. I knocked on the door and Bill appeared, contentedly puffing that pipe of his. I said, “I’ve picked Sandy up and brought her home. I found her at the top of Angel Bank.”

In his North Country accent Bill said, “Eeh, that’s funny. She were sitting on t’carpet in front of t’fire a few minutes since.” Bill held the cottage door open and in ‘Sandy’ bounded, with us both following closely behind. Imagine my profound shock to see two Golden Retrievers in front of the sitting room fire – mine was not ‘Sandy’.

There was nothing for it but to return the dog to where I had discovered it.

My new found friend readily jumped

back into the van and I let him out at Dhustone Lane, gave him a gentle pat and said, “Go home.” A couple of days later I discovered that this friend was called Brandy and was owned by the proprietor of the Royal Oak public house, situated 200 yards from Dhustone Lane.

THE summer holidays of 1964 were very special for me. On August the 8th I married my fiancé, Ann; this has proved to be the luckiest day of my life. Ann’s home, Inchmoor Farm, was near Orleton Village in North Herefordshire, just five miles from Ludlow School. After much hunting, we found a property in Orleton – Bower House was a three bedroom, semi-detached house and, although condemned, we were convinced we could make it into our home. The property was in a deplorable state and my Dad thought it was too run down to tackle, “Don’t forget Ann will be your wife and it is your responsibility to look after her and make this a decent place to live in.” It was for sale by Russell Baldwin and Bright at auction and neither Ann nor I had any experience of bidding at an auction. We discussed this with John Crofts, a relative who worked as a fine art specialist at RB&B, and he decided to bid for us up to £1,000 – my salary at the time was £420 annually and we were concerned about what was needed to make Bower House habitable.

We were unable to attend the auction because I was teaching at Ludlow and Ann at Cleeton St. Mary, so we waited anxiously for the end of the day. Ann collected me and we dashed to see John. His expression gave nothing away: “I don’t know what you will both think, but I had to pay £1,020 for Bower House.” We were euphoric, though we knew we were a little short of the 10 per cent deposit, and the extra £20 would be a large chunk out of my monthly wage.

The property could not be seen from Tunnel Lane because of trees and hedges. On Rock Lane bank there was a very large elm tree which had grown through the road side wall of the house, cracking it from top to bottom, and its roots had penetrated through the dining room into the hallway. The bare kitchen housed a copper and a dead, disintegrating hedgehog lying nearby.

Downstairs there was quite a large dining room, a lounge and a kitchen of similar size. There were two entrance doors, one which led to the kitchen, sheltered by a rusty, holey sheet-iron roof. To the right there was the usual bucket toilet and, to the left, the front door which led into a light hall and from which led the stairs and doorways to the three downstairs rooms.

As Bower House was condemned the Council would not allow us a mortgage unless we agreed to proper plans being drawn up and basic facilities being installed (including mains water, a bathroom, and the house to be rewired). On top of all these conditions we would be obligated to employ a registered builder to assist with the programme. The mortgage also had to be arranged with the Council at the, then, extortionate rate of five per cent; this was considerably higher than could be obtained from other sources.

It was assessed that we needed to borrow £2,500 which, on top of the purchase price, was frightening.

However the Council was prepared to allow all the aforesaid because I had a secure job “with reasonable prospects”. They also agreed that the appointed builder could use us to do necessary labouring work.

The following weekend we began to excavate all the ground floor, working like slaves and not knowing our own strength or endurance. After the first long day’s work Ann and I sat on two empty beer bottle crates in what was to be our dining room, looking at frozen condensation which had trickled down the walls. What a tremendous task there was ahead of us; but we were happy.

-------------------------------------------------This story is taken from Ann and Alf Jenkins’ book – From Clee to Eternity – available from Castle Bookshop.

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19

The Tempest

“The sandals with the red socks were a joy” text} Prue Britten | image} Liz Howard – REVIEW –

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AT face value The Tempest is a tale of sorcery, romance, parental love and forgiveness. It is not without its pitfalls but Messrs Bolton and Sayers (Director and Producer respectively) side-stepped them neatly in this bright and thoughtful production.

On the hottest, most humid day of the year, one could only sympathise with the actors in sleek close-fitting red dresses (Boatswain – Elizabeth Howard) or sweaty tent-like draperies (Caliban – Ian Seddon), while the audience enjoyed pints of ale from a good selection on offer at the excellent Ludlow Brewery.

The opening scene of the shipwreck was something of a disappointment, being neither audible nor conveying the terror of those involved. Swaying about with weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth really didn’t work.

Happily this was quickly overcome in the second scene with Prospero (the talented and impressive Morgan Rees-Davies) and his daughter Miranda (Eleanor Painter). ReesDavies is an actor totally at home with Shakespearean dialogue, who understands the importance of a gentle pace and stillness in his explanation of his dealings with both his enemies and with his much-loved daughter. Eleanor Painter may well become a very fine actor and she clearly understands the Shakespearean narrative and purpose, but her slightly declamatory style and diction was more akin to a 1930’s movie than to the story telling required by audiences of the twenty-first century.

Daniel Wilby – as Ariel – was a very welcome addition to The Rooftop Theatre Company. Fleet of foot, light of touch and with an endearing, mellifluous voice, he recounted the magical aspect of his history with purpose, pace and vigour. He made a

fine, loving and obedient counterpart to Caliban, who was initially seen as an unsympathetic character, being a hideous, deformed, cursing and much despised creature.

The drunken scene with Caliban, Stephano (Simon Bolton) and Trinculo (Paul Sayers) brought both physical and verbal comedy with a lightness of touch that was much admired by the audience. The sandals with the red socks were a joy.

All three actors had total command of Shakespeare’s language and comedic meaning, coupled with a twenty-first century understanding of wit and pace.

Inevitably, at the end, all the loose ends are tied up – happy couples, brothers, sons and parents are reunited and past faults are forgiven, leaving the audience with Prospero and Ariel, the two truly magical characters. With kindness, humour, gentleness and not a little regret, Prospero sets Ariel free and remains himself (the original magician) to deliver the moving epilogue.

Morgan Rees-Davies’ Prospero was a great performance and the applause from the audience was long, loud and very certain.

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20

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Croquet

The hoops you have to go through text} Liz Hyder | image} Richard Stanton

– SPORT – IN the 150th anniversary year of that quintessentially English tome, Alice in Wonderland, it feels only appropriate that one should mark the occasion by a suitably English game of croquet – and so it is that I find myself weaving my way through the tennis courts and bowling green at the Linney, in search of Ludlow’s very own croquet club.

David Jones, co-founder of the club, is ready and waiting for me with a big grin and some hefty mallets (disappointingly non-flamingo shaped), which, he confesses later, are all homemade. Although the club meet informally at the moment, David and his fellow co-founder, Bob Purcell, are hoping to formalise it into a fully-fledged club in the near future.

Currently, they meet twice a week, on Monday and Thursday mornings, on a small field with spectacular views up towards the castle. “The land belongs to the tennis club,” explains David, as a lovely old-fashioned sit-on mower buzzes to and fro down the far end of the field. “They had an opportunity to buy land for car parking and bought more than they needed to allow for more courts and other development.

My wife’s a tennis player here and, in 2013, I suggested we might have a croquet lawn here. Bob and I started mowing here and playing together and this last year it’s really started to take off.” They now have over 30 people on their mailing list and around a dozen or so turn up to each session.

Next year, the plan is to be open at weekends too “so that working people can play,” says David.

This autumn, thanks to a generous bowling club member, the field will be ploughed, harrowed and levelled before being re-sown for next year’s season. It’ll give the club three almost full-size lawns rather than their current two and, quite literally, a level playing

field. Although situated on the flood plain, the land drains well and David is hoping the lawns will be ready for use in spring next year “with the potential to play all year round”.

Perhaps surprisingly, both Bob and David never played the game in their youth and have come to it as late converts. David caught the croquet bug after seeing a poster from Peter Dorke, an ex-Spanish teacher at Ludlow College who also happened to play croquet for Wales (and was one of the contributors, we later find out, to the entertaining paperback Teach Yourself Croquet). He had a half-size croquet lawn up near the college but when David turned up, it was, unfortunately, the last day they were playing on the site. “I played a game and lost resoundingly,” laughs David but it got him hooked. He’s since played “sporadically for ten years or so” before setting up the club at the Linney and, rather neatly, some of the hoops they play with today were donated by Peter himself.

Having only ever played the game as a youngster in my parents’ uneven garden, the club’s two existing lawns seem fairly smooth to my untrained eyes, but my opinion is in the minority.

“It appears to get bumpier as the grass gets shorter,” muses David.

I have fond memories of playing as a child with my siblings (and trying to subtly whack each other on the shins) but I’ve not played for years, so I ask David what the appeal of croquet is.

“It’s a bit like snooker but al fresco,” says David. “It’s only something I’ve picked up in my late 50s and most of the people who come and play here – at the moment at least – are retired.

It’s beneficial in terms of outdoor activity and it’s tactical too.” He warns me to watch out for their star player, Richard, aged 89.

Then, Bob drops a bombshell. This seemingly most English of games is not

Next Issue

English at all. Mais non... “It started off in Brittany,” says Bob, “a long, long time ago and then came to Britain and the US at around the same time.”

Invented in around 1066, the name croquet is actually taken from the old French for ‘conquer’. William the Conqueror was also known as William le Croquet and the game even features on the Bayeux tapestry.

Bob and David also teach me that there are different variations of the game including roquet croquet, golf croquet and the rather dull sounding association croquet. David’s not a big fan of the latter, “the rules mean that if there’s a really good player, they can just go off on a huge lucky break, 20 minutes or so, whilst the other person has a fag and a pint.” he laughs. Bob adds, diplomatically, “If you want to play a sociable game, association croquet is, perhaps, not the best.” At this point, the aforementioned 89-yearold star player, Richard Levick, arrives at exactly the same time that another player knocks a hole in one to huge cheers and much laughter. I discover that the star player has a secret weapon, a delightfully infectious giggle, I’ll have to watch him like a hawk...

John Nash, President of the Bowling and Tennis Club’s Joint Committee, joins us for a chat. He’s also a croquet fan and has been rummaging in the archives on the history of the club.

“100 years ago, they aimed to have a croquet club here too. It’s our centenary year this year and we’re finally setting up a croquet club and have set ourselves up as a limited company. It’s only taken 100 years to get the croquet here,” he laughs.

“Things happen slowly in Ludlow.”

Finally, the moment of truth arrives.

Bob and David usher me to the furthest lawn where I’m paired with the cheery Derek, who’s a dab shot.

There are different rules for different versions but the main aim is simply to knock your ball through the succession of hoops first – in the correct order and direction. Alas, we’re up against both Bob, who only took up the game when he hurt his shoulder playing tennis, and Richard-The-Star-Player and, although I manage to hit the ball in the right direction at least a few times, we are (unsurprisingly) roundly thrashed. Despite that, what really strikes me is both how much fun it is and how tactical it is. And, judging by the fitness of everyone playing, how good it is for you. The club are keen to recruit more players “under retirement age” grins David, before waving me off. I’d heartily recommend giving it a go, just watch out for that star player, Richard le Croquet. His laugh doesn’t half put you off your shot…

If you too want to whack some balls with a mallet (no shin whacking please), email David to find out more about signing up: grouser@btinternet.com

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If you’re still making your way through the last issue’s crossword then you had better look away now

CROSSWORD CLUES #08

See page 8 for this issue’s crossword