Leigh

from November 2020 No.330

Chetnole

REPS: Philippa Toulson philippa.toulson@gmail.com Eddie Upton upton.eddie@gmail.com DISTRIBUTOR: Judy Tuke

Last month, Morag Orchard wrote in praise of Brenda and Steve at the village shop and garage for all they have done to keep the village going through the pandemic. She is quite right, and we should all do our best to say thank you by making maximum use of the services that Brenda and Steve provide.

There is another unsung service that also deserves our support. As soon as lockdown started, the village started receiving weekly visits from the Else brothers, Martin and Nick, from Stalbridge, with their fruit, vegetable and fresh fish vans, selling good quality produce. It started outside the shop and then moved to the Village Hall car park. I suggest this is something else we should remember and support. They are there every Wednesday at 1.00pm. They even take cards.

Keep your news coming to us – before 12th of each month please.

Philippa Toulson and Eddie Upton

Maize harvesting Leigh Lane: photo Jennie Greenwood

St Andrew’s Church, Leigh

As soon as we have services at the church again, we thought the safest way was to hold them in the open air. The weather was very kind to us and all our services up to our Harvest Festival on 11 October were held in the churchyard. Thank you to all of those who braved the sometimes quite chilly winds to sit in the churchyard for almost an hour, and thank you all of you who helped lead those services.

The clergy team are rightly concerned about how to conduct services in the safest possible way, and about how many services there should be. Plans are still in their formative stages, but we are told that our area of the Benefice, the old Wriggle Valley area, will have just one service each Sunday. This means that Leigh will have just one per month.

This made us think hard about what we should do for our own parishioners. Should we encourage people to travel to 21

Photo: Rufus Fox

other churches, or could we do something ourselves. We talked to various people, including the clergy, and, guess what, decided to do something for ourselves.

Working on the Government’s safe number (the rule of six) we are going to introduce a Service for Six. On Sundays, when we do not have a clergy-led service we are going to hold two services – at 10.00am and 3.30pm – each of them for a maximum of six people. We will meet in the church and will sit in a safe, socially distanced manner. Each service will last no more than 30 minutes and will have a similar structure, though whoever leads it will have their own slant on how things are done. Keep your eye open for emails from us or notices round the village.

As numbers are limited, you will need to book a place for a service. Please do this by contacting Eddie Upton: 07813 089002 or upton.eddie@gmail.com

The first day for these new services will be Sunday 22 November.

We started this brief article with some votes of thanks. The number of people who help the church in so many ways – cleaning, mowing the grass, clearing the brambles, arranging flowers, locking and unlocking, playing music, ringing bells, reading etc – easily exceeds 100. But a special vote of thanks must go to one team in particular. We have been able to keep the church open daily for the past three months – more than any other church in the area – by virtue of a brilliant team of volunteers who have gone into the church every day and cleaned and sanitised it. Thank you all so much! Alaistair Cumming and Eddie Upton Churchwardens

Leigh Parish Council

Leigh Parish Council is looking at ways to support the Dorset Climate & Ecological Emergency Strategy and, in the process, we uncover information that might be of interest. For example, if you are thinking about getting an electric car, did you know you can get a government grant towards 75% of the cost of the purchase and installation of an electric vehicle charging unit?

To be eligible you must use an authorised installer, who would claim the grant for the work. The scheme applies to eligible electric vehicles, there is a list of these at https://www.gov.uk/government/ collections/government-grants-for-lowemission-vehicles

You can find out more about this scheme in the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme Guidance for Customers: March 2020 which can be found at https://assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/873887/evhs-guidance-forcustomers.pdf

Congratulations to Gordon and Margaret Tacon, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, at home, on Thursday 1 October.

Their celebration was made even more special by the surprise arrival of a card from The Queen, organised by their daughter Deborah.

Gordon and Margaret have lived at Three Gates in Leigh for 22 years, but they first met when Margaret was 15 and Gordon was almost 17. Two years later they were engaged, and they married two years after that. As you can see, they made a handsome couple and Margaret was a beautiful bride.

Gordon spent five years as an apprentice cabinet maker with Maples of London; his first job was working for Heaton Tabb and Co. where, as a cabinet maker, he fitted out the Canberra and Windsor Castle ocean liners. This was hard work and long hours and, on the advice of a friend, he joined the sales team at Magnet Joinery where the hours and the money were much more acceptable.

Margaret had excelled in art at school and was keen to go to Art College, but her mother insisted that she learn shorthand and typing and so her dreams of being an artist were short lived. However, she found an excellent job as a private secretary which she loved. In the following years they left city life and moved to the country and so began a new chapter of their lives. They bought a house with some land and spent many happy times taking Deborah and her beloved pony to horse riding events all over the country.

Gordon took up cabinet making again in a small workshop in Hermitage but was not trained in French polishing. Undaunted, Margaret got a book from the library and taught herself to French polish and soon became an expert!

They bought garden pots of all sizes and Margaret painted them to sell at craft fairs.

Her flair for painting animals and birds was so apparent that she was advised to transfer her talent to canvas, which she promptly did to great acclaim as can be seen from the photos.

A shock diagnosis of breast cancer in 1998 and again in 2000 made Margaret very ill but she is certain that her love of painting saved her and, of course, the support of her family and friends.

Now retired, they work on their beautiful garden and enjoy walking their dog, Brodie together.

Morag Orchard

Bridge Garage, Leigh

We much appreciated the kind words Morag wrote about us in last month’s Wriggle Valley magazine.

It’s hard to believe its 31 years since we emigrated from West Sussex to Bridge Garage, Leigh. We have very much enjoyed our time here and it was a wonderful place for our two daughters to grow up in. We would like to thank the village for welcoming us and all of our lovely customers for supporting us over the years. Also a big thank you to Wendy Swaine and Gill Wills for the many years of help and support in running the shop and Post Office, and Robert Pitcher and Matt Templeman for their help and support in running the garage. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Steve and Brenda Addison

Ride+Stride funds

Alaistair Cumming has just banked £1,587.00 for the Ride+Stride appeal.

Thank you so much to all the very generous contributors in Leigh, and a few from elsewhere, who answered the call for this record amount. 24 Mel Shine and Julia Jepson put a fresh coat of paint on the play park equipment.