St James the Less: Hadleigh Fair
This year the famous Hadleigh Fair will be held on June 29th in the Rectory Garden (Rectory Close.)
Support your local Fair! 29th June 2013 10:30 am to 3:30 pm
Entrance is free, and fun for the whole family is highly likely (*)
Ranging from homemade delicacies to the bouncy castle, from plants, books and teddy bears to the traditional Mermaid photo-op, there is something to appeal to all ages. For those with poetry in their heart, there is dance and song.
However, for me there will be fun archaeology, “All Our Stories” local history in many forms and stages; and the BarBQ of course. Want to be more than a spectator? Contact Una Kipps to help on 01702 556600.
Come and make it a really great day. { 10:30 am to 3:30 pm. }
* Ed: {no guarantee implied, there are other ways to spend June 29th but you’ll wish you’d been at the Fair!}
Author, author
Today ( 19th June 2013 ) Paul Watson took some nice pictures of the first of our three authors; Robert (Bob) Nichols. Bob was quite thrilled with this, his first ever book, hot off the press. Born in Hadleigh in 1921, went to Hadleigh School, later studied at Southend Technical College, Bob’s engineering knowledge served him well during World War 2 when in Burma and India leading teams recovering / rebuilding crashed fighter planes.
Paul Watson, right, of the Echo gets a good picture of Robert Nichols, left.
For this first book, Bob made a personal selection of just 160 postcards from his large collection. They focus on Hadleigh, Essex as it developed from a small rural community at the turn of the Twentieth Century with the building of the Salvation Army’s Land & Industrial Colony. Despite the growth in population, Hadleigh retains its own identity and many older residents have memories which resonate within the HLF’s All Our Stories programme. They still remember the peaceful scenes and some now vanished buildings depicted in Mr Nichols’s picture postcard history.
St Peter’s Thundersley: Fête accompli
Saturday, 15th June saw another All Our Stories outreach element. With great excitement, we arrived at St Peter’s in Thundersley around 11:30am, meeting Robert, a churchwarden who made us very welcome and showed us our reserved table in the hall for their Summer Fête. It took us about an hour to decide on a good use of the space available, populate the display boards with pre-velcro’d items selected for specific relevance to the Thundersley area and arrange the sale materials. And then we relaxed until 1 pm when the fête started.
The maps at one end of the table led to some interesting conversations on how the area had developed over the last 200 hundred years; and helped position sale items in terms of history. In this picture, we see the relevant section of the Chapman and Andre 1777 map covering the local area, here underpinning the Hadleigh S.A. history walking guide, the Hadleigh Postcard Memories book and some leaflets we planned to use as contact materials.
The broad sweep of history in this area
At the other end of the display, Terry Barclay showed visitors how the very recent Big Dig in Daws Heath had been organised and some of the outcomes. As the weather deteriorated somewhat outside, we encouraged visitors to spend a little longer on the display. Two noticed that part of the river bank in 1777 was identical with the current sea wall in the Hadleigh Salvation Army guide and walking map. Several people showed detailed knowledge of the geology of the area, its different clays in particular, which were essential to the high-volume brick-making activities in the Salvation Army economic model of the early days.
As the single information-based table, and perhaps a little unusual for a fête, we were delighted to greet over 100 people looking at the boards and the products on sale. We made contacts for future talks, handed out the Archive’s web and e-mail addresses and welcomed a surprise visitor, namely Bob Nichols the author of his and our first book, Hadleigh Postcard Memories. Bob relished the chance to both sell and autograph the first sample of his book that he had seen, as they had only arrived on Wednesday!
We handed out several leaflets as sources of H&TCA contact details; supporting the next outreach events — the St James the Less Summer Fair on 29th June, followed by the Daws Heath Village Fayre ( at St Michael’s Church) on 13th July. Enabled and arranged through e-mails with Jenni at St Peter’s, our participation at this event provided continued reassurance that a broad sweep of age-groups are comfortable using the All Our Stories products and are keen to understand more about the area in which their community continues to develop.
Big Day Out for All Our Stories
A report from Graham Cook, David Hurrell, Lynda Manning, Malcolm Brown and Nick Turner who between them supplied pictures and text.
The first pop-up “All Our Stories” History display went well on Saturday 1st June at the Salvation Army’s Big Day Out. The barn was a great venue with ample space for us to use;
- the Salvation Army’s large wooden display boards,
- Chris Worpole’s Hadleigh mini-histories,
- the H&TCA banner from the SEECA project, and
- the fabulous Team Hadleigh banners…..
……….. to combine into a dramatic living history corner.
Big Day out in Salvation Army barn
Graham and Nick got the banners up
The exciting new History Map took pride of place in the centre to create interest and make the first sales. Proof copies of Bob Nichols (and our) first book arrived warm off the press the day before, so these were put on display and we took our first advance orders for Bob’s book. Cllr Beverley Egan brought the ECHO photographer to our stand so we made the most of this photo opportunity and the launch of the map.
Betty and Alan Bennett, David Hurrell looks on
Lively History in the making
David was fresh back from Derbyshire and helped with the history walk mentioned in our All Our Stories (AOS) project and Lynda visited the Rare Breeds Centre, it was estimated that around 500 people went through the Tea Rooms and Rare Breeds centre that day. Betty Sadler visited the stand, pre-ordered a book and gave us some valuable information on one of the properties on the history map. A number of other retired Salvation Army officers enjoyed the displays including Betty and Alan Bennett, as pictured above, admiring Bob’s Postcard Book and then pre-ordering their copy!
The Big Dig at Daws Heath
After launching our All Our Stories project, we were contacted by Carenza Lewis of Cambridge University to help with their Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) project in which they bring students from local schools to do hands-on archaeology by digging test pits. Along with our local archaeological group AGES, we found volunteers in the Daws Heath area and arranged for finds to be brought to the local church hall at St. Michael’s. The dig was arranged for 5th and 6th of June 2013, which turned out to be warm and sunny.
Terry Barclay examining finds
After an expert briefing Val Jackson takes over the guided tours.
On Thursday the 6th June, St. Michael’s held a coffee morning and finds from the day before were on display, along with display boards from the Archive group about the history of the area, old photos etc.
The local paper gave us good coverage, right from the first announcement, and we were contacted by many interested members of the public who wanted to watch the digging. Of course they could not be invited into private gardens where the students were digging, supervised by teachers and archaeologists from Cambridge, so AGES decided to dig 2 test pits themselves, one of which was on the field next to St. Michael’s where the public could be shown what it was all about.
On the first day we discovered that the Cambridge archaeologists were warm, friendly and inspiring and the students were hard working and determined and that St. Michael’s and Daws Heath made a brilliant base.
The Echo newspaper articles
We took photos of the work in progress and of the finds. On the Saturday these pictures were displayed in Hadleigh Library along with the list of finds and their dates. A few discoveries were from the early MIddle Ages but most were later, indicating the early settlement must have been quite small and most of the land was fields.
Lynda Manning’s photos of the dig in action
The standard HEFA approach is to enthuse local school-children with the excitement of archaeological research and come back for a series of digs over several years. We very much look forward to their return.
Visit to DB Print and Design
David’s fabulous walking map rolls off the press, Graham admires how text and artwork complement each other
On 22nd May, four of the Archive’s editors visited the premises on the Temple Farm Industrial Estate where the “All Our Stories” walking map was being printed. David Hurrell had produced the multi-layer artwork and Graham Cook provided incisive text about the history of the area around Hadleigh Castle Country Park; Dorothy and Nick Turner were just there out of interest.
Russell Bradshaw showed us the process from paper delivery to final product. The paper has to be imported because there are no mills in Britain now; the company is FSC registered so that they can trace the source back to the forest and know the wood has been harvested responsibly. When the files have been received electronically the design is etched onto large aluminium plates.
Russell, David and Graham admire a production example
These plates are loaded into a large machine with four ink reservoirs connected by a track along which the rollers send the paper to be printed with each individual colour, yellow, cyan, magenta (the fourth is for metallic effects if needed). The final printed sheets emerge onto a bed at the far end where John takes a sheet to a brightly lit desk to check the quality. From here he can adjust the process on a computer.
The maps show footpaths in Hadleigh Country Park with text boxes giving the history behind the landscape. The large sheets we saw will be divided into two separate maps and folded to A5 size to guide walkers and inform them about the area. This environmentally supportive and sustainable project is neatly complemented by the paper being FSC-accredited and printed with vegetable based inks. We were impressed with every aspect of the tour round DB Print and Design Ltd and their contact details follow.
Russell Bradshaw, Managing Director, DB Print and Design Ltd;
The Forum, 2, Coopers Way
Temple Farm Industrial Estate, Southend on sea
Essex SS2 5TE Tel: 01702 601158 Mob: 07967 354521
Media Training Day
This is a brief summary of the “All Our Stories” Digital Record Training Day held on 29th April 2013 at The Corn Exchange, Cambridge.
E-ticket
Roy Heath of Media Trust was our trainer; he has tremendous BBC and Channel 4 experience from high-profile programmes and is now freelancing on youth and community projects. Media Trust also run the Community Channel on Sky/Virgin and Community Newswire in conjunction with Associated Press. Roy recommended the guides at www.resources.mediatrust.org/allourstories and attendees described their project, equipment and aims.
Guy emphasises a key point
Next followed exciting hands-on sessions to practise video interviews, after which we got invaluable advice on good story structure and the qualities of good interview questions – i.e. – ‘open’ to elicit feelings, opinions and anecdotes. Roy recommended lapel and directional microphones for the best sound quality; we also got video-editing tips to avoid ‘jump cuts’ and some professional programme hints on polishing the appearance of interviews.
There is a lot to learn in just a few hours
We found that external microphones were best for audio quality and that with hand-held video cameras it was hard to get good results. Practical software tips were exchanged and attendees agreed to share photos and videos taken during the day. A shared Dropbox folder was created and some of the pictures shown here.
Attendees page 1 of 2
Malcolm Brown May 2013
- Attendees at media training day
Drop-ins at Hadleigh Library, other exciting public events
Our latest drop-in at Hadleigh Library was held Saturday, 11 May as early preparation for the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2. This special drop-in focussed on the Victory Parties for VE Day and VJ Day held in Hadleigh in 1945.
Victory Parties drop-in planning
The picture shows several of the editorial group after planning the drop-in, displaying photos we hold of some of the Victory street parties held in Hadleigh; we hope to name all the people in the photos. More original photos would still be very welcome.
Also as part of All Our Stories, the Community Archive group will be at Salvation Army Tea-rooms 1st June and at three of the local summer fairs – St Peter’s in Thundersley on 15 June, St James The Less on 29 June and Daws Heath Village Fayre on 13 July. Please drop by for a chat and see what we’ve been up to.
Finally, please make a note in your diary of the All Our Stories Celebration event that will take place at HOFS on the afternoon of Saturday 20 July. We look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events.
Drop-in at Hadleigh Library
By the way, we are getting great support from the Echo, attached is a clipping from their May 15th edition, reporting on the success of the Victory Parties drop-in; and many thanks to Hadleigh Library for continuing to host drop-ins.
For details of the next drop-in event, please refer to http://www.hadleighhistory.org.uk/page_id__223_path__.aspx
Malcolm Brown, Editor, H&TCA Group
Across All Boundaries, All Our Stories
26th April 2013 saw the visit to a Benfleet U3A Group by Graham Cook and Gordon Parkhill, delivering a spirited history of the Hadleigh Farm Colony to a very enthusiastic group. The visit enhanced linkages and contacts with other parts of Castle Point, useful as people outside our immediate catchment area are often past and future residents of the H&TCA base area.
Compact presentations
In addition, we extended our archive’s #allourstories interaction with a new and growing community learning organisation whilst also experimenting with a presentation venue on the ‘compact and cosy’ side, as seen from the photograph.
The experience of making history come alive using a projector in a relatively small space was good preparation for pop-up history activities / visits. The appreciative audience reaction meant it was a good opportunity to let them know about other activities with the Hadleigh & Thundersley Community Archive Group and the ‘All Our Stories’ project.
E.g. in the coming weeks, there is a Victory Day “drop-in session” at Hadleigh Library on 11th May. Another talk is planned for 13th May to the Westcliff Towns Womens Guild.
Telling Tales
The second element of the All Our Stories project is an exciting evocation of life at the first school in Hadleigh, drawn from painstaking research on original School Log Books between 1855 and 1901. Recently, I discussed with the author, Chris Worpole pictured here, how her book could be formatted and delivered. The first draft of the book’s text was completed at Easter, on the target schedule.
Chris Worpole has completed her All Our Stories book
Chris has considered every page of the school log book — see the picture for a sample from 1863 – and is designing adjustments to the draft, to concentrate on key events. Some scanning is in progress and we are working out from the copy where the line drawings are to be positioned. David Hurrell will commence work on drawings as soon as possible.
From pupils arriving late to government grants based on results
We are also planning to compile an index, as this scholarly yet accessible work is bound to be of interest to current descendants of the school children mentioned.
The cover photograph has been chosen and I got the disc of the final text on 29th April when this photograph of Chris was taken. As a retired teacher, Chris has plans for a school pack based on her book, but more of that in the next weeks. Graham Cook
hadleigh aos thundersley 