The guest speaker was Penny Wheat who gave a talk entitled Behind Bars, she gave an account of a journey she went on communicating with inmates in various prisons both in the UK and the U.S.A. She also displayed a table full of gifts sent to her from inmates, the art work of which was astounding.
First coffee morning of 2024, a happy New Year to all our members, future members and our committee.
This mornings speaker was Mr Ned Williams who gave a talk about prefabs, people of a certain age will remember the ones we had on the village before the new estates were built. He gave a comprehensive account about prefabs dating from 1910 up until the time they began to disappear in the 50’s & 60’s, the talk lasted for 1 hour and was very informative.
The ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING was also held, Welcome to all, this was our 14th AGM, thank you all for coming, Unfortunately Pam Ball is not very well; she has spent 18 days in hospital. I’ll start with Trevor’s part of the meeting, he is unable to attend the meeting. due to a doctors appointment, and he has left me with a brief resume. The year has been good beneficially even though things have increased in price, but saying that the membership subscription is staying as it is. We have made a donation to Landywood Voluntary Help Centre of £100, we had decided this before they unfortunately had their mini-bus stolen.
The printing cost for the magazine as increased in price, as with the room hire of the centre. The diaries that we gave out at Christmas had gone up, but we think they were worth it. We are managing well with our funds and are awaiting printing and binding prices for Paul Ford’s book, which we have put on one side.
Diane Tolley gave an insight of the last year’s activities; we are in the final throws of the publication of Paul Ford’s book on the Great War and how it affected not only the fallen, but the areas of Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley. This we will talk of in the coming months.
I feel 2023 was a good year for the society, with lots of things going on and luckily, no sign of Covid to stop us. We will be having another day out this year, which we are in talks now about on what to do; we shall aim for May again.
I want to thank all of the committee for their help, not forgetting Soeli Thomas, our local Graphic Designer for the society, for designing the society’s magazine, also for her managing the website over past year and especially to our members for making our Society what it is.
To finish off, We are always asking for anybody to come and help out in anyway they can, either coming a committee member, helping on our Open Days, or helping at our Coffee Mornings when we need extra hands. We are a growing history society and appreciate any help we can get.
After Diane’s talk, the members were asked to vote for committee members, all were content with the existing committee members and a block vote with a show of hands carried it forward.
Mistress Valerie Campbell gave us a very interesting talk about the Tudor times. She was in authentic Tudor dress, for a housewife of that time.
She told us of the origins of some common sayings:- Straight laced, was how ladies laced up their tunics.
Rule of thumb, dates from when it was legal to beat your wife with a stick, as long as the stick was no thicker than your thumb. A frog in the throat was thought to be a cure for a sore throat.
On the 16th November at our Coffee Morning we welcomed Mr Alan Pugh as our speaker, who gave us a very detailed speech on the battle of the Alamo which occurred in 1836.
We heard from a comprehensive build up from the years before 1836 to explain how this battle came to fruition, and how the armies of both sides were gathered, the battle itself lasted for only 13 days, while the battle of the Alamo, (a church) lasted for only 90 minutes, resulting in the deaths of Davy Crocket and Jim Bowie to name but two. A fascinating fact was that there were 22 british fighting in that battle while only 11 were actually from Texas. Mr Pugh had lived in Texas for ten years he told us, close by to where these events occurred, he gave a detailed professional and knowledgeable account which everyone enjoyed, all in all a great experience.
Geoff Nixon laid a wreath on behalf of the Society at the Memorial Gates on Armistice Day, Sunday 12th November.
On the Open Day last month we had some great photos lent to us by Kath Cadman, and Dean and Tracey lent us the indenture of their house which was built in the 1700’s, and changed hands in 1795. Gary has had this copied.
We are always on the look out for old photos taken around the village (pre-millennium), from people to buildings, or weddings to school photos, and more. We would love to see them all, and if possible, lend them to copy and add to our archives. They will be looked after and retuned back to you, or you can email them to photos@greatwyrleylocalhistorysociety.co.uk
Have you heard an interesting speaker recently? We are always interested in different speakers, or is there a topic you are interested in? We will try to find a speaker on that topic. Please see Diane if you have any ideas. Please email: photos@greatwyrleylocalhistorysociety.co.uk
Our annual event went down well, with many people coming from near and far. We saw many familiar and new faces from the village and surrounding towns. We even had people that had travelled some distance to come to the event, with new members joining. Photographs on display shows days gone by of the Walsall Road. There was burial records, maps and other ephemera on display.
We had a board with wedding photographs on display, most of which we know, but here are two wedding photos yet to be identified. The original photographs are in black & white, but with technology now we have the ability to transform them into colour. Please either leave a comment or email: diane@mstolley.plus.com or winsongary@aol.com if you can name any of the people in either of the photos. Or If you have any photo’s we can copy them and return them to you. We would be very gratefully for you loaning them to the society so we can add a copy to our archives.
Have you heard an interesting speaker recently? We are always interested in different speakers, or is there a topic you are interested in? We will try to find a speaker on that topic. Please email Diane if you have any ideas. diane@mstolley.plus.com
Gallery photos taking on the day
A very warm welcome was given to Mistress Valerie and her husband Ian as the speaker at our last coffee morning on 19th October, Valerie gave an in depth talk on Tudor Times and gave the group lots of interesting facts about living during that time period, she arrived in traditional female Tudor dress. Surprisingly, we were told that the average age that male and female lived to during this period was 65, and that the average height of the male was 5 feet 7 inches and for females 5 feet 2 inches.
Well known sayings that we know today came from that period,i.e. straight laced, derived from how a woman laced her clothing. A frog in the throat, when a frog was actually used to cure a sore throat. Bringing home the bacon, Upper crust, Rock a bye baby, Rule of thumb and countless more where explained.
The climate and weather changed dramatically during the 1500’s, from the Thames freezing over to severe heat with very little rain for 9 months, this being followed by floods, and amazingly a 4 year drought during which time horsemen rode their horses along the Thames river bed, the hot summers were followed by storms with extremely large hailstones.
The population increased in London by 350% from 1520 to 1603 creating illnesses and plagues, we were told how the doctors known then as Quacks dealt with these situations, and also how Astrology was important during the period.
Valerie also brought along some props from the 1500’s which were passed around and finally ended with questions and answers from the group.