Old Cawston by Chris Barringer, was a VERY interesting talk and slide show at our January meeting. The forty villagers who attended must have been engrossed, as we were," at the depth of Chris's knowledge and just can't wait for him to visit again. We will ask him back in the future for sure! How many of you have found pieces of Saxon pottery in your gardens or have been to look at the old stone in St. Agnes that came from the Norman church that stood there. before? And have you investigated the possible site of the old Cawston Manor, is there any evidence of it?

We hope that you will find February's topic of Life in Cawston in the 30's and 40's just as interesting!

Our March meeting will be held on Thursday 22^nd March, starting at 7 pm and will be a talk by Mrs. Barbara Miller about Old Norwich. Judging by a photo I saw in the EDP the other day of how St. Step hen's Street used to be, Norwich has changed completely so it will be fantastic to hear just how it was in the • olden days". As usual it will be 50p for members and £1 for non-members for entry and a cuppa and cake (thanks to Ivy and Patsy).

We would also like to give you warning of our April meeting which will be all about wartime cooking. We're hoping that villagers will bring along some actual wartime food and their memories of course! It would also be fantastic if you would like to dress up in costume of the time and perhaps the ladies would like to fashion their hair how it might have been back

We had some fantastic new-copied photos on show, of the old school buildings in New Street and the Woodrow Pub as it was, with the sign over the road and a horse and cart trundling by. Our collection of photos and documents is building nicely but if anyone has any they think will be of interest, please let Des copy them for the records.

Many thanks must go to Mark Lubbock for donating a computer and scanner to the historical society!

So onto this month's meeting on Thursday 22^nd March at 7 pm. We are having a talk by Barbara Miller who has a wealth of knowledge about old Norwich, so it should be another very interesting night! Everyone is welcome and entrance, which includes refreshments, will be 50p for members and £1 for non-members.

Our itinerary from April onwards is as follows:

Thursday 26^th April - Wartime Cooking

- we'd love people to bring along samples of war-time cooking and if possible dress for the occasion.

Thursday 24^th May - A talk by Stephen Pope on the History of the Poor Law/Workhouses Thursday 28^th June - A talk about Salle Church

How many of us came away from the March meeting wanting to research archaeology? Mrs. Val Fryer came to our rescue as speaker after Barbara Miller informed us she was not available, and a more than adequate replacement she turned out to.be!

She introduced her talk as Life and Death in Norwich in Medieval times. And then with the aid of a slide show proceeded to explain to us the findings from two archaeological digs in Norwich, one took place in Magdalen Street and the other, Riverside Road. She spoke with so much enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject, she absolutely loved her job, and not many can say that!

We hope that the 50 or so parishioners who came to the meeting enjoyed it as much as we did! Thanks in particular, at a sad time for them, to Ivy, Patsy and Sandra for baking and serving refreshments. We will ask Barbara Miller back at some time for her version of Old Norwich, which we're sure, will be equally as good.

Our 26^th April meeting should be a cracker, given the title Food and Frolics in the Forties! We have asked members to bring along examples of cookery from the rationed war years, clothing, toys and we even have Richard Howard bringing along his old, gramophone and collection of 78s! Just need to find out where I can buy dried egg from!!

On Thursday 24^th May we have a talk by Stephen Pope on the History of the Poor Law/Workhouses in the area which" hopefully will include reference to the Cawston Work House. See you there at 7 pm, £ 1 entry for non-members and 50p for members which includes refreshments.

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Our April meeting, entitled, Food and Frolics in the Forties, turned into a relative feast for all. We must thank everyone who made the effort to bring along war time food, we had such things baked as Woolton Pie, Surprise Rabbit Stew (many positive comments about this; perhaps we should eat rabbit more often!), corned beef, hash, potato and lettuce soup, cheese soup (for some reason nobody fancied this, I rather liked it, I had a saucepan of it to eat so good job!) steamed raisin pudding, fruit cake (I'm sure the fruit was thrown in closer than the market hill though!!), cheese straws· (two ounces of cheese only?), butterfly cakes (Sunday treat?), coconut conserves (well that's what Lily Carman used to call them) and many, many more.

Richard Howard played tunes from his 78's collection on his gramophone, have you ever seen a horn the size of that before? We even had two couples take to the floor for the waltz, stand up Des and Jenny and Terry and Sue, very impressed!

Mrs. Jones brought along her precious pram and doll and toy gas oven she had as a child which was wonderful to see. I brought along examples of dresses from the forties, thanks to my mother-in-law, Phyllis Carman. We hope everyone enjoyed the evening and that perhaps it brought back a few memories.
 

We would like to inform you all that the storeroom in the village hall is now dedicated solely to the Historical Society so we now store artefacts in the room without any worry. If anybody has anything they would like to donate it can now be displayed. We hope everyone who comes to our meetings will go into the room and have a look at our collection.

On Thursday 24^th May at 7 pm we will be welcoming Mr. Stephen Pope to our next meeting to give his talk about Workhouses and the Poor Law, which we hope everyone will find interesting. Entrance, including refreshments, will be 50p for members and £1 for non-members. We will also be holding a raffle.

In June our meeting will be on the 28^th at 7 pm and will be a talk about Salle church.

On Thursday 24^th May we welcomed Stephen Pope to our meeting to give a talk on the Poor Law and Workhouses in Norfolk. And yet another interesting and informative talk it was too.

Stephen works at the former workhouse at Gressenhall, a complete change from his days as a radar operator in the RAF! He, therefore, was well informed about life in the workhouses. He told us that the walls build around the outside of the workhouse grounds were not to keep the poor people in but to keep others out, surprisingly! Although primitive, life in the workhouses in the early days was probably better than life for those outside as you got three meals a day, a bed, shoes, new clothing and education for your children. One piece of information that he gave us has put a long-standing query of many to bed I believe that is, why St. Michael's Hospital at Aylsham is nicknamed "The Spike". I sincerely hope my 2 +2 equals 4 when I say that it's called after the work that the men were given to do in it's former workhouse days, which was pulling apart ships rope and the like with an instrument called a "spike'/! If anyone knows difference do let us know. Thanks to all who attended, we hope you enjoyed the talk as much as we did

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"Everything you ever wanted to know about Salle Church" and more, was the order of the day from a very enthusiastic speaker called Peter Bradbury, at our June meeting. None of us had probably considered all the features of the church that Peter showed us on his slide show, the workmanship of the men who built our churches was immense, especially given the fact that they did not have any of the machinery and tools that craftsmen have to work with in modern times. The buildings have stood the test of time and will continue to do so no doubt! We hope everyone left feeling enriched with knowledge of that particular church! Peter has promised to come back later in the year once he has completed his study into our very own church of St. Agnes, which should be enlightening to all that attend, do keep an eye a-lifting on our posters!

On Thursday 26^th July we will be pleased to welcome Mrs. Barbara Miller with a talk all about Old Norwich, she unfortunately couidn't make it in March. As usual the start time will be 7 pm and entrance £1 for non-members and 50p for members,

We have decided to miss August as far as a monthly meeting goes but don't forget that we have the Carnival Celebrations at the beginning of September starting with the Inspire Interective Display at the primary school on the 5^th

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Mrs. Barbara Miller proved to be a very knowledgeable speaker at our July Society meeting. Her talk, all about the history of Norwich, was fascinating and had everyone captivated. Thank you to all who attended.

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Our September meeting was an account by Andrew Tatum of his seven-year project to build a family tree and meet the last remaining relative of 50 army officers in a photo, which included his great grandfather. It was a mammoth task to undertake and took him all over the world but he managed to finish his task. The accompanying DVD that he produced himself and played to us was very poignantly 'made and included tunes and pictures from the year of birth of the oldest officer, right through to the. year 2000 when Andrew concluded his search.

On Thursday 22^nd November at 7 pm, we will be having a talk about Life in Prison in 1880. It promises to be a real eye opener! Don't forget entry to our meetings is just £1 for non­members and 50p for members, including refreshments.

Before the start of our October meeting our treasurer, Terry Simons gave members the fantastic news that the Historical Society had received a donation of over £1,000 from our recent Cawston Carnival week. The committee are hoping to purchase computers and a software programme to record all the memorabilia that we have gathered so far with the donation.

Following the good news, David Morton gave us a talk on Heydon, which was quite interesting, he sold the village to everyone gathered there and whetted our appetites to go and have a closer look around the village ourselves. Refreshments were served by Patsy, Sandra and Jenny, with Ivy's Christmas cake going down a bomb, thanks Ivy!!

Just to give you notice that there will be no meeting in December and the January meeting will be on Thursday 24^th January with a talk on Walsingham.

CAWSTON CARNIVAL. All monies raised have been shared out equally between Cawston Village Hall. Cawston Historical Society and an amount has been kept back to purchase a piece of apparatus for the children to enjoy on the Oakes Family Field.

There are still some unclaimed raffle prizes, so if you can find your tickets the winning prizes still to be claimed are 3,4,16,17 and 19, there is a list of numbers up in the Post Office.

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Prison Life in 1880 was the topic of our November talk, a retired policeman, Mr. Jeff Harris gave the talk with slides. The slides showed original pictures of all aspects of prison life, from the 100 plus man treadmill, put a foot wrong and you lost it or worse, ploughing the fields, not with horses but man power! Chipping large stones into small for road making, picking oakum (picking apart old rope which was then sold for making string or stuffing mattresses)  hence the saying "money for old rope". Needlesstosay prison life in 1880 was rather different from prison life today although the prisoners did all learn a new trade/skill as they tend to today but of course it was all manual work. Jeff encouraged us all to visit the old prison museums if we were interested.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 24^th January and will be a talk all about Walsingham and on Thursday 28^th February Mr. Richard Howard will give an illustrated talk on the history of George Formby so we'd like to welcome along all parishioners. From January we have decided to change the entrance charges slightly, members will remain 50p but non-members entrance will change to £1.50. Bearing in mind that everyone receives a talk and cuppa and cake, it is still a cheap night out you must agree! Fingers crossed that the weather will be kind to us this month!

If anyone would like to come along to the Village Hall but do not have transport please just telephone either Des on 872111, Terry on 871523 or Theresa on 871917 and we will be only too pleased to pick you up and take you home.

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Many thanks to all who have supported the Society in 2007 and we wish everyone a Happy Christmas and New Year!