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FIRST VILLAGE HALL CENTENARY EVENT
Saturday 10 May dawned warm and sunny – a perfect day for the first of the Village Hall Centenary celebrations. This took the form of a historical exhibition of events that had happened in Gilston and Eastwick during the hundred years since the Squire, Arthur Salvin Bowlby, had had a building constructed in Gilston to be the then Working Men’s Club.
As well as the photographs and other material on the imposing brand-new exhibition panels which had been designed for the occasion, there were photographs on the walls, and tables had been set round, holding photo albums; a book of interviews with various village notables; Ordnance Survey maps of the area that had been published prior to the coming of Harlow New Town; photocopies of old conveyances concerned with the selling of farmland, and material dealing with the sale of the then Gilston Manor; and a great deal more besides.
And Arthur Bowlby’s great-grandson Patrick and his wife came down from Lincolnshire to be with us. The Village Hall trustees took them to lunch at the Plume of Feathers and they then came to share their memories with us, and to donate two wonderful portraits – one of Arthur Bowlby, and the other of his son Edward , who was also squire at a later stage; these had been scanned from a computer on to canvases, so that they looked like authentic paintings.
A steady trickle of people came and went, with some of the older ones having their memories jogged so that they could recount village happenings, and everyone enjoyed the cream teas, with a teapot continually refilled to slake the thirst brought on by the heat of the day, and locally made wine to add to the festive atmosphere. We only wish that more people had come, not only to learn more about the villages in which they live, but to marvel, as I think we all did, at the sheer amount of material that had been built up over the years, and from which we all learned something new.
Very warm thanks are due to all those who had a hand in the organising of the day; too many to name individually, but special thanks are due to Mary Jackson for masterminding (mistressminding?) the event itself, and to David Jackson, Anthea Bickmore, Christine Law and Elaine Carter for putting the materials in order; to Pat Wood for constructing the panels, and to Christine and Malcolm Law for making and serving the cream teas. A spontaneous collection raised £23 for Christian Aid’s Burma Appeal, and this was posted as soon as the day was over.
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The next definite Village Hall special event will be on Saturday 27 September: a fish and chip night, perhaps combined with a quiz. Plenty of reminders will be sent out at intervals beforehand!
However, before this fixed date, some time in August or early September, everyone is invited to an evening walk around Gilston to see and identify bats as they zigzag crazily through the twilight, under the expert eye of the chairman of the Herts/Middlesex Bat Group. More details will be in the magazine when “firmed up”.
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