Cheddington History Society

Meetings in 2008 and 2009

You are welcome to attend meetings of the Society, which are normally held at 8 p.m. on the third Monday of the month, at the Methodist Church Room facing the Green.   We welcome members at a fee of only £8 per person for a year, and we have a reduced rate for young people in education.

Here is the full programme of talks and visits arranged for the Society's current year:

September 15th:     We had a packed house to hear our own Mick Chandler give a very
interesting and amusing talk on his "75 Years in Cheddington"
                                                       
October 20th 2008:     Another packed house to hear Tony Tompkins on "The Narrow Gauge Railway and the Sand Industry" - maybe all can visit the Leighton Buzzard Railway during 2009!

November 17th 2008:    Seventy people came to hear Mike O'Neill talk on"My career in the CID,    with some reference to the Investigation of  'The Fox' ".  'The Fox'  was the nickname given to a criminal, Malcom Fairley, who terrorised the area in the summer of 1984.
                                
January 19th 2009           "Cheddington and the Great War - Part Two" - John T Smith gave his second talk on Cheddington's Great War to a packed house, with photos, artists' pictures, silent WW1 films and extracts of many different types of documents now available on the web - servicemen's files, war cabinet papers, handwritten memoirs, postcards, shipping lists and census details (even a 1911 image!).
                                                   
February 16th 2009            "The Paper Trail at Apsley Mills"  - Mike Stanyon gave us a fascinating talk on the Paper Trail project at Apsley and its importance in the development of paper making.  We shall be following this up with a visit to the Paper Trail in the summer visits programme.  The project has financial problems as a result of the "credit crunch" so we would urge people to visit the project in order to help the project to stay open and continue its work, particularly with the school and children's visits.

March 16th 2009            Chris Gravett gave us a splendid talk on  "Woburn Abbey: The House
and its Owners", and a real curtain-raiser for the visit to come in June.  Get a real expert who knows his stuff and can put it over in such a good way - it's always a recipe for a good evening!
                                    
April 20th 2009          Julian Hunt gave us an excellent talk on  "Buckinghamshire’s Favourite Churches".    Always a good and interesting speaker, Julian used pictures of many Bucks churches to show the different periods of architecture from Anglo-Saxon to modern times.
       
May 18th 2009           Barry Horne gave us a talk on the local Coprolite Industry.  Wow!  What a good speaker and didn't we learn a lot about an industry that extended just to our parish from Cambridgeshire and was so important in the 1870s.  A very interesting and local topic.
                                                 
Members have received a newsletter/booking form for these upcoming visits:

June 21st 2009:           (Sunday) Guided Tour of  Woburn Abbey followed by Afternoon Tea.

July 16th 2009:              (Thursday)  A trip on a ferry boat followed by a tour of The Mill at Apsley.
                                         A weekday because the paper-making machine doesn't operate at                                           weekends.

Our Next Talk:

September 21st 2009                 AGM, followed by
                                                "More Stories from our Archives"
                                                    (Talk by Marlene Lee, the Society's Archivist)

October 19th 2009                    "The Enigma Story"
                                                    (Talk by Dr Clive Foxell)

November 16th 2009    To be arranged (probably  a topic linked to the Cheddington
                                                Airfield)

There MUST be some topics to interest you here!  See you at the Methodist Church Schoolroom!
                   
                                                         John T Smith, Cheddington History Society