Local History Group

Report on March 2010 Meeting

It seems only yesterday that the Group had its last AGM but the first part of the March meeting was devoted to this. Graham Hodgson, the Chairman, in his usual inimitable manner soon disposed of the formalities. In particular he thanked Esther Worsfold on her retirement as Secretary after 9 years of unstinting service and welcomed Mary and Lloyd Brunt as the new joint Secretaries. Attention was also drawn to the very healthy financial state of the Group due to increased membership and the additional £1,100 brought in by the highly successful “Photographic Memories” exhibition which Esther organised last year.
The main body of the proceedings was taken up by a highly amusing talk by Roger Paine entitled “Ditty Box 2” or more precisely “Naval Yarns from a Former Naval Officer”. Roger joined the navy at the age of 16 progressed through the ranks leaving as a Commander some 25 years later. He started by asking the members in his stentorian voice whether they could hear him and telling the story of the Archbishop of Canterbury when entering a meeting said “I hope you can hear me, the Agnostics in here are terrible”!
One particular story concerned the time his ship made a courtesy visit to the Seychelles immediately after the revolution had occurred there. A large cake was prepared with, at its centre the Seychelles flag. This took copious amounts of colouring to produce. Unfortunately because of the revolution the Seychelles flag had changed. The Captain was in a panic. The Chief Petty Officer Cook not known for his quiet temperament went mad when asked to prepare a new flag because he had run out of colouring. Resort was made to ink to colour the icing. None of the VIP guests was wiser except of course the crew!

Steve Harms

This page last modified on: 30 March 2010