| A Blast from the Past 2: A further Exploration of Medieval Instruments
Last year, on one of the previous talks for the speaker programme, Jonathan Weeks gave an interesting talk on Medieval Instruments. This went down very well with the audience, so on May 21st this year he returned to the Community Centre with Part Two, this time covering Strings and Horns. He was introduced by Ken Hindle who explained that Jonathan, apart from his interest in music of days gone by, was also once an archaeologist, a farmer and an estate agent.
While the audience were finishing their tea and biscuits Jonathan explained that one of the earliest instruments was the cow horn which was mainly used for signalling. Later adaptations were used to create tunes which eventually led to other forms of wind instruments like the cornett and trumpet. He treated us to various renditions of the instruments especially the trumpet which was very loud and could probably be heard on the beach. He blew so hard that he was breathless for a while. When he got his breath back he explained that it was apparently illegal in the middle-ages to blow a trumpet unless from a Royal Household.
Variations of stringed instruments came to Europe via the Crusades from Arabic beginnings and he explained that any Harp before the 9th century was a Lyre!!
He showed and played variations of the Lyre and the Fiddle and even sang a couple of ancient songs. He had made most of the instruments himself, some out of wood and some from various spare parts from his central heating!! He showed us a small Hurdy Gurdy that he had made which was very intricate. He said they were first invented in the 9th century and if I remember correctly was descended from the Tromba-Marina.
The Psaltery and Dulcimer were the forerunners of the Harpsichord and the modern Piano of today but he didn’t bring one of those with him!
Of all of the instruments shown and talked about he said the human voice was the most perfect.
He told the story and sang the songs of the evolution of Strings and Horns in great detail. It was also very interesting to know how the instruments were made. I enjoyed the talk very much and wonder if there is going to be a Part Three?
Words and pictures with thanks to Howard Clements |   
Jonathan Weeks playing a variety of instruments. |
 Allan Gibbs displaying the Gibbs shield. |
A Call to Arms
IF anyone thought that, because our own U3A’s Allan Gibbs had kindly agreed to stand-in at short notice for the indisposed Peter Tinney, his talk would be any the less interesting, then how wrong could they be?
Allan began by explaining how, as a young man more than 50 years ago, he had trained in what would now be termed graphic design and how his interest in heraldry was awakened when he was designated the job of recolouring the 28 heraldic shields carved into the first floor frieze in the brickwork of the Merchant Venturers’ building in Bristol. Through much painstaking research at Bristol Museum, he was able to match all of the coats of arms to their corresponding drawings which allowed him to reinstate the carvings to their official colours.
Although not himself authorised to use it, Allan demonstrated the design established during mediaeval times for the Gibbs family of Cliford Hampton forefathers of the Gibbs of Tyntsfield.
He went on to describe how the design of a coat of arms consists of several parts, including the shield, the helmet, the crest, the motto, the mantle and the supporters. The proper description of a coat of arms involves precise use of a specialist, colourful heraldic vocabulary that has survived, in English, from about the 13th century.
Historically the purpose of such artistic achievement was to indicate the identity of armour coated nobility either in the battlefield or during peacetime tournaments so loved by the mediaeval aristocracy.
An interesting point was made regarding the fanciful shapes of some of the animals that form the supporters: Very few people in this country during mediaeval times had seen a real lion, for example, so their depiction of the beast was largely a matter of imagination.
It is now the Duke of Norfolk who carries the queen’s authority to ratify any given design and authorisation is overseen by the Royal College of Arms.
The talk was supported by a personal insight into the subject by David Matthews, another Burnham U3A member, who, having been an Aide de Camp at the coronation of Elizabeth II, was able to illustrate the purpose and significance of heraldry in modern practice.
A further input was made by Diane Perry who some years ago researched, designed and won a competition for a Burnham on Sea coat of arms which she had brought along for all to see. She also showed a coat of arms which is attached to her own family.
The whole presentation was enlivened by the digital dexterity of our own Les Hughes whose visual aids illuminated the subject admirably.
Our thanks are offered to all those involved in this latest Speakers’ presentation especially to Allan Gibbs but not forgetting of course Kath who was able to find a speaker at short notice and to Peggy and team for keeping our whistles well wetted!
Ken Henton
|
| SONGS OF ZUMMERZET FOLK
Eddie Upton
A Google search of Eddie Upton produces a nine minute entry on YouTube of him playing the tremolo harmonica at a National Harmonica Festival a couple of years ago. It was a brilliant performance. He never played the harmonica for us when he came for a U3A lecture, but then I guess he might have had problems singing to us, in his rich baritone voice!
Eddie is Director of Folk South West a charitable organisation which fosters the conservation of folk music. In the early Twentieth Century several figures (including Ralph Vaughan Williams) were prominent in recording details of folk music that was still being heard in parts of the country. The then vicar of Hambridge, Rev Charles Latimer Marson, was one of those. He had had a varied career in the church and had spent time in a parish in Australia where he had gone for health reasons; and there he had met Cecil Sharp who had also journeyed to Australia for his health. On his return to England, Marson was captivated by the folk songs he heard and invited Sharp to Hambridge in 1903 so that he too could hear them.
It was the beginning of a life mission during which time Cecil Sharp catalogued 1500 folk songs in Somerset alone and nearly 5000 from all over the country. Eddie sang us the first song Sharp had witnessed, a melodious number called Seeds of Love. In his journeys round the village Sharp had heard John England, a gardener, sing the song as he laboured on the land. From then on Sharp spent as much time as he could away from his teaching profession in London, cycling around the Somerset countryside on his bicycle, listening for country dwellers singing at their labours, and visiting homes and villages where he would even stop parishioners and ask them for any songs that they knew. He became adept with a camera and his box Brownie was a constant companion.
The songs had not been written down before so in those days when there were none of our modern devices everything was done by hand, and Sharp had to mark out tunes as best he could and also write down the words. Indexes to the songs, together with 300 of the photographs that Sharp took of people, are currently held on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Libraries online (www.library.efdss.org).
Folk songs have a long history in English community living. They often relayed news around the countryside in a largely illiterate society and Eddie sang us one about Queen Jane (perhaps Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII) who died in childbirth after 6 days in labour; and what community at the time wouldn't have shared in that common tragedy from their own experiences? But they were also notable for the imagery and language they communicated; they entertained and their tunes often provided the rhythms of repetitive work patterns. An instalment in the recent series Lark Rise to Candleford on BBC showed how agricultural workers were led into the wheat harvest with a folk song beating the rhythm of the scythes at work.
Eddie got us singing choruses (on the excuse that he had a slight cold and couldn't guarantee his voice would last!) and at the last we joined him in a song of Wassailing as he played his squeeze box for us. Appropriately, it was January after all!!
It had been a splendid hour in his company.
Harvey Allen
|  Eddie Upton
|
 George Dobson reading from his "Observational Odes". |
WHEN George Dobson started his talk to U3A members on "A Light-hearted Look at the Idiosyncrasies of Everyday Life", he announced that one of his goals was to bring a little smile to people's faces.
When he sat down exactly 60 minutes later he had gone far beyond his modest goal and had his audience laughing out loud and clapping so much that he had had to ask everyone to save up applause for the end !
It was a marvellous little cameo that tripped effortlessly from outright comedy to heart-warming poignancy as George used a collection of his odes to highlight every-day happenings which affect us all in different ways.
He ranged from the dire consequences for holidaymakers who do not understand the intricacies of French plumbing and land themselves in the 'merde', to the apocalyptic terror for parents of running the little rascal's birthday party.
There were the inbuilt dangers of the school nativity play, the fickleness of first love and then a diatribe to the PM on MPs' expenses. Nothing missed Mr Dobson's gimlet eye as he presented his works like a cross between Victoria Wood and Cyril Fletcher...
And it was all in a good cause because Mr Dobson, who was born in Blackpool but now lives in Nailsea, has collected his works together in an illustrated book, "Observational Odes", to raise money for CLIC Sargent, which enables parents and loved ones to stay with their children when they are in hospital, and also the Multiple Sclerosis Centre (Bristol).
He explained how personal contact with sick youngsters had made him initially determined to use his books to raise £500 for each charity but he has already raised £6,500. Now he has decided to do one more year of lectures so he can top the £7,500 mark in tribute to a friend who died recently of leukaemia.
And at the end of his talk there was a queue of people lining up to buy his excellent book, costing £10, with all the money going to his charities.
* The next talk is on 15th January 2010 and is entitled Songs of Somerset Folk by Eddie Upton from Folk South West.
Peter O’Reilly |
| TALK to any advertising exec or newspaper editor and they will tell you it's paramount to grab their audience's reaction in the first instant -- hence giant headlines and shock advert openings.
So what you don't do is entitle your lecture "West Country Friendly Societies and their Brass Emblems" - you've got no hope with a start like that.
But that's where Phillip Hoyland proved all rules are made to be broken.
His talk was both fascinating and educational and opened up a world most of us know little or nothing about.
A Dickensian world without a National Health Service, BUPA or any form of national assistance payments and where poverty for many was just a way of life.
So that's why, across the South West and further afield, a village would band together and start a society, mostly known locally as a ‘club’. Often with the help of a wealthy patron, members would chip in a few pence every week and build a fund that would help look after them in sickness and ultimately in death too.
Without these clubs it could well have meant a pauper's grave for many and health care would have been just a dream.
The club, or society, would use its funds to in effect put a doctor on contract for a year. If a member fell ill, the society's officials would go out and assess them and, provided the dues were paid up, the doctor would be called.
It even provided monies for a period of convalescence and some were the early form of building societies and banks, lending money to farmers for stock or equipment.
Great pride was taken in the individual clubs, who had their own brass emblems cast and each year would have a church service, parade around the village with their emblems, knock on the doors of the wealthy and then have a party to end all parties.
Phillip brought along an eye-catching selection from his own collection of brass emblems and explained that some of the societies are still extant today. He also produced his piece de resistance, one of the actual boxes (from Fivehead, near Taunton) in which the societies cash and records were kept, secured by multiple locks and in some cases bolted to the floor of their meeting rooms.
So the moral of the story is, don't be put off by the title, for this was one of those talks that opened a veritable Pandora's box of fascinating facts.
Peter O'Reilly
|  Phillip Hoyland, surrounded by his collection of Friendly Society Brasses
|
 Jonathan Weeks playng a portative organ
 and the crumhorn. | A Blast from the Past
What a delight it was to be at the Community Centre today, July 17th, to hear Jonathan Weeks give his talk on medieval woodwind instruments. It was absolutely not necessary to be a music lover to enjoy this talk. Those of us who had braved the unseasonably wet and windy weather sat captivated while he spoke about – and played – an array of instruments that he had brought with him. From the simple reed pipe to the shawm (‘probably the loudest musical instrument ever made’) to the bagpipes (still described as ‘a weapon of psychological warfare’ by the Geneva Convention) to the hurdy-gurdy, Jonathan’s passion for his subject was infectious, and his witty and erudite manner as he told us of the origins and history of the instruments made for a wonderfully entertaining 75 minutes.
He has a second talk – on horns and strings – and I certainly hope that our budget will allow us to book him for this in the not too distant future. Look out for his name in the Speaker Programme in the second half of 2010!
|
| Martha Perriam: The History of Brean Down and its Fort
Brean Down is a familiar landmark in this corner of Somerset but I, for one, knew very little about its history. It was a pleasure, therefore, to be at the Community Centre on May 15th to hear Martha Perriam, a volunteer with the National Trust, give her illustrated talk on the History of Brean Down and its Fort.
Martha’s obvious fondness and enthusiasm for the Down made for a very enjoyable hour. She talked briefly about the flora and fauna, then went on to tell us about its history, mentioning the remnants from the last Ice Age, evidence of burial mounds, an Iron Age hill fort and a Roman Temple. She also touched briefly on the fact that Marconi conducted experiments on the Down, and it was from here that wireless signals were sent over water for the very first time.
Brean Down, which now belongs to the National Trust, is the end point of the Mendip Hills. Standing 98 metres above sea level, at its highest point, and extending 2km into the Bristol Channel, it presents an ideal defensive position from both land and sea, a position which has been exploited through the ages. We learned that the Fort was constructed in the 1860s as part of a line of defences built across the Channel to protect the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff. This was at a time when there was a perceived threat of French invasion, a threat that never actually materialised. The Fort was decommissioned in 1900 after an explosion caused by Gunner Haines firing a ball cartridge down a ventilator shaft, and refortified during WWII, at one point of which 200 soldiers were stationed there.
We heard about the plan in the 1860s to make Brean Down one of the great ports of the British Empire. The idea was that coal from South Wales, at that time regarded as the best in the world, was to be transported from the Down, but the foundation stone that was laid in 1864 was washed away in severe weather conditions the following night. (Current planners take note!)
Martha covered a great deal of fascinating detail and distributed NT leaflets about the Down. On most Saturday and Sunday afternoons from Easter to the end of September, and on occasional weekdays in the school holidays, volunteers open officers' quarters and gun magazines for visitors. 2 or 3 from the U3A audience signed up as volunteers, which was very pleasing. If there is anyone else who might be interested in joining them, please contact Martha Perriam on 01934 622255.
Kath Hoyland.
|  Marth Perriam.
|
 Mike Bolton.
|
Hidden Somerset Revealed
The twentieth of March saw the latest rendition in the Burnham-on-Sea University of the Third Age’s programme of Talks on various interesting subjects. This one was entitled ‘Hidden Somerset Revealed’ and was presented by Mike Bolton. He said don’t confuse me with Michael Bolton as I will not be singing today!
Mike, in his capacity as Information Technology Advisor to schools in Somerset, Devon and Dorset, has driven many miles ‘off the beaten track’ to get to schools and has taken an interest in the places he has visited enough to have amassed lots of data which he recounts by way of an illustrated presentation to groups.
He has taken lots of photos of quirky thinks like a plaque on a garden wall that stated ‘On this spot in June 1761 nothing happened’ and another sign that states ‘This road not suitable for charabancs’.
He reeled off a list of famous people associated with Somerset too quickly to write down but suffice to say that Somerset has cemented its place in history.
He showed pictures of castles and manor houses that are good to visit namely Nunney Castle, Tintinhull, Montecute and Dillington and the secret garden at Kilver Court to name but a few.
His presentation could have gone on for hours but he cunningly had a section of slides of multiple choice so that the audience could chose what they wanted to see. After about three of these our time was up. The hour went so quickly but it gave us all an idea of where to go on those summer mornings when we get up and say ‘what shall we do today’.
Thank you Mike. See you in the byways.
Howard Clements
|
| THE GEORGE REED STORY
When Weatherspoons took over the hotel at the junction of The Esplanade and Pier Street in Burnham, they renamed it “Reed’s Arms”. If you ever wondered why, and who was ‘Reed’, the place to be was The Community Centre in Berrow Road on Friday 16th January, where local historian Pat Hase was the guest speaker for the Burnham U3A’s programme of talks on interesting subjects. She explained that in the 1800s George Reed was a local resident who was a Benefactor of Burnham and Squire of East Brent.
He was born in Westbury-on-Trym in 1805 to an unmarried mother who later married a very wealthy Bristol businessman. To cut a long story short, George eventually inherited a large portion of his step-father’s money and came to Burnham in 1836 where he bought a house, outbuildings and land for £1200. He had the house rebuilt and called it The Manor House. It survives today as Manor House and Gardens in Manor Road.
It seems that George was responsible for much of the development of Burnham at that time and in a few years had built Catherine and Julia Terraces at the junction of The Esplanade and Seaview Road. He also built the National School, again on The Esplanade because local folklore has it he didn’t like the noise from the existing school near to his house!!
He was also instrumental in the Railway coming to Burnham and had his hotel (now Weatherspoons) built to satisfy the tourists that arrived by train. Another exploit was ferries to France from the nine hundred foot pier he had built opposite the hotel to accept the steamers for trips around the Bristol Channel. One such trip was a circuit of the ‘Holme Islands’ for One Shilling, children half price.
Unfortunately he lost money on some of his investments, especially the railway, and a short while after a court case in 1869 where he had to pay out about £80,000 in securities, he was found dead at Manor House with suspected heart failure. He was buried in the family plot at East Brent Church.
He should be remembered for his heritage as he was responsible for many of the buildings we can still see today.
Many thanks to Pat Hase for a very enlightening and enjoyable talk.
Howard Clements.
|  Pat Hase is thanked by Chairman Jim Mallinson. |
 Cliff White formerly floor manage of BBC's Antiques Roadshow. | Behind the Scenes at the Antiques Roadshow
I am sure that all of us over the years have watched various episodes of The Antiques Roadshow and wished that we could find a long-lost heirloom somewhere in the bowels of the depository of long-lost treasures known as ‘The Attic’. Only recently, the show aired its first million-pound artefact, although it appears to have been a set-up as the model of the ‘Angel of the North’ belonged to the local council. So where can mere mortals have their objects d’art valued? The answer of course is to take them to the show next time it is in your area.
With this in mind, I went to hear Burnham-on-Sea U3A’s latest talk in their Speaker Programme at the Community Centre on November 21st.
This time it was entitled ‘Behind the Scenes at the Antiques Roadshow’ and was delivered by Mr Cliff White, who was the floor manager of the show for twenty-three years.
He told us that the origins of the series were in ‘Going For a Song’, the programme that started in 1965 and ‘starred’ Arthur Negus, who was a very well-known expert in the antique furniture world. In 1977, producers started a pilot programme to supersede it and called it ‘The Antiques Roadshow’. The original pilot was done in Hereford Town Hall and was so successful that it was followed by another seven and screened throughout 1979. Angela Rippon presented the first few series but eventually moved to TVam and Hugh Scully took over. Each series was originally to have eight episodes but the show became so popular that the number grew and grew until at the present time each series has twenty six episodes!!
Cliff told us that the only persons that were present at every single show were the presenter and the floor manager, and that he had been the length and breadth of the British Isles including the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and Northern and Southern Ireland. His furthest programme, and one he remembers vividly, was the one recorded in Jamaica, where all of the crew stayed in the Pegasus Hotel in 5 star luxury at the expense of the Jamaican government.
Talking of the background to each edition, he explained that between 2000 and 3000 people usually turned up at each recording to have their items valued. Every one of them was seen by an expert, so nobody went away disappointed even though they may have had to stand in a queue for hours. There are usually over twenty various experts on any one show but the regular and famous five are apparently known as the ‘A Team’.
Normally the scaffolders were the first to arrive at the venue on a Monday to erect scaffold for the lighting. The lighting crew came on Tuesday to put up all of the lighting needed and the Technical and Production teams arrived on Wednesday and arranged things for the recording with the public and their treasures on the Thursday.
For one hour’s screen time there was loads of work to do. Then, when it was all ‘in the can’ it all had to be taken down again in time to start at the next venue next Monday. Phew!
Cliff retired in 2000 so didn’t work with Michel Aspel or the present presenter Fiona Bruce but still keeps in touch and will definitely be around when the show goes to Stourhead next year.
After the talk was complete and we had finished our coffee etc., I think that it wasn’t only me that made a bee-line for the attic as soon as I got home.
Thank you, Cliff, for an enlightening morning.
Howard Clements
|
| Very many thanks to Burnham U3A member Graham Smith, MBE, who came to talk to us on September 19th 2008 about his
life as an ‘explosives dustman’. He had a fascinating story to tell and I was struck by the extraordinary personal
courage that must have been required for the countless dangers that he faced.
Special thanks to Les Hughes for his inestimable help on the technical side of this talk.
And of course to Peggy Dancer and her team for their work in the kitchen, providing us, yet again, with a
smooth flow of tea and coffee and biscuits before the talk. |  Graham
Smith MBE |
 Prof. Simon Haslett. | Professor Simon Haslett gave a scintillating and educational
talk on his research into the devastating 1607 flood that affected Burnham-On-Sea and the Bristol Channel in
January 1607. Since 2002, this phenomenon has been the subject of a study between Simon Haslett, then Head of
Geography at Bath Spa University College, author of Coastal Systems and Dr Ted Bryant, School of Geosciences
at the University of Wollongong, Australia, author of Tsunami: the Underrated Hazard.
Simon described in detail the foundation of his hypothesis citing the following as evidence of tsunami:
1. Some historical accounts indicate that the weather was fine e.g. "for about nine of the morning, the same
being most fayrely and brightly spred, many of the inhabitants of these countreys prepared themselves to their
affayres" and the ship at Appldedore was unlikely to be ready to sail in stormy weather.
2. The sea appears to have been "driven back" i.e. retreated out to sea, before the wave struck, a classic
tsunami herald.
3. The wave appeared as "mighty hilles of water tombling over one another in such sort as if the greatest
mountains in the world had overwhelmed the lowe villages or marshy grounds. Sometimes it dazzled many of the
spectators that they imagined it had bin some fogge or mist coming with great swiftness towards them and with
such a smoke as if mountains were all on fire, and to the view of some it seemed as if myriads of thousands of
arrows had been shot forth all at one time." This is very similar to descriptions of more recent tsunami, such
as the tsunami associated with the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, where accounts refer to the sea as being 'hilly',
and the reference to dazzling, fiery mountains, and myriads of arrows, is reminiscent of accounts of tsunami on
the Burin Peninsula (Newfoundland) in 1929, where the wave crest was shining like car headlights, and in Papua
New Guinea in 1998 where the wave was frothing and sparkling.
4. The speed of the wave appears to have been faster than a storm flood as the wave is 'affirmed to have
runne …. with a swiftness so incredible, as that no gray-hounde could have escaped by running before them'
He then went on to illustrate details of his fieldwork especially the imbrications of boulders in the Bristol
channel and evidence of overlying sand in unexpected places explained only by being carried by such a mamoth
wall of water. Altogether, a compelling and fascinating talk.
|
 Bill Jackman | The second talk in our new Speakers’ programme was held in the Community centre on April 18th and was given by Mr. Bill Jackman on the subject of The History of British Wine Glasses.
Tickets had been rather slow in moving off the shelf - many people had commented that they would be more interested in the contents of a wine glass! - and it was therefore particularly pleasing that the talk was such a success and enjoyed by so many.
Mr Jackman talked with great fluency, authority and enthusiasm about the development of glass from Roman times to the present day, and we were fascinated not only by what he told us but also by the examples of glassware - some extremely old, in one case nearly two thousand years old! - that he brought with him and trustingly passed around the audience. (Apparently in all his time as a speaker he has never had to pick up shards from the floor!)
A bonus after the talk was that he gave free evaluations of individual glass pieces that members of the audience had brought along.
Refreshments were on offer before the talk, rather than after. This seemed to go down very well and will be the format from now on.
Thank you Mr. Jackman for a very entertaining morning.
|
| The British Whaling Fleet
The first of the proposed series of talks was on Friday February 15th. Tony Winterburn told us of his
experiences in British Whaling ships in the Antarctic.
He set the scene with a brief history of Whaling and we learnt that in the seventeenth century rich men’s
houses over most of Europe were lit by lamps burning whale oil because it burned with such a clear smokeless
flame. Church candles were made largely from sperm whales for the same reason.
Before the end of the nineteenth century whales in the Arctic were fished almost to extinction and in 1910
ships started looking for whales in the Antarctic and by 1963 this area was also almost denuded of whales so
the British ceased whaling altogether.
Tony’s part in this started after the war in 1946/7 when he was part of the crew of a whale catcher. Factory
ships went down to the Weddel Sea and each factory had about ten catcher vessels catching and bringing their
whales to the factory ship where they were processed.
By now many more valuable products were got from these animals. For example, a ninety foot Blue whale would
produce about 300 barrels of oil used for making margarine, for cleaning wool, softening leather and making
cosmetics, whilst the meat and bone would be turned into fertiliser and animal feed. Vitamin A and insulin,
paint and soap were also made.
Life in these ships, working amongst the ice of the Weddel Sea was hard but the rewards were high. Apart from
the Japanese, Islanders and Norwegians, who still take the small Minke whales, whaling has finished since all
these products can be got from other sources. Thank you Tony for a fascinating opening talk.
|  Tony Winterburn |
HOME
| |
