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Local History Journal

by Steve Sharp – 8th April 2021
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haddm chronicle 18

If you're interested in local history and have yet to discover 'Haddenham Chronicles', you may wish to know that the latest editon (No.18) has just been published. Here's an overview from Steve Sharp.

In my Welcome to the Seventeenth Issue last Spring I said it looked as though the virus would give us plenty of reading time – in fact, I know that some people have been indulging in a retrospective read of many past issues. They contain over 1000 pages of articles designed, like the BBC, to inform, educate and entertain and the updated index can be found on the Museum website at e-voice.org.uk/haddenhammuseum. All Issues are available for sale at the Museum, which should be re-opening in May.

This issue contains articles by a dozen contributors, old and new. By the time you read this it will be on sale at Blooming Fruity, the Museum and the Community Library – and at any village events which can be organized following the lockdown restrictions.

As usual, it is arranged chronologically, starting with the discovery of a skeleton which may be Anglo-Saxon, leading up to Robyn Thorogood relating how he has led the team overseeing the development of the impressive Snakemoor Nature Reserve.

Martin Andrew, in a masterly and scholarly essay, describes the architecture of the Parish Church of St Mary. And he promises more. Will Strange takes us back to a Vicar/Churchwarden disagreement in the 16th century – linking it to my article in Issue 17 about the early years of the Parish Council.

James Norris has used family records to augment earlier articles about the Plater family, adding in the Balcombe connection.

The donation by the Community Infant School of its school logbooks from 1873 onwards, already used by Alan Rose in Chronicles 17 about the Second World War period, is enabling members of the village local history group to study earlier periods. Diana Gulland has intriguingly compared the schoolmaster's records of 1875-85 with the writings of Walter Rose who was a pupil at that time – two very contrasting accounts. In Chronicles 19, Elaine Parkes and I will cover much of the period 1899-1923, and possibly more by that time. Sue Michell is looking at some of the more recent years.

Alan Rose describes the Haddenham Low Brickworks, which he featured in a recent U3A Zoom lecture.
I came across an anti-slavery meeting in the Baptist schoolroom in 1834, with a well-known ex-slave showing off his manacles.

Peter Wenham has, topically, written up the Cuddington cholera epidemic of 1849.

Mark Chivers has researched the life of Doreen Carwithen, the first full-time female film composer who was born in Haddenham. Mark is planning a festival next year to mark her centenary.

Not many people know the paintings of Henry Terry who lived in Haddenham at the turn of the 19th -20th centuries and often exhibited at the Royal Academy. With help from Doreen Barker, Alan Rose and Chris Wellby, I have traced his work and reproduced some of these portraits.

In 1939 Les Parsons and his brothers were evacuated from Ealing to Aston Sandford and he has written up his memories.

And, Christina Jeffery has written a tribute to Stewart Bowman and his skill as a stained-glass designer.

I'm sure you will enjoy this Issue – if you do, tell your friends!

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