1

Third Age Trust

University of the Third Age

www.lymingtonu3a.org.uk

Registered Charity 1098003 Summer May 2013

NOTES FROM THE CHAIR

As your Chairman for another year, it is fitting at this time that

we thank Barbara Runham, Cheryl Blamey and Gordon Carter

for their stint on the Committee and welcome Julia Brooke, Sue

Curant, Linda Leiper and Jill Lindemere.

As you know from the AGM we are looking for people to volun-

teer to help in all sorts of ways. Not least someone to do some

research for ‘Behind the Scenes’ venues for ‘Questors’ to visit.

Also someone to shadow Kath Nisbet, who is our Secretary, and

has to step down next April, and myself. If you feel that you can

give some assistance in any way it would be much appreciated.

Even if it is taking over the Tea Rota!

The Mary Rose Museum is opening on the 31st May and, there-

fore, we can now complete last year’s Study Day programme

[‘The Solent Through the Ages’] by visiting it on the 24th June

2013. Those who indicated an interest at the time have been con-

tacted to see if they wish to go. Details are elsewhere in the

Newsletter.

Welcome to lots of new members and farewell to those who have

joined other U3As. Our membership numbers have not changed

significantly. I hope you continue to enjoy what Lymington U3A

has to offer and indeed start new ventures for us.

This is the last Newsletter before the Summer – if we ever get

one that is! You still have May, June and July to enjoy Lyming-

ton U3A activities – most groups do not meet in August. So I

look forward to meeting up with you again in the Autumn - on

the 5th September at the General Meeting.

Best wishes

Hilvary Robinson Chair

Monthly General Meetings at

Lymington Community Centre. 2013. (2.30 pm)

2nd May 2013 Tara Roberts ‘Lady ZING’

Tara and her well known popular local choir will entertain us

with some of their repertoire.

6th June 2013 Alan Edmundson. RHS listed speaker, and

regular contributor to Radio Solent's 'The Good Life'. He will

be talking about his career route into Radio Solent's involve-

ment and then have a Q & A session on gardening topics.

4th July 2013 Elizabeth Sweeney, the outreach officer for

the European Parliament.U.K. Office. Her talk is on the work-

ing of the European Parliament, in particular the work of the

elected members from the U.K.

5 Sept. 2013 Joan Ferrer from the Magistrates Association

talking about 'The Magistrates in the Community'.

3 Oct 2013. Mick Foster. The Royal Train, its history and

anecdotes with inclusion about the use of the train during the

Jubilee year.

COFFEE MORNING / PLUS, 10 - 11.30am. Fuller-McLellan Hall., Lymington Community Centre

Bring a friend – refreshments 30p

20th May Bert Caiger ‘Long Distance Path Walking’ 17th June Coffee only 15th July Janet Norton ‘Royal Museums Greenwich’ 16th Sept Miggi Sharp ‘The Life of a Cathedral Choris- ter’ 21st Oct Coffee Only

LYMINGTON U3A NEWSLETTER

STOP PRESS Great news. The New Mary Rose Museum opens on 31st May

I have been able to arrange a Group Booking for Monday, 24th

June at the concessionary rate of £12 per person including coach-

travel from Lymington (dep. 09.30)

Those who attended our Study Day, ‘The Solent Through the

Ages’ in March 2012 and expressed interest in such a trip will be

given priority. Seats remaining will be open to Lymington mem-

bers.

If you are interested in joining the group, please contact

Yvonne Headey on 01590 671629 without delay.

Sept 2013, Newsletter Copy date 15th August. Please send copy (max 300 words) to the Editor at

lymingtonu3a@yahoo.co.uk. or Tel: 01590 689061 (Bert)

Also webpage up-dates at any time.

Questors Do you have a few minutes to spare during the day that you

could use for research? Questors is looking for someone who

can find ‘behind the scenes’ venues to visit.

The Quest starts from September 2013. Contact: Hilvary Rob-

inson 672825or Ann Webber 676284

2

HISTORY OF HYTHE FERRY AND PIER—7th February 2013

Our February meeting was very well attended and Sarah Marsden showed us an entertaining film of old and new photographs of the

pier, the ferry and its passengers. She then explained how the area was originally a lagoon with a spit of land – now Hythe High

Street. The first historical mention of Hythe was in 1575, and it remained a small village with inhabitants called the Heathen, per-

haps because there was no church until 1825!

A bridge was built in 1856 and the crossing to Southampton by wherry boat took one hour. In 1881 the construction of the pier was

completed and the original tollhouse was situated where the ticket office is now. The 19th century tramway was replaced in 1909 by

a narrow gauge railway, which was electrified in 1922. The pier has been hit various times and the maintenance is very high – hence

the idea of the current sponsored planks. The most recent, and probably best known, damage was caused in November 2003, when a

dredger made a 150 ft breach in the pier. Fortunately, no one was on the

walkway and the train had left just three minutes earlier, so miraculously

there were no injuries. The Hythe Marina facilities were used for refuel-

ling whilst repairs were carried out, mainly by in-house staff. Although the

dredger was legally only liable for half the costs, local pressure forced it to

pay for the £300,000 damage and the pier reopened in January 2004. The

captain, who was drunk, was jailed for eight months.

Currently, the main boat is “Great Expectations” and the back up is

“Hotspur IV” – the latter being the last in a line of similar ferries and so

called because of an early connection with the Earl of Northumberland,

father of Harry Hotspur. There are approximately 50,000 passengers a

year, and although there was a slight drop after the dredger accident, num-

bers are now increasing, probably due to the price of petrol and parking in

Southampton. There is also a move to attract tourists – perhaps by calling

it once again “The Gateway to the New Forest.” Jill Lindermere

"Images of Burma" Talk

At the Coffee Morning Plus on 21st January, Cheryl Blamey pre-sented a slide-show of her holiday in Burma. Stunning photos of Buddhist temples, bustling markets, the Mandalay Palace, and the Ayeyarwady River were accompanied by a talk touching on the historical, religious and cultural background. The trip had been a small group tour visiting the main tourist attractions, and felt very exciting and adventurous as the country has only relatively recently opened up to tourism. Cheryl recommended Burma for a holi-day: lots of variety, lovely people, warm climate, and not too commercialised - yet!

Images of Burma (Myanmar)�

ADVENTURES OF THE SHORT BREAKS GROUP

Our first trip in 2013 was advertised as a Mystery Tour and this turned out to be well named. A dreadful Sunday in February saw

torrential rain, roads under water and once joining the A36 towards Salisbury the thick mist made views from the coach impossible.

First stop for coffee had to be Chieveley Services, the driver deciding it was the best option to keep dry. We then journeyed on, past

Oxford, Banbury still with the relentless rain until we arrived in Stratford upon Avon. Still raining and streets awash we had just

over 2 hours to have lunch etc. Some members managed lunch and a short walk to see the sights while others had a leisurely lunch.

A heavy snow shower was thrown into the mix on the return journey and the rain accompanied us back to the New Forest. In spite af

all this, we agreed that at least we had been in good company, plenty of chats and laughs, definitely preferable to a wet Sunday in-

doors.

On 26th February a party of 8 set off from Southampton airport to fly to Nerja in Spain in our search for the Sun. Here again the sun

was in short supply but this did not deter us from visits to neighbouring resorts and high up in the mountains to delightful villages.

Our hotel was situated on the outskirts of the delightful town of Nerja but was within easy walking distance along the beach to the

centre where we did manage to sit outside surveying the beautiful views. Because of the fairly strong winds coming off the sea we

could not indulge in our usual late afternoon jugs of Sangria or champagne cocktails but instead followed the very British custom of

afternoon tea, sandwiches and cakes in the hotel lounge. Yet again a super break enjoyed by all.

Our next trips are 21st May to Oxford where we intend to join one of the guided tours of the City and our usual river trip which will

be on 23rd June, again travelling to Oxford for lunch before embarking on a river cruise from Folly Bridge to Abingdon.

Brenda Miller

Burma now Myanmar

3

U3A Events 2013 1 U3A Photography Competition 2013 - Closing Date 10th May 2 Elgar Unveiled - Tuesday 21

st May

More details are available from Hilvary Robinson 01590 672825 or email hilvarylymu3a@gmail.com or on the U3A web site www.u3a.org.uk

Visit to St Marys Football Ground—Southampton FC Feb 26th 2013

An interesting visit to a clean and well maintained football ground. The guide gave a friendly and leisurely tour of the offices and rooms with a potted history of the club and some of its

more famous people, players, and their deeds. Perhaps surprisingly the visitors changing rooms were rather Spartan with the Home team’s much better although not to the standard I imagined for players with such high salaries. Apparently this is part of psy-chological warfare on the opposition!! The grass pitch is superb with artificial lighting to encourage grass growth. It is totally replaced at the end of the season. A very pleasant morning. Many thanks to Sheila Sowerbutts

for organising the trip. Bert Caiger

Behind the Scenes at Waitrose Three groups of up to 12 went during Feb and March through the warehouse to a training room. Debra Rickman, Personnel Man-

ager, entertained us with a video and talk on the history and ethos of the partnership that is Waitrose and John Lewis. John Spedan

Lewis was born in 1895, son of John Lewis Snr. Aged 19 his father bought the Oxford St. shop and at 21 he was given a ¼ share

valued at £50,000. His father bought Peter Jones store with £21,000 pound notes.! The staff was paid a pittance and whilst the father

made money the son decided a partnership with the staff was more equitable – he believed in fairness and humanity. The owners

were making £26,000 p.a. whilst the staff total salary was £16,000. In 1916 John Spedan withdrew from the Oxford St. store and

used his ¼ share in Peter Jones – increasing the wages, allowing shorter working hours and giving 3 weeks annual leave. Profit shar-

ing resumed in 1925. An irrevocable trust settlement was set up with 5 people on the board.

In the 1930s John Spedan bought the grocery stores of Wallace, Waite and Rose and 15 department stores in the Selfridge group.

Post war more grocery stores were bought. The first self service grocery store was in Southend and the first Waitrose was in Streat-

ham. In 1950 the 2nd trust settlement was set up and signed the Company over to all the partners. There have only been 6 CEOs since

1864. Staffing is very stable in Lymington- the longest serving is 47 years. Work contracts are between 6 hrs per week and 39 hrs

per week. The evening staff work set hours and there are a lot of students at the weekend. Some partners work solely doing other

peoples’ shopping – for the online customers.

We saw more of the warehouse, learned about stock rotation, of the delivery cages and how it all works. Many thanks to Claire

Hayes for organizing these interesting and informative visits. Sheila Totterdell

The day I avoided being handbagged by Margaret Thatcher In 1984, five years after Margaret Thatcher came to power, I became involved in what was to be one of the strangest events of my entire career. As a BBC Radio producer/reporter I planned to put together a report about a newly announced government initiative, the Youth Training Scheme, for a Radio 4 youth programme I was working on at the time. My idea was to interview some young people who were training to be mechanics under the scheme at a garage in Finchley in north London. By coinci-dence Margaret Thatcher was due to visit the garage to see the trainees at work and it was arranged that I could be there at the same time to do a brief interview with her. On the morning of the recordings I was surprised to find a huge press crowd outside the garage clamouring to get in, but barred from doing so. At the door I explained I had an appointment to do recordings in the garage, gave my name, and was duly allowed in, much to the annoyance of the waiting throng. Once inside, I asked why they were there and was told that it had just been announced that Tony Benn had become the successful candidate in the Chesterfield by-election and the press were aware that Margaret Thatcher was about to arrive at the garage. Naturally they were hoping for her reaction. Moments later the huge doors of the garage swung open and a limousine sped in, while the doors clanged firmly shut behind it, leaving the hapless members of the press firmly outside. Inside, meanwhile, the car door was flung open and out stepped Margaret Thatcher, high heels clicking across the hard floor as she set off on a tour of the garage while we all rushed to keep up. Then, still breathless, I was ushered with the prime minister into a nearby office, where we were duly left alone. The words on my lips were ‘so what’s your reaction to the by-election result prime minister’. But the terri-ble fate of those who had crossed the Iron Lady sprung to mind and I opted to avoid her wrath and stick to the arranged

line of questioning. Was I a coward? Probably – but I lived to tell the tale! Julia Brooke

4

Tools for Self Reliance – March 2013

Our speaker David Moynagh gave an interesting insight into the aims and work of this Netley Marsh based charity and his long standing per-sonal involvement with it. David was brought up in Africa by missionary parents and was aware from an early age that practical skills and resources were essential to provide much of life’s everyday needs. And tools were very hard to come by. Tools for Self Reliance was established in the late 70’s when a founder activist, Glyn Roberts, returned to the UK to collect and refurbish tools to send out to Africa and by 1978 Tools for Self Reliance was estab-lished, becoming a broad-based volunteer charity in 1980. The mission of the charity is to contribute to poverty reduction in Africa

by working with partner organisations in Africa and supporters in the UK to empower people to build viable and sustain-able livelihoods through the delivery of technical businesses, life skills training and provision of tools for their trade in small scale rural community groups. In practice the charity collects donated tools and larger items equipment from all over the UK and these are sorted (sometimes sold if of value,) cleaned and refurbished ready to make up into kits. These kits include the essential practi-cal requirements for trades such as carpenters, blacksmiths, builders, mechanics, bricklayers and haberdashers. Kits are then crated and sent by container to their designated partners and development organisations in Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Zambia. These carefully appointed partners know the local needs and take responsibility for appropriate distribution. David emphasised that the aim of the partners was not only to provide skills for work but also training in business and life skills. He illustrated his talk with many inspirational photographs of groups of local artisans and craftworkers generat-ing employment and growing self-sufficiency from this assistance. In essence he said that TFSR had 3 key requisites: Funding, approximately £800,000 per year to cover running costs and payments for their minimal teams of full and

part time paid staff Volunteers to cover the range of practical tasks from refurbishing tools to publicity across the UK Tools Good quality tools. He concluded that this enduring effort by the charity to empower others through training and equipment was their contri-bution to ‘Make Poverty History’ Further details about the charity, sales and coffee mornings can be found on www.tfsr.org. David was happy to answer several questions from the meeting and spent time with individuals afterwards

in further conversation. Sue Curant

4th April 2013 Patricia Elkington “More Secret Gardens of Hampshire” Following business at the AGM of the Lymington U3A, held in the Lymington Community Centre, the Chairman, Hilvary Robin-

son, introduced the speaker Patricia Elkington who is the Honorary County Organiser for the National Gardens Scheme. Patricia

lives at Little Court near Winchester and members have been invited to visit her garden on 18th June.

The talk continued with Patricia outlining the origins of The National Gardens Scheme which is now in its 86th year with over 3800

gardens opening to the public at least once a year. A Liverpool philanthropist, Mr

William Rathbone, employed a nurse to care for his sick wife. When she died he

asked the nurse to help the poor of the neighbourhood and with the help of Flor-

ence Nightingale and the warm approval of Queen Victoria the concept of the

District Nurse spread throughout the country. Nurses were poorly paid and had

no pension on retirement. A council member of The Queen’s Institute, Miss Elsie

Wagg, had the novel idea of raising money for the nurses by encouraging garden

owners to charge when visitors viewed their gardens. By 1927 she had persuaded

600 owners to charge one shilling for the pleasure of viewing their gardens, being

a well-established pastime, making over £8000 which was donated to the

Queen’s Nursing Institute. Since then many charities concerned with the welfare

of the sick have benefited from these donations. In the last 10 years the NGS has

donated £22 million and in 2013 over £2 million has been raised.

Patricia showed slides of many beautiful Hampshire gardens, Willows in Boldre

being on the front of the NGS ‘Yellow Book’. Walhampton with its lake and

Mound built with help from National Trust members. Moore and Blatch, Lymington, who are opening for the first time. £120,000

has been given to the National Trust to train an NGS student at Mottisfont Abbey. In Crawley near Winchester several gardens are

opening as a group. There are over 120 gardens, great and small, opening in Hampshire alone, all with some distinctive feature. One

garden has over 200 different dahlias, another a lovely collection of irises from America.

A question and answer time followed with queries on what to grow on clay soil, how to recondition a lawn, when to plant snow-

drops, how far do tree roots travel, which Patricia dealt with expertly and was thanked warmly for her presentation. Plants from her

garden were for sale in the foyer which many members snapped up. Kathleen Nisbet.

Little Court, Crawley near Winchester

5

Digital Photography Group

This group meets in Milford on Sea once a month on the first Wednesday in the morning. New members are wel-come. Contact John Buchanan on 01590 645661 or via e-mail to jon.jen@talktalk.net. Here are some photos for you to appraise

RNLI Poole Viv Gosney Manhattan Skyline— John Buchanan

Egret on Sturt Pond Kathleen Ogle Hover Fly Pam Gresswell

WALKING GROUP First Monday in the month at 10.30 am.

All members and dogs welcome, just turn up. Group Leader: Hugh Keal 01590 675023, hughkeal@aol.com

Monday 6th May: meet at the Whitemoor Pond car park outside Brockenhurst just past North Weirs. Map ref: SU 277024, a 4.75

mile walk.

Monday 3rd June, IOW walk.

Meet at the ferry terminal to catch the 10.05 am ferry to Yarmouth.

We will take the coastal path towards Newtown Bay making our way inland at Hamstead for lunch

at the Horse & Groom Pub in Ningwood. Returning to Yarmouth on the no. 7 bus which stops by the

Pub, a 5 mile walk.

DO NOT FORGET YOUR BUS PASS.

Monday 2nd September, 10.30am.

Meet at the Pig Bush car park on the B3056 Beaulieu to Lyndhurst road. Map ref: SU 362051, a 4

mile walk.

Group leader: Hugh Keal, tel. 01590 675023, email to hughkeal@aol.com.