Easter Greetings from Bagshot
We certainly had a winter that was at times exceptionally cold
- what a delight it is that spring is now here.
I will offer you one last snow picture, contributed by Malcolm, it is of
College Ride and I think captures very well the dreariness of
winter.
So let's have some rather more pleasant spring images.
The housing development on the former Waterer's nursery site
is coming on with a large recreational area to the side of it. Those
who travel on the A30 will be greatly relieved when the associated road works
are complete. They seem to have taken for ever making a new traffic
light controlled junction and caused considerable disruption while they did
it. The road-work contractor's parting shot was to reduce the busy A30 to
single file traffic controlled by stop-go boards during the rush hour. The
work was finished by mid-morning, so why could it not have been done a little
later in the day when it would not cause literally miles of traffic congestion?
In contrast the County Coucil are to be congratulated on some real joined-up thinking. They took the opportunity of the A322 being closed for work by a utility company to send in a work party to sort out the verges.
Like all councils, Surrey County Council is having to make financial savings
and we wait with some trepidation to see what will suffer. It does
look as though Bagshot's library will be a casualty. From past events one
would be forgiven for thinking that it has been a target for closure for
many years - despite the fact that it costs very little to run and with no
freehold to be able to sell off only offers minimal savings to the council.
Another casualty could be the adequacy of the bus service.
Not only does each season have its characteristic signs of nature, but it seems to me that these signs change from year to year, or perhaps that each new year emphasises something different. Of striking note this year have been the abundance of the little white flowers on hawthorn bushes to the extent that many fields are hedged in white.
Finally in a selection of spring pictures we have to have some tulips.
During the worst of the recession a few years back we saw Estate Agents flee like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship, and petrol stations close and be replaced by "hand car wash" services. Now we have two of the vacated estate agent offices occupied by new businesses and one of the car wash sites move over to selling cars. Hopefully all good signs.
Easter will, or course, be celebrated in all Bagshot's churches.
On Good Friday all the churches come together for a Walk of Witness - a
procession around the village led by a wooden cross and ending with a prayer
and a hymn sung in The Square.
A week later will be the Royal Wedding and, like many places, Bagshot will be having its street party in the High Street. Let us hope that the weather will be kind.
Additions to the website since the last newsletter include:
- Don asks what the Duke of Connaught was doing 1894-1900 as he is interested in his A.D.C. John G.H.H.De La Poer BERESFORD
- Steve asks if anyone remembers the Hughes family (1930-1960)
- Trev's memories on the Brick Hill camp
- Colin played for Bagshot FC
- Wendy provides some information about the Laurel Cottages near the foot of Church Road.
- Miles tells of his time at the RAOSsand sent some more pictures.
- Terry asks if anyone knows where Emily Jane Popejoy lived.
- Following on from the challenge to identify the people in some old children's photos, Alan has set the challenge to identify the adults in three teams
- Roy has added to the list of uses that the shop that was once Nash's has had
- Sue asks if anyone knows of a fleet of lorries seen on the A30 that had the names of nursery characters
- Might the Duke of Connaught have officiated at the wedding of one of his employees in 1902?
- James Legge provides memories of Ron Collins and the Bridge Street cafe
- More about Miss Monger from Frances
- Sylvia remembers Curley View Cottages
- A collection of memories from John Wooders
With best wishes to you and those you hold dear.
Neil
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The previous newsletter was Christmas 2010.
copyright © 2011 Neil Bartlett. All rights reserved. Published privacy statement.
>Each time I do a mailing telling friends like yourself about one of these 'update' pages I get several bounce back as undeliverable because the intended recipient has changed their email address, and I have no way of knowing what it has changed to. So if you change your email please remember to put me on the list of people to tell if you want to keep in touch.
There are two very obvious causes of changed email addresses. The first is when I've been given a business email address and either you change employer, or the employer changes their name and with it their email address. The second is if you use an email address tied to your Internet Service Provider (addresses such as yourname@aol.com and yourname@btinternet.com) and you change your ISP. For both of these situations here is a simple solution to the risk of loosing an email address that you have given to people such as myself who mail only occasionally, and that is to use an email address from one of the many web-based free email service providers. These three seem to be very popular, but there are many others: http://gmail.google.com (Google), http://mail.live.com (Microsoft Windows Live / Hotmail) and http://mail.yahoo.com (Yahoo)