Feniton History Group held their 94th meeting in The Nog Inn

We put the arrangements on place for the WW1 coffee morning in the church on Sat. 10^th at 10:30 am. We meet to set up about 9:30 am. Cakes etc would be most welcome, thank you. The funds raised will be on behalf of the Poppy Appeal.

 You are welcome to come over to the farm on Thursday 8^th at 2:30pm to put our display on the boards.

Bob told us about an Australia medal for the injured, when collecting medals, you must be aware of the fakes put out for sell. The discussion moved to the fake art and antique markets, some medals are sold with the wrong ribbons.

Hugh continues with his work on the History of Plymouth Argyle, the memorabilia is getting

memorable pricy, this was followed by some football rivalry!! He is working on the social history around the football league in the 1880s, the northern teams paid their players, these were often factory teams, but not in the south, football was much more dominate in the North. The Thames Ironworks supported the “Hammers”, West Ham. The local church also was involved in some teams.

During the war there were women’s teams from the shell factories, but in December 1921 the FA cited strong opinions about football's unsuitability for females. It called on clubs belonging to the associations "to refuse the use of their grounds for such matches". The ban changed the course of the women's game forever.

Jackie has loaned her families’ war medals to the school.  The school is making a brilliant effort in commemorating the WW1 100 years.

Sam has War memories from his family, there is a sweet heart photo of a dead soldier, name unknown, the lady remained single, lived in India  and worked as a post mistress.

Val mentioned Frank’s fathers war medals and asked how to preserve a war time telegram

Geoff advised that she persevere the telegram in acid proof paper.

Geoff told us about archiving in the Record Office by tell us what’s not allowed in the record office, pens, metal staples, metal treasury tags and Sellotape. Paper is never folded but rolled and stored in linen bags.

He is recording a collection of Theatre programs with staples left which will be left in. The Theatre fire’s listing of an auction catalogue of contents. The Savoy Cinema  was in London Inn square  where Waterstones now stands in Exeter. . In some cases the Sellotape can be removed and replaced with preservation tape.  The Touring Players theatre programs were often just single sheets due to paper shortages of 1951.

Beware old wax seals can explode!!! Jenny has some large velum parchments which could be framed to preserve them, the wax seals could be placed in a container.

Geoff met Jo Davey, she is nee Broadhurst and is related to Geoff. Nice coincidence. 

Alan found some notes on the Clapperentale Mill in the current Tale Valley Trust Newsletter, there are some ideas of getting it back to working order. It was worked from a leat taking water from the River Tale. The article notes is was a powerful mill, used for farm tasks, animal feed etc and a sawmill.

Brenda mentioned that the railways enable the followers offootball  to travel futher to matches. In 1895 Bolton Wanders on a Monday drew  huge 8,000 crowd.

In 1908 played Exeter v Plymouth for the first time.

Jenny Elizabeth Thoroughgood, a keen costume historian, has given her some costumes to stage some living history Tudor times talks for a display at the 2019 Fun Day, along with some Bunting. Jenny and George went to a talk hosted by Todd Gray with Professor Mark Stoyle about the history of the underground passages and life in Exeter in Medieval times.

David mentioned that his son Charles cleared a house. The solicitor arrived with a Tesco’s bag, and in the bag was hand grenade, this was shut it in safe, and the authorities were called, many Blue lights, along with the bomb squad, TV camera crews all turned up to Southernhay. The bomb expert checked the bag and declared the grenade to be safe as it had be used!!

Thank you all for a meeting full of interest and poignant memories of the war. 

We next meet in the Nog Inn on Thursday 6^th December at 8 pm.