On Sunday afternoon, 3rd May, village families enjoying their picnics in the sunshine at the Pocket Park were entertained by the excellent Hook Norton Brass Band. For those of us old enough to remember, the music caused a wave of nostalgia, featuring Vera Lynn classics such as “We’ll Meet Again” and “The White Cliffs of Dover” and many Glenn Miller “swing” hits from the era.
There will be a Service of Remembrance for the blessings of V.E. Day in the village church on Saturday 10th May at 11.00 am.
Photographs of the Pocket Park event can be seen on the next page.
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December of this year will see the 80th anniversary of a Sulgrave event which I remember vividly. Sandy Munro was a softly spoken Scot, hailing originally from Portmahomack, who served in the RAF as a navigator on Lancaster bombers. He had made many raids over Germany, the final one being an attack on Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgarden in Bavaria. After one operation his Lancaster crashed on attempting to land and the Canadian pilot was badly injured. Sandy survived and was later posted to the nearby airfield at Chipping Warden. He told me much later that whilst there he had “the good fortune to go to a local dance where he asked someone ‘excuse me, but who is the extremely pretty girl who has just come in?'” The pretty girl in question was my cousin Kathleen, then living with her parents in what is now known as “Wootton House” (built by my great-grandfather Isaac for my grandfather Joseph Wootton as a wedding present in the 1880s). They were duly introduced and were soon in each other’s company as often as Sandy’s operational duties allowed. They were married in Sulgrave Church on an extremely cold day in December 1945. My cousin Valerie and I had the honour of being bridesmaid and page boy respectively, shivering in clothes made from parachute silk.
Both Sandy and Kathleen were prominent members of village society for many years until her death in 1999 and his in 2006.
Sandy and Kathleen on their wedding day.
My cousin Valerie, very pretty in her bridesmaid’s dress and myself not very happy in my silk clothes partly because of the cold and partly because of the derision of other village boys of my age!
The reception was held in the upstairs room of the then Six Bells Inn in Church Street.
1933 Sketch of the former Six Bells Inn.
Colin Wootton