London Wetland Centre, October 2016

Posted on Sunday, 23rd October 2016 by David

Visit to the London Wetland Centre, October 2016

Peter Day guides our party

Having followed the amazing directions provided by Peter, via Gwyndaf, a select party of eighteen souls duly arrived at the Wetland Centre in Barnes late morning on Thursday 13th October. We were met and greeted by the WWT Chairman himself, otherwise known to us all as Peter Day. Having downed a very welcome hot coffee, we then embarked on our tour, under the watchful guidance of Peter.

We were led through a series of avian habitats from around the world, which have been expertly created by the efforts of the Trust. It is astonishing what the workforce has achieved in less than twenty years by remodelling the redundant Barnes reservoirs and diligently planting an abundant amount of trees and shrubs.

Emporer and red Breasted Geese

Peter walked us round, demonstrating a very impressive grasp of the subjects and imparting his extensive knowledge. He managed to answer virtually all our questions, no matter how obscure or trivial they may have seemed.

We were blessed with a dry and mostly sunny day, if a little chilly. There was
always plenty to see, with new surprises round every corner. Some of the birds there we would not have expected to see, like the Egyptian geese. However, as Peter pointed out, these had originally been imported from the Middle East by some unknown person and the young had escaped from their collection enabling them to fly to places like the Wetland Centre as and when they wished.

Puna Teal

Snooty looking Cranes

There is a constant threat from foxes and this has been largely controlled by surrounding the site with electric fences, extending up to three feet below ground, preventing burrowing. Incredibly they do not have a problem with squirrels or Canada Geese. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, originally set up at Slimbridge by Peter Scott in 1946, is doing very valuable work in the
conservation of wetlands, their plants and waterfowl around the world. It is also providing an educational experience for many thousands of disadvantaged and other school children every year, some of whom we
saw, and they appeared to be having a very good time.

Southern Screamers

After lunch, in the excellent café, a number of us enjoyed seeing the Asian
otters being fed. Others enjoyed further strolls, taking in some of the hides
where the wild birds can be observed in peace and quiet.

All in all the visit to the London Wetland Centre proved to be both extremely
enjoyable and rewarding. A visit we are likely to repeat in the future. We thank
Peter Day very much for organising it and proving to be an excellent host.

Steve Adams

Sparrowhawk

Cambridge Colleges 8th September 2016

Posted on Wednesday, 21st September 2016 by David

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Well, I think that went quite well.

The coach picked us up from Gerrards Cross and Amersham at 8:45 and 9am respectively (only a little bit late). Altogether we had a party of 28 in a large coach with plenty of room, and sitting up high we were able to see all the countryside over the hedges.

As soon as we were on our way, David Powell told us of a change of plan – Trinity had declared themselves closed for the day, right at the last moment, so we were going to St John’s and Clare colleges instead.

The weather was fine and sunny, which was a great bonus. We arrived at Cambridge just before 11am, having made good time on the way and were met by our two guides Ann and Helen.

On Jesus Green, by the River Cam, we split into two parties for the tour, and walked along the river bank to Magdalene Bridge. This was our landmark as it was next to both St John’s and the punts.

The Great Gate at St John's Collage

St John’s College was founded by Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII) in 1511, and images of her can be seen in many places within the college grounds. One of the largest colleges in Cambridge, its entrance with the Great Gate is suitably impressive with a large statue of St John above the coat of arms of Lady Margaret. The curious animals depicted are yales, mythical animals with swivelling horns!

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One of St John’s claims to fame is that it was the college where, in 1588 William Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh (well before the English publication).

St John’s has numerous courts, each built in a different century. We stopped for a group photograph in the first court dating from 1520.

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Our guides took us through the various courts explaining their architecture and the source of their funds. We crossed the Cam to see the Bridge of Sighs, named after the original Venetian bridge. It leads to the Victorian Gothic New Court both of which were built in 1831.

The Bridge of Sighs

New Court - St John's College

From St John’s we proceeded past the gates of Trinity and along to Clare College, the second oldest of the Cambridge colleges, founded in 1326. In fact, much of the college was rebuilt in the 17^th century, to accommodate the newly built King’s College Chapel, though work was paused during the civil war. We visited the chapel with its impressive altar piece by Cipriani and an unusual octagonal antechapel.

Clare College Chapel

The Octagonal Ceiling

Gwyndaf rubbing David Attenborough's Nose Nearby is a bust of Sir David Attenborough – with a shiny nose – it has become a new tradition for students to rub his nose for good luck!

Probably the highlight of the visit to Clare was the Fellow’s Garden. This was re-designed in 1947 by Professor Willmer, whose artist’s eye added swathes of colour and carefully planned vistas to the two-acre site, all along the bank of the Cam. We were really lucky with the weather and the sunshine showed the gardens at their best.

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We finished our visit back by King’s College Chapel, the tour had overrun, but nobody minded. We were then free to do our own thing for the next couple of hours.

This showed the real variety of tastes within our Society. Some hurried off to see the display of illustrated manuscripts from all over the world on display at the Fitzwilliam museum, or managed to fit in a tour of King’s Chapel.

Others spent the time wandering around the city, finding nice places to eat and admiring the rest of the college architecture.

While yet another group dashed off to visit one or more of the famous pubs!

Whatever the destination, there was still time to fit in a spot of punting – either with a guide or self-propelled. p1060791

By 4:30 people had meandered their way back to the footbridge over the Cam by Jesus Green, where our coach was waiting. David had to act as ‘whipper in’ to those who were enjoying a last minute ice cream.

The coach left on time, with only a last minute delay in Amersham making us late. Everyone agreed that it was a great day out.

And only one of us fell in the Cam.

2016 Summer Lunch

Posted on Wednesday, 29th June 2016 by David

Weren’t we lucky with the weather?

All week there had been downpours, but Saturday was better, then on Sunday, the weather was bright and sunny.

Eight fine strapping chaps got to the Broomby’s for 9:30am and proceeded to erect the gazebos for the gathering. Although rather early for me on a Sunday, it is still one of my favourite pastimes, with lots of teamwork and camaraderie, as we tried to remember how everything fitted together.

My best quote from the morning (referring to how two poles fitted together) was – “No, it’s not an A and an A1, it’s an A1 and an A!”.

Anyway, after about an hour of trying to get 9 guys to coordinate their efforts, the tents were up – not bad.

(L to R) Gwyndaf John, Colin Mitchell, Ralph Broomby, Gwyn Owen, Graham Beavan, Bill Jones, Colin Thomas, David Powell, Peter Day

Margaret Broomby rewarded us with teas, coffees and biscuits, while we admired our handywork and congratulated each other, feeling quite proud of ourselves, before going home to get washed and dressed up.

By 12:30 people started gathering at the Broomby’s . There were plenty of parking places, with kind neighbours offering their drives for the afternoon, and people started talking about the weather, how good the trip to North Wales had been, and of course the football (Wales had just beaten Northern Ireland).

Ralph amazed the visitors

Kay Day welcomed everyone and Ralph Broomby entertained us all with a magic act involving a cooker which converted grapes into bottled wine.

Catering was provided by ‘To Dine For’ and everyone enjoyed the beef, salmon and salads, as well as the excellent chocolate roulade and berries.

Click here for lots more pictures

Gwyndaf John had organised a quiz, to which the answer to most questions was ‘Gareth Bale’.

Kay then thanked the organisers, the ladies who’d created some really pretty flower displays and of course Ralph and Margaret Broomby for kindly hosting the event for the third time.

Loads of people helped with putting things away, and do you know, it was well gone 4pm before we’d finished – where had the time gone?

June 2016 visit to North Wales

Posted on Wednesday, 22nd June 2016 by David

Castles and Gardens, Mountains and Sea

Nineteen CDWS members assembled in Caernarfon on June 6 for the fourth expedition to Wales organised by Jonathan Pegler. We had warm, mostly sunny, weather and three full days of interesting activities which flowed on seamlessly from morning to evening, thanks to Jonathan’s meticulous research and planning and to Dave, our coach driver, who whisked us conveniently between each one.

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We saw four castles, including three of Edward I’s “big four”. (We weren’t close enough to Conwy).

Caernarfon Castle

Caernarfon Castle itself was the highlight for me, because of its size, its completeness and the CADW guide who was a medieval history specialist and gave us instructive insights into what life in and outside the Castle would have been like in the 14th century.

Maldwyn Pugh and Jonathan Pegler at the top of Twt Hill above Caernarfon

Harlech Castle

We looked down from the towers of Harlech Castle at modern settlements built on what would have been the sea when the castle was reliant on ships for its provisions.

Beaumaris Castle

We also saw Beaumaris Castle, perfect in its symmetry and elegant design but incomplete, as we were told several times, because also in those times, governments ran out of money and could not afford big infrastructure projects.

Criccieth Castle

Then there was Criccieth – a Welsh castle, not an English one, although Edward expanded it, and from where we could look across Tremadog Bay and just make out Harlech in the late afternoon misty sunshine.

Gwyn Owen at Criccieth Castle

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For our gardens, we had Plas Newydd, given to the National Trust in 1976 by the 7th Marquis of Anglesey, although he continued to live there until his death in 2013, with its gardens sloping down to the Menai Strait. The first Marquis was one of Wellington’s senior officers and he lost a leg to French shrapnel in the closing hours of the Battle of Waterloo.

Plas Cadnant – hidden gardens

Also on Anglesey was the hidden garden of Plas Cadnant, a gem of a small early nineteenth century garden brought back to all its former charm, tumbling down wooded slopes to a stream in a rocky ravine.

Ann and Peter Lawrence enjoying a rest on “Ann’s Seat” at Plas Cadnant

Portmeirion

When we visited Portmeirion, we enjoyed the eclectic mix of buildings and the gardens with picturesque views across Portmadog’s estuary.

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The tourist office calls our mountain the “Electric Mountain” and we didn’t go up it but inside it to visit the Dinorwig pumped water storage power station. When the Dinorwig slate quarries closed in 1969, a project was conceived to use the site and the workforce to create a hydro-electric scheme in which water descending 500 metres through tunnels inside the mountain generates electricity during the hours of peak demand. The unique feature of Dinorwig is that all the equipment is capable of going into reverse and pumping the water back up again in the middle of the night using the surplus electricity of nuclear and coal fired power stations which have to run constantly 24 hours a day. Although it consumes four units of electricity for every three which it produces, it generates electricity when, for example, millions of people all switch on a kettle simultaneously at the end of a TV programme. When in standby mode it can react in 12 seconds to produce the electrical output of three nuclear power stations and switch off again just as quickly. We had an excellent tour guide here who helped us understand its important role in aligning electrical supply to demand over the whole of the National Grid.

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Camouflaged Gull chicks

We enjoyed the beauty of the Menai Strait at sea level with a boat trip from Beaumaris Pier out to Puffin Island just off the eastern tip of Anglesey, where we saw plenty of cormorants and guillemots and a few puffins and seals.

We came back to view the fine nineteenth century iron work of Bangor Pier and looked up at Thomas Telford’s beautiful 1826 suspension bridge which conveyed the A5 to Holyhead and cut several hours off the journey from London to Dublin as the traffic increased substantially after the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800.

We had already crossed and recrossed to Anglesey several times on the modern Britannia Bridge. Originally built by Robert Stephenson to take just the railway to Holyhead in 1850, its wrought iron box section was destroyed by a fire in 1970 which took hold of the tarred wood inside. It reopened after reconstruction as a road bridge on a deck above the railway lines.

Menai Suspension Bridge, with snow

However on the last evening of our fascinating stay in North Wales, our wonderful coach driver Dave brought us back over the Thomas Telford 1826 bridge. We had time to get great views from above of the strong tide flowing out through the Menai Strait, because there was only 5 cms clearance between the wing mirrors of the coach and the stone arches over the road deck, so we went through rather slowly!

Peter Chapman

Cliveden Walk – 19th May 2016

Posted on Tuesday, 14th June 2016 by David

Cliveden is conveniently local and was an excellent choice for a Society excursion on May 19^th.

The grand house, standing high over the Thames, is surrounded by gardens and extensive woodland. It is owned by the National Trust with the main part of the house leased to a luxury hotel group. An ideal place for our members to meet up and enjoy a convivial lunch, then take walks in the fresh air before returning for afternoon tea and a tour of the house.

Many members will have visited Cliveden before, but not so many will have enjoyed a guided tour of the house, led by a knowledgeable National Trust volunteer. Our party of twenty members discovered that there seemed to be two ways to become owners of such a magnificent residence. One was by family members consorting extremely closely with their King, whose favour resulted in titles and wealth. The other was for your family to develop housing in Manhattan and eventually become fabulously wealthy slum landlords. Even after the property passed to the National Trust its association with scandal continued as it featured in the “Profumo Affair” in the early Sixties.

We were impressed by the opulent interior of the property. The extremely ornate “French Dining Room” had been re-assembled after being transported from a French hunting lodge, and no expense had been spared on wood panelling, ceilings and pictures. As we wandered through the hotel and stood in the Great Hall we got a hint of the what it must be like to stay at this luxury hotel as a steady stream of staff passed by us on their service errands. On the banks of the river we saw their beautiful boats of wood and gleaming

brass, ready to be hired for trips along the Thames.

For those who were members of the National Trust, all but three of our group, the event was completely free. Though the Trust café did very well out of us during the course of the day!

Gwyndaf John

2016 AGM

Posted on Monday, 9th May 2016 by David

So the AGM took 20 minutes, but it also took the whole evening.

People started gathering from about 6:30, allowing everyone to meet and catch up before the start of the meeting at 7:30.

Kay Day welcomed 67 members of the Chiltern District Welsh Society, including 2 new members and reported 22 apologies for absence. That took 20 minutes.

Kay described our activities over the last year, the Summer Lunch, Golf day, Tring walk, Christmas drinks, the days in the Brecons, the trip to the BBC studios and Fullers brewery, Quiz evening, St David’s Day dinner with soprano Alys Roberts.

Kay thanked all our organisers and kind hosts.

This year we are looking forward to the spring walk at Cliveden, going to Ralf & Margaret Broomby’s for the summer lunch, a trip to two Cambridge colleges in September, bird watching at the London Wetlands in October, and Christmas drinks at Colin & Di Thomas’s.

Treasurer, Graham Beavan, reported on our healthy finances, he is managing to subsidise many of our events in order to reduce our bank balance.

Membership is expected to be about 130 this year – we continue to grow in numbers.

The committee all agreed to stand again and were all re-elected. Kay thanked all the committee members for their hard work over the year.

So that took 20 minutes – what took the rest of the time?

Well, Anne Tennant’s wonderful team fed us with salmon, chicken or beef, plus a variety of desserts.

That was followed by coffee and a lot of nattering.

Then Mary Medlicott entertained us with stories from Wales.

Mary last visited us in 2003, and we were very pleased that she could return with more stories including one about ‘2 dreadful women’ and the burial of a dead cat, followed by a series of tall tales about Shemi Wad (James Wade) from Fishguard.

We concluded well after 10pm and made our way home celebrating another successful year.

St David’s Day Dinner 2016

Posted on Wednesday, 9th March 2016 by David

Saint David’s Day Dinner
On 1st March we held our annual St David’s Day dinner at the Gerrards Cross Golf Club.
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We met at 6:30 to give us a chance for members to catch up with friends both old and new and chat over a glass of bubbly or orange juice.

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At about 7:15 we went into the dining room and Chairman Kay Day greeted a record turnout of 84 people and welcomed 5 new members.

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P1060058 There was then a chance to chat to our neighbours at the table. At our table we wished Eilwen Turner a happy birthday as she was born on St David’s Day.
The food was excellent featuring Welsh Lamb Rump (of course) or Haddock as an alternative.
Liz Seely, who was sitting next to me, said that her food was the best she’d ever had in any golf club – up to gourmet standards!

I went round and took some pictures of people sitting at their tables. P1060060

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There are more pictures on the ‘gallery’ page of the web site.

Kay then introduced our soprano, Alys Roberts, accompanied by Iain Ledingham at the piano. P1060071

Iain, who lives locally, is a professor in the piano, vocal and opera faculties at the Royal Academy of Music. He coaches many young Academy singers and pianists in preparation for operatic and concert work, and also trains and conducts choirs. Alys is one of his most promising young students.

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Alys studied music at Durham University and is now at the Royal Academy. She has been a solo soprano at Durham Cathedral and has sung at many other locations.

Alys entertained us, starting with some Welsh folk songs, and then moving on to a selection of operatic arias including pieces from La Boheme, Romeo and Juliette.

I particularly liked her version of Summertime in Welsh. Alys finished with some more Welsh folk songs, this time as arranged by Benjamin Britten.

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Kay then thanked our musicians and presented them with small tokens of our appreciation.

Alys and Iain stayed on for a while to chat to people before they left.

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Meanwhile, our stalwart singers prepared themselves. P1060085

I’m afraid that my party were feeling a little tired, and needed to leave at this point, so I am unable to report back on the quality or quantity of the singing, but based on previous years, I’m sure that a great time was had by one and all.

2016 Quiz Night

Posted on Wednesday, 27th January 2016 by David

Friday 22nd January, 7pm, Coleshill Village Hall saw the 2016 Chiltern District Welsh Society annual quiz evening.

Chairman, Kay Day, welcomed everyone and asked us to arrange ourselves into tab

les of 6 or 7.

I looked around for the table with the best looking array of drinks and nibbles. Then quizmaster, Jonathan Pegler introduced our first task – to think of a name for our 6 newly formed teams.

The names selected were the Travellers, Ospreys, Double Crossers, Newbies, Exiles and Dwygyfylchi (it’s a village near Conwy – I looked it up).

Jonathan explained that would be 5 rounds of questions plus 2 table rounds. These were sheets of 20 questions placed on each table, to be answered over the course of the evening. The first was a series of 20 photographs of people with a Welsh connection, and the second set of questions involved guessing the language used for 20 different phrases each saying “I’m sorry I don’t speak Welsh” in a different European tongue (including Latvian, Azerbaijani and Bulgarian).

Jonathan, aided by his lovely assistant and score keeper, Gwyndaf John, then started the quiz proper, with 2 rounds of 10 questions, the first on general knowledge and then a second round on the subject of Chad or Chard.

Whilst the scores from these first rounds were being collected, an evening supper was

provided –either chili con carne or fish pie, followed by a wide choice of puddings and tea or coffee.

After supper we had a little time to continue with identifying the people in the photographs, and wildly guessing some of the languages (was that Spanish or Esperanto, Russian or

Bulgarian?) Gwyndaf revealed the half-time scores, and it was really quite close, with all teams still in the running – i.e. we were all failing quite badly in answering Jonathan’s

cryptic questions.

Three more rounds followed, with subjects including events that occurred on 22nd

January in recent or distant history, a tricky round involving estimating distances (in

Wales, around the earth, and a mathematical puzzle based on Jonathan’s swimming regime), and lastly another general knowledge round, with more than a few questions based on the society’s trips to Wales.

By this time my brain was hurting, as Gwyndaf revealed one of the closest sco

res yet, with only 4 points separating the top 5 teams, but Dwygfylchi emerged as clear winners of the 2016 Quiz.

Congratulations to the team, and many thanks to Jonathan (and Gwyndaf) for the quiz.