Category: Community Groups
Llandow Air Disaster 12 March 1950
In the years after WWII there was a surge in demand for air travel. This was largely met with aircraft that had been sold off as surplus to requirements.
People began to realise that travel by aeroplane was something available to everyone, not just the rich.
A Cardiff entrepreneur chartered an aeroplane to fly from Landow airfield to Dublin for £10. Llandow was not a commercial airfield, though still operating for military use.
The Welsh team was on the brink of its first Triple Crown for nearly 20 years. Victories over England and Scotland set up a deciding match with Ireland. Thousands of supporters made the trip
The Saturday flight to Dublin on Saturday 11th was uneventful. Wales won 6-3. Great! The boys celebrated until late.
Friends and families waiting to welcome fans home spotted the aircraft in the west. As the aircraft approached it seemed to be flying too low. Then with its undercarriage down the engines suddenly boosted causing the aircraft to stall and drop to the ground. 80 died with 3 survivors.
After a court of enquiry the Ministry of Civil Aviation announced that the probable cause of the accident was the luggage loading of the aircraft, which had moved the centre of gravity.
Whether or not luggage contributed to the crash, the weighing of luggage to this day stems from the crash. Rhoose Airport was created later, with a memorial stone in Sigginstone.
The death of the last survivor of 3 was reported in WalesOnline, May 2011.
BD
(A memorial plaque is erected in Siginstone on the road side near Park Farm, the site of the crash.)
September Round Up
Following our annual break for the month of August,Leisure Group restarted on 6 th September when we played Bingo.
On the 13th Sept we were entertained by Dr Neville Evans, whose topic was "The street where I lived".He started his talk by saying it was from his boyhood up to the age of 13, and defined it by " Experience".
He was brought up in FforestFach, Swansea, on the road to Carmarthen.One of his interests was going to the Welfare hall, every Sunday, to watch his favourite cowboy and Indian films He then played the song "Home on the range" and we all joined in .
When he was a boy, he had always dreamt of driving a lorry, so when he was grown up, for one of his birthdays, his wife contacted John Raymond's, at Bridgend and arranged for him to have a ride down the A48 in one of their largest lorries and allowed him to have a go on their own private land .Dr Evans then played "I had a dream".He had realised his dream.
His first school was only across the road from where he lived .He always wanted to be an angel ,so when they we introduced to school rules,they were told that they should do a number 2 before attending school,but were allowed a number 1 halfway through morning lessons. As a small child he couldn't understand this as he was already on number 7.
He told us he liked the headmistress, but he thought Mrs Jones was the ugliest teacher he had ever seen.What little ones think!!
Our Deputy Chairlady Shirley thanked Dr Evans.for giving us an afternoon full of laughter.
History Group Talk
Halloween Party
Welcome Evening
Village Show Results
Village Show 2017 – Report and Results
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you huge, I mean really huge beetroot! Personally, I suspect they had been fed bits of special ‘stuff’, maybe a dram or two, otherwise how could they possibly get to be so BIG? These, you may gather, were not the usual entries in the beetroot category. They were in fact donated by one of our judges, just to demonstrate what we might aim for. They certainly would have won the giant beetroot category – if we had one! We donated them to the harvest festival so you might have seen them again at their second guest appearance in the village together with some equally large swedes.
This must have been a good year for apples, such was the number of entries we had. We had to keep moving the other produce entries around to make room for them. We also had a glorious array of tomatoes, but no shallots. It goes like that, some years it’s an ‘onion year’ or a ‘runner bean’ year, this year it seemed to be apples. We had a couple of good sized marrows and a good number of potatoes. I thought I identified some nice looking ‘fir apple’ variety – but they didn’t win – well, what do I know?
Our baking categories this year included curry flavour biscuits. How peculiar they were. The thing is, you don’t get a guide or recipe to work from so how the thing you make tastes is entirely up to you. One entry had a sort of curry and cheese flavour and one of the others was a sweetish curry flavour. They pretty much split the room in the way that Marmite does. Mind you, there were only a few crumbs of each left so I guess people were curious enough to keep coming back for more. I must say I was glad to see lemon drizzle cake in the categories this year as it’s probably my all time favourite cake, though my mate’s only came second – a decision which was such a travesty of justice, I don’t know what the judge was thinking. However, drum roll….. the Husbands machine bread came first, so at least some face was saved in the Williams house this year, phew. Our baking judge had a hard time of it to be honest, because I would have found it very difficult indeed to separate the entries into first, second and third. Sometimes however, it is made a little easier because the entry has got some additional ingredient – usually for embellishment purposes, or has gone off on a limb and used the wrong filling. So, for the record, Victoria sponge should only have strawberry or raspberry filling (and definitely no butter icing or cream) and butterfly cakes should not have raspberries or sprinkles on top, just icing sugar to dust. This does not in any way detract from how fabulous they taste, in my humble opinion.
We had a separate judge to do the jams, jellies, chutneys, drinks and eggs. Now, I don’t know how you judge the difference between fizzy elderflower champagne and beech leaf noyau (no, I have no clue either) – anyway both were alcoholic and I must confess that I had a little sip. I would have been happy to drink either to be honest, but I think that the cherry liqueur won and I can tell you it had the most wonderful colour.
We had a huge display of cut flowers this year – which brightened the room no end. I should mention that my father in law managed to come second with his flowers – despite the fact that he was lying on a sun-lounger on a cruise ship at the time. My skills at flower arranging are now famous!
We had some extremely amusing limerics which I cannot print here for lack of space of course, but I can tell you that my mate Al scored a first place – to his great delight. As is now traditional, our produce judge judged the limerics and wrote one of his own at the end of the show.
Our craft category went from strength to strength this year and we had a number of really good paintings. The winning one was still wet, so it’s never too late you know!
Children’s entries were down this year as the school entries got stuck in school. I do sympathise because the timing of the show was really tight for them this year – they would only have been in school for half a week prior to the show. It was a shame, so I do hope to see them next year. Finally, our photographic category was to the usual high standard. We are open to suggestions for entries and generally print the categories early in the year so there is plenty of time to get your pics printed off.
We had some new helpers this year, keen growers and makers of strange drinks (!). We have introduced them to Al’s marvellous computer entry system and they are keen to get involved next year too. This is really good news as you will have seen my plea for ‘new blood’ in an article earlier this year. Our next step is to meet up and review what went well, what didn’t and make a few early plans for next year. If you want to get involved, please do, we would love to have you and it is a lovely villagey thing to do. Oh, and this of course, includes our new residents at either end of the village. I know for sure that a few from the Redrow estate entered the show which is really great.
Finally, I must once again, thank all the judges who have a really hard task, the organisers and the entrants – the show would not happen without any of you.
September Walks
Black Hill Ridge – It was a long drive to the beginning of the walk, the final stretch following winding lanes until we reached the car park at the foot of Black Hill. In the north east of the Black mountains we were in Herefordshire north east of Llanveynoe and Longtown. Little Black Hill was visible to the south and our destination, Black Hill, rose steeply behind us.
Over a stile and we were travelling north along the valley and past Craswall. There was lots of mud but the ground remained mostly firm underfoot. The path was level or downhill so that the ridge we were to walk loomed higher and higher above us.
From the bottom of the valley, in woodland and to our right we could hear hounds baying. After a while the sound came from ahead of us – we guessed in the woodland as there were fields 
of sheep and cows. Then a large dog came bounding along the trail towards us and up the hill not even glancing at us it was so focussed on its quarry. A second hound followed soon after. Baying sounds could now be heard in several different directions. Passing through a gate we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by the pack, racing backwards and forwards and jumping a barbed wire fence in their quest. They totally ignored us apart from a few who gave us a brief sniff.
Having walked a few miles along the valley we took a path in a north westerly direction. We came onto open land which gradually sloped towards the lower slopes of Hay Bluff and we espied a hang glider. As it was 1pm, we stopped briefly in warming sunshine to eat our 1st lunch of the day (enough to get us to the top of the hill). Extensive views to the northeast spread out before us.
We used part of the Offa’s dyke path to climb Hay Bluff, an excellent path reinforced all the way to the ridge. Here we met our first walkers of the day, a group of girls doing their silver Duke of Edinburgh award.
Ignoring the trig point at the top of Hay Bluff we turned left (south east) to climb to the top of the ridge. Now we could enjoy our 2nd lunch, making our way to a small promontory we settled down. Fabulous views again, this time of the surrounding ridges and Pen y Fan could be seen in the distance. The Olchon valley lay below us.
Refreshed we continued along the top of the ridge; it is peat bog with many acrid pools and a paved pathway had been laid to preserve the habitat – very easy walking thanks to a lot of hard work and investment. As we continued we had to be careful to move left across the moorland and back to the Black Hill ridge as the solid path that is Offa’s Dyke could easily have taken us in the wrong direction. This was the only really rough ground of the whole day.
On reaching the Black Hill ridge our view was mainly the cultivated farmland to the east and the ridge rising above us to the west. One of the hang gliders came in to land on the lower slopes of Hay Bluff and another came very close to us as he veered around, to join his colleague.
As we progressed the ridge looked dauntingly narrow but once we arrived on its craggy section we realised it was at least 3ft wide along its length with a few large rocks to scramble over. Even vertigo sufferers were reassured. We could see the Olchon valley again and the ridge which Offa’s Dyke follows continuing for some miles across the valley.
At the end of the ridge the path went into a steep descent but in places there were steps worn into the hillside which made progress easier. Over the stile (the only one on this walk) which we crossed at the start of our walk and we were back at the car. 8¾ miles walked and 1200ft climbed and we all agreed that it had been fabulous
The Year of the Runaways
The Year of the Runaways
by Sanjeev Sahota
This Booker-short listed novel traces the lives of three Indian immigrants over a year.
The three young men, Tarlochan Kumar (Tochi), Avtar Nijjar and Randeep Sanghera, move into a house in Sheffield which is shared by numerous migrant workers. The fourth character in this story, Narinder Kaur, is a young British-raised devout Sikh girl, the visa-wife of Randeep, who moves separately into a flat in Sheffield. The author tells the story of each character’s past in India, the events that bring them to this country as immigrants and the struggle they then face in the daily fight for work, money and survival in England, as their lives become entwined.
The majority of the group agreed that the book is superbly written, simply expressed and a real page turner. It is thought provoking with clearly drawn characters and incidences. We are given good insights to Indian culture and the Sikh religion. Although the story-lines were tragic and moving at time, harsh details were not unduly dwelled upon. Unusually, the view was expressed that this is a book people need to read as it opens our eyes to a greater understanding of why people want to come to our country as immigrants.
One member of our group listened to this novel on Audio and expressed her delight at the way in which the background sounds really enriched the story and helped bring the culture alive.
However not all opinions were positive and a view that the book was depressing with continual hardships was also expressed. Additionally, it was agreed that a Glossary would be useful as the author has included many foreign words and phrases which were a bit daunting a times.
After a lively discussion the overall score was a positive 8 out of 10 and therefore a highly recommend.
The evening was pleasantly rounded off as we enjoyed tea, coffee and delicious snacks and cakes courtesy of Val.