{"id":4526,"date":"2018-04-28T13:30:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-28T12:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4526"},"modified":"2018-04-28T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T12:30:11","slug":"john-sheen-and-farming-in-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4526","title":{"rendered":"John Sheen and Farming in Cameroon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\t\t A talk by John Sheen<\/span><\/strong><\/em>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tOur meetings continued with a talk by John Sheen with the very intriguing title “Five Boys and a Pasty”. It was even more puzzling when John produced several gift bags which were obviously going to play a part in his talk.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFor most of his working life John had been a teacher and then an Education Officer in Cwmbran. During this time he had been very active in local theatrical societies and so when he retired from education he spent a couple of years as the manager of the Dolman Theatre in Newport. While at the theatre he was asked by a local Probus group to give a talk and not having a clue what to talk about he decided that he would speak about his childhood. This was the talk we were about to hear and to date it has been delivered some 286 times to a variety of local groups in South Wales.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn was born in 1947 and considers himself to be one of the “lucky generation” or alternatively the “sandwich generation” i.e. those caught between caring for parents and grandchildren. John described his post-war childhood living in Port Talbot in the words of Bill Bryson as “radiantly unsophisticated” as those were the days without a car, fridge and credit cards.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFriday night was traditionally bath night when a dose of Syrup of Figs was also administered. Other memories were sweet rationing, which ended in 1953, liberty bodices,darning socks and turning of worn collars. The front parlour was kept for special occasions such as funerals and Christmas. Some of the remedies that were used such as Friars Balsam, Goose Grease and Gentian Violet were remembered by some of the group. As a special treat John was allowed a bar of Five Boys Chocolate (used as part of the title for the talk).<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSchool day memories included Daps ( Dunlop All Purpose Shoe), Ladybird books which kept their price at 2\/6p for many years and the First Aid in English used for the 11plus. Other school memories were the milk and orange juice and the savings stamps one could buy.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 1950’s were eventful years and John remembered the announcement of the Kings death, the conquering of Mt. Everest and the coronation (pasties were provided for the party), Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile and the Empire Games.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOther highlights of John’s childhood were day trips to Barry Island and Weston-super-Mare, the Corona man bringing bottles of Dandelion and Burdock and television programmes such as Andy Pandy, Mr Pastry, What’s My Line and Archie Andrews – the ventriloquist on the radio. John then demonstrated one of his favourite childhood toys the Magic Robot. Childhood finally ended when John moved from short to long trousers.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEveryone really enjoyed this talk which was<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tdelivered so professionally which is not surprising as John has the theatre in his genes – his nephew is the actor Michael Sheen and his daughter Caroline has played in musicals in the West End. We hope that John will visit us again with another of his talks.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \n<\/p>\n

\n\tHelen Joy – ‘ Food for prosperity’<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the 10 th April we welcomed back Helen Joy who was going to talk about her experiences in local radio. However, she introduced us instead to ‘ Food for prosperity’ which is a project based in Cameroon in Africa. Through her radio work and her membership of Glamorgan Small Holders Association, Helen had been introduced to Carol Adams who is in charge of the project in Cameroon. The aim of the project is to help the people there to improve their farming and make the most of what they produce.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHelen brought Maurice Price with her. He is a fellow member of the Glamorgan Small Holders Association and he was persuaded by Helen and Carol to join five other people and go to Cameroon. His speciality is animal husbandry and the others comprised an electrician, and experts in charcuterie and preserving fruit and vegetables. They took a lot of cooking materials and what not. It was a special experience for Maurice as he had never been abroad or even on holiday before.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe gave us a detailed picture of life in Cameroon. The people are poor but make the most of what they have, turning old cars into pots and pans and using spare parts for whatever they can. Motorbikes are used to carry everything from the family to coffins!<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was impressed with the way the farmers looked after their pigs.Labour is cheap so farming tends to be by hand and not mechanised. They could produce meat but did not know how to butcher into different cuts and that was what one of the group showed them and another held classes teaching people how to preserve fruit and make jam.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHelen gave reports of their work on her radio programme. It is hoped that more people will go out to Cameroon to continue this work. More needs to be done to improve building and health care. At the moment, life expectancy there is 57.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMaurice enjoyed his first trip abroad especially as he was upgraded to first class on the way back! He has happy memories of hospitable people- he even had marriage proposals!<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t \n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 A talk by John Sheen Our meetings continued with a talk by John Sheen with the very intriguing title “Five Boys and a Pasty”. It was even more puzzling when John produced several gift bags which were obviously going to play a part in his talk. For most of his working life John had been a teacher and then an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-1b0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6801,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6801","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":0},"title":"John Sheen Talk","author":"Alan Williams","date":"10th December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a pleasure to welcome John Sheen for his third and final talk. This talk was entitled \u2018Christmas Crackers\u2019 and was divided into twelve separate items representing the twelve days of Christmas. We enjoyed a selection of poems, prose, a joke, a mini quiz and a very funny recipe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tuesday Group"","block_context":{"text":"Tuesday Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=43"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4632,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4632","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":1},"title":"Mercy Ships and Faberge Jewellery","author":"Alan Williams","date":"26th May 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Mrs Sheila Pugh visited us on April 18th, and gave us a very interesting talk on the Mercy ships, and the wonderful work done by those who volunteer to work on them. The ship is stationed each year at a port, mostly in Africa, where it becomes a hospital,carrying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Leisure Group"","block_context":{"text":"Leisure Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1640,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=1640","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":2},"title":"October Report and Coming Up","author":"Alan Williams","date":"4th November 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 A welcome was extended to all at our October meeting and especially to our visitor, Ros. We hope she will join us again in the future. Our speaker was John Sheen and using Christmas crackers in a in the shape of a clock face as a starting point,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Womens Institute"","block_context":{"text":"Womens Institute","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=37"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3884,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3884","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":3},"title":"The October Meeting","author":"Alan Williams","date":"30th October 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Everyone was welcomed to our October meeting with a special mention of visitor Maureen who we hope will come again to future meetings. Our speaker was Patricia Coulthard who has worked on the \u201c All Wales Autism Strategy \u201c and helped to set up the \u201c Cardiff & Vale\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miscellaneous"","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=127"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5269,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=5269","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":4},"title":"October & November Events","author":"Alan Williams","date":"22nd December 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Oct 16th. We were delighted to welcome back M&Co to give us another fashion ashow. We were shown a variety of autumn and winter outfits culminating in a selection of sparkling outfits for the festive season. A big thank you must go to our three members who modelled the clothes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tuesday Group"","block_context":{"text":"Tuesday Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=43"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6696,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6696","url_meta":{"origin":4526,"position":5},"title":"English as She is Spoke!","author":"Alan Williams","date":"29th October 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Autumn\/Winter Session Our Autumn\/Winter session began with the AGM. Listening to our chairperson\u2019s report of last year\u2019s talks and activities one realised what a good job Irene had done in organising the programme. All the officers were re-elected and the main decision taken was that we would pay our \u00a35.00\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Latest News"","block_context":{"text":"Latest News","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=70"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4527,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4526\/revisions\/4527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}