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Apuldram Around

July & August 2010


Midsummer is on the distant horizon and June has given us some marvellous, warm sunshine with long daylight hours.

Rymans gardens, following the very enjoyable June 12/13 opening when again teas were served in aid of church funds, are open again on 4 July.

Apuldram gardens, including Rymans and the Rose Garden at Manor Farm, will be open on Sunday afternoon of 4 July. Also a mini Flower Festival in the church so plenty for local folk to enjoy. For further information please log on to our website www.apuldramchurch.co.uk

The Flower Festival at the Cathedral in early June was a magnificent spectacle of floral display enjoyed by crowds of people. Superb flowers with hugely varied colours and presentations. Our contributor, Jose Pound with her colleague Jean Stiff were responsible in the Sailors’ Chapel area for Sea Fever, a very nautical display of seaside plants and atmosphere complete with lifelike seabird models and sailors’ gear. Very effective and notably in memory of a sailor who died in December 1941 when the Japanese bombed and sank the battleship Prince of Wales together with HMS Repulse with over 840 lives lost. Horrendous. The two escorting destroyers were able to rescue 2,000 sailors from the water after the Japanese planes returned to base.

An Evening Song summer concert by the excellent Chantry Quire, celebrating their 10th anniversary, on Sunday evening, 4th July at 8 p.m. at St Paul’s Church in Chichester. The concert is in aid of the two Anglican Mission Societies, CMS and USPG.

Ahead on Saturday 11 September is the annual Historic Churches Ride and Stride when church volunteer cyclists or walkers do their rounds of churches to raise money by sponsorship. Consult Graham Pound (tel: 788265) for further information and sponsorship forms. Our church will be open for visiting cyclists on that day.

Congratulations to Tanya and Ashley on the arrival on 18th May of Maurice Riley Hatton, a brother for Charlotte. We look forward to seeing them all in Apuldram before too long.

Welcome to the Wiltshire family, Kevin, Sharon and Samara, who recently moved into Rymans Cottage. Samara is already displaying her excellent cake making skills and Sharon her talent for flower arranging. We hope they will enjoy their life in Apuldram.

The Black Horse Inn. Lt. Col. Ron F. Pennicott, who lives in South Africa, contacted St Mary’s because his grandparents, who ran the Black Horse in Apuldram, were buried in the churchyard. Unfortunately we were unable to locate the graves as neither has a headstone but it was a great pleasure to meet him and his wife on their visit here in June when they attended a service. He wrote the following a few years ago for his family and we thought readers would find this small piece of local history of interest.

“As far as I have been able to establish, The Black Horse Inn was built around the mid-1700s and is still the original building except for the extension on the left, which is post-war and is used as a restaurant area.

The aunt and uncle, who adopted my father after his father was killed in the Boer War, rented the pub from Henty and Constable Brewery, which was taken over after the war and no longer exists as such. His uncle carried on running the place until he died just after the war. I always acknowledged them as my grandparents.

We used to spend most of our pre-war holidays at the pub as it was quite close to the sea with beautiful beaches, which were not commercialised and were unspoiled and also it was within a short drive of some of the best scenery on the South Downs. Chichester, an old Roman town with a lovely cathedral, was about two miles away.

Where the extension has been built there used to be a five-barred gate through which Dad parked the car. There was also a gents urinal which was not too savoury in the summer. You must remember that pre-war there was no electricity or sanitation laid on. We had to use outside toilets with buckets which grandpa used to empty every day and dig into the garden. He grew marvellous vegetables! There were also pee-pots under the bed. Lady customers used to have a special, more up-market bucket toilet down a path leading to the chickens. The “posh” one was made of stone, whereas ours was made of wood.

Gran used to sell sweets from the window on the right, which in those days was a saloon lounge - all very snazzy with arm chairs and a piano. Only respectable people were allowed in there. When I was small, apparently I used to ask Gran for a penny then go outside to the window and buy sweets from her.”


To be continued in September .

 

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