The Village of Wark

Archive for October, 2011

If you read your Tynedale Farming and Countryside supplement last week, you will have spotted the article about the history of haytime in the North Pennines.  The Wark Hostroy Group is very pleased to have the writer of the book, Neil Diment, come and give a talk about the subject at their meeting on Monday 7 November 2011.  Neil will present a lively talk illustrated with farm implements and tools and lots of old photographs.  You might have spotted the poster for this event with a picture of our own Village Green been cut with a couple of horses!  The meeting in the Town Hall starts a 7.30 p.m. and entry is £2.  I understand copies of the book ‘No five o’clock on our calendars’ will also be available at £6.99.

The Coffee Morning in aid of Tynedale Hospice at Home at the Westacres Community Room made a fabulous £255.  Yvonne and Susan have asked me to thank all those who contributed to the event. Yvonne told me that the village has contributed more than £850 to this very worthwhile charity this year alone.

Finally a quick reminder of a couple of events coming up in the next few days.  First there’s the Highlights event by the New Budapest Café Orchestra in the Town Hall on Friday 28^th of October and I understand tickets are still available. They are £7 and £5.50 for concessions and the concert starts at 7.30pm. Then on Tuesday 1 November there’s the annual prize bingo in aid of the North Tyne Hunt, also in the Town Hall.  It’s eyes down at 7.30pm.

Shortly after I’d submitted last week’s Wark Notes I received a telephone call from the organizers of the Silent Auction in aid of St. Michael’s Church, to say that they’d forgotten to include the cheques into the grand total.  I said last week that the auction had raised £770 but in fact the total was nearly double. It made a magnificent £1418.50!  Thanks once again to all those who attended the event and who donated to lots for the auction.

Numbers were clearly not my strong point last week, as I also got the cost for the Highlights event for Friday 28 October wrong.  You’ll remember that the New Budapest Café Orchestra is coming to the Town Hall on that day and they play folk-based music from Eastern Europe on violins, guitar, accordion, double bass and a couple of other Eastern European instruments.   Tickets are in fact £7 each with £5.50 for concessions. They are available from Judith Weir on 01434 230250.  You’ll be pleased to hear that the mention of a bar was indeed right! The gig starts at 7.30pm.

Before then, on Saturday 22 October 2011, there will be a coffee morning and jewelry stall in aid of the Tynedale Hospice at Home.  This event takes place at the Westacres Community Room and starts at 10am.  It will cost you just £1 to get in!

If you see children cycling to school on Friday, rather than their usual walk, this will be because the children from Class 2 will be doing their Level 1 Cycling Awareness course. Obviously they need to have access to their bike and cycle helmet into school. Children will also have done an Outdoor Learning Afternoon this Wednesday, the 12^th of October. If every things goes according to plan they will have made a woodpile in the nature garden, which is great habitat for all sorts of creatures

It looks like the opening of the bridge can now not be that far away.  At the time of writing the white lines at the Birtley end are still to do as are the fences on the approach to the bridge, but that looks to be it. I know the closure of the bridge for this length of time has been hugely inconvenient to some of you, but it has been interesting to see the work progress (and sometime not progress very fast!).  I know many of the people who walk along the river towards Blindburn have enjoyed the lack of traffic and it’s been very interesting to see some of the fishermen get on their bikes to get to the other side.  Obviously the work isn’t finished and there remains quite a bit to do, but that’s not going to be for a while yet.

The Silent Auction in aid of St Michael’s last Saturday raised a fabulous £770.  I don’t think I’d really grasped the concept of a silent auction, but now I now that the lots are set out for all to see and that you go round the room to record your bids.  So if you want something really badly, you have to go back to those lots and make sure that you ‘stay on top’.  Because that means that there’s much moving about, it turned out to be a very social occasion.  Some highlights?  Food went very well with an 18 lbs salmon attracting a lot of bids; the two space hoppers went to a most unlikely bidder which caused a bit of a giggle and Ethel Cairns won a drive and a stop for tea, which had been offered by Sybil.  Ethel has chosen to go to Howick Hall Coast near Craster on the Northumberland where she was in service at Howick when she was younger .

Finally a mention of the first Highlights event of this autumn. We’re very lucky to have the New Budapest Café Orchestra coming to the Town Hall on Friday 28 October 2011. They play folk-based music from Eastern Europe.  The band is made up of four fabulous musicians with violins, guitar, accordion, double bass and a couple of other Eastern European instruments.  Someone who knows his accordion music told me that the accordion player in this band is one of the best he’s ever seen.   Tickets are available from Judith Weir on 01434 230250 and cost £6.50 each.  There will also be a bar.