The Village of Wark

Archive for December, 2011

And so Christmas arrives. With a bit of luck you’ll have the presents wrapped, the turkey will be sitting somewhere cool and you’ll have a box of crackers in the cupboard. For those of you who’re still looking for those last few presents; you’ve got another few hours, so why panic? Fortunately Christmas will come anyway, presents or not, and for me Christmas tide really starts with the carols at 6.30pm on the Green on Christmas Eve. There will be a Midnight Holy Communion at St. Mungo’s in Simonburn on Christmas Eve starting at 11.30pm and a family Communion at St Michael’s in Wark on Christmas Day starting at 10.30am. You’d be very welcome at all of them.

On the last day before the holidays, the children and staff at Wark School said a fond farewell to Mrs. Sandra Lake. Mrs. Lake has been school cook for the past 6 years and she was given a lovely leaving present and a big bunch of flowers just after her final lunch at the school.

I’ve been asked to mention that the Leek Club numbers draw has been rolled over for the past few weeks and it now stands at £200. The Committee has decided that next week, on Christmas Day, they will keep drawing the numbers until someone wins. You can buy extra lines of numbers from the Post Office. It costs just 50p to buy five lines of three numbers, so that might just be worth a try.

This is the final column for 2011, so it rests me to wish a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

By the time you get to read this Wark School will be locking its doors for the Christmas holidays after a very busy week. There will have been something special on every day this week with all of it culminating in the Carol Service in St Michael’s Church at 2.15 p.m. on Friday afternoon. The children won’t be back in until Wednesday 4 January 2012 as Tuesday the 3rd is ateacher training day.

Mike Tickell’s talk to the Local History Group last Monday was a real gem and there is so much history to the Border ballads that I’m sure he could have filled double the time without any difficulty and without boring anyone. Listeners found out that Border Ballads are place specific and always tell a story. The audience were encouraged to have a go at singing ‘The Twa Corbies’, a tragic tale about an unnamed knight, dead behind a wall. All in all a fascinating evening.

The most recent school newsletter mentioned the establishment of a number of ‘zones’ in the school grounds to as part of a project to develop outdoor learning in school. The first of these zones aims to improve the biodiversity of the school grounds and encourage independent investigation skills. They were meant to create a ‘minibeast habitat’ and a ‘wild meadow’ area last Thursday, on December 9th. I wonder whether they managed to do it on that day with the weather being so wet and horrid.

With this weekend bringing the fourth Advent Sunday there will be Carol Services in both the Methodist United Reformed Church (MURC) and St Michael’s Church. The Service in the MURC church starts at 11 a.m. while the carol service at the other end of the village starts at 6 p.m. You know you’d be very welcome at either or even both churches!

And so the last month of 2011 arrives! As always, it promises to be quite a busy month. Tomorrow, Saturday 3 December, it will be the annual St. Michael’s Christmas Bazaar. It’s a great place to get some lovely Christmas decorations, there will be cakes and gifts, tombola, raffle, and an opportunity to get a great cuppa with home-made biscuits. Admission is 50p and the doors of the Town Hall open at 2 p.m.

The children and staff at the school look like having a busy time for the next couple of weeks. Next week there will be dress rehearsals for their Christmas production with a war time theme, Home for Christmas, and the performance itself on Wednesday 7 December, starting at 6 p.m. In the week after they’re having a Christmas lunch with grandparents on Monday, carols and Christmas activities at Bellingham on Tuesday, a Christmas party on Wednesday and the carol service at St Michael’s at 2.15pm on Friday afternoon. After that, it’s holidays until Wednesday 4^{th of January, for the children at least!}

I noticed that there’s another Christmas Bingo in the offing, this time at Simonburn Village Hall on Tuesday 13 December. The bingo is in aid of the senior Citizens Christmas Dinner and starts at 7.30.

Finally a quick reminder of the Wark History Group talk on Monday 5 December. Mike Tickell will talk about the Border Ballads. The Town Hall is an oddly appropriate venue for a talk about these: the library upstairs is full of books by Sir Walter Scott and books about his work too. I believe Sir Walter instrumental in bringing the Border ballads to a wider audience when he published the ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’ in 1802. To find out whether my belief is correct, you’ll have to come and hear Mike’s talk. It starts at 7.30, entry is £2 and non-members are very welcome.