Thorpe Rotary

The Bishop of Thetford, the Rt. Rev. Alan Winston was our first speaker of 2012, introduced by Club member Richard Butler. He is the 14th Bishop, the first having been appointed in 1070 when Thetford was the centre of the Diocese. It was later moved to Norwich when the new Norman Cathedral was built. Alan was previously in Hertfordshire before moving to Norfolk, and he told us of his reminiscences of the people he had met and the places he had been to. Moving up to date, Xmas was partly spent visiting Blundestone and Norwich prisons, and he also spoke of a “café” church in a small village with a very large congregation. Looking forward, Alan said Christians should renew their commitment to service, re-discover a sense of vocation/purpose and reflect and pray. A most apt speaker for the New Year.

Alan Cole of Savilles was the speaker the following week, and he told us of his visit to Petra in Jordan, the “rose red city, half as old as time”. It is accessed, by foot or horseback, through a long (1 mile) narrow canyon. It was built by the Nabataeans from around 350 BC, who were originally a nomadic tribe who lived by plundering caravans and charging a levy on trade goods. They were competent hydraulic engineers who organised a water supply to their city which they had created by hollowing out red sandstone cliffs. The amphitheatre, built in the Greek and Roman style, could hold 5,000 people, and the front of their main temple was larger than that of Westminster Abbey. By 100 AD approx. 35,000 people lived there, but the city gradually declined as trade and trade routes diminished, and the city was not rediscovered until 1812, still amazingly preserved. A truly remarkable place.

Club Member Alistair Dawson was our third speaker of the month, his theme being “my favourite things”, which turned out to be an eclectic mix of physical and spiritual items. Alistair knows how to keep us on our toes!

The Norwich Fringe Project was the subject of our final speaker in January, Matthew Davies. Matthew runs this countryside project which aims to look after the countryside for a four mile radius around Norwich, and is funded by a combination of Local Authorities and the Broads Authority. As well as mentioning, inter alia, work at Carey’s Meadow and Whitlingham, Matthew told us of the work carried out at Marston Marshes near Eaton, where paths had been laid, ditches dug and grazing cattle introduced to clear undergrowth. Volunteers (two of whom also came to our lunch) to help with these types of projects are always needed, and appropriate tools, help and supervision are supplied.

Earlier in the month Sophie Morris of Thorpe St. Andrew School was presented with the Ron Bradley Young Citizen Award for 2011, together with £100 of book tokens, by Club Member Frank James. Ron (now unfortunately dec’d) was a member of our Rotary Club with a special interest in education.

Club Member Richard Wardle was our first speaker in December with his talk entitled “My Pictures”. He showed members an eclectic selection of pictures displayed in his house. Local scenes included a wherry on Barton Broad, Bishops Bridge, the Old Cattle Market in Norwich, Elm Hill and a hunting scene by Salem John Mann, father of Club Member Alan Mann.

“House and Home” was the title of the talk by Robert Pugin the following week. The scope of his talk ranged from pre-historic housing to current times, and how housing evolved from the mobile structures required by hunter/gatherers to fixed abodes when farming evolved. These over time ranged from single-roomed houses of wood/clay to the development of large communities, many fortified, and ultimately the standard-type dwellings of the Industrial Revolution. More recently the development of building societies etc. allowed various social classes to own their own homes, and upgrading has become a social ambition. House prices have increased beyond affordability for many as house owning has become a speculation.

Our final speaker before Christmas was Club Member Alan Mann who talked of his family. Part of his family tree goes back to Flemish Huguenots in the 1720’s, and another to Norfolk people who lived in the Lophams. Alan’s father was born in 1903 (one of eight children) and he could not enlist in 1914 as he was in a reserved occupation (dairying). He subsequently served in India from 1919 to 1929, and became a military policeman when he joined the Home Guard in 1939. Alan himself was born in 1939 at Heigham Grove, which was subsequently bombed during a Baedecker raid. (to be continued)

Our final meeting of 2011 was our Club’s annual Friends and Family Lunch, when Vice President Richard Butler welcomed our guests that included some of our former members’ widows. Our speaker for the occasion was Paddy Seligman OBE who spoke of the “We Care” Appeal and the Millennium Trust for Carers. The EDP was involved in the start of the Appeal, and in setting up the Trust asked Paddy to be its Chairman. She gave us details of carers within our community, from the very young to the elderly. She was delighted to report that over £1 Million had been raised to help support these carers, not only in their homes but to give them well-earned breaks and also aids to assist in their unenviable tasks.

Other recent Club activities included a meeting of the Thorpe Rotary Book Club at which the books selected were “A Journey” by Tony Blair and “A Little History of the World” by Gombrich. The Ron Bradley Young Citizenship Award was awarded to Sophie Morris at a prize giving at Thorpe High School in early January.

Our Club held its inaugural meeting in December 1962, and 3 of the Club Members present then – Raymond Jeckells, Martin Broom and Kevin Fitzmaurice – are still Members of the Club, and were at the Club meeting on 16th December to receive 50 year Membership Certificates from Rotary International.

October is when Rotary District 1080, which covers most of East Anglia, holds its annual Conference – this year was the 82^nd. There are 77 Clubs and 2,450 members in the District which is presided over by a District Governor and District Committee. Among the Rotarians present was Charles Spencer from Baton Rouge, U.S.A., a representative of the Rotary International President K Banerjee from India, various speakers representing the whole diverse range of Rotary programmes and the Lord Mayor of Norwich. The Rotary speakers gave, inter alia, a talk on Rotary House in Norwich which is residential accommodation for the hard of hearing, which was followed by a presentation from 5 members of a Group Study Exchange team from Illinois who were visiting the District for 6 weeks. Before and after lunch further presentations were made concerning Rotary in the Community and featuring Young Enterprise, Literacy and Rotary Young Leadership Awards, ending with how Rotarians are helping to ease the problems of dementia. In the evening there was the Governor’s Dinner with guest speaker the vet Steve Leonard.

Following our Club’s re-location to the Oasis, the last speaker of the month was Club member Roger Morriss who told us of his recent holiday in Peru, and in particular gave an illustrated talk about the steamer Yavari. This was one of 2 gun boats built in Britain and shipped to Lake Titicaca in the 1860s. The lake is 12,500 ft. above sea level and is the largest lake in South America with an average depth of 350 ft. and covering an area of 3,200 sq. miles. Because of logistical problems (there was no railway and the lake is landlocked) each ship had to be dismantled and packed into 2,766 cases, each case weighing no more than a mule could carry. Apparently many ships such as these were built on the Thames, and because of the noise of the riveters hammering the steel rivets into place, the local football club became known as “the Hammers”.

A team of 8 – riveters, engineers etc. were sent with the crates and the ships were then re-assembled in the thin atmosphere at the lakeside. There was no coal so lama dung was used as fuel for the boats, the boats steam engines later being converted to diesel in the 1920’s. In 1894 a railway was built to the lake, and in 1977 the Yavari was declared redundant and lapsed into disuse. It was discovered and restored in the 1990’s, and is now a working tribute to those Victorian shipbuilders and their ingenuity.

Trevor Whitworth