February 12th 2.30pm 2020
Following the AGM, Sheila Johnson presented extracts
from our archives in three sets:
photos belonging to Eric Crompton, Olga Shotton’s father,
the Lambrick and Newnham families,
local sketches by Rev John Skinner, 1822-24.
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In her talk in February 2021 'Blagdon, Then and Now’, Sheila Johnson looked at the changes that had occurred in the village over the last 150 years or so, and some of the agents of these changes.
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'Preparations are now well advanced for the reception of children and mothers from the areas to be evacuated .....and I write these few lines to ask you to receive them as visitors and not unwelcome guests thrust upon us. Some of them may not be all that we might desire tho’ I feel sure our fears are exaggerated in this respect. Most people respond to kindly treatment ..... they are less fortunate than ourselves or they would not be coming to us.'
Jacky Kerly tells the story of how the influx of evacuees to Blagdon brought with the realities of the war and how many locals were obliged into contributing, characteristically in their own ways, to the 'War Effort'. Country and town folk initially mixing like oil and water.
