September 2018 Extra

Guests braved strong winds to enjoy a meeting focusing on the 1960’s. Most people had fond memories of this extraordinary decade. The popular myth that “if you can remember the 60’s you probably weren’t there” is clearly untrue, at least for these residents of the Crantock area.

After our usual word search and ‘Sparkle’ quiz, Richard introduced the session by showing a film based on Pathe and TV news clips plus contemporary advertisements. This reminded us of the high and low points of the decade, starting with the wedding of Princess Margaret, followed by the space flight of Yuri Gagarin, the Berlin Wall, the Cuba Missile Crisis, Marilyn Monroe, the assassination of President Kennedy, the death of Winston Churchill, the Aberfan disaster and the murder of Martin Luther King. However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.  There were fond memories of England winning the world cup, Beatlemania, and the distinctive fashions of the time led by Mary Quant and Carnaby Street and topped off by some unusual hairstyles.

After a break for tea and homemade cakes, Joan led an enjoyable session of Musical Bingo, with singing along to the music. The meeting ended with Richard giving the answers to our ‘This Week in History’ quiz.

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The next meeting will be on Monday October 1^st at 2pm in Crantock Village Hall.

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Crantock Bale Push

After recent rain, Friday evening was dry and there was a good turnout for this annual event. For several hours teams of enthusiastic, mostly young, people trundled huge hay bales around the village as quickly as possible, trying not to mow down onlookers or run over themselves.

As in previous years the Memory Café had a stall with a display of café activities and, this time, a ‘Lucky Dip’. Joan, Richard, Roz, Diana and Val helped man the stall. There was a lot of interest from passers by and almost £50 was raised. We are very grateful to the Bale Push committee for their continuing support.

September 2018

The Café opened its doors once again on September 3^rd and after settling down with some word puzzles or the chance of a chat we welcomed our musical entertainer, Beryl Jukes. Beryl is well-known in folk music and dancing circles within the county and for many years has performed with her piano accordion and as a ‘caller’ at country dance and barn dancing groups. She had recently returned from a busy time at the renowned Sidmouth Folk Festival.  Everyone was fascinated to hear about the variety of skills needed to play the accordion, and Beryl was soon demonstrating her expertise! We were keen to sing along and with the help of our conductor, we also joined in with percussion instruments – it’s not easy to conduct whilst playing an instrument but Beryl soon had us accompanying in two, three and finally four parts. It was great fun and much enjoyed.

A delicious tea was served, as usual, by our lively ‘refreshments team’ before David introduced the second part of the afternoon which was based around a theme of ‘Fashion and Style’. There was a wonderful display of outfits from across the decades from the 1940s to the present day plus the opportunity to try on a range of hats, scarves, jewellery and more. For the gents there was also a range of head-gear, plus ties, bow ties, shirts and even a string vest (but no-one tried that one on!).

Many fascinating photographs and facts were displayed in addition to books and magazines from the past and present to bring back memories of the way tastes in fashion have changed over the years. These were prompted by questions on the display boards as well as a light-hearted quiz to give us food for thought!

We were thrilled that a number of our guests brought along items to add to the display – a wonderful hat from Switzerland, a much-loved wedding tiara and veil, a beautiful hand-made child’s ‘nurses’ outfit, worn by many generations, christening robes and much more.  There were wedding photos showing fashions from the past and photos of our visitors as small children in their ‘Sunday best’.

Special mention has to be made of some spectacular ballroom dancing dresses, worn by one of our friends and hand-stitched by her husband – it really was a special afternoon.

There was just time for David to give the answers to the quiz before it was time to ‘clear the decks’ once more.

What an afternoon! We look forward to our next meeting on 1st and 15^th October at Crantock Village Hall from 2pm – 4pm. New members are always welcome, and should you require further information please contact Di on 01637 830544 or Joan on 01637 831347.