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Articles we didn't have space for in April 2025 Link:

Whitchurch Silk Mill News

Whitchurch Silk Mill is excited to announce the return of its Open Gardens event on June 22, 2025, from 1–5pm. Building on the success of the 2023 event, which sold over 200 tickets and raised more than £2,600, this year’s Open Gardens will feature more than twenty private gardens in Whitchurch. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore new gardens and revisit those from 2023 to see how they have matured. The Mill extends its gratitude to all the gardeners participating this year. Tickets for the event are available for purchase from the Mill, and more information can be found on the Mill’s website.

The Mill is seeking volunteers to join its Volunteer Event Support Team. If you are inspired by the Mill’s work but cannot commit to regular involvement, your support as a volunteer would be greatly appreciated. Volunteers are needed for the Open Gardens event to serve as garden stewards, welcoming visitors and checking tickets, and for the Spring Fayre to assist with children’s games. Interested individuals can email [email protected] to join the team and receive updates on volunteer opportunities.

The Mill’s January postcode promotion, offering free entry to visitors from certain postcodes, was a great success, attracting 832 visitors over three weeks. This initiative also boosted shop and café sales.

Thanks to a grant from The Four Lanes Trust, the Mill has acquired new gardening equipment for its volunteer gardeners, enhancing the maintenance of its beautiful gardens.

Currently, the Mill is weaving Bridgerton-inspired ribbons on Loom 9, visible from the ground floor viewing window. Additionally, the Mill has been commissioned by a New York University to produce silk for a reproduction of a suit worn by George Washington.

Efforts to make the Mill more sustainable are underway, supported by the Rural England Prosperity Fund. The Mill has replaced old fibre roof insulation with eco-friendly sheep’s wool, which helps prevent dampness and reduces heating costs. Plans to install secondary double-glazing to the Mill’s windows are in progress, requiring a suitable supplier and additional funds. Compost bins have also been installed in the garden for garden waste and kitchen peelings.

The Mill is hosting several upcoming events:

• Riches to Ribbons Exhibition (until July 20, 2025): Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, this exhibition showcases a ribbon collection woven in collaboration with Jane Austen’s House in Chawton. The exhibition is included in the Mill admission fee.
• Darning Workshop (April 5, 11am–2pm): Learn how to darn holes, choose the right yarn, and create secure mends. The workshop costs £35 per person, with all tools provided.
• Knitting for the Front Line (April 15, 7–8.30pm): Joyce Meader, a historic-knitting expert, will share stories about sending knitted comforts to soldiers. Tickets are £15 per person and must be booked in advance.
• Easter Egg Hunt (April 16, 10.30am–12.00pm): Hunt for Easter Eggs around the Mill grounds. This event is aimed at children aged 2–8.
• Spring Fayre (May 26, 10.30am–4pm): Enjoy local food and drink, children’s crafts, games, and a performance by the Bubbles Man.
• Regency Picnic (June 28, 3–7pm): Celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary with a picnic, music, and Regency-style activities. Pre-booked tickets are required.

For more details and to purchase tickets, please visit the Mill’s website.

 

 

Articles we didn't have space for in November 2024 Link:

News from our Hospital 

For all the doom and gloom currently in vogue, it is perhaps appropriate to mention our local hospital trust is the only one in the south east which is improving. Whilst productivity, which is also improving is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, this improvement is reflected in the particularly high level of elective work at present, starting to slowly eat into waiting lists, not easy when one recognises that demand is growing at 10% a year. The doom and gloom approach is also not helping with staff morale, despite giving their all, which is evidenced by some of the amazing patient feedback stories relating to how staff have gone way beyond expectations in their care and dedication. 

Despite all the negative Government news about the new hospital programme, the team tasked with bringing a new hospital into being continues to work apace, currently adjusting the original plans in the light of the feedback from the public consultation earlier this year. This consultation highlighted concerns around transport, especially for some demographics, and the value of a dropdown facility, for those not requiring full hospital treatment. That a new hospital is required is beyond dispute, with building maintenance and energy costs rising rapidly, thereby adding to the unsustainable financial burden; growing issues of layout; and the rapidly changing nature of modern treatments. Thus, a new hospital locally is still very much on the cards, as the present is just not sustainable!

A new dropdown facility will help enormously with the ongoing issue that is widespread across all hospitals, namely bed blocking due to lack of social care. This is inevitably going to get worse as our population ages, and as has been recently reported HCC, like so many other County Councils, is in growing financial stress. Will we see this situation deteriorate even further this winter with this Government’s decision on pensioners’ winter fuel payments. 

The public consultation, did also highlight a lack of understanding about the plans to create urgent treatment centres (UTC’s) and a central emergency department (ED).  The plans are for the ED to handle ‘life threatening’ cases with a highly dedicated skilled and well-equipped team, giving faster response without having to draw resources from UTC work as is currently the case, thereby aiming at significant improvements to patient outcomes. Meanwhile, the aim is to establish UTC’s to handle the other work that currently coming into ED departments, including for example full fracture treatment facilities.

Keith Bunker

Governor for the Council of Governors for the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT)

 

Probus Hears About The Titanic And Her Times

By the 1890s Britain was losing its global position to both Germany and the USA. To maintain influence in the world soft power was used to replace gun boat diplomacy. One way was to have the biggest, most luxurious ocean-going liners to attract the world’s wealthiest people. Who better to build such leviathans but the most famous ship builders in the world, Harland & Wolff of Belfast.

This background was explained by speaker Dr Stephen Goss, an Ulsterman whose great grandfather was a painter on RMS Titanic in this famous shipyard.

It was the only place to build three ships for the White Star Line whose names became part of history, the Olympic, Titanic and the Britannic. At 46,000 tons the Titanic was the largest ship in the world and was fitted out to the most luxurious level. Its safety measures considerably exceeded the maritime regulations of the day. The Marconi Company was employed to relay ship to shore messages using the latest Morse Code system.

The sinking of the Titanic is well known but the wreck’s discovery was complicated as the Marconi operator gave an incorrect position. There had been several attempts to find the wreck, but Robert Ballard was financed by the US Navy to use the Titanic quest as a cover to search for two nuclear submarines lost in the 1960s. They did not want the Russians to be aware of this search or its result.

Locating the two submarines left twelve days of the contract to find the Titanic and, on 1 September 1985, they located a boiler in a debris field. The rest is history, culminating in June 2023 with Titan, the observation submersible, imploding with the loss of five lives.

The future of Harland & Wolff remains uncertain as of 16 September 2024 it was reported the company entered administrations for the second time in five years. The company is expected to continue operations normally while its non-core operations wind down.

See www.probusbasingstoke.club

Paul Flint