WEA SUMMER WALKS AND POETRY CLASSES
Following their success last year a series of three Summer Literary Guided Lecture Walks have been arranged to occupy some of the summer months after the present WEA courses have finished.
- Sat 19th April: ‘Literary Portraits’ (Meet in National Portrait Gallery Foyer at 11am)
- Fri 16th May: ‘Holborn and the Inns of Court’ (Meet at Holborn Station at 11am)
- Sat 14th June: ‘Fitzrovia: London’s Bohemia’ (Meet at Warren Street Station at 11am)
The popular WEA Lecturer Michael King will be the guide. Tickets are £6 each and will be limited to 20 persons per lecture, allocated on a first come-first served basis.
By popular request, a 6 week summer poetry class entitled ‘Relative Merits: Poetic Families’ will start on Thurs 17th April from 1.45pm to 3.45pm at the Compass Theatre. The WEA committee is particularly pleased to have secured the services of Michael King for this poetry course as well as the guided lecture walks. The cost of the poetry course is £60.
Please ring 01895 811764 or 01923 824922 for more information, to reserve your guided lecture walk tickets or to register your interest in the poetry class.
NOT LONG UNTIL THE AUCTION
The famous URC Auction will take place this year on Sat 3rd May at 2.15pm in the church hall, and will as usual be preceded by a Plant & Book Sale on the forecourt, from 10am till 12 noon. If you have items to donate for either event, please phone Richard Piper on 01895 634348. If you would like to have something auctioned on a commission basis, contact Henry Gardner on 01895 674074.
This local youth football club is growing from strength to strength. It now has places available for players in the Under 10s’, 9s’, 8s’ and 7s’ teams. We are particularly keen to attract more Under 10s’, as next season we move from 7-a-side to 11-a-side matches for this age group. If you are interested, contact Mike Whitlam on 01895 678169 or Annette McCorkell on 01895 621061 for more details.
Ahead of the ‘Circle the City’ walk, Christian Aid Week itself runs from Sun 11th May to Sat 17th May. If you helped with the delivery and collection of the ‘red envelopes’ around Ickenham last year, we do hope you will do so again. We are likely to need some new helpers too though, particularly in the Brackenbury and Glebe estates. If you could help there, please call Juliette Guthrie at the Rectory, on 01895 622970.
An interesting historical artefact to the south of Ickenham, is the Gospel Oak on Swakeleys Road opposite the green crescent at the top of Woodstock Drive. The worn lettering of the stone tablet has an inscription commemorating the fact that, once a year, prayers used to be said there in medieval times in the hope of a good harvest. Since the Millennium, local residents, along with the London Borough of Hillingdon, Ickenham Residents’ Association, the Ickenham and Swakeleys Horticultural Society, Ickenham Conservation Panel and the Rector and PCC of St Giles’, and others have been trying to improve the site.
In 2004, LBH planted first one then another oak sapling to replace the dead tree that was there. But hindered by some dry summers, sadly, they too died. A decision has recently been reached to cut back some superfluous greenery and do some planting, to enlarge the circle to include a fine existing oak (most likely to be a descendant itself of an earlier Gospel Oak). To complement this work, we would now like to raise funds to renew the tablet’s lettering.
The Ickenham Festival Committee kindly held a raffle at their Barn Dance on 9th March in aid of the re-carving and the generous barn dancers raised £200 to get us well on our way. If you too would like to contribute to the re-carving fund, then please get in touch with me via the Rector.
As an ICN report said in May 2004, “A little bit of Ickenham history can thus be preserved - a reminder of more spiritual times when people were closer to the land.”
Diana May
OUT AND ABOUT IN ICKENHAM
The first weekend in April brings lots to do in the village, with two Ickenham attractions opening for the first time so far in 2008.
On Sat 5th April, the Miniature Railway is running from 12 noon until 5.30pm. Maintained by the Ickenham and District Society of Model Engineers (who celebrate their 60th anniversary this year) the railway is open to the public on the first Saturday of the month from April to December. This is always worth a visit whatever your age! Entrance is behind the Pump in the heart of the village, with free admission and rides costing just 40p.
Then on Sun 6th April, why not go along to the first of this year’s open days at Swakeleys House? From 11am until 3pm there will be short guided tours around Ickenham’s own Jacobean manor house, and you can enjoy the grounds too. (Use the entrance in Milton Road, and there is car parking in the grounds.) Later in the year, the house will be open again on Sun 6th July and Sun 5th October, and of course we will benefit from the use of the grounds during the forthcoming Ickenham Festival.
It’s all on your doorstep: make the most of it!
