The Horsington Blog

 

The very successful Blackmore Vale Revival – a classic vehicle and vintage show, will this year be held on Saturday 1 July 2017 at Henstridge Airfield. Last year this exciting event helped raise over £5000 for CliC  Sargent, Future Roots and the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance plus many other local charities. This year more local charities and good causes are included.

The organisers are  expecting over 250 classic and vintage cars and a number of vintage commercial and military vehicles. There will be a fly past of one of the last remaining WW2 Lancaster Bombers and a Swordfish together with a group of WildCat Helicopters.

You can take a 20min helicopter flight around the local area for a small fee.

A new addition is a model railway exhibition by kind permission of the Mere Model Railway Group led by Tom Snook. This will include a large trade stand of Model Railway equipment and literature. This promises to be a knockout as it will take up the whole area of one of the buildings in the centre of the arena.

The 2017 event will have more trade stalls,more vehicles, more entertainment (including an enormous Bouncy Castle and Steve Burrows’ circus skills for children)

If you prefer a more relaxed afternoon, there is lots of live music to suit everyone of all ages in the Beer Tent.

There will also be a prize for the best dressed person in vintage dress (judged this year by the ex BBC Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton) and a host of raffle prizes including a fantastic cake in the design of an Austin Healey 3000 classic car.

For more information please go to our website –  http://www.henstridgeclassicrevival.com

Put the date in your diaries – July 1^st at Henstridge Airfield

Written by Angela Clayton on behalf of the Parish Council…

.“The Horsington play area is inspected every year by an independent inspector for health & safety and insurance purposes.This year several pieces of equipment were found to be unsafe and beyond repair.

They will have to be removed immediately.

The Parish Council have limited funds to replace and repair existing apparatus but will be reviewing and considering how to manage the play area in the longer term.We will provide more information and issue regular updates throughout this financial year.

We have removed the main multi play unit from the play area, the PC have taken this action  to ensure the safety of the children on the play equipment.”

 

 

The Blog’s exclusive racing correspondent Winterborne Longjohns has send us a dispatch from somewhere in France . . . 

After a disastrous Derby having incurred large losses laying the winner to a fellow house guest at 40/1, Winterborne has temporarily fled his home stable for sanctuary in France until after the election and a new Government having hopefully been formed. He has a strong financial interest in Boris being installed as our next Prime Minister and really hopes this will come to pass sooner rather than later . Any price above 5/1 should be taken whilst it is still available. Meanwhile his (Winterborne’s, not Boris’s -Ed) followers are reminded that it is also Royal Ascot where there will be further opportunities to follow Dame Fortune next week.

You need to keep up. I doubt whether you will get 5/1 anywhere. You should have taken our advice yesterday and had Boris at 5/2. The odds have now halved to 9/4, and it looks like the bandwagon has left the station. Will it  get as far as Upminster or will he get off at Barking?

Ascot? Give us some winners then.  For everyone’s sake, we hope you fare better on the flat than over the jumps -Ed.

The Horsington Blog’s picture of Boris Johnson parachuting in after the election seems to have triggered a betting landslide.

Paddy Power now has him favourite to be the next prime Minister after Theresa May at odds of 5/2. Get it while you can, is our advice.

Jeremy Corbyn is second favourite at 10/3, followed by David Davis at 9/2.

In brexit betting,  you can get 4/1 on the UK having a second referendum on the terms of an eventual brexit. Grab it.

Significantly, no UK bookie (or none that we could find) is offering odds on brexit not happening at all (i.e.the UK remains in the EU)

Will anyone take the editor’s fiver at 20/1?

The most sensible solution to the current political chaos would appear to be a  National Government of all the parties, followed by a general election once Brexit is sorted.  Not available on Paddy Power or elsewhere, so will anyone take the editor’s fiver at 10/1?

(Where are you, Winterborne Longjohns? -Ed)

 Best quote of the day – From novelist Robert Harris writing in the “Sunday Times”

“How did a stable, prosperous parliamentary democracy, granted a unique set of favourable opt-outs with the largest trading bloc in the world, including on the single currency and travel, throw it all up in the air on the basis of a 52-48 yes/no vote in a referendum – a margin not normally wide enough to change the constitution of the average golf club?”

Stuart Jackson, of South Cheriton reports…

Sadly a dead cat was found at the the top of Cheriton Street, South Cheriton on Friday 2nd June.
A lovely large male with a tabby/tortoiseshell coat.
Despite much effort made by neighbours, the owner could not be found.
He has been buried in my paddock.
I hope the owner will be comforted by the fact that it has been laid to rest.

Thank you, Stuart -Ed

Alert readers have pointed out that yesterday the Blog emailed them with details of Patrick Mileham’s talk in the church, which took place 2 weeks ago. (And very interesting it was- Ed)

We apologise. We have no idea how it happened. These things are managed by the Blog’s automatic publishing system, and Ed has no idea how it works, or which buttons to press.

This also explains how emails go out with appalling spelling mistakes and grammatical errors – sometime the first draft gets published, but the final version is re-worked several times over.

So, Dear Subscriber, it always pays to look at the real Blog on line, rather than the email version, which is really there just to alert you.

All you have to do is click on the story headline on your email and wham! – you are in.

Happy reading.

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We have had a request from reader Clare Collins, who asks…

“Has anyone any records, information or photos of Italian prisoners of war that lived and worked in Horsington in the Second World War?”

If you can help, leave a comment or contact her via the Blog’s Facebook page.

Sadly the annual game against the Pilgrims has been cancelled. The visiting side has been unable to raise a team. A great pity, particularly as Horsington was well placed to field a winning side.

However, the Pub quiz on Bank Holiday Sunday is still on. teams of 4.

Start is 8 pm.

William Wallace, who was recently elected as County Councillor for Horsington, as part of the Blackmore Vale Ward, has been chosen as Chairman of Somerset County Council.

His appointment will be confirmed at the first full meeting of the County Council after the recent elections, on May 24^th.

William has been a district Councillor since 2003, and a County  Councillor since 2005. He has also been chairman of finance for the  Avon and Somerset Police Authority and chairman of HR for the Devon and Somerset  Fire Authority.

For the past 4 years he has been Somerset County Council’s cabinet member for Adult Social Care, a highly sensitive and very difficult post in which he has had to balance the conflicting pressures of reducing costs, improving care and integrating with other health services providers.

The Blog congratulates William on his new role, a fitting pinnacle to a distinguished career in local government. If we have been unkind to him in the past, we apologise unequivocally, but point out that this has been in the interest of  treating all political candidates objectively and fairly  at election time.

(Or unfairly -Ed).