Hodnet Life Archives

Maureen Edwards presented with British Empire Medal

The New Years Honours List recognises the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the United Kingdom and Hodnet has one such person in its midst. Maureen (Mo) Edwards has been awarded the British Empire Medal, for services to the North Shropshire Hunt Branch of The Pony Club.
Many people will recognise Maureen by sight, riding through the village and surrounding lanes but they may not know about her unflagging work over the last 30 years in helping organise local events to introduce younger people to horse husbandry and the sheer fun of anything to do with horses. She has held the position District Commissioner for the area since 2009 and continues in the post although now in ill health.
In talking to the Pony Club about her award she said, “I was very surprised when I received the letter to find I had been awarded the British Empire Medal, but extremely thrilled as it is a great honour, and I was touched that I had been put forward for it.” She went on to say,” I love to see the Members having fun and progress at the Rallies, Camp and Tests. The North Shropshire Hunt group have developed into a large Branch, but I try to attend most of the rallies so that I get to see most of the Members throughout the year. The Pony Club is a great institution and has retained its original ethos of being open to all children which I feel is very important.”
The award was presented by Shropshire’s Lord Lieutenant Algernon Heber-Percy, but I am sure we would all like to say “Well done  Maureen. We are proud of you.”

New Aerial Photographs

1980_Aerial1
The webteam has recently been provided with aerial photographs of Hodnet taken in approximately 1980 and 2007.
There are several changes in the village which can be identified from these images and we encourage you to try and spot them.
You will find them on our ‘Hodnet from the Air’ page.

Photographs of yesteryear

For those who enjoyed our recently added Hodnet – A Miscellany of Memories section, we have just created another new section in our Local History section. We now have two pages of nostalgic photographs from Hodnet and Wollerton. Here are some of  properties you may not readily recognise.

Drayton Road, Hodnet
Drayton Road, Hodnet
Milestone Cottages, Shrewsbury Street, Hodnet Police House, Drayton Road Find out more about these and other photographs in our new section.
 

Hodnet – A Miscellany of Memories

MiscMemsCoverWe have just added a new section to the Local History section of the Hodnet website. Hodnet – A Miscellany of Memories was compiled around 1988 by two local ladies, Janice Parker and Glenys Comerford. It featured the memories of local residents, newspaper cuttings and old photographs. It has been added to the website to make it available to today’s internet generations.
Originally it was a 28 page photocopied A4 document with written and photographic memories. Some of these pages have been combined on the website and the new section covers a total of 15 pages. Click here to go to the first page.

New EXTEND Sessions in Hodnet

Extend2Starting Tuesdays 22nd Jan. 2013.

Venue: the Meadow Community Room (off Station Road)
When: Tuesdays 10.00am to 11.00am
Cost: £2 (includes tea & biscuit).
A gentle form of exercise and movement to music for older people and those of limited mobility. EXTEND exercise can be chair-based as well as standing. This gentle exercise can help people to feel more in control, to increase their mobility and help them to remain independent.
For more information please call Val on 01630 685987.

Click the image below to download a poster.

Links: The Shropshire Rural Community Council website; The EXTEND website.

This video is from the EXTEND website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwxF8dUnz7A

These sesions feature on our Regular Events page.

 

Bus Pass information

Shropshire Council’s Newsroom has reported in this post that some bus companies are struggling to automatically process national bus passes. The report states:

Whilst they work to resolve them, Shropshire Council can reassure cardholders that all bus operators in the county have been instructed to accept the passes as valid, and record the acceptance manually instead.
Bus operators are working hard with the Department of Transport and ticket machine providers to make sure that their ticket machines are updated to accept the renewed pass cards in the near future.

Whilst bus drivers should be aware of this it is helpful for passengers to be aware of the situation as well.

New website for buying food waste caddy liners

In November Shropshire Council distributed free plastic food waste caddies to residents in North Shropshire. Included with them were a small number of biodegradable liners. This week the Council’s Newsroom announced the launch of a new website from which residents can buy multiple rolls of replacement liners.
The website, which is run by Straight plc. the suppliers of the liners, is www.caddyliners.com. However local residents can go straight to the relevant page for Shropshire by following this link.
3 rolls with 26 small liners on each cost £5.00 per pack, and are suitable for 5 litre caddies (the size distributed by the council). Other types of caddies and larger liners can be ordered from the site. Postage and packing is £1.99 for all orders.
For those without access to the Internet the customer service team can be contacted on 0844 472 1871 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday, 9am and 7pm Saturday, 9am and 5pm Sunday.

Operation Christmas Child 2012 – Thank you

Joanna Davies, local organiser for Operation Christmas Child, writes to thank local people for their support of this year’s effort.

Despite everyone struggling with increased fuel and food bills the people of Hodnet and the surrounding areas have donated a magnificent number of filled shoeboxes in support of this annual event. 91 shoeboxes were collected and taken to the Telford depot and will make their way to children in war-torn Kosovo – a region in southeastern Europe. The total was greater than last year and I would like to thank everyone who took part. It has certainly demonstrated the true meaning of Christmas.

Shropshire Cares Info Central

The web team have been notified a community website which links to online help people can access in order to live independent lives in their own homes. Called Shropshire Cares Info Central (click to visit) the site is run by David Sandbach and hosted on the Shrop.NET community website.

The site describes it purpose as:

The site is here to help ordinary citizens find the information needed to stay independent and healthy.
We also hope this site will help people to play a part in wider decision making processes should they so choose and above all to stay connected to other people in and around Shropshire.

The site lists a wide range of information sources available on the Internet, such as where to get rubber stoppers for a walking stick through to the Department of Health knowledge base and all stops in between. There is a “Can’t Find it?” page and also a “Knowledge Bank” which has an A to W list of useful websites. It is a really useful site for anyone looking for information about independant living in Shropshire.
There is a contact form on the site for those looking for other information or you can leave a message for David by phoning 07716-178814. Alternatively, you can send him an email.
If you missed the link above the click here to visit Shropshire Cares Info Central.

Any old photos?

The Hodnet web team would like to add to the website a section containing old photographs of the area. This photograph of a train passing though Wollerton is an example of the type of image we are looking for.

WollertonTrain01

Photos need not be in black and white: colour ones will be fine. Any photograph from the earliest days of the box camera through to the end of the 1990s will be welcome. Photos of any subject will be appreciated and we will sort them into galleries by date and theme.
If you would like to contribute to our collection of memories from this area, then please scan your pictures and send them to the address below. Please note, images should not be greater than 1200 by 900 pixels. If you want to retain the copyright on the images, please use graphic editing software to add a copyright notice to them (if you don’t have suitable software GIMP and Infraview are two freeware programmes that enable you to do this).
Once you have your images ready to send to us, please send them to this email address. Please attach no more than two photos to each email. You will receive an automatic acknowledgement for your first email in any seven day period. Please also tell us something about each photograph in the email it is attached to. We also need you to provide us with your name and address and for you to make clear that you give the website team permission to publish the photographs on hodnet.org.uk
We look forward to receiving your photographs.