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Bill Cooper's car parked outside Old Village Hall, about 1950.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in March 2022 Part of the procession through the village en route to the cricket green With Michelle De Vries and her team currently busy planning fun and interesting activities for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June, marking 70 years since Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, I thought it would be worth revisiting previous Jubilee’s for some inspiration. Indeed, it would appear that Thursley has never shied away from an opportunity to celebrate when a celebration is called for! Royal Jubilees are an occasion to celebrate the life and reign of a Monarch, and are significant events which are celebrated around the world. Though the concept of the jubilee began in biblical times, today the term is most closely associated with the Royal Family, and the ceremony and spectacle which the term symbolises. Royal Jubilees celebrate significant periods in monarchs' reigns and the national life. Few British monarchs have achieved reigns of 50 years, and Golden Jubilees are very rare. There are few records of how - if at all - Henry III, Edward III and James VI celebrated their 50-year milestones. The first British monarch to mark 50 years on the throne in a significant way was George III, followed by Queen Victoria. The Queen has had significant jubilee celebrations, in 1977 for her Silver, 2002 for her Golden, 2012 for her Diamond and 2017 for her Sapphire jubilee. The Silver Jubilee The climax of the national celebrations came in early June. On the evening of Monday 6 June, The Queen lit a bonfire beacon at Windsor which started a chain of beacons across the country. On Tuesday 7 June, vast crowds saw The Queen driven in the Gold State Coach to St Paul's Cathedral for a Service of Thanksgiving attended by heads of state from around the world and former prime ministers of the UK. An estimated 500 million people watched on television as the procession returned down The Mall. Back at Buckingham Palace, The Queen made several balcony appearances. Street parties and village parties started up all over the country: in London alone, 4,000 were reported to have been held. The final event of the central week of celebrations was a river progress down the Thames from Greenwich to Lambeth on Thursday 9 June, emulating the ceremonial barge trips of Elizabeth I. The journey ended with a firework display, and a procession of lighted carriages took The Queen back to Buckingham Palace for more balcony appearances to a cheering crowd. In Thursley, a whole host of events (for every age and predilections apparently) were planned under the watchful auspices of Norman Ratcliffe, then the village bobby, living in the police house on The Street. It all took place on Tuesday 7th June and I am guessing the following day must also have been a Bank Holiday as it was a busy old day, culminating in dancing until midnight! The programme of events from Norman was such: HORSE SHOW At 10am at Haybarn stables. Programme and entry form available from Thursley Stores, Thursley Post Office, the Police House and the Red Lion garage. OLD PEOPLE’S LUNCH At 12 noon in the Village Hall, a lunch and entertainment will be held for our senior citizens. PROCESSION At 2.30pm the procession will go from The Red Lion to the cricket field. Anyone is welcome to join in. Please come in fancy dress, on foot or horseback. You can organise a group float, decorate your cycle or car and just join in the fun. CRICKET MATCH At 3pm the Half Moon (one of three pubs in the village – Ed) will do battle against the Three Horseshoes, in a not too serious match. DOG DISPLAY At 5pm on the cricket field, there will be a display by Guardwell Security Dogs. CHILDRENS PARTY At 5.30pm all children of school age will be welcome to a party in the Village Hall. This will be tea and a magic show. DANCE AND CABARET The dance will be 8pm to 12 midnight on the cricket field. There will be a cabaret during the evening. Dancing will be to The Gold Top Roadshow. This is a show in its own right. There will be a bar. Wow! As I said, a full day and absolutely exhausting from the sounds of it! But I’ll bet a lot of fun was had. Golden Jubilee The central focus for the year was the Jubilee weekend in June 2002 which began with a classical music concert in the gardens at Buckingham Palace. There was a Jubilee Church Service at St George's Chapel in Windsor and a National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral which followed a Ceremonial Procession from Buckingham Palace. Events culminated in a pop concert at Buckingham Palace with performers including Paul McCartney, Bryan Adams, Elton John and Shirley Bassey. The evening ended with a spectacular firework display and The Queen lighting the National Beacon, the last in a string of 2,006 beacons which had been lit in a chain across the Commonwealth. It was much more difficult to track down much information on the Golden Jubilee albeit it was in 2002, only twenty years ago. It was noted “that on Saturday the 1st June, there will be a Thursley Village party – a pig roast, jazz and fun for all the family in the Village Hall”. And so, it was to be. A fantastic whole village feast was prepared. Long tables were set up, bunting was hung and young and old enjoyed a day of sunshine, celebrations and commemorations for our dearly loved Queen. The Diamond Jubilee The Diamond Jubilee in 2012 celebrated the 60 years since the accession and was marked with a spectacular central weekend and a series of regional tours throughout the UK and Commonwealth. The central weekend began with The Queen’s visit to the Epsom Derby on the Saturday. On the Sunday, ‘Big Jubilee Lunches’ were held across the UK: building on the already popular ‘Big Lunch’ initiative, people were encouraged to share lunch with neighbours and friends as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant also took place on the Sunday, with up to 1,000 boats assembled on the Thames from across the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world. The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh travelled in the Royal Barge which formed the centrepiece of the flotilla. On the Monday, a host of famous faces came together to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee against the backdrop of Buckingham Palace for a concert organised by Take That singer and songwriter Gary Barlow for the BBC. Performers included Will.i.am, Stevie Wonder, Grace Jones and Kylie Minogue. Following the concert, The Queen lit the National Beacon: one of a network of 2,012 Beacons which were lit by communities and individuals throughout the UK, Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the Commonwealth. In Thursley, as is tradition now, again a large marquee was erected in the garden of the village hall and a feast of pig roast was served to all villagers. Memories of the village Diamond Jubilee celebrations The Sapphire Jubilee 6 February 2017 marked 65 years since The Queen acceded to the throne, becoming the first British Monarch to mark their Sapphire Jubilee. To coincide with the occasion Buckingham Palace re-released a photograph of Her Majesty taken by David Bailey in 2014. In the photograph, The Queen is wearing a suite of sapphire jewellery given to her by King George VI as a wedding gift in 1947. And so, we look forward to our extended national celebrations this year for the Platinum Jubilee, from 2nd – 5th June, and in particular our own village celebrations. Never let it be said that Thursley doesn’t know how to celebrate and have a good time! And oh, how our fabulous, hard-working and admirable Queen is worthy of our celebrations. The earliest village Jubilee celebration found in our archives.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in June 2023 I write this less than 48 hours after the brilliantly organised and wonderfully patriotic Coronation celebrations in Thursley. Congratulations to all involved. In our archives we have a most beautiful approved souvenir programme from the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, that I thought some of the contents were worth sharing. It was published on 2nd June 1953. It begins with a poem from the Poet Laureate of the day, Mr John Masefield. “Our Gracious Sovereign This Lady whom we crown was born When buds were green upon the thorn And earliest cowslips showed; When still unseen by mortal eye One cuckoo tolled his “Here am I”, And over little glints of sky, In rain-pools whence the trickles flowed, The small snipe clattered wing. The swallows were upon the road, Nought but the cherry-blossom snowed, The promise was on all fields sowed Of Earth’s beginning Spring. Now that we crown Her as our Queen May love keep all her pathways green, May sunlight bless her days; May the fair Spring of her beginning Ripen to all things worth the winning, The very surest of our praise That mortal men attempt. May this old land revive and be Again a star set in the sea, A Kingdom fit for such as She With glories yet undreamt”. Here is a family tree, useful to those of us that didn’t study English history (ask me anything about William Wallace!). By Arthur Bryant: “Our Queen who is crowned today is descended from Alfred – the lonely King who saved England by his courage and Christendom by his example, and, single-handed, recreated civilisation in a ruined land. She is the descendent of the great Norman who, though he conquered England, made her the first national kingdom of Europe. Of Edward I, father of our Parliament; of the first and wisest of the Tudors and she is the great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria. As on this historic day she rides, radiant and crowned, in her golden coach through the ranks of her cheering peoples, she expresses the dedication of a vast part of the human family to the task of making earth a juster, kindlier and more gently place.” Souvenir coronation flag issued to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II. The portrait of the new Queen is surrounded by four flags, including that of Australia (the Red Ensign), superimposed on a Union Jack And finally, towards the end of the booklet, it lists the who, when and where details of the State Procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. Amongst the many grand sounding visitors were: His Highnesses the Sultans of Lehej, Selangor, Johore, Perak, Zanzibar and Kelantan. Also invited were the Queen’s Honorary Physicians, Surgeons, Dental Surgeons and Chaplains. Recognisable names included The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill (Prime Minister), Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (aka “Monty”) and Vice-Admiral The Earl Mountbatten of Burma (our Kings favourite Uncle). The History Society has ordered the official programme from our Kings Coronation and hopefully it will be stored safely in our archives for future generations to read and remember. If you have any records, mementoes or memorabilia from this Coronation, or in fact from anything to do with Thursley or its people, and would be happy to donate it to our archives, please contact jackierickenberg@gmail.com or alisonhanbury@live.co.uk.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in October 2022 We will all truly be ensconced in Autumn when you read this, but currently I am reflecting on the long, hot summer we either endured or savoured, depending on your disposition! It made me think about how we managed in years gone by and what tips we could, in fact, glean from those days. So, as we approach what will invariably be a difficult winter for an awful lot of people, from these articles, we are reminded that our sense of community is more important than ever. From “In Days Gone By” by Lucy Good, she writes: “After being without electricity and trouble with the water recently, reminds me of days gone by in the village when we had a very hot summer and a drought. I lived in Yew Cottage. My father, Thomas Karn, worked with grandad and Uncle Jack in the Forge (the Karns at the shop were another family). There was no electricity in the village in those days or water on the mains. The rain water butts and tanks were empty and then the wells dried up. I can see my father now, with a wooden yoke with two pails on, struggling up Dye House Hill after getting some water from the stream at the bottom which, in those days, fell into a small waterfall before going under the road. The water had to be for drinking, washing, cooking etc, and also some had to be brought up to use in the Forge. Mr Rapley at Hill Farm had a horse-drawn water cart which he used to get water for the animals and also to water the cricket pitch which was done with the horse’s hooves bound with sacks to save them churning the green up. Everyone had oil lamps and candles for lighting – and of course, coal or log fires and stoves for cooking on. Apart from all this, what we did have were two shops. Karn’s Stores, where their bread was baked in a brick oven heated by wood faggots and always hot cross buns on Good Friday mornings, delivered on the door step still warm. The oven had to be kept heated and on Sunday mornings one could take their joint or a cake along and get them cooked for a penny for each one”. Taken from Dye House showing the steep gradient of the hill In “Disappearances” written by Mary Bennett, she reflects on the changing landscape and how nature is being affected by the climate and ever-changing world. “One of the changes in the Thursley scene during my lifetime has been the disappearance of ponds. Before the late 1940’s every farm had one. Cows drank from them, ducks swam on them, swallows hawked over them, frogs spawned on them. One of my great failures as a godparent was when I assured a child in need of tadpoles that there were bound to be lots in the pond in Smallbrook Lane and then arrived to discover that it had been cleaned up and turned into an ornamental pool. Later it went altogether. Where do frogs go to breed now? Or have they been eliminated? (I do believe it has been reinstated – Ed). What else has vanished? Elms and rabbits, of course, though both are doing their best to come back. The big hedge-elms went not many years after the war, victims of the axe rather than the bug. Before that we called the straight stretch of Highfield Lane immediately above Homefields, “The Avenue” because it was bordered with such fine trees. They made it very dark when one walked up from the village on a winter evening, so that it was a comfort to come back into the starlight as one turned the corner; all the more of a comfort since at that point there was a nasty little echo that sounded like footsteps padding along behind one. Alarming in a different way was an occasional sight of the big white barn owl that lived, I think, in a tumble-down, ivy-grown barn behind Hedge (now Rawdon). The brown owl can still be heard from time to time, but I suspect that it is a very long time since a white owl was last in evidence in Thursley. Bats and butterflies are both much scarcer than they were. What child would now covet a butterfly net? A few years ago, I would have said the same of chaffinches, but they seem to be coming back even more successfully than rabbits or elms. I was delighted to encounter quite a good flock in Highfield Lane last winter, even though it was nothing to compare with the huge flocks that once used to turn up, with supporting parties of greenfinches, every time that one fed the hens during the winter months. I suppose that the grubbing up of many hedges must have made all the everyday hedge birds thinner on the ground, but as long as there were some of them about one doesn’t really notice until they vanish completely. I don’t remember when the cuckoo started to become so much rarer. In May, cuckoos once really did sing all day, everywhere, and one often saw them flying over the fields, cucking and burbling as they went. House martins, anxiously awaited, still turn up; but in the last few years the swallow has all but vanished. Is all this the result of events in Africa, or is it anything to do with damage to habitat here? Does everyone in every country tidy up too much? It is melancholy to think that a child growing up in Thursley in future might have to go to a special reserve to see a tadpole or an owl, and might never see a swallow at all”. Interesting that Colin the cuckoo, so admired by a pilgrimage of twitchers every May on the parish field, would have had a lot more feathered friends than he does today. This was written around the mid 1980’s (although some of it refers to much earlier times, as does the first article), after the last major epidemics of Dutch elm disease and myxomatosis had ravaged the country. And I’m not sure the memories, certainly from my childhood, of the pastime of young children capturing butterflies in jam jars, is to be encouraged these days!

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in November 2021 On Sunday the 14th of this month, Thursley History Society is holding the long awaited VE Day exhibition in the village hall between 10am and 4pm. Please do pop in to listen, see and touch the exhibits that demonstrate the lives and times of the village and villagers during the war years. As disclosed last month, we are delighted to be launching our book “Thursley Remembers” at the exhibition, and in order to whet your appetite before then, I thought an excerpt from it would be a suitable enticement! PARKER, Alfred Nigel, Major. 5th Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders Died 23rd October 1944. In the 1922 issue of “Small Country Houses of Today” magazine, Foldsdown House, Thursley, was described as “taking its place naturally and pleasantly in a part of Surrey so beautiful that an ill-considered building is more than usually an outrage”. It was here that Nigel Parker grew up, having been born in the September of 1915, to his parents, Alwyn Parker, C.B, C.M.G, a respected diplomat and City banker, and Sophia, a society figure in her own right. He was baptised in the church of St Michael’s and All Saints on October 15th by the Reverend C.K. Watson. His early education took place at St Peter’s Court, a preparatory school in Burgess Hill, Sussex, followed by his moving to Harrow School. After his time at Harrow, he went up to read law at New College, Oxford, in anticipation of a career in the legal profession in the City. Whilst at Oxford, he successfully rowed for his college. After coming down from Oxford, he was articled to the long-established Solicitor’s firm of Linklaters & Paines, in London, where he worked until the outbreak of war in September 1939. As soon as that occurred, he made the decision to join the ranks of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. It was at this time, in the January of 1940, that he also married the American born twenty-year-old Jean Cecelia Constance Eliott in the Chelsea Register Office, a larger society wedding being impossible at the time, due to his military commitments. They were to have two children, a son, Colin, born in November 1940, and a daughter, Veronica, born two years later, in May 1942. In 1940, The Queen’s went to France as part of the 51st (Highland) Division with the British Expeditionary Force, in an attempt to stem the tide of the German armies which were sweeping down through the Low Countries and into Northern France. When it became apparent that the Allied troops needed to be evacuated, plans were put into force that resulted in the events that, these days, we know simply by one word – Dunkirk. In order to hamper the relentless progress of the Germans, the Queen’s saw action at the town of St. Valery-en-Calais, and it was during this fighting that Nigel Parker was wounded. In the middle of battle, he was shot in one leg by a sniper; falling to the ground, he rolled over, to be then shot in the other leg. It was ironic that it appears that his wearing a kilt (contrary to regulations) in fact saved his life – he was told by his doctor that the kilt had saved him, as a khaki battle dress would have poisoned the wounds. As a result, he was invalided home, where he recovered. He then spent the rest of the war, until 1944, training troops in Scotland, near Inverness. After the D Day landing of June 1944, he rejoined his unit, and once again landed in France. His superior officer, Colonel (later General Sir) Derek Laing sent him in command of D company, as the first British troops to re-enter the newly liberated St. Valery-en-Calais, after it had been forced to surrender back in 1940. This was regarded as a great honour. As the Division moved northwards towards Germany, in October the Queen’s found itself as part of Operation Pheasant, which was a major operation to clear German troops from the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. And it was here that Nigel Parker fell, in the middle of fierce fighting during the liberation of the town of Schijndel. The night of Sunday 22nd October 1944 was notably dark and cold. For the men of the Queen’s their attack area was an open meadow that they had to pass over, in order to reach the enemy lines. Their target was the elimination of a strong German detachment of Fallschrirmjager soldiers of the German 59th Division, located by a railway line in the De Berg area of Schijndel. At midnight, there was a heavy artillery bombardment in support of the troops, who then proceeded to advance towards the German position. They had to move forward through open meadows as well as marshy peatlands, totally without cover, and they were hit heavily by German machine guns with tracer ammunition as well as sustained mortar fire. It was said that “Hell broke loose”. Major Parker was hit three times in a row, twice he managed to get up, according to eyewitnesses, but the last hit was fatal. The battle continued all night, until at about 6am a group of Sherman tanks appeared, and the Germans withdrew. A total of 12 men were killed that night, plus a further 56 either injured or seriously wounded. The next morning, the 12 dead bodies lying in the field were collected by their own men under the supervision of a Padre Smith and buried in temporary graves nearby, at a local farm owned at the time by the Van Mensvelt family. They were later reburied, with full honours, in the nearby Uden War Cemetery. A fellow soldier on the day of the battle, Sgt George Sands, said of his commander “Major Parker had been a good commander and friend and a very brave man”. This is but one of the many tales relating to the names on our war memorial in the churchyard. There are many more, as each name is included. Please buy a copy of “Thursley Remembers” and keep for future generations to “Never Forget”. The book was published in 2021 and was made possible by the support of the Armed Forces Covenant Fund. It contains details of the twenty seven names on the War Memorial located in the cemetry of St Michael and All Angels. They are persons who died in both World wars, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, in the service of their country and for the cause of freedom from tyranny and oppression. See also Thursley Goes to War The file below is a copy of the Remembrance Day Service held on Sunday, November 12, 2023

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in July 2022 Well, I hope you have all recovered from the truly memorable Platinum Jubilee celebrations! A magnificent week of pride and pagaentry in celebration of our hard-working, devoted and beloved monarch. If you can cast your mind back to before this time (it seems an age away!) and the last article, which was all about our famous one time resident H A L Fisher and his involvement in Operation Mincemeat, I wanted to continue the story, this month focusing on his wife Lettice Fisher and next month their daughter, Mary, at one time, all past residents of Thursley. They were both ground-breaking and inspiring women in their own right and here is Lettice’s story. Lettice Fisher (nee Ilbert) was born in 1875 in Kensington, London, to Lady Jessie and Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, a lawyer who was soon to become Clerk of the House of Commons. She was one of the earliest female students at Somerville College, Oxford and as such, Herbert (HAL) agreed to take her on as a pupil. In 1897, Lettice duly got her first in Modern History, and proceeded to the London School of Economics, working as a researcher for a two-year tenure. The Ilberts, so Lettice’s sister later wrote “had long coveted Mr Fisher as a son-in-law”, and Lady Ilbert took appropriate steps; she rented a house on the outskirts of Oxford for the summer following Lettice’s London placement. With four lively daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three, plus their engaging little sister of eight, there was no shortage of young men to walk up Headington Hill for tennis or dinner, Fisher being among them. The engagement was announced, and in the summer of 1899, they were married. She then returned to Oxford to teach History at St Hugh’s College and also teaching Economics for the Association for the Higher Education of Women in Oxford. As her daughter, Mary, recounted; “With his in-laws, Fisher was an unqualified success, however the Fishers were not so sure about Lettice. It was true that she was an efficient housekeeper – the Ilbert daughters were all brought up to believe that husbands must be sheltered from practical cares! It was true also that she was an admirable hostess to his colleagues, friends and pupils, and that it never occurred to her not to put his work first. But the Fisher view of Woman was as a “dark star” reflecting the glory of Man and Lettice was not at all like a dark star. She was enthusiastic, confident and articulate, ready to throw herself into any generous cause, not in the least concerned with conventions and quite determined to earn her own living. She gardened and kept hens, she played the violin, she involved herself in housing management, infant welfare, women’s suffrage and liberal politics. As a teacher of History and Economics, she was one of the first, perhaps the very first, married woman to hold a tutorship in an Oxford women’s college. As a good liberal, her husband approved all the causes but perhaps wished there were not so many of them!” In 1913, the Fishers had a daughter Mary, destined to be their only child. It didn’t appear to have diminished Mary’s ambitions and in 1916-1918 she chaired the national executive of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. During World War 1, Lettice undertook welfare work among women munitions workers. It was the wartime scale of illegitimacy and its resulting hardships that led her, in 1918, to found the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, in order to challenge the stigma associated with single parent families, and to provide them with the support they needed. The Council aimed to reform the Acts that discriminated against illegitimate children, and also to address the higher death rates of children born outside marriage, by providing accommodation for single mothers and their babies. Lettice Fisher was the first chair of the Council, from 1918 to 1950. In the early 1970’s, after Lettice’s departure, the name was changed to National Council for One Parent Families and in 2007, it merged with Gingerbread, and continues to this day working to improve the livelihood of single parents. J K Rowling is currently the charity’s President. Mary continues “There was a very odd situation after my father died in 1940, because my mother thought that New College (where my father was Warden) would elect another Warden and she would be returning to Thursley as soon as she could get out of the house. However, New College decided that they didn’t want to elect another Warden at the beginning of the war; they wanted to hold the position and let the Sub-Warden go on administering. And so, they asked her to stay on and keep on running the Lodgings, perhaps put up some evacuees, keep in touch with undergraduates and so on. So that is what my mother did until 1943, when they did brace themselves and elect another Warden.” Hence why H A L Fisher’s belongings were still in Oxford when Operation Mincemeat had the need for his quality underwear. And why Lettice Fisher did not move permanently to Rock Cottage at the top of Highfield Lane until 1943. She was then able to involve herself in the activities of the village: she was a governor of Thursley School, a member of the WI, started a choir and made many friends. She suffered her first stroke in 1949 and died in 1956. Lettice was an extraordinary woman of her time, strong, fiercely intelligent with a great capacity for empathy and kindness. Thursley should feel very proud to have had such a dazzling (not dark!) star in its midst during this time. Next month – Mary Bennett (nee Fisher).

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in June 2022 Well, isn’t life strange? I’ve been writing and collating these reports for a couple of years now, and just when I find myself, for the first time, scrambling around for something interesting and topical, along comes a best-selling book and film with a somewhat tenuous but nevertheless curious connection to our sleepy Surrey village. As Paulo Coelho once wisely said “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. I shall tell you the tale first and I wonder how long it will take you to name the book and film (in cinema’s now, as I write this in late April). On Christmas Eve 1919, a chap called Walter Wright sold Rock Cottage, at the very top of Highfield Lane at the head of the Valley of the Rocks, to the President of the Board of Education (what would now be the Secretary of State) H A L Fisher. In fact, it was not Herbert Fisher who made the decision to buy Rock Cottage – it was his wife Lettice (at the time they had a seven-year-old daughter called Mary). She committed them to the purchase on the basis of one brief visit, being largely persuaded by the fact that Walter Wright’s daughter who was residing in the property during this visit, was called Lettice Mary! Fisher was born in London in 1865, the eldest son of eleven children. Direct relatives included brother-in-law, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and first cousins Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, and his godfather was the Prince Consort. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford and it was there he took up his first post as a tutor in Modern History. By 1913 he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield and by 1916 Fisher was elected Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam. He joined David Lloyd George’s government as President of the Board of Education. And of course, Lloyd George became Churt’s most famous resident a year later. Coincidence, or were they close? He was sworn on the Privy Council, therefore becoming The Right Honourable, and it was in this post that he was instrumental in the formulation of the Education Act 1918, which made school attendance compulsory for children up to the age 14. Fisher was also responsible for the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1918, which provided pension provision for all teachers. So, when Herbert Fisher bought Rock Cottage a year later, in 1919, he was already a committed, hard-working MP and government minister and remained so for a further 7 years. When he retired from politics in 1926, at the age of 61, he took up the post of warden of New College, Oxford which he held until his death. During his long, illustrious career he served on the British Academy, the British Museum, the Rhodes Trustees, the National Trust, The Governing Body of Winchester College, the London Library and the BBC. In 1939, he was appointed the first chairman of the Appellate Tribunal for Conscientious Objectors. Unfortunately, this inadvertently would be responsible for his demise on 18th April 1940. On this date, whilst in London to sit on a Conscientious Objectors’ Tribunal during a blackout on what was called a London “pea souper”, H A L Fisher was knocked down by a lorry and died in St Thomas’s Hospital. Now, what was it about this honourable man’s life and ultimately, his death, that made it into a best-selling book and film? Well, bizarrely it was his underpants. You see, Fisher had left a few of his possessions - clothes, his library of books, etc in New College, Oxford and they were still there a couple of years later, when in 1943, Operation Mincemeat was being planned and executed. This is now the name of the best-selling book by Ben Macintyre and a film starring Colin Firth. Operation Mincemeat was a British Intelligence operation to deceive enemy forces, where they undertook the invention of a false Royal Marines officer, whose body was to be dropped at sea in the hope the false intelligence it carried, would be believed. It was, indeed, a success and was responsible for misleading German intelligence and possibly influencing the eventual outcome of the war. The following excerpt from the book, explains the details that joined the otherwise unlikely chain of events: “Underwear was a more ticklish problem. Cholmondeley, (intelligence officer) understandably, was unwilling to surrender his own, since good underwear was hard to come by in rationed, wartime Britain. They consulted John Masterman, Oxford academic and chairman of the Twenty Committee, who came up with a scholarly solution that was also personally satisfying. “The difficulty of obtaining underclothes, owing to the system of coupon rationing”, wrote Masterman “was overcome by the acceptance of a gift of thick underwear from the wardrobe of the late Warden of New College, Oxford”. Major Martin (the corpse’s new identity) would be kitted out with the flannel vest and underpants of none other than H A L Fisher, the distinguished Oxford historian and former President of the Board of Education in Lloyd George’s Cabinet. John Masterman and H A L Fisher had both taught history at Oxford in the 1920’s, and had long enjoyed a fierce academic rivalry. Fisher was a figure of ponderous grandeur and gravity who ran New College, according to one colleague, as “one enormous mausoleum”. Masterman considered him long-winded and pompous. Fisher had been run over and killed by a lorry while attending a tribunal examining the appeals of conscientious objectors, of which he was chairman. The obituaries paid resounding tribute to his intellectual and academic stature, which nettled Masterman. Putting the great man’s underclothes on a dead body and floating it into German hands was just the sort of joke that appealed to his odd sense of humour. Masterman described the underwear as a “gift”; it seems far more likely that he simply arranged for the dead don’s drawers to be pressed into war service”. So, there you have it, an eminent academic and politician who served his government and country, published many important papers, bills, reference and textbooks – and his legacy we’re talking about today is his underwear, high quality though it may have been. Although The Rt Hon H A L Fisher was the last man, until the present day, to have bought Rock Cottage, he spent most of his time in London and Oxford. However, his wife and daughter, both extraordinary woman in their own rights, lived in Thursley for many years and I will be delving more into their past next month. Special thanks to Sally Scheffers and to Arthur Lindley, the current owner of Rock Cottage, for their help and assistance this month. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-war-on-paper-operation-mincemeat

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in January 2023 Happy New Year from the Thursley History Society. Last month, James Mendelssohn wrote about the lessons learned from the devastating fire on Hankley Common this summer, and how we can apply those findings to our own small but fairly spread-out community. We all like to hope that the fires that have ravished our commons in recent years were accidental incidents but this month’s story features a far more sinister turn of events. I came across this article taken from Old Bailey Proceedings Online, dated 31st March 1879, from the trial of Thursley resident, Alan John Mitchell, who was charged with Arson, with intent to injure. The article is as it was written up in the Proceedings, so there is an element of repetition, but I thought worth including a lot of it, in order to get the full story. The language is of the time! WILLIAM LILLYWHITE I am keeper to Mr Robert Webb, Lord of the Manor of Witley, in the county of Surrey. On 9th March I saw some fires burning on the common. I went to find a friend, Mr Budd. I went in front of the Red Lion public house** at about 10pm. I saw Alan Mitchell there, and heard him use the expression that he would burn the b_____ common* out. I then went and concealed myself a little distance from the Hammer Ponds, about half a mile from the public house. I saw the fires burning from the direction of the public house all along the road. I saw the prisoner and two other men, Keen and Elwyn, coming along the road towards the Hammer Ponds. They came close to where I was watching and I heard Keen say “Don’t do it, Alan, you are a fool if you do, there is someone watching”. The prisoner then stepped back in the road for a few seconds, he then came towards the bushes, a little above where he was the first time, and I moved from the place where I was watching close where he came across, and I distinctly saw him take the matches from his clothes, light them and put them into the bushes, and light the bushes in several different places. The common was burning the six or seven different places at that time. I said to him “Alan, what are you doing this for? Are you not right, now?” He did not make any reply. I told him he would hear of it. Keen came up at the time and said “If we put it out, I suppose that will do?” Cross-examined I had been out nearly all of the evening. I left home just before 7 – no fires were burning at that time. There was one fire between 7 and 8, but not in the Milward Manor. Our manor is the Witley Manor, it is all the same. Some call it Witley and some Milward, they are not in different parts, they are both in one. I saw one fire in the Pepper Harrow Manor a little after 7, this fire was nearly a mile from the fire I saw burning at Witley. WILLIAM BUDD I live at the Silk Mills in Thursley. I was with Lillywhite on the night of the 9th of March. In consequence of something that he had seen, he asked me to go out with him. I went with him towards where the fire was burning. We hid ourselves in the bushes. I heard someone say “Don’t you do it, Alan”. Then I heard Lillywhite say “Alan, what are you doing that for? I have caught you now”. I can’t tell whose voice it was that said “Don’t do it, Alan”. I did not see anything done by anybody. I saw a fire alight, I did not see who lighted it. I know two Alan’s in the neighbourhood of Thursley. No more. I don’t think so. The two I know are Alan Mitchell, the prisoner, and Alan Elwyn. I did not see Alan Elwyn that night. CHARLES FREDERICK NORTON (Policeman 50 Surrey Constabulary). I apprehended the prisoner at the Horse Shoe Inn on 10th March. I charged him with setting fire to the common, the property of the Lord of the Manor. He said “If you want me for anything I did last night, why don’t you summons me, and not take me now?” He said “Will you let me go home to change my clothes?” I accompanied him to his house, and allowed him to go upstairs to change his clothes and I stood at the foot of the stairs. I could not hear him moving about and I went up and then found that he had escaped by jumping out of the window. I next saw him in a lane at the back of the house. I went after him and when he saw me get over the fence, he started running. I ran after him and eventually caught him. He afterwards said, “I know I went down the road last night, but I was drunk, and if I did anything wrong I did, but I don’t know it”. The proceedings continue on in a lengthy fashion, taking evidence from Frederick Rothwell – the bailiff to Mr Webb, Lord of the Manor of Witley, and witnesses for the Defence including Alan Elwyn and Albert Keen, who “saw nothing” and admitted to “having been in a little trouble, it was not about poaching. I don’t know what it was; I never heard nothing. I have never been in prison, I was convicted and fined for poaching”. Potentially an unreliable witness, might I suggest! Other names mentioned, who were all drinking in the Red Lion that night and went down to see the fires were Robert Walker, Bill Carter, Jerry Dark, Hughy Mitchell and James “Wisdom”. And even though the waters were muddied somewhat by Alan Elwyn claiming that William Lillywhite had been in The Half Moon*** all afternoon, implying his recollection and judgement might have been somewhat hazy, Alan Mitchell was found guilty and sentenced to five years Penal Servitude, which was, according to The Penal Servitude Act of 1857 , imprisonment with hard labour! *Blanked out in the transcript **The Red Lion Inn (Bridle Cottage) was on the Old Portsmouth Rd, now a private house. ***The Half Moon pub was situated down the slip road onto the A3, I believe, just before Hammer Ponds. If anyone has any photos or info on The Half Moon, we would love to see it.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in April 2021 Following on from the piece last month on children’s author Monica Edwards, there is a very pleasing connection with this month’s subject, Margaret Woods. She was - in her latter years - a long term Thursley resident, and was a renowned author and poet, but in a strange quirk of fate, she lived all her days in Thursley, in Vine Cottage, also the home today, of Monica’s son, Sean. Margaret lived here for twenty-five years, and Vine Cottage was her last home. Her Times obituary called her “one of the most distinguished women writers of her day” and she moved in the most eminent intellectual circles of the Late Victorian epoch. Her presence in the village, would certainly have lent it an air of distinction. Margaret came from a highly academic family. She was born Margaret Louisa Bradley, although called Daisy by those close to her, and she was the third of seven children of the Reverend George Granville Bradley and his wife Marian. At the time of her birth in 1855, he was a master at Rugby; when she was three, he became Headmaster of Marlborough College; when she was fifteen, Master of University College, Oxford; and when she was twenty-six, Dean of Westminster. One of her two brothers, Arthur G Bradley, wrote numerous works of history and travel, and all four of her sisters published fiction and poetry. A high achieving family, if ever there was one! After being home educated, Daisy’s early work owed much to her admiration of two family friends, Lord Alfred Tennyson, who could reduce her to tears of emotion whilst reading his works aloud in her presence and Matthew Arnold, who had been a pupil of her father’s at Rugby. In April 1928 she was to record a BBC radio interview entitled “A girl’s memories of Tennyson”. Although best known as a poet, her novels also earned the respect of critics. Her marriage at age twenty-four to Henry G Woods, Fellow and Bursar of Trinity College, Oxford, was happy and she was devoted to their three sons born in the 1880’s. However, happiness in her family life could not offset Daisy’s dislike of Oxford society, although there were exceptions when the artist William Rothenstein and poet Laurence Binyon became devoted friends. But she denigrated Oxford life on the whole as “that circle of Purgatory”! No surprise then that in the summer of 1897 her husband announced his sudden resignation as President of Trinity College, and he moved eventually on to an appointment in 1904 as Master of the Temple which took them to the imposing Master’s House, built by Wren, just off Fleet St, London. This enabled Daisy to flourish and become a central figure in the literary scene of that time. However, the death of her husband in 1915 ended this productive and gratifying period of her life. In reduced circumstances, due to the financial irresponsibility of a much-indulged son, she stayed with relatives and friends for some years before settling in Thursley. Vine Cottage, was then owned by Mr Allen from Elstead and let to Mr and Mrs Harbutt, and it was from them that Daisy rented rooms. With her charm and the beauty of her delicate features still apparent, she had no trouble in making friends with her neighbours. She fully participated in village life, attending church, sharing in the work of the Women’s Institute and during the war, helped in the village run canteen. She was well looked after by Mrs Harbutt and Daisy left her an annuity of £26, which must have been well earned, as a grandson was to report that he doubted Daisy could have even boiled an egg! Her strengths lay elsewhere and he remembers her in her seventies flawlessly reciting poetry in the most beautifully resonant voice. During Daisy’s early days at Vine Cottage, she would walk the three quarters of a mile to catch the bus to Godalming – less if good weather permitted a short cut across the fields – and from there she could take a train to London and sometimes onward to Oxford. This meant she could keep up with her literary connections and maintain lifelong friendships. However, a crippling injury in 1934 greatly curtailed her mobility. After alighting from the bus in Thursley at the Red Lion pub (now Bridle Cottage), she was knocked down by a motorcyclist and suffered a broken leg. This meant she had to forego the London meetings of the Royal Society of Literature, on which she served on the Academic Committee, and many other professional engagements. As her physical energy waned, and her eyesight began to fail, research became almost impossible and Daisy published no poetry or fiction. Her final essay, on the Oxford of her girlhood, appeared in 1941, and she passed away at the age of ninety in 1945. In the 1930’s whilst living at Vine Cottage, the artist Thomas B Yates RBA lived almost next door in The Lodge. He painted a most beautiful portrait of her (below)and it was accepted for, and hung in, the 1936 exhibition of The Royal Academy of Arts. A fitting testimony of an admirable woman and yet another famous “Thursleyite”. Note the church in the background. To the Forgotten Dead By Margaret L. Woods To the forgotten dead, Come, let us drink in silence ere we part. To every fervent yet resolvèd heart That brought its tameless passion and its tears, Renunciation and laborious years, To lay the deep foundations of our race, To rear its mighty ramparts overhead And light its pinnacles with golden grace. To the unhonoured dead. To the forgotten dead, Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein Of Fate and hurl into the void again Her thunder-hoofèd horses, rushing blind Earthward along the courses of the wind. Among the stars, along the wind in vain Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed, And nothing, nothing of them doth remain. To the thrice-perished dead.

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine in January 2021 Malcolm Henry Arnold, composer, 1921 – 2006 We continue on the theme of past Thursley residents who have made their mark in the field of the Arts. In late October, our attention was brought to bear to a very illustrious composer who lived here, albeit briefly, between 1962 and 1965. Sir Malcolm Arnold’s biographer is in the throes of a follow up to his original biography of this widely acclaimed composer of symphonies, ballet’s and film scores, to name but three musical genres he excelled in. As I made some enquiries into this great man, I was struck, not only by his obvious brilliance at his trade, but also by the streak of fun and sense of mischief he brought to life in a quiet Surrey village! The composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, who died at the age of 84, held a remarkable position in British musical life. The longevity of his reputation for more than half a century and the enduring affection of his extensive audience were both achieved without compromise. As a figure in wider national life he never attained the great eminence he undoubtedly deserved, perhaps down to his unconventional approach. However, from his first published works in 1943 to his retirement from composition in 1990, his independence of mind and individual voice won him respect from all sides of the musical world and he was awarded the CBE in 1970 and was knighted in 1993. Arnold began his musical career as a trumpet player and after incomplete studies at the Royal College of Music, London, he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1940. He remained an orchestral trumpeter until 1948, apart from a period in the army, which he loathed. The bullet wound in his foot which led to his discharge was apparently not from enemy action, nor seemingly from a third party of any sort! His music was full of tunes, technically brilliant, extravert, unselfconscious and fun. His output was huge: nine symphonies, concertos, ballets, chamber music, orchestral suites, choral music, solo songs, and works for wind and brass bands - as well as more than 100 film scores. Some of the more memorable were the David Lean film, Bridge on the River Kwai (for which, in 1958, he was one of the first British composers ever to win an Oscar), Whistle Down the Wind and the St Trinian’s series. Arnold was also known as an enterprising conductor of Jon Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra, in which he directed the rock band Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969. His obituary in 2006 read: With Arnold's death, we lose another of the great individualists who helped make 20th-century British music so gloriously untidy. His time in Thursley is remembered by a few current villagers and it appears he made quite an impression in his short time here. He could be described as a “bit of a character” and we all know one of those! Around this time, he married his second wife, Isabel, and they had a son, Edward, born in Thursley in 1964. He also had a son and daughter from his first marriage to Sheila, Robert and Katherine. He bought the house now called Sawyers, next to the recreation ground. At this time, it was called Canbury Cottage and he extended it to build a studio on the back. Like a lot of brilliant minds, he would lock himself away for weeks at a time whilst he penned his compositions (this room had a bed and washing facilities) and his food would be handed in by a Mrs Winter, who lived in Highfield, and presumably was his cook/housekeeper. After completing a piece or score he would appear, sometimes at two or three in the morning, put on some trick spectacles and climb the nearby lamppost, playing fanfares on his trumpet, to summon everyone to join in the revelry! Notoriously, he once had a summer party at the time when paper clothes were a thing (really?) and he bought all the ladies paper swimsuits, before turning on a sprinkler and waiting for the ensuing panic when the paper started to disintegrate. He was not wholly popular with the neighbours, it would appear! He was a regular at The Three Horseshoes and was often seen theatrically dressed in a flamboyant blazer, whilst marching up and down playing his trumpet. What joys! Sadly, he moved to Cornwall shortly afterwards, in 1965 and eventually passed away in 2006 in Norfolk. An outstanding British composer of our times. If anyone has any subject they would like to hear more about or any particular interest explored in this column, please do contact me at jackierickenberg@gmail.com.

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Photos from a file called Eddie Morgan's Album. The cars and number plates give a clue but the best comes from the Thursley Cricket float which was clearly taken in 1960