Happy Hallowe'en

 

Three little ghosts in Radnor House garden.

Hoopla at the Treehouse Cafe

 The Treehouse Cafe is holding an event for kids on Saturday 1st November, from 10am to 12 noon.  Tickets are £5 a child.  

This is in collaboration with Oil and Oak, so there are lots of crafty things to do.

The first thing is roasting s'mores over a fire, followed by a chance to make a candle, badge or crown.

At 11.30am, there will be a Best Dressed competition.

There's also a Woodland Scavenger Hunt, face painting, seasonal craft boxes that the children can take home - and Origin Pizza will be providing the food.

Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun! 

Haymakers Move

 For as long as I can remember, the Haymakers shop has been on the road between Kilvert's and Tomatitos.  It's quite a small, narrow shop.

Now they have new premises - bigger and more central.

 This is where the Literature Laboratory used to be, before their lease ran out and they went off to a new shop in Brecon.  It's a lot bigger than the original shop, so plenty of room to display things.

Cusop Funeral

 I was very sad to hear of the sudden death of Ian Jardin.  He lived in Cusop and was a keen member of the Cusop History Group and member of their Castle Project team.

I knew him because of his partner Tracy, who was one of the founder members of the Stitch and Bitch group that used to meet in Hay.  As I was another of the founder members, I've known them both for years, and I liked Ian a lot.  He will be missed.

The funeral will be held at Cusop Church on Thursday 6th November, at 2pm.  They have asked for family flowers only, and if anyone attending would like to give a donation, it will go to the upkeep of Cusop Church and the graveyard.

"You Were Only Supposed to Blow the Bloody Doors Off!"

 The quotation comes, of course, from one of the most famous exploding vans in cinema history, in The Italian Joh.

So this was the introduction to Tom Harris, of NEFX, who was talking about his long career of creating physical effects for the film and TV industry.  He wasn't involved in the Italian Job, but he did blow up a lot of vehicles in his time, and he had a lot of clips to show of the work he had done.

Some of the effects are so subtle they are not even noticed - a smoky atmosphere in a pub in Poldark, or rain (rain in film and TV is nearly always an effect that can be turned on and off).  When the ship in Hornblower was sailing through a howling gale - that was him.  He also made the cannons fire in Hornblower. 

Things like showers and kitchen stoves in TV and film are also effects, rather than the real thing.  He also showed a very scary clip from Spooks involving a fat fryer (which was not actually hot, but had to appear so in a torture scene). 

The very first highlight of his career was working on Morecambe and Wise - he built the toaster that was used in the justly famous sketch where they made breakfast to the tune of the Stripper.

He went on to work on Metal Mickey - not the robot, but all the other physical effects, which had to be done live in front of a studio audience, such as a floating (and crashing to the ground) tea tray, or a 'mad scientist' bench full of fizzing beakers for a science class.

This stood him in good stead for the stage production of Bugsy Malone - he brought along a splurge gun.  These had to actually work on stage, and he had to construct polystyrene shells for the splurge so they would hit the targets and splat on impact.

He also did a lot of pop videos - he built a chariot for Toyah Wilcox, and they hired the horse from the local Travellers in Wandsworth, where they were filming.  He put Diana Ross on a revolving platform with Roman candles shooting out of the sides for Chemical Reaction (there was a man underneath the platform, turning it by hand!) 

He set up the sugar glass window for Adam Ant to jump through in the Dandy Highwayman video - and he passed round sugar glass bottles, the sort used to break over people's heads in bar fights.  Just as he was saying that they were quite fragile, there was a crash and "Sorry!" from the back of the room!

When he worked on The Spy Who Loved Me, he took careful note of the 'cannon' they fired the Lotus Esprit out of to make it plunge dramatically off a dock - and used something similar for a van when he was working on Dempsey and Makepiece.  He was also responsible for a lot of fires on London's Burning, as well as things like collapsing scaffolding.  He even once set a listed building on fire!  Or so it appeared - the building was actually unscathed. 

I don't remember the series, but he showed a clip of a coach full of school kids overturning which was very dramatic.  If you looked carefully, the actual overturning coach, rolling down an incline next to a cement mixer, only contained the stuntman driver, but was cut cleverly with footage of the kids falling about while the camera revolved to make it seem like they were rolling over.  Part of the set up (he stopped the film to show us) was a small sign next to the cement mixer which said "Press the button here, Gabe" (Gabe was the stunt driver).  At that point, he was supposed to activate a canister of nitrogen which would push the bus over to roll down the slope.  In fact, he pushed it just a bit early, so the bus crashed into a telegraph pole at the bottom rather than the cars that they had set up.  They could only do the stunt once, though, so that was the shot they used. 

 It was a fascinating evening - and next year he's setting up an event where members of the public can "blow the bloody doors off" themselves!  He will show how the effect is set up, and you get to press the button!  For further information email unique@totallybespoke.vip

Greens at the Market

 

Here's the stall set up by the local Green party at yesterday's market - they seemed to have a steady stream of interested people, at least until Storm Benjamin caused the market to close up early.

They were also doing a survey to find out what local people were most concerned about.

Suddenly, the Green Party isn't a little minority interest party any more - the membership has doubled since Zack Polanski became leader, and is still going up, overtaking the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. 

Botany And Other Stories - Meet the Trustees

 Renovation work is  finally starting on Henallt House, which has been housing very successful open days of exhibitions, and Botany and Other Stories has blossomed into a registered charity.

Registered charities need a board of trustees, and the latest issue of the Cabbage Leaf has been put together to introduce them, and their various interests and expertise.

Dr Emily Warner is a researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, based at the University of Oxford.  Her special interest is trees.

Jeremy Armstrong is a woodland manager - so he also has a special interest in trees, and in increasing the biodiversity of woodlands by careful management.

Jenny Dicker is a farmer and specialist in Land Management.

Pierre Moulinier is one of the founders of Botany and Other Stories.  He is also a journalist, geographer and geopolitician.

 Françoise Verger is the other founder of Botany and Other Stories, and is also a journalist, as well as a language teacher and botanical illustrator.  At the moment she is painting a lot of different mushrooms!

Imogen Cripps is a researcher and Head Grower at a walled garden that is being restored.

Emily Jones is a pharmacist, who also grows medicinal plants (sometimes unintentionally, she says!) 

 Over the coming year there will be a series of events, and behind the scenes the trustees will be working to organise the volunteers, set up a scientific committee to help produce reliable information about climate change and nature, and to develop the Budding Botanical Illustrators Club, which was launched during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In November, the theme is Seeing the Wood for the Trees

In January - In Onion is Strength!

In March - Mushrooms are not Plants!  (they were disappointed that they couldn't do anything to take part in the recent Fungi Weekend organised by Hay Castle - but they voted on their programme in June, before they knew what the Castle was planning).

And from May to August next year, they will be exploring the themes of Hands in the Dirt, Heads in the Sun, Heart with Nature. 

Good News from Small Farms Butchers

 Small Farms Butchers recently announced that they were going to close permanently, due to family circumstances - but their Facebook page has a new update with some good news.

Tom and Julie from Upper Court Farm will be taking over the running of the shop, so there will still be a butcher's shop on Broad Street. 

[Edited to add: Small Farms already get their beef from Upper Court Farm, so they already have a relationship]

Repair Cafe

 The next Repair Cafe will be on Saturday 25th October, from 10am to 1pm, at The Pavilion on Brecon Road - so if anyone has something that needs mending, the volunteers will be there to help.  They also do knife sharpening.

They are also looking for new Volunteer Fixers. 

They also have a Facebook page at Hay Repair Cafe. 

Greens at the Market

 There will be a stall on the Thursday market this week run by the local Green party.

The Greens have been having a surge in membership over the last month, under the new leader Zack Polanski, so this would be a good chance to find out more about them and their policies.

Doing Strange Things with a Harpsichord

 It was a small, but enthusiastic, audience in St Mary's last night for the harpsichord concert - and two of the composers of the modern pieces were actually there to hear their work performed.  Janet Oates also sang for one of the pieces.  Sarah Lianne Lewis's Goleunir'r Dyffryn, for the Welsh part of the trip round the British Isles, was the world premier performance.  There were pieces from Scotland and Ireland as well, and also a piece to start the concert from Ana Bon di Venezia, an 18th century Italian composer.

It was a mix of traditional pieces and modern pieces in conversation with the older work, and the modern pieces were using the harpsichord in all sorts of unusual ways - knocking on the wood, plucking the strings inside the case and, in one case, rolling a golf ball around on the strings!  Despina Homatidou, the performer, was also called upon to hum and cry out at certain points.  It was quite fascinating to watch, especially in the piece called Keening, which was written shortly after the composer's father died. 

Later, in the question and answer session, Despina said that she hadn't been sure at first how robust the instrument was to stand up to such unusual treatment - but it turns out that harpsichords are tougher than they look!

It was also lovely to see a little girl in the audience with her mum - and she's clearly having piano lessons because she was allowed to try the keyboard of the harpsichord, which she did with confidence. 

The new pieces were commissioned by the Vale of Glamorgan Festival Legacy Funds,  

Special Effects at the Castle

 

Tom Harris will be speaking at the Castle about TV and film special effects.  From the poster, it seems that he's been involved in all sorts of shows over the years (I wonder what sort of special effects there were in Morecombe and Wise?).  

The talk is at 7pm on Thursday October 23rd, and costs £12.  Tickets available from Hay Castle Trust. 

Harpsichord Concert at St Mary's

 Tonight, at 7pm (doors open at 6.15), Despina Homatidu will be playing the harpsichord at St Mary's Church.  She is a Greek musician currently working at the University of Cardiff and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.  The concert is part of an initiative to produce new works for the harpsichord, and the programme will be a mixture of old and new, folk and classical.  There will also be a question and answer session, and there will be an interval with refreshments.  Tickets are £13.50 on the door.

Job Opportunity at the Food Hub

 Cultivate is the host of Bwyd Powys Food, the sustainable food partnership for Wales.  

Their vision is "Good food for Powys!  Where local, sustainable and healthy food supports local communities, its people and the environment."

They are based in Newtown, but are offering the opportunity of a job that involves remote working, so you don't have to live in Newtown to apply for it.

What they want is someone to help to develop a Food Hub in Hay, as part of the wider Powys Food Loops, from the planning stages right through to implementation.  It would suit someone who wants to enhance their business skills, learn more about sustainable food systems, and obtain real-life experience of implementing solutions to climate change.  The title of the post is Local Food Systems Officer and the closing date for applications is 2nd November.  More details can be found at  https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/details/17264917?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-10-17&utm_campaign=+Job+Alert+-+Local+Food+Systems+Officer+for+Hay+

(sorry that's a bit of a long url, but I can't do direct links). 

Changes on Broad Street - and Elsewhere in Hay

 Several businesses are changing hands or closing in the near future.

 Small Farms butchers is closing due to family circumstances - they're a very good butchers, and they'll be sadly missed.

Next door at the Chippy, the lady who runs the chippy has an allergy to fish which has been getting worse over the years, so she can no longer work there.  Happily, they have found a buyer for the business, so they are closing on 18th October and the shop will be re-opening on 1st November under new management.

Meanwhile, there are changes at Tomatitos:

 So it's goodbye to Thalia and her team, and hello to Hay Distillery on the drinks side (who have premises just down at the side where the pottery used to be), and Epicure on the food side, who have been working at Hay Castle Cafe.

Events at North Books

 There's going to be a talk at North Books on Thursday 30th October at 4pm.

Kate Evans has written a book called Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen, and she'll be in conversation with Jo Farrell, who leads the Stitches and Stories book group that meets at North Books.  The book tells the story of Jane Austen's live through the story of a quilt.  The event is free, but anyone who wants to go should email Jules at North Books, jules@northbooks.co.uk because seating is limited.  People are also encouraged to take a stitching project along with them if they like.

And the day before, Wednesday 29th October, from 11.30am to 1.30pm, author Lara Latcham will be signing her book Estella, about a woman with mental health issues who has been hiding her problems from her circle of acquaintances.  And then she meets an exciting young man....

Mapping Workshop

 

Mapping Workshop (including a walk around the local area), at the Globe on Tuesday 28th October, from 2pm.  It sounds fascinating - it's a pity I'll be at work!

Gareth Ratcliffe on the Visitor Levy

 Powys County Council have been discussing the possibility of charging a visitor levy on tourists to the area (for context, I've just booked a couple of days holiday in Manchester and part of the hotel fee was a small tax - about £1.20 - as a visitor levy).

Gareth Ratcliffe had some thoughts about that, which he shared on Facebook.

He was particularly concerned with the wording of the proposal.  Option 3 states that the money would be used to "support general Council services when the work impacts on visitors".  He points out that business rates in Hay already raise over £500,000 a year, and that the car park raises £365,000 a year which goes to the County Council - but when local groups hold events, they are also expected to pay the County Council.

He also pointed out that the National Park contributes greatly to the prosperity of the area by attracting visitors, but they don't have the same access to funding as the Council - and they need proper funding for the infrastructure to support tourism.  This is a responsibility of the Welsh Government rather than the County Council, but it is something that needs to be borne in mind.

He ended his speech by recommending that a visitor levy should be designed so that the benefits are shared fairly among all organisations that support tourism.

It'll be interesting to see what the County Council decides. 

Simo in Gaza

 There was a stall on the market on Thursday selling booklets of photographs in aid of a family in Gaza.  There were two volumes - the first shows what Gaza looked like in 2023, and the second shows the devastation since October 2023.

There's a short introduction to the first volume, explaining why Simo (Salama Al-Lada) made the booklet.  He says it is to tell the truth about the blockade of Gaza by Israel, that was tightened up when he was seven years old.  He grew up with Israeli checkpoints opening and closing at arbitrary times, meaning (for instance) that patients were unable to get to hospitals for treatment, and with Israel controlling all goods that went into Gaza.  

One of the pictures shows the fence that surrounds Gaza, with the Israeli army on one side and Palestinian protesters on the other.  "Do you notice the difference?" he asks in the caption.  "The difference is the Palestinian's fighting with his voice and the Israeli is fighting with weapons, artillery and tanks."

This is the background to the terrible events of October 7th, 2023, as shown through the photos of an ordinary young man living in Gaza.  He, and others like him, were trying to get information out to the rest of the world about what living in Gaza was like and why they wanted it to change.

I didn't get the second volume (but I will if the stall comes back), but that shows how life changed for everyone in Gaza after October 7th. 

Leigh Day reaches the High Court

 The legal firm Leigh Day have been collecting claimants for a case against the polluters of the River Wye for a couple of years now, and they've finally reached the High Court, with almost 4,000 people involved in the claim.

The case is that Avara Foods and Freemans of Newent (with their industrial chicken production) and Welsh Water (responsible for sewage) are polluting the River Wye, the River Lugg, and their tributaries.  Welsh Water is also being blamed for pollution in the River Usk.

They have all denied the claims.

Now they've reached the stage where the defendants must submit their responses to the claim to the High Court, and unless there is an out of court settlement, or the case is struck out, it will proceed to a civil trial.

The claimants have all made allegations against the companies - they are people who live near the chicken farms, sewage works, or have riverfront properties, and people who have businesses that depend on tourism and recreation on the river.  They are claiming damages, and want the companies to restore the rivers to their previous healthy condition.  

The river now has an ecological status of "unfavourable - declining" according to Natural England, when it used to be one of the cleanest rivers in the country.  They have been monitoring the river, and report declines in the numbers of salmon, white-clawed crayfish and macrophytes, which are aquatic plants.  Natural England attributes the decline to sewage discharge, agricultural practices and climate change.  At the moment, they are working with other local bodies like Herefordshire Council and the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust to put together a Nutrient Management Plan, in particular to reduce phosphates in the water.

The court will hear evidence from experts, including the campaign groups that have been monitoring the pollution in the river with volunteer citizen scientists, like the Friends of the Upper Wye. 

(information gathered from the Brecon and Radnor Express, Natural England, and Facebook posts from Leigh Day and others) 

Compost at the Castle

 Hay Castle is now running a composting scheme from the Castle Yard, up the track past Prints of Hay.

I met some friends last week, taking their compost bucket up there - they take the kitchen scraps up, and they get finished compost for the garden in return.  Today I went to see for myself.

 The scheme is for members only, and the emails and contact details are written on the smaller sign.  I think the email is hayigotworms@gmail.com (I had to blow up the picture pretty big to read it!)

Death of Ron Shoesmith

 I was sad to see the article in the Hereford Times this week with the title "'Doyen of history' dies".

Ron Shoesmith was 89, and he had retired to Brittany, where he died.

His career, though, was as an archaeologist - he was the Cathedral archaeologist  for Hereford Cathedral for 14 years.  There's even a gargoyle in his image, on the outer wall of the cathedral nave.  It was put up there in 2009.  Before his work for the Cathedral, he was the director of the City of Hereford Archaeology Unit, so he knew just about everything about archaeology in the city.  He wrote several books, to share this knowledge.

One of the tributes to him in the Hereford Times comes from Mark Haslam, of Herefordshire CAMRA - because he also wrote books about the history of local pubs. 

Blustery Fungi Weekend

 Storm Amy is causing problems for the Fungi Town weekend - the Saturday Market has been cancelled because it's too blustery to put the stalls up.  Only the Buttermarket has stalls today, because it's more sheltered.  Several of the shops have put up fungus themed window displays, but not many people are lingering outside to see them.

Lots of people were up at the Castle when I went in, though - and there is a magnificent array of fungi for them to look at.  I was pleased to find that I recognised about half of them (my ex-husband used to lead Fungus Forays for the Brecknock Wildlife Trust, and I picked up a bit of knowledge while I was trailing round after him!).  There are also talks and activities throughout the weekend.

They're hoping for better weather tomorrow! 

Bus Routes to Hereford

 There are road works in Dorstone at the moment, and that means that the entire Golden Valley is pretty much cut off - there's no way to detour around the road works and stay in the Golden Valley.

I needed to go to Hereford, so I turned up at the bus stop this morning and hoped for the best.

Francoise and Pierre were out there, one at each bus stop, to assist passengers, because nobody was sure which bus stop the bus to Hereford would leave from.

The bus arrived, and turned round in the car park, so that it was picking up passengers from the Brecon bus stop, so everyone at the Hereford bus stop scuttled across the road.

From there, the bus went down the hill and crossed Hay Bridge to Clyro, and took the road on that side of the river to Hereford, going through Whitney and Winforton and past Oakchurch farm shop, finally coming into Hereford by Whitecross Road.

I stayed on the bus all the way to the railway station because I needed to buy a new Senior Railcard, which was very quick and easy.

I also needed some specialist advice - my mum is getting pretty deaf now, so I said I'd get her a speaker phone, but I needed someone to talk me through the different types there are.  There's so much choice online, and I have no idea which ones will be suitable.  There's an office of a charity on Widemarsh Street, next to the Dogs' Trust charity shop, called Action Deafness.  They are a Deaf-led charity, so they understand the problems first hand.  Unfortunately, the lady who knows about phones is only there on a Monday, so the helpful chap who deals with the vision-loss side of the charity took my details, and someone will phone me with the advice.

Passing by the Cathedral later, I noticed that the electronic signboard by the bus stop there showed a time for the X44 to arrive at that bus stop.  I didn't want to leave anything to chance, though, so I went back to the railway station to get the bus home - and it was a good job I did.  The bus did pick up passengers from the back of Maylord Orchards, but after that, it went straight down Whitecross Road without passing the Cathedral.  So if anyone was waiting to catch the bus there, they're probably still waiting.