Village news from Helen Price – 12th Dec 2019

Village news from Helen Price – 12th Dec 2019

Published 10 December 2019

Kings Bromley Historians

Kath Reynolds brought back some happy memories at our last meeting with a talk and slides about sweets, many from our childhood. As some of us are of a ‘certain age’, we could remember rationing and, more importantly, when sweets became ‘off ration’ in 1953. The ration was 12 oz. sweets per month; other than that it was a carrot impaled on a stick and a lot of imagination.

Bertie Bassett was a trader in sweets in 1899, which he sold in various varieties. When he dropped his tray of samples the sweets became mixed and resulted in his Liquorice Allsorts. We could all remember smoking sweet cigarettes and liquorice pipes and feeling very grown up and sophisticated! It was surprising how many sweets were produced in the 19th century such as Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles 1881 and Gums 1893, still familiar to us today.

Kath was an entertaining speaker and made it a very enjoyable evening. A week later we enjoyed Christmas lunch at the Royal Oak, which was a very convivial occasion. We will be enjoying our usual post-Christmas walk on 30th December, and the first meeting of the New Year brings us Richard Stone’s ‘Painting with Light’, a talk on stained glass, at the Village Hall on Friday 31st January at 8.00 p.m. All are very welcome.

Kings Bromley Harmony Choir

The choir performed their third annual Christmas concert to a full church on Saturday, providing a lovely start to the festive season. The programme was interspersed with solos on the flute, piano, clarinet and saxophone.

Thanks were given to Gill and Glen Wright for arranging the event and supplying refreshments, to Kathryn Pretty-Hopson for her leadership of the choir and Linda Rich for the piano accompaniment. Cash donations were divided equally between the All Saints church and Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Renal Unit.

Branston Golf Club and Lichfield Morrisons store completed a trio of fund-raising performances by the Kings Bromley Harmony choir this weekend.