Hungerford Arcade Ian, Bear Grylls & The London Marathon

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2016 London Marathon Runner Ian Spuffard

Hungerford Arcade stallholder, Ian Spuffard is taking part in the London Marathon on 24th April, and is busy getting sponsors for the charity he is supporting which is “CLIC Sargent”. CLIC Sargent is an organisation dedicated to helping children and young people living with cancer, which is very dear to Ian’s heart. Ian’s sponsorship target is £1800 but he still has some way to go before the Marathon takes place.

Ian with hero, Bear Grylls

Ian was at the desk in the Arcade and could not believe his eyes when his hero, Bear Grylls walked in with his two children. Ian approached Bear and explained to him why he is doing the London Marathon and asked if he would help him. Bear was very impressed and was more than happy to have his photograph taken with Ian and help with his final push to reach his charity target.

Ian will be at the Flea Market in Hungerford Town Hall on Sunday, 3rd April, where his proceeds will be going towards that target.

You will find Ian on the fundraiser website: www.virginmoneygiving.com/ian

Hungerford Arcade In An Age Of Elegance

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I have just finished a novel called Carol by Patricia Highsmith. It is an elegant love story set in the America of the late 1940s and early 1950s. As well as transporting the reader back to the era, it is also a novel about travel and escape and also is something of a thriller.

Being an admirer of Highsmith’s work, I was not at all disappointed but what I did notice above all was how much the two main characters Carol Aird and Therese Belivet smoked. It seemed that in every chapter either Carol or Therese lit up.

Although it is not explicit, I would strongly imagine that Carol in particular would have used a cigarette holder and maybe would have introduced the practice to her younger lover Therese. To some extent cigarette holders are a thing of the past as are the beautiful lighters that one used to see and admire.

If one walks down any street in any town then one will see people smoking but they usually have the cigarette hanging from their lips or dangling from their fingers. Smoking is no longer chic. We have learned much about the possible side effects of the habit and quite often one looks at a person smoking and feels a gentle sorrow for them.

I have never smoked in my life as the taste and the idea leaves me cold but I can remember walking into adult rooms when I was a child and finding it difficult to see my parents. It was like a London fog. **On the small black and white television I was often told that a certain brand of cigarettes were as cool as a mountain stream. These were the golden days of smoking.**

I do not like smoking and if anybody asks me for support to break the habit then it is willingly given. But here is a secret of mine. I long to see a beautiful woman dressed in elegant clothes smoking a cigarette from a memorable cigarette holder. In these days of gory images on cigarette packets and their retail being obscured by ridiculous screens, one finds very little beauty in the practice.

In the last couple of years, pseudo-cigarettes have appeared and these are to this writer rather alarming as the victims seem to be enveloped in clouds of heavy smoke. Although I am told that these pseudo-cigarettes are supposedly more beneficial to ones wellbeing for me, the jury is still out. I cannot imagine either Carol or Therese puffing away on one of these oddities in New York or elsewhere during their trips together.

Hungerford Arcade-A slection of Cigarette holders that were sold at the Arcade

But what of cigarette holders? I have looked and you can still purchase these items from specialist outlets. But do you know what might be more fun whether you smoke or not.

**That is to collect cigarette holders from what I might call The Age of Elegance.**

It appears that cigarettes have been around for longer than most of us think. There are records dating back to the ninth century noting that reeds were used as a sort of smoking tube. The Maya and the Aztecs are known to have smoked tobacco and other drugs usually during rituals and the like. Cigarettes and its older cousin the cigar were widely smoked in the America’s and it was not long before they made it across the pond to Spain.

Around 1830 the cigarette was introduced into France and this was where it gained its name. **Britons started smoking cigarettes during the Crimean War (1853-1856), although evidence suggests that this habit was influenced by the Ottoman Turks as well as the Russians. By 1880 the whole process had been automated and the world was hooked.**

But what of cigarette holders when did they make their first appearance? Well surprisingly, cigarette holders date back to the late eighteenth century. Its initial use was to ensure that excess tobacco was successfully used. **As far as I can see, it was wrapped in paper (as with a roll up) and connected with the early holder to create a cigarette ( I am still trying to work out the mechanics of this procedure).**

One always thinks of the cigarette holder as a fashion accessory but the truth is far from that. Cigarette holders have a practical use as it prevents tobacco flakes from entering the mouth of the smoker. The cigarette papers would not cut the users lips also (imagine getting a paper cut on your lip, they are painful enough when you cut your fingers). **More importantly they could act as a filter to stop some the nasty stuff from entering ones system. (Filtered cigarettes only appeared in the 1960s).**

Cigarette holders also prevented staining of the smokers fingers and helped to prevent the smoke from stinging their eyes. Some of the more sophisticated holders even had a secondary filtration system. What I did not know was that cigarette holders actually came in four different lengths

Opera Length (c 16-20 inches)

Theatre Length (c 10 to 14 inches)

Dinner Length (4 to 6 inches)

Cocktail Length (really anything shorter)

The cigarette holders used by women were usually up to four inches long and often used for cheroots as well as cigarettes. As expected, cigarette holders were made from a variety of materials such as jade or Bakelite but silver and amber were often used as well as ivory. I have also seen examples made from enamel, horn and quite often tortoiseshell.

Men’s cigarette holders were made from wood, meerschaum as well as the materials already mentioned. The heyday of the cigarette holder was from about 1910 to the end of the 1960s. Hollywood was quick to get in on the act and to use a cigarette holder was seen to be an act of sophistication. Countless movies showed the actors smoking.

Hollywood was selling a fantasy product, elegant clothes and elegant accessories were shown frequently. These included cigarette holders. The next time you watch a Hollywood movie on a wet Sunday afternoon, see if you can spot their use.

A British girl from Belgium who was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston was perhaps the most famous user in a movie set in New York as the 1960s dawned. Other notable users outside of Hollywood included Jackie O, Princess Margaret, and Ayn Rand.

Perhaps my favourite photo involving a cigarette holder was taken in 1947 and shows Cleo Trumbo (The wife of the novelist Dalton Trumbo) elegantly smoking whilst listening to the sinister ramblings of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Her posture, the way that she was dressed and the way she was holding her cigarette holder all add together to show her contempt for the hearings.

Noel Coward is famously remembered with a cigarette holder as was Franklin D Roosevelt and my favourite composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was also a keen user.

Cruella De Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians used one in the 1961 Disney animation. The list is endless. Captain Hook used a unique double holder which allowed him to smoke two cigars at one time.

One frequently finds all kinds of cigarette holders in antique shops and the like. Quite often they come in elegant cases. To me they are rather like pipes they belong to the initial user. They are fun to collect but I always feel that they belong to someone else.

But do not let this put you off as they are beautiful creatures, are quite small and therefore do not take up much room if one started a collection.

For the reasons stated above I do not collect cigarette holders so price wise I would not know where to start. It is like everything else, always pay the price you are comfortable with. Some of the cigarette holders I have seen are miniature works of art. Some are minimalist in their design. Whilst others are highly decorated.

As stated I do not smoke and never have and it is likely that because of this I do not fully appreciate the cigarette holder. They are mysterious creatures. But from afar, I can write about these accessories and whilst I am not encouraging you take up smoking to start a small collection, it would be quite a nice idea and rather interesting.

I must close now as I have been invited to share breakfast with a young lady at a store on 5^th Avenue and I am already running late.

Happy Hunting

Stuart Miller-Osborne

Hungerford Arcade ‘Cor Divisi Choir’

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Hungerford Arcade is always buzzing, but today it echoed to a wondrous sound coming from Rafters Cafe`. Customers stopped and listened to this marvel and told me that there is a choir upstairs in the cafe singing beautifully as they waited for their lunch. I rushed upstairs, camera and notepad in hand and stood at the top just listening to the beautiful voices.

The Choir is the Cor Divisi from Valls, Tarragena, Spain. They told me that they had come over to England for the weekend on an exchange with the Harmony Choir in Newbury. Having spent a marvellous weekend together sharing songs, typical dances and cultures, they were told that they must go to Hungerford Arcade before they fly back home. They were not disappointed and neither were we.

Thank you Harmony Choir of Newbury for sharing this special weekend with us.

I did take a video so that you could hear for yourselves how wonderful the Cor Divisi Choir is but unfortunately, downloading it onto this blog has proved rather difficult. When I get it sorted out, I will post it.

Hungerford Arcade The Great British Clean Up for Her Majesty The Queen

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Hungerford Arcade will be looking forward to Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th Birthday on the 21st April along with the rest of the country. In readiness for this wonderful event, a task has been set to clean up the streets of Britain in time for this great celebration.

Hungerford Arcade co-owner, Adrian Gilmour with Girl Guide Leader, Zoe Hopkins

An army of volunteers all over the country are leading the way in this campaign for the Queen’s special day. You will see men, women and children with their litter pickers and colourful bags clearing all the rubbish from our streets. Here in Hungerford, we had the Hungerford Girl Guides and their leaders enthusiastically clearing every piece of litter that they could find. These range from sweet wrappers to takeaway cartons. This event also serves to remind each of us that we all have a duty to keep our streets clean everyday by using one of the many bins provided or to just take our litter home with us.

Here you can see the Hungerford Girl Guides with one of their leaders in action, clearing out rubbish that had been thrown into one of Hungerford Arcade’s flower containers. They were very keen not to leave any rubbish behind.

Fantastic Plastic – A brief history of melamine

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Midwinter Modern melamine teaware

The chemical melamine has many uses; from an ingredient in some mixtures of concrete, to an additive in industrial fertilisers. But mix it with formaldehyde and it becomes an incredibly strong, light and easily moulded plastic.

The relative light weight and strength of melamine led to its use as dinnerware aboard some ships in the US Navy – which in turn led to its use in millions of homes in the US and here in Great Britain.

1950s advert for “Unbreakable” Melmac

During the Second World War, metal was expensive. But aboard a Navy ship, it is my assumption that dinner plates falling on the floor was a very common occurrence, so everything had to be made out of tin – a light-weight and durable metal. As I mentioned, metal was at a premium and an alternative was needed. I’m sure they tried with other plastics such as bakelite, but it was brittle and didn’t stand up to repeated exposure to moisture and heat. This is where melamine comes in. The manufacturers touted it as “Break resistant” and “Virtually unbreakable” and that turned out to be quite accurate which made it the perfect material to use for military dinnerware.

Rare Fantasy dinner service designed by Joan Luntz

After the war, designers such as Russell Wright and Joan Luntz worked with companies in America to bring melamine into the nations kitchens with modern designs and bright colours. It wasn’t long before the craze made it to this side of the Atlantic and for some time, ceramics companies such as Midwinter were so worried about melamine taking over completely, they released their own range of modern dinner sets using the revolutionary material.

1960s melamine dinner set found in The Arcade

The set I have taken pictures of here is most probably of 1960s English origin. The box seems like it is original as all the pieces fit nicely inside internal compartments but I am unable to find any other evidence that Royal Tudor Ware ever made any melamine crockery. But as I mentioned before, some English ceramics companies did produce melamine for a short time to try to keep up with a changing market.

Original box for my melamine dinner set?

As with all things, fashion changed and a move back to the traditional china and ceramic dinnerware was inevitable. By the 1970s melamine had been relegated from the dining room to the picnic basket and the camper van (which is where I keep mine!). But today, if you were to do a quick search on eBay or Etsy you will find some of the big names in melamine are making a comeback. Mid-century design hasn’t been this popular since… well, since the mid-century!

Alex Rogers

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

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Waterford Crystal drinking glasses

Happy Saint Patrick’s day from everyone here at Hungerford Arcade! As everyone knows, today is a commemoration of the day Saint Patrick died. Another thing that everyone knows is that he famously drove all the snakes out of Ireland. But apparently, that isn’t true! I read today that there were never any snakes in Ireland to begin with. The allegorical snakes he drove out were actually druids, in his crusade to bring Christianity to the Emerald Isle.

Today, St Paddy’s day is a chance to celebrate all that is Irish! It is the most widely celebrated national festival around the world, with parades and parties taking place as far away as Argentina, Australia and the USA. Wherever you are, we wish you a happy Saint Patrick’s day!

Here are some Irish treasures spotted in the Arcade today!

Miniature Guiness bottles

Belleek porcelain

Hungerford Arcade ‘The Beauties of England’

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Hungerford Arcade’s wonderful friend and author, Stuart Miller-Osborne has written this fascinating article during his very busy schedule for which we are truly grateful. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did with a nice cup of tea!

A few days ago I popped into a bookshop in Henley on Thames during my lunch hour just really to shelter from the showers of the day. As I was about to leave I noticed an antiquarian book which looked interesting. **Its title in short was, The Beauties of England and the book dated from 1791. What initially took my interest was that there was a bookplate inside the front cover which noted that the book had once belonged to Bernard Edward, The Duke of Norfolk. Above the bookmark the name Charles Howard had been added in black ink.**

I purchased the book for two reasons. One was that it appeared to have been part of the library of The Duke of Norfolk and also, I was fascinated to find out who Charles Howard was. **The other reason was that Beauties of England was full of short portraits of the villages, towns and cities of Great Britain including Hungerford.**

Hungerford 64 miles from London stands on the River Kennet, famous for the best trout and cray-fish; but neither its buildings or market are considerable. The constable who is chosen yearly, is lord of the manor, and holds it immediately under the King. They have a horn here, holding about a quart, which the inscription says, was given by John of Gaunt.

This is a short description of Hungerford in 1791 and whilst the town has changed a little, one can still see our eighteenth century town. Our neighbours in Newbury also have an entry on the opposite page.

Newbury or Newborough 56 miles from London, remarkable for being the birthplace of that great clothier, Jack of Newbury. Large qualities of shalloons and druggets are still made here; which with its other trades render it a flourishing town. It stands very peacefully on the River Kennet. The streets are spacious, particularly the market place, in which stands the guildhall. History reports, that at the sand-pits near the town, several were burnt for their religion, in the bloody reign of Queen Mary.

The streets in Newbury have a sense of space but the town has obviously been built up since 1791. The Kennet and Avon Canal was still a few years away and it would be nearly seventy years before the railways reached both Newbury and Hungerford.

Lambourn also gets a short mention.

Lambourn or Langhorn, 10 miles from Newbury takes its name from the little river that runs by it, and falls into the River Kennet at Thackham. It stands on the S side of White-horse-hill in a pleasant sporting country.

Although I do not know Lambourn well, I am fully aware of its sporting connections which probably have not changed that much since 1791. One of the great things about living in the countryside is that things do not change that much. If the developers had their way then as with Thatcham and Newbury, new estates would spring up spoiling the landscape. But we are safe in Hungerford and beyond.

The true Berkshire countryside I believe, starts as you leave Newbury. If you are travelling by train it is noticeable how unspoiled the countryside becomes as you travel towards Hungerford. In the distance one catches glimpses of the far off Downs in all their moods. The canal follows the railway loyally and various creatures such as deer, rabbits and foxes are easily spotted. Kintbury comes and goes as does Hungerford, Bedwyn and Pewsey. The traveller is in some of the most beautiful countryside in Southern Britain. And it is here for each of us to enjoy.

A man such as myself in 1791 although with a lot less time on his hands, would have appreciated the landscape and maybe would have written about it. **He might have been as privileged as to own a copy of the Beauties of England who knows? But what I do know is that Bernard Edward the Duke of Norfolk had previously owned the book that I purchased in Henley. As had the mysterious Charles Howard. It was time to research these men a task which I found surprisingly easy.**

Bernard Edward Howard (1765-1842) was the 12^th Duke of Norfolk who inherited the title being the third cousin of a certain Charles Howard (1746-1815). This was the mysterious signature above Bernard’s bookplate. Charles Howard had been the 11^th Duke of Norfolk and to think that this 1791 book had belonged to both men was quite moving. It had most probably been part of the library handed down and is likely to have spent many years at Arundel Castle in Sussex. Quite how it ended up in Henley on Thames is anybody’s guess. Perhaps it was stolen by a member of the staff and sold on or more likely it became redundant and was sold by the house. It is not likely that I will ever find out but to imagine that this modest little book had been handled by both Dukes (Who were both direct descendants of Edward the First) is rather interesting to say the least.

Here in Hungerford in the early spring of 2016 I have this book in front of me. I am referring to it as I write this short article very much as the Dukes might have referred to it all those years ago. Charles Howard may have had occasion to go to Great Bedwyn and would have found the following rather strange description.

View eastwards from Great Bedwyn showing river, canal and railway

Great Bedwyn, formerly a city and the metropolis of Cissa a Viceroy of Wiltshire and Berkshire in the time of the Saxons is 70 miles from London. The church which is a spacious fabric is built in the form of a cross, has a lofty tower in the center and several ancient monuments.

You can see the history of the now sleepy Bedwyn in this short and slightly mysterious account. Nearby Marlborough is described beautifully.

Marlborough 76 miles from London, so called from the chalky soil in which it is situated is prettily built, but consists chiefly of one large straight street, with piazza’s along one side of it. It has a parish church and several commodious inns being the grand thoroughfare from London to Bath and Bristol.

But my favourite is little Froxfield which is surprisingly included.

At Froxfield, 7 miles distant, the late Duchess of Marlborough endowed an alms-house for 30 poor widows, with an ample annual stipend for apprenticing 10 or 12 children.

The alms-houses are still there and have not changed that much in the last two hundred and twenty-five years. As far I as I am aware the buildings still cater for widows although I think that the apprenticeships may have become a trust or the like since then.

I have only covered Hungerford and her neighbours in this article but the book itself covers the whole of Great Britain. It was a chance find during a damp lunch-hour in Henley on Thames. But then again, many of the most interesting finds occur when you are not actively seeking them. To stumble upon a book owned by the two Dukes of Norfolk is interesting enough in itself. But to see some of the towns and villages of this area over two hundred years ago is quite memorable.

I have lived in Hungerford for nearly ten years but feel that I have known the town and its neighbours for a much longer period.

Stuart Miller-Osborne

Hungerford Arcade W G Grace Cricket Bats

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Richard Fordham with stallholder Philippa Harper

There is no limit to the extraordinary people who come to Hungerford Arcade. Richard Fordham is a prime example. He told us that the company he owns is a well established company and have been in business for over 25 years. The company is based on the border’s of Suffolk & Essex in the village of Mount Bures. He said, “We have an excellent record & high standard of services and approach from our respectful & dedicated team.

We offer a wide range of professional service’s which are carried out all over the UK, from tree surgery to the harvesting and felling of cricket bat willow’s for one of the largest companies throughout the world, J.S Wright & Sons Ltd (Cricket Bat Manufacturer’s) Great Leighs, Chelmsford, Essex”.

Read the early history of the Wright & Sons’ Company below. It is fascinating.

History Pre 1963

Early History of the Company

Born in 1874, Jessie Samuel Wright lived at Warren Park in Little Leighs where he ran a building company.

On occasions he would meet a gentleman named Mr. Odd. Mr. Odd asked Jessie if he knew of any willow trees in his area, by his own admission Jessie’s knowledge of willow trees was limited. However Mr.Odd asked him to look out for any and let him know when he found some, he would then inspect them to see if they were the right variety. Once Jessie knew what to look for he decided it would be more lucrative than the building industry, so he bought The Willows in Little Leighs and named the company J. S. Wright in 1894.

This man was almost certainly Montague Odd, who made cricket bats, and in particular, he made bats for W G Grace at a guinea each.

His father (Amos Odd) had a cricket bat manufacturing business and sports shop in Croydon which Montague inherited. It was Amos who perfected and patented the cricket bat from its original crude form to that which we know today.

Jessie married Annie Mansfield, they had five children; Grace, Bessie, Stanley, Albert and Doris. Annie died very young and Jessie then married Kate Cranfield (c.1910) and they had two more children; Laura and Carleton.

As regards the Willow business, Jessie would do all the carting of trees and delivering of clefts to Rayne railway station, among other places, using a horse and cart. In those days the clefts were split from the rolls and left to stand for eighteen months before being sold air dried, no circular saws were used to shape the cleft.

Stanley, Albert and Carleton were involved from a very early age. During the first world war Jessie did not go to war but was in the Special Constabulary, therefore the business was able to continue. Occassionally soldiers would march from Colchester Barracks to Warley Barracks and would stop in the village for their lunch, the officers would come into The Willows and have lunch with Jessie.

Around 1922 Princess Marie Louise visited the company and took time to look at the process and inspect the clefts. She arrived by horse and coach, much to the delight of the local children.

It was now the second world war, only Carleton was called up for service, he was first stationed at Littlehampton and eventually travelled to many countries.

L to R: Stan, Jessie, Albert and Carleton

Stanley and Albert were in the Special Constabulary, so, as in the first world war, the company was able to tick over. The site was nearly destroyed, when a German bomb landed in the field at the back of the yard.

Jessie died in 1963 aged 88.

The family are still very much involved in the business. The business is run by the Chairman Nicholas Wright (Jessie’s Grandson) who has recently been awarded an MBE for Services to Industry, Jeremy Ruggles (Jessie’s Great Grandson) and Oliver Wright ( Nick’s son and Jessie’s Great Grand Son). The Company now produces more cricket bat blades than ever.

You can read more of this company’s amazing history by clicking on this link to their website at http://www.cricketbatwillow.com/

Hungerford Arcade – ‘Poetry in the Bookshop’

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Hungerford Arcade are always proud to promote special events in the town and this one is no exception. The Hungerford Bookshop hold many events throughout the year and are very popular. ‘Poetry in the Bookshop’ will be a wonderful evening and we hope you enjoy it.

‘Poetry in the Bookshop’

Tuesday 8th March

with guest poet Toni Kent – and you!

Due to the success of our ‘Poetry in the Bookshop evening’ as part of the Hungerford Literary Festival back in October, we have decided to run it three to four times a year.

The evening will start at 7:30 with Toni Kent who will read from her anthology ‘I Need a Wife’. Newbury Weekly News describes her as “part thinking woman’s Bridget Jones, part edgy Pam Ayres’. Toni says she is an “optimist, absurdist and relentlessly cheerful. I write, rhyme, and perform stand up as a way of escaping from the fact that I’m actually a 40 year old mother of two, and not Alison Goldfrapp”.

After listening Toni read from her book, it’s the turn of the audience. Sign-up at the door to read a poem that you have brought along. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere (with plenty of wine to calm the nerves). The shop is small so expect it to be cosy! It is fascinating hearing the diversity of work.

Tickets are £4 (and includes a glass or two of wine)

Call 01488 683480

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Callum Bond came in with his parents the other day for his 13th birthday and what he left with surprised us all. Callum is hoping to bring the Victorian look back in at his school, so this top hat and cane were his first choices for presents from Mum and Dad. Doesn’t he look dapper?

Thanks very much to Callum and his parents for being such good sports and posing for a picture! Happy birthday Callum!

Ian will be at the Flea Market in Hungerford Town Hall on Sunday, 3rd April, where his proceeds will be going towards that target.

You will find Ian on the fundraiser website: www.virginmoneygiving.com/ian

I have just finished a novel called Carol by Patricia Highsmith. It is an elegant love story set in the America of the late 1940s and early 1950s. As well as transporting the reader back to the era, it is also a novel about travel and escape and also is something of a thriller.

Being an admirer of Highsmith’s work, I was not at all disappointed but what I did notice above all was how much the two main characters Carol Aird and Therese Belivet smoked. It seemed that in every chapter either Carol or Therese lit up.

But what of cigarette holders? I have looked and you can still purchase these items from specialist outlets. But do you know what might be more fun whether you smoke or not.

That is to collect cigarette holders from what I might call The Age of Elegance.

Cigarette holders also prevented staining of the smokers fingers and helped to prevent the smoke from stinging their eyes. Some of the more sophisticated holders even had a secondary filtration system. What I did not know was that cigarette holders actually came in four different lengths

Opera Length (c 16-20 inches)

Theatre Length (c 10 to 14 inches)

Dinner Length (4 to 6 inches)

Cocktail Length (really anything shorter)

Hollywood was selling a fantasy product, elegant clothes and elegant accessories were shown frequently. These included cigarette holders. The next time you watch a Hollywood movie on a wet Sunday afternoon, see if you can spot their use.

A British girl from Belgium who was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston was perhaps the most famous user in a movie set in New York as the 1960s dawned. Other notable users outside of Hollywood included Jackie O, Princess Margaret, and Ayn Rand.

Noel Coward is famously remembered with a cigarette holder as was Franklin D Roosevelt and my favourite composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was also a keen user.

Cruella De Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians used one in the 1961 Disney animation. The list is endless. Captain Hook used a unique double holder which allowed him to smoke two cigars at one time.

One frequently finds all kinds of cigarette holders in antique shops and the like. Quite often they come in elegant cases. To me they are rather like pipes they belong to the initial user. They are fun to collect but I always feel that they belong to someone else.

But do not let this put you off as they are beautiful creatures, are quite small and therefore do not take up much room if one started a collection.

I must close now as I have been invited to share breakfast with a young lady at a store on 5th Avenue and I am already running late.

Happy Hunting

Thank you Harmony Choir of Newbury for sharing this special weekend with us.

I did take a video so that you could hear for yourselves how wonderful the Cor Divisi Choir is but unfortunately, downloading it onto this blog has proved rather difficult. When I get it sorted out, I will post it.

Hungerford Arcade will be looking forward to Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th Birthday on the 21st April along with the rest of the country. In readiness for this wonderful event, a task has been set to clean up the streets of Britain in time for this great celebration.

Here you can see the Hungerford Girl Guides with one of their leaders in action, clearing out rubbish that had been thrown into one of Hungerford Arcade’s flower containers. They were very keen not to leave any rubbish behind.

The chemical melamine has many uses; from an ingredient in some mixtures of concrete, to an additive in industrial fertilisers. But mix it with formaldehyde and it becomes an incredibly strong, light and easily moulded plastic.

The relative light weight and strength of melamine led to its use as dinnerware aboard some ships in the US Navy – which in turn led to its use in millions of homes in the US and here in Great Britain.

Today, St Paddy’s day is a chance to celebrate all that is Irish! It is the most widely celebrated national festival around the world, with parades and parties taking place as far away as Argentina, Australia and the USA. Wherever you are, we wish you a happy Saint Patrick’s day!

Here are some Irish treasures spotted in the Arcade today!

Hungerford Arcade’s wonderful friend and author, Stuart Miller-Osborne has written this fascinating article during his very busy schedule for which we are truly grateful. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did with a nice cup of tea!

This is a short description of Hungerford in 1791 and whilst the town has changed a little, one can still see our eighteenth century town. Our neighbours in Newbury also have an entry on the opposite page.

The streets in Newbury have a sense of space but the town has obviously been built up since 1791. The Kennet and Avon Canal was still a few years away and it would be nearly seventy years before the railways reached both Newbury and Hungerford.

Lambourn also gets a short mention.

Lambourn or Langhorn, 10 miles from Newbury takes its name from the little river that runs by it, and falls into the River Kennet at Thackham. It stands on the S side of White-horse-hill in a pleasant sporting country.

Great Bedwyn, formerly a city and the metropolis of Cissa a Viceroy of Wiltshire and Berkshire in the time of the Saxons is 70 miles from London. The church which is a spacious fabric is built in the form of a cross, has a lofty tower in the center and several ancient monuments.

You can see the history of the now sleepy Bedwyn in this short and slightly mysterious account. Nearby Marlborough is described beautifully.

But my favourite is little Froxfield which is surprisingly included.

At Froxfield, 7 miles distant, the late Duchess of Marlborough endowed an alms-house for 30 poor widows, with an ample annual stipend for apprenticing 10 or 12 children.

The alms-houses are still there and have not changed that much in the last two hundred and twenty-five years. As far I as I am aware the buildings still cater for widows although I think that the apprenticeships may have become a trust or the like since then.

I have lived in Hungerford for nearly ten years but feel that I have known the town and its neighbours for a much longer period.

Stuart Miller-Osborne

History Pre 1963

Early History of the Company

**That is to collect cigarette holders from what I might call The Age of Elegance.**

I must close now as I have been invited to share breakfast with a young lady at a store on 5^th Avenue and I am already running late.