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Litter Pick on 31 March

There will be a litter pick taking place on Saturday 31 March.  Hi visibility jackets and all the necessary picking equipment will be supplied.  All those interested in helping to keep the village tidy please meet at The Harrow at 10:30.  It is expected to take about 2 hours and will finish back at The Harrow for some well deserved refreshment.

Hughenden Manor woodland walks


From the National Trust

Do you like a good healthy walk in one of the most picturesque parts of the English countryside? If you do you will be delighted to hear that The National Trust has just launched a brand new pocket-sized walks leaflet for the way-marked woodland walks around the Hughenden Manor Estate.

The leaflet is available free of charge and can be obtained from the Booking Office in the Stables Courtyard and also from many of the local shops and public houses in the vicinity. You can even find supplies at the Doctors’ Surgery and also the Hughenden Community Shop. Click on the image to view or download the leaflet.

This leaflet is the brainchild of a Hughenden Valley resident Paul Cawte, who you may recall was until recently the Chairman of the Residents Association and has been a Volunteer Warden at the National Trust for the past four years. “My responsibility is to patrol designated footpaths around the woods assisted by my buddy Jules Birch, to make sure that they are safe for walkers and do not become obstructed by fallen trees or other debris.” explained Paul. He continued “I always carry a small digital camera to take photographs of remarkable of interesting sights that I discover on my patrols. A number of these photographs have now been included in the new Hughenden Woodland Walks leaflet along with a comprehensive map and sets of descriptions of the four main way-marked walks.”

Paul, who is also a member of the Volunteer Council at Hughenden Manor, was asked by Jim Foy, the General Manager, to pull together a small team comprising volunteers John and Wendy Riddell and Hazel Clarke. Also part of the team was local designer Stephen Prickett, who produced the finished design for the leaflet. Together, they worked alongside Steve Kirkpatrick, the Hughenden Warden, to arrive at what is an attractive and very useful guide to one of out most treasured local amenities.

Paul and his colleagues at the Trust say that they would like to see as many Hughenden Residents as possible this year taking advantage of the opportunity to take regular healthy walk and enjoying the sights and sounds of the countryside. “It is free and there is a very good restaurant at the Stables Courtyard, and also a well as a well-stocked National Trust shop and a second-hand bookshop, so why not try it? – you can’t go wrong.” say Paul.

Valley Wives March Meeting Report

From Joan Steel

Margaret chaired our meeting and made the annoucements followed by welcoming Mr Gorden Massey our speaker who gave a slide talk entitled “Portsmouth to Bacelona Cruise” which was on the Saga ship “Spirit of Adventure ” in 2009. It carried 350 passengers and so had the advantage of being small enough to sail up rivers. The slides showed a map of the journey so that we could follow the route and later showed fine pictures of all the major features of interest seen in the towns and countryside on the way to Barcelona eg. monuments, bridges, gardens.museums ,canals and many examples of architecture both ancient and modern. The final berth was at the huge cruise liner terminal at Barcelona which can accept twelve liners per day bringing as many as fifty thousand visitors to the city. The amazing Cathedral is a focal point with its stunning architecture. It was founded in 1856 as a modest chapel and has become something that has to be seen to be believed, with its many facades and towers. Members who haven’t been to this wonderful place felt a desire to visit it especially, to also travel there in the same luxurious way! Norma proposed the vote of thanks for a most interesting talk and for the small bursts of appropriate music that accompanied the slides.

Next meeting is on the 13th of April,the title of which is ” Tales of the Unexpected” by Alan Copeland. The competition is for an item beginning with N. Josie was our winner last month with letter J.

Chiltern Society raising funds for HS2 legal challenge

From the Chiltern Society:

The Chiltern Society launched a fundraising appeal last week to raise money to fund the legal expenses of mounting a judicial review. Together with other organisations in the Chilterns, we believe that an application for Judicial Review on environmental grounds should be made. This process comprises an initial application to the High Court for permission. If this is granted there will then be a substantive hearing. There will obviously be significant costs involved in both the application for permission and subsequent proceedings.

We are therefore appealing to all members for your support in funding this process. We need to raise a substantial amount, at least £20,000. Since this appeal was launched last week we have raised about £4,000. All donations will be held in a designated account. Payments from the account will be applied in payment of the costs of funding the proposed proceedings.

Donations can be made by:
• telephone: 01494 771250
• post: The Chiltern Society, Freepost (HH601) Chesham HP5 1ZA
• the Chiltern Society website

Thank you for your support for the campaign.

Valley Wives February Meeting Report

From Joan Steel

Jill opened the meeting with verses about a smile being infectious and starting an epidemic throughout the world! A happy thought to raise the spirits in these difficult times. A letter from the High Wycombe Multiple Sclerosis Society, thanking the V.W.’s for the £60 donation to their funds, was read out by Jill, and she then introduced our speaker Amanda Raynor whose subject was “The Language of the Fan”.

To set the scene, Amanda had dressed in Edwardian costume complete with chatelaine around her waist, to hold her fan and other useful items. She opened her fan in a particular way to bid us welcome to her talk. Amanda described fans as basically simple and practical items that can also be beautiful and desirable objects, often given in the 1770’s as love tokens, also presented at engagements and weddings. There were many varying styles and qualities of fans but they always followed the fashion of the day. If the costumes had large skirts like crinolines then the fans were big and in the 1920’s with short plain skirts, they were small. Fans first appeared in the 14th century, although the language of the fan was only created in the 18th century and eventually died out by the first world war, as other communications developed. They expressed the language of the heart and could show every type of emotion merely by the position in which the fan was held, e.g. over the mouth, below the chin, towards the shoulder or at the side etc., even the way the fan was fluttered had a meaning. Young ladies of quality would be chaperoned and as discretion was the order of the day, the only way of communicating with the man of their dreams was by fan. It was said in 1770 that ladies could chat without the use of the tongue! Amanda has an amazing collection of over 500 fans and showed us some beautiful slides and photographs of them to illustrate the designs, the kinds of materials used to construct fans and the decoration of hand painting and embroidery. Very much works of art. Heather proposed the vote of thanks for a most interesting talk.

Our next meeting on 2nd March is an Open meeting entitled “Portsmouth to Barcelona Cruise” by Gordon Massie.

A few tickets are available for the Dinner and Concert on 23rd March. Please telephone Doreen on 564877 as soon as possible if you would like to come.

Councils Launch HS2 Challenge

Press release from Bucks County Council

Members of 51m, the alliance of local authorities opposed to HS2, have served a formal letter on the Secretary of State for Transport asking her to rescind her decision to proceed with HS2 and giving notice that they may otherwise challenge the decision by way of judicial review. The Transport Secretary announced her support for the HS2 project on January 10.

Councillor Martin Tett, Leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, speaking on behalf of 51m said: “We are taking this stance with regret. We would far rather that the Government had listened to the people of this country who have decisively rejected this massively expensive project and instead opted for the far better, cheaper and more quickly delivered alternative put forward by 51m. Communities in the Midlands and the north of England risk being bypassed and left to decline by HS2. We should be investing in our existing rail and road infrastructure across the entire country to bring jobs and growth now when it is needed.”

Councillor Ray Puddifoot, Vice-Chairman of 51m and Leader of the London Borough of Hillingdon added: “The consultation process was unfair and inadequate in many respects. Ordinary people whose lives and livelihoods will be severely affected between Birmingham and Manchester and Leeds were not even given an adequate chance to have their say. The whole project represents extremely poor value for money for the hard pressed UK taxpayer and it is right that we challenge the Government’s decision to progress with this misguided scheme.”

51m are not against the principle of High Speed Rail in the UK but do not believe that the case put forward by the Department for Transport/HS2 Ltd is justified as it provides very poor value for money. 51m have proposed a much better alternative, the core of which is doubling the capacity of the current West Coast Mainline costing less than 10% of HS2. This would cater for the future demand predicted by Department for Transport, provide the capacity much sooner so that current crowding problems are addressed, and cause significantly less disruption to the existing network than HS2.