Ignite that ice cream and get sketching!

When taking a holiday in Britain, there are a few things that I consider need to be done in order for the holiday to be classed as an official holiday. The first is to laugh incredulously at the astronomically high prices at motorway service stations for food, drink and fuel, and then stare in wonderment at the crowds of people willingly parting with their cash for such items.

The second is to slowly crawl along a winding B road behind someone towing a caravan or driving a motorhome and then get a bit scared when an exasperated driver thirty cars behind decides to overtake everyone on a blind bend.

The third involves food, and my list of de facto items that have to be eaten on a British holiday is this: a pasty; a cone of chips; a cream tea; an ice cream/ice lolly. If all of these are not consumed during the holiday, then it is not a correct holiday.

Blogging a Building 22 – New signs of life, by Kim Kenny

After a period of hibernation the Heritage Hub building project has come back to life. On 1st April 2019, our new contractors, Beard Construction, took over from where Lakehouse left off.  Beard is aiming to complete the building project by August 2019.

Howard Read, the new site manager getting ready to complete the project.

Playing around with place names

Sometimes we like to have a bit of fun with local place names, in between helping people with their research and all the other things we do. Once we made up the cast list for a melodrama (including Maisey Hampton, our heroine, Stanley Pontlarge her hard-up clergyman uncle, Acton Turville, a cad and a bounder, and Temple Guiting and Clifford Chambers, a pair of unscrupulous lawyers…) – although we never actually managed to write the melodrama itself.

Another time, we found ourselves explaining the pronunciation of various place names through the medium of limericks. It was back in the days before blogs and suchlike, and we never got round to sharing the results, but I’ve used several of them as reminders to myself on how to pronounce the places concerned, and I thought it would be nice to share them now – and to challenge all of you to write some of your own!

Happy 40th, Gloucestershire Family History Society!

The Gloucestershire Family History Society (GFHS) was founded 40 years ago this April. As we all know, 40 is a significant birthday (hang on though, if 60’s the new 40, that only makes them 20… Move on! Ed) and so it was only right and proper that this milestone was marked by a special event.

And so, on Sunday 28 April, we were joined by around 250 people who came to see the GFHS in their smart new home at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub- a pleasingly high number as lots of people had heard about the event on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.  Some 40 GFHS volunteers were on hand during the day to welcome visitors and show them the Resource Centre.