We are all challenged and changed by the cornavirus pandemic. The suspension of meetings, the closure of museums, concert halls and churches means we all have to do things differently, initially having to ‘Stay Home – Protect the NHS – Save Lives’.
As Chairman and Secretary of the High Country History Group we are determined to stay in touch while we are unable to meet for our usual meetings at Toot Hill Village Hall.
The AGM will happen when we return. Thank you for paying your annual membership subscription.
The closure of the Essex Record Office and libraries “for the duration” means that we have to be creative in the production of the Journal. Copies are being sent, for the time being, by email. For those not online we are printing the Journal at home and sending copy by post.
Until a few weeks ago most of us will not have heard about video meeting software called Zoom. Now many of us are using this to stay in touch.
On Thursday 23 April a small number of us were able to get together for a catch up and brief talk about the times in which we live and reflecting on posters issued during the Second World War.
Some of us have allotments, which thankfully have remained open for us to use and enjoy. We shared what we had planted this Spring. Unlike my wife Elaine I am not a keen gardener. My grandfather though was a gardener by profession working at least at one of the big houses on Hutton Mount in the 1940s and 1950s. He always planted his potatoes on Good Friday, and it is always around that day that Elaine and I do the same because some think that the phasing of the Moon has an effect on growing plants. (Easter Day falls the Sunday after the first Full Moon after the vernal equinox.)
We reflected also on times in which freedom was removed or restricted. Patrick Griggs writes in this edition about the occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945. If you ever visit Guernsey and Jersey this is a thought-provoking story. The Islands were liberated on 10 May 1945, two days after VE Day.
Commemorations for the 75th anniversary of VE Day have had to be cancelled. We will try to make up for this in this edition.
Such was the success of our experimental Zoom meeting that we have decided to get together every fourth Thursday in the month until it is safe to return to the Village Hall.
Our meeting on Thursday 28 May included a short talk by Andrew on ‘Rogationtide around Stondon Massey’ which included a short film of a walk around the parish boundary, or as close to the boundary as public footpaths etc allowed. With early May peaceful due to lockdown the birdsong was resplendent. The sound of the cuckoo was caught on film, a visitor not heard in this area for probably ten years, and magnificent bluebell woodland discovered. Kay Doyle heard the cuckoo near her home in Hook End, Blackmore, and Jane Adair wrote “Cuckoos must be more prevalent this year as John and I heard one at the beginning of May on a walk around by the North Weald radio station and then again by Ongar Park Woods. Could have been the same one who had flown on or maybe two different cuckoos - who knows?”
We will continue to stay connected by email and Zoom and hope it will not be too long before we can meet again at the Village Hall.
With best wishes