Thought it was about time I kept you all in the loop as to what’s been happening and what is planned for the next few months.
Firstly we must open with some sad news. Some of you will know our friend and colleague Ruth Wood. Ruth sadly passed away at the end of June whilst recovering in hospital after surgery. Ruth was a staunch supporter of the OPC project as an OPC, transcriber, researcher and to her credit was always one of the first to put her name down for the meet ups we hold from time to time (have dropped the word annual you might note.) I spent some really funny moments in Ruth’s company – one springs to mind when we spotted this Adonis moving around the bar in the Bear Hotel, Devizes, (okay I admit it had I been 30 years younger I think I would have felt quite a flush come over me). He was dressed in white shirt and black well fitted trousers. Ruth beckoned him over and said excuse me are you a bar man here as I and my friend (me) can’t get to the bar well and we would like another drink. I didn’t want anything but she told him what she wanted. Poor guy he must have been so confused as he said sorry lovely but I am here to get ready for my stag do. Oh dear Ruth said what a loss to the single lady then (I am now wanting to hide under the table) He walked away smiling. Five minutes later a very large drink was delivered to our table. Ruth loved to dance even though she was an amputee especially eastern Mediterranean dance and she loved Middle Eastern and North African cuisine. A very diverse lady was Ruth and we will miss her tremendously.
Secondly for some reason John Pope wanted me to mention Coffee and Coffee Cups perhaps we should ask our members to create coffee mornings where we could all get together and discuss our Wiltshire Research, we could maybe have a Teams Coffee Morning not sure of the logistics but would be nice to have groups of us getting together online.
Am trying to persuade someone to organise a meet up for everyone for about May of next year so if anyone wants to volunteer please let me know,
The OPC project itself is still growing with new items of interest published on the parish pages regularly. Lots of new images are also being added to galleries.
John Pope has been back to Wiltshire a month or so ago and spent time wandering around the Warminster area taking hundreds of photos for the website. He will get to load them all within time.
We still need help – so if anyone would like to adopt a parish, or transcribe items or even submit items they have created for their own research then we would love to hear from you.
Recently I have been lucky in purchasing a few original Kellys Directories and other Wiltshire themed books. More material to follow up .
Martin Barrett is still diligently building on the military side of things. Maintaining the Facebook Remembrance List on a daily basis. A lot of posts recently have been of real interest so if you haven’t joined us on Facebook then feel free to join us.
Moving on over the next few months the OPC team are going to continue producing items for parish pages. We are also updating pages and items that are already on the site. I have lots of items to be tidied, proof read and made ready for publication. So watch this space. We do post the updated and new items list twice a week on the Facebook page. If you don’t do Facebook then just keep checking your parishes of interest on a regular basis.
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