Editorial

Editorial

June was a busy month in the village with the picnic ball, the church fete and other events. It was also rather a wet

month but the weather was fine for the church fete which obviously helped with its’ success (see article later)

Following our plea last month, we are very grateful to those villagers who have offered to help with the distribution of

the newsletter and also to those who have shared some memories of Towersey with us; the first of these appears on

page 5. If you have anything about Towersey you would like to share with other residents, please do get in touch.

Lisa Davis (t: 217328 ) and Anne Barrow (t: 215034) – editors (newsletter@towerseyvillage.co.uk )

Towersey Newsletter

July 2016

For Sale for £25.00

BT6500 Nuisance Call Blocker Digital Cordless Phone with answering machine and 5

extensions.

This phone has been tried and tested and is in perfect working condition, and comes with an Instruction

Manual printed out from the Internet. It’s a bargain (check BT prices and e-Bay) Please contact phone

01844 215287 or email angela.dike7@btinternet.com

THE THREE HORSESHOES

I have open mic on the 30th June, the last Thursday of the month

Starts 8.30 pm

I would also like to thank villagers for their continued support

Best Wishes Grant

Reminder – New email sign-up

There is a new simpler system for signing up to receive the Newsletter by e mail and to receive emails from village

organisations. If you have not yet signed-up, please do so now at: www.towerseyvillage.co.uk/news/subscriptions.

Windborne Singers

Vocal chameleons who specialize in close harmony singing, shifting effortlessly between drastically different styles of traditional music

Date: Thursday 21st July 2016 Venue: The Three Horseshoes, Towersey, Oxfordshire Doors 7:30 - On Stage at 8:00 - Finish 10:15 Tickets £10 Windborne is Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon. All four have travelled extensively in the US and throughout the world with Village Harmony, Northern Harmony and the Renewal Chorus, leading workshops and giving concerts. Windborne has toured New England several times, and in 2010 their vocal agility and power won them first place in Young Tradition Vermont‘s Showcase Competition. Since then, they have appeared at the Flurry Festival, the Shelburne Harvest Festival, the Young Tradition Vermont Reunion Concert, and have taught master classes at Keene State College. In January 2014, AMA sent Windborne on a month-long tour to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Angola performing and teaching as musical ambassadors for the US! Specializing in close harmony singing, the quartet has a vibrant energy and a strong connection, which is evident in their engaging performance. They educate as they perform, telling stories about the music and explaining the characteristics and stylistic elements of the traditions in which they sing. Mary DesRosiers, folk musicologist for the Monadnock Folklore Society, acclaims Windborne for “the purity of their voices, strength of their material, and attention to detail in their arrangements.” “The singers of Windborne have a deep understanding, both musically and culturally, of the traditions from which they draw much of their repertoire. Their singing is a feast of a cappella harmony.” All details at www.musicallymonstrous.co.uk

Towersey Wives Club

The next meeting of Towersey Wives Club is the theatre trip to see Thame Players' open air performance of Macbeth at The Elms in Thame on Tuesday, 5th July. There will also be an additional meeting on Tuesday, 12th July at 7.30pm at Time Peace, Manor Road, when there will be a quiz evening and also a discussion on the arrangements for the summer lunch in August.

Towersey remembered – an interview with Joan Gleeson, aged 93, 6 June 2016

Joan and her sisters were from London but with World War 2 raging and bombs falling all around them, her two sisters

decided that it was time to move somewhere safer. They set out for a drive around the countryside when they spotted

a sign for Towersey. They remembered that their Father had a friend who lived in Towersey, a Mrs Mortimer in Manor

Road, so they visited Mrs Mortimer and whilst there discovered that the Three Horseshoes pub was for sale. (Joan

remembers that the pub was lit by candles in the evening at the time). Joan’s sister, Phyllis, bought the pub and Joan’s

other sister, Ruby Locke, also moved to Towersey and rented a cottage here.

When Joan moved to Towersey, just after the war, she was about 20 years old and having spent two years in a

sanatorium recovering from TB, and suffering a collapsed lung as a result, her doctor advised her that she would be

better off living in the countryside where the air was better – so she moved to Towersey. At the time, the council had

just built some houses in Windmill Road and so Joan and her husband Jim applied for one - and she still lives there now.

Joan explained to me that the houses were built specifically to house people from the village of Towersey and their

families. The fact that Joan had two family members living in the village meant that she was eligible. Before these

houses were built, there were no houses or flats in Windmill Road.

Joan got a job at a company in Thame working the night shift making sewing boxes for export to Italy. Her husband Jim,

worked at Pressed Steel in Cowley and, having no car to get to work, shared the journey each day with another villager

who did have a car and who also worked in Oxford. Jim often had to work on Sundays too but with no one available to

give him a lift to work, and only one bus through the village each week (and that was on a Tuesday to take people to the

market) he would walk to work and back!

Joan also did cleaning work in the village and one of her clients was a Mr Anderson who she says lived up a drive

opposite the pub in a house that used to be two cottages that she recalls as “Drive Cottage” and “Pong Cottage”. Mr

Anderson was a famous artist (more about him at a later date!).

The social life in Towersey was fun as each Friday a dance was held in the Memorial Hall and a three piece dance band

came from Thame to play – the entrance fee was just a shilling each. To add the excitement, the villagers were joined

by some soldiers who were billeted in Haddenham.

In those days, the Church Fete was held in a farmer’s field in Church Lane, opposite the Church, where the bungalows

now stand. One of the events was a bowling competition and each year the farmer would offer a pig as a prize to the

winner. Joan’s husband Jim used to be in charge of the Donkey Derby and, according to Joan, the Donkeys were quite

wild! On one occasion their son, who was ten years old at the time, was bucked off by one of the donkeys, breaking his

arm and ending up in hospital!

Joan and Jim were good friends with Dennis and Sheila Manners and she recalls that one Friday evening, they were

drinking in the Swan Hotel in Thame and decided that they would start a music festival. The festival was held in a

farmer’s field and was just for one night. I asked how they found the musicians and she said that it was Steve Heap who

found them. Of course, the festival became a very successful annual event which continued to be held in Towersey for

50 years.

I find it fascinating learning about the way our village has changed, developed and grown over the years but one thing

that seems to have remained strong is our tremendous community spirit. It’s people like Joan and Jim who make the

world a better place for all of us to live in.

Thank you to Joan for your time, the welcome cup of tea, and for sharing your memories with us.

Lisa Davis

CHURCH FETE

THANK YOU FOR EVERYONES HARD WORK

After all the rain in the week leading up to the fete we were so very lucky with the weather both with the set up on Saturday and for fete day itself, it just started to drizzle as we did the final litter pick on Sunday evening. Our thanks and gratitude go out to all of you as it was such a long and busy day. But of course special thanks must go to Pussy and David Barnett for hosting our event. This year again we were able to do a lot of the setup on Saturday which meant we had an extremely smooth Sunday morning. Our first visitors were at the gate before 12 noon, we then had a steady flow of people for the whole afternoon. Very kindly David White again let us use the whole of his field this year for parking - which was very

nearly full by 2pm.

Finally, the “Provisional Total” with an amazing result likely to be in excess of £14,000!

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU

The Committee always welcome feedback of any kind, any new ideas are always welcome, so to, are comments on

things that can be done better!

The Church Fete Committee

lgjriley@btinternet.com

Village Diary from July 2016

Tuesday 28th June 8.00 pm Playing Fields AGM Memorial Hall Thursday 30th June 8.30 pm Open Mic Night Three Horseshoes Friday 8th – 10th July Music Weekender Towersey Playing Fields Thursday 21st July 8.00pm Windborne Singers Three Horseshoes Sunday 28th August 12.00 pm Towersey Fringe Playing Fields Saturday 10th Sept 9.00am Big Harvest Bake Off Memorial Hall

Saturday 1st October Final instalment of the Crotch Bottom Murders Manor Barn

DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT NEWSLETTER 29th JULY