Our guest speaker in October will be Dominic Combe. Dominic’s talk will be based on some number of an amateur theatre producer trying to run rehearsals for a play, all presented using an original phonograph and cylinders. Please contact me on 01483 283507 by Sunday, 17th October, if any member is unable to attend the luncheon. Please note, the date in the October diary was incorrect and should have read Wed. 20th October.

Mary Brooks.

Our June meeting will be the last before the summer break. The speaker will be Tim Harrold who has recently retired as the Chairman of the Surrey branch of The Campaign To Protect Rural England; but remains Chairman of the Guildford Branch and is on the board of Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty.

Our speaker in April was Bob Spackman. Bob has been involved, from the beginning, in the community fruit and vegetable growing co-operative for East and West Horsley. This project is aptly named Grace and Flavour and is situated in Dene Place on land owned by the National Trust. After two years of negotiations, planning permission has finally been granted. The project is open to every resident in the village, and anyone outside the village, wishing to take part, can do so by invitation. Sixty people have started the hard work of clearing the ground of rubbish and nettles. Bob said the ground was a wilderness and he had never seen nettles like the ones that had become established. He handed round photographs of the garden before the clearance and subsequently during and after the efforts of those involved. One of the photographs showed our Chairman, Charles Hope, hard at work. Work has involved planting up pots, clearing land which has revealed established paths, and making the garden safe. A photograph featured one of the founder members – Des Hollier, who sadly died recently. Des was extremely supportive of the walled garden project alongside many other projects in the village. The central path in the garden will be named Hollier Avenue in his memory as this was one of the areas that was cleared by Des. In the orchard there are a great variety of apples, many of them with the old flavours that are no longer to be found in our supermarkets. The old greenhouses have been turned into a herb garden and the bricks will be used to construct a car park. There are plans for a picnic and playground area. The potting shed is to become a meeting area for members with a creche etc. A pond is planned to encourage toads and newts . On behalf of our Prompt Corner members, I should like to wish Bob and all his volunteers the great success that they all deserve and trust that all the work that has gone into this superb venture will become a great asset to the Horsleys.

If any member, due to attend the next luncheon is unable to do so, please telephone 01483 283507 by Sunday, 13th June .

Mary Brooks

The first long distance rally from Peking to Paris took place in 1907 when there were no roads in China. Six cars turned up in Peking, one got lost in the Gobi desert, fortunately discovered by tribesmen after two days, the rest made it to Paris. In 1997 Gerry drove his one and a half litre 1932 Aston Martin where there were still no roads and again in 2007 where great improvements had been made. Also Gerry and his wife journeyed through the Gobi Desert, Mongolia and Siberia in a 1931 Ford. Gerry was struck by the friendliness and the resourcefulness of the people in every country he visited, including Iran. He finds children the same the world over and some humans only change when they grow up. Government officials are another matter. Communications and the dramatic impact of the change in the climate are the two most noticeable changes. In China, millions of trees are being planted to stop the desert coming into the towns. In ten years, the use of mobile phones has transformed life for those living in even the smallest villages, and are now used throughout the developing countries. A big change is the satellite dishes and solar panels just outside each village. This can only be a short summary of Gerry’s talk, which was so interesting and informative and of course there were many questions from our members, not only after his talk but outside the theatre where Gerry had parked his Aston Martin.

Alan Baker has been a member of Prompt Corner since its inception and was at our last meeting in February, five days before his death. He enjoyed the talk so much. We shall miss him.

Our speaker in March will be Angela Ashton; a part-time adult education tutor teaching first aid for schools and colleges. Her talk is entitled House Of Treason – a whistle stop illustrated trip through history and a few of the Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk since 1483.

Our speaker in April will be Bob Spackman. His talk will be entitled Grace and Flavour. This project is a communal vegetable garden in an old walled garden in Dene Place, on National Trust Property, which has been derelict for years.

Members will now have received notification of our annual trip to Chichester either by letter or email. Could you please fill in the form and make the cheque out to the Nomads.

This can be brought to Prompt Corner to save postage. If any member, due to attend the next meeting, is unable to do so, please telephone 01483-283507 by Sunday, 14th March, 2010.

Mary Brooks

Our speaker in October was Colin Skeaping who brought his dog Sandy, who appeared in the Nomad’s production of Annie in January this year. Sandy was the star of our luncheon.

Colin explained that he had trained bearded collies since 1970 for work in film, television and theatre. He was invited by the Waltham Playhouse to train one of his dogs for their production of Annie and Finn performed in thirty-five productions of the show and Tully in seventeen. Finn was meant to be in Annie but died so Tully and Sandy performed in the show. Sandy was so hyperactive that he was taken off the show as neither of our ‘Annies’ could cope with him, so Tully completed the performances. Since Finn’s passing Sandy has calmed down and has been in Annie several times. Finn had worked for years with Colin and Tully benefited from working with Finn. Colin illustrated how Sandy followed his hand signals as it would not be possible to speak on stage. Sandy’s eyes never left Colin’s face and performed each task perfectly, even playing dead when Colin performed his hand into a gun and fired it at him. In the second part of Colin’s talk, he told how he started as a stunt man in 1967 as a stand-in for actors and actresses (wearing wigs of course), when he and fellow stuntmen and occasionally women took great risks, which would not be allowed today. Colin worked in Disney and the early Bond films In 1976 Colin was signed up for a “small film”, Star Wars, and he was body double for Luke Skywalker. Thirteen years ago Colin joined Midsomer Murders and. every time someone is to be killed, Colin is asked how to do it. His work involves motorcycle and car crashes and he has doubled for Joanna Lumley and Joan Simms. Our members asked many questions and of course, Sandy was very much admired.

Our speaker in November will be Leonard Beighton. Leonard is closely involved in Churches Together. Since his retirement he has travelled the world, involved in many international organisations, particularly with the local Church involvement in Uganda and Kosovo. Any member unable to attend the luncheon please contact me by Sunday, 15th November (01483-283507).

Our annual Christmas Luncheon is on Wednesday, 16th December

Mary Brooks.

Our first meeting, after the summer break, welcomed Andrew Churchill, Marketing Manager for the Watts Gallery in Compton. The Watts Gallery is home to the studio collection of 19th century painter and sculptor G.F. Watts and includes works by his wife, Mary. Opened in 1904, just two months before Watt’s death, it is one of the few purpose-built picture galleries in the UK housing a single professional artist’s collection and is an early example of an Arts and Crafts building, listed Grade II; built not only as a Gallery but also to serve as a hostel for apprentices working at the pottery founded by Mary Seton Watts. Andrew explained that the Gallery had come second in the bid to win the BBC TV series “Restoration Village”. If they had won, the money would have gone towards the “Hope peal” (named after Watts’ painting, Hope), set up in 2004 and which needed ? £10 million to save the site from ruin. However, only months after losing out on the TV prize, the gallery’s director Perdita Hunt and her team made a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund, who gave the gallery a £?4.3 million grant which allowed the restoration to go ahead. The TV show raised the profile of the gallery which helped in fund raising and they now have 850 friends. Andrew showed us slides of the gallery before work commenced and the work now being carried out. He also showed us a collection of the paintings housed at the gallery. The problem of what to do with the pictures during restoration was solved by distributing them to the Guildhall Art Gallery and various other galleries. The work was delayed by snow and then the contractors went into administration. However, it is hoped that the gallery will open late next year. Andrew answered many questions from our members and handed out leaflets, inviting our members to become a friend to help support this unique gallery in the future.

Our October speaker will be Colin Skeaping. Colin’s dog Tully performed in the Nomad production of ‘Annie’ and Colin will talk to us about training animals on stage and screen and his work as a stunt coordinator. Members who are on the list and cannot attend this meeting, please contact Mary Brooks before Sunday 18th October (01483 283507)

In November we shall welcome Leonard Beighton who has had a very varied career in Government. In retirement, Leonard has travelled the world, particularly with his local Church involvement in Uganda and Kosovo.

Mary Brooks.

Oklahoma at Chichester Theatre

The Chichester Theatre visit to see ’Oklahoma’ proved to be a delightful outing. If space allows, further reports will be included next time. Meanwhile, here is a report sent in by one of those attending Mary Brooks:

A warm, sunny day, a picnic under the trees with wine, and Oklahoma. A wonderful day out at Chichester. I’ve known the songs from since I was a child because my dad bought a boxed set of all the great musicals and we played them regularly, but I’ve only seen the film version. Chichester didn’t disappoint, the cast sang beautifully and with great energy. The set was bare – chairs, stools, a cart, a bicycle and best of all a swing were used effectively to suggest life on the open land. I would have liked some lighting effects to provide the ‘big sky’ and add atmosphere to the stage but no more.

Costumes were drab as they would have been, since life on the range was hard. It was easy to sit back and wallow in the music as all the leads sang well and the big chorus numbers made you want to join in. The dancing was restricted in such a relatively small space but still worked.

The character of Judd Fry was prominent in this production, he shuffled around at the edge of the action, isolated from the rest of the community and illustrating the dangers of the social outcast. He was rarely off the stage, a constant menacing presence that left the audience in no doubt that Laurie had to avoid him. Having Aunt Ellie on stage equally often didn’t seem to work as well.

She appeared complacent rather than benign as the director presumably intended. Both were present throughout ‘People will say we’re in love’ and this did seem odd. Curly and Laurie were able to play this scene around the swing and the audience didn’t need the distraction of other characters. I also wasn’t sure why Judd Fry was in the final scene when he seemed to have died earlier, but these are quibbles when so much else worked superbly.

The day even ended with a mystery tour as the coach driver’s satnav took us on an unusual route home .

I look forward to next year.