Philippa, Author at Bluntisham Heritage Project

Remembrance Day 2020

As we are all more than aware, the second lockdown of 2020 means that we are unable to mark remembrance day as we would do in normal times. However, with huge thanks to Marian Land we are able to share with you the opportunity to access her research in to the former residents of Bluntisham who served in World War One. Marian has written an introduction to her work, provided an example of research folder and a list of all the people for whom she has created a file. We hope that this will allow us all to recognise Remembrance Weekend during this lockdown . Thank you Marian for all your hard work and for allowing us to share this on the Heritage Project. Please click this link to access the research https://www.bhp-pc.org.uk/bluntisham-cum-earith-war-memorial/

The Barograph

Welcome to Autumn. If you are looking to find something interesting to do on this very wet Sunday afternoon, can I suggest that you have a look around the Heritage website. In particular have a read of the new article on the Barograph. All residents of Bluntisham, both past and present will be familiar with the Barograph that stands at the top of the High Street. I am not sure how many will know who, why or when it was erected and who looks after it now. Hopefully this article will give you a taste of its history and inspire you to have a look at the readings next time you are passing.

Click here

Boxing in Bluntisham

During the last couple of months we have been adding video, articles, photos and press cuttings covering the history of boxing in the village. The Laud brothers enjoyed success on a National level and they trained in a gym at Heath Farm on Wood End. We even had our very own boxing promoter in Fred White, who along with trainer Andy Smith, managed and promoted their fights. Joe Bugner, was also part of the Andy Smith stable and spent time training in the Bluntisham Gym.

Treat yourself to half an hour, and look through these articles, get yourself a cup of tea or perhaps something stronger. Please follow this link https://www.bhp-pc.org.uk/others/, for a tour of the pugilistic past of our village.

With thanks to Bev White, the Laud family and Shirley and Tim Rose for all of their efforts in contributing the details and a big shout out to Malcolm O’Neil for all his efforts in putting it together.

No Empty Shelves in 2002

This is an image that we have been searching for now for some time. Those of us that have been here long enough can remember Tony Rowell’s shop with great fondness and we have been looking for a photograph of the interior. With thanks to the late Tom Youd we can now share one with you all. Taken in 2002 and one in a series of photos of the village, which we will be sharing over the weekend, we hope that this brings back some happy memories.

Inside Tony Rowell’s shop in 2002, which is now the hairdressers.

Shirley Purvis Photo Collection added.

With huge thanks to Shirley, we now have over 70 new school photos on the website. The first photos date back to 1975 and the last ones are in 1992. These are a selection of class photo’s nativity photos, leaving do’s and visits from the Prime Minister. There are some names on the photo’s but please feel free to log in and add your name or those of people that you recognise. A huge thank you to Shirley for allowing us to share these photos, I hope that you enjoy looking through them.

August Update

As you will have seen from previous blogs, newsletters and social media posts we applied to the National Lottery Heritage fund for a grant to put towards the costs of the Heritage project. I am delighted to inform you that the grant application for £4400 was successful and we have now started the process of getting the funds released. This money will join the other grants that we have received from two Bluntisham groups – The Saywell’s School Charity donated £250 and the Village 100 Club an additional £300. Our thanks go to both of these organisations as their donations enabled the project to get off the ground.

These grants will be used to improve the look and functionality of the website, a more sophisticated cataloging system, IT equipment, DTP software and publications. It means that we can really crack on with developing our website and the project as a whole.

We have added more photos, with lots more to be added, and we have also added some information on the Path Finder March that passes through the village each year. Which is very informative and well worth a read.

We continue to receive contributions and we have offers of lots more. Thank you again to everyone for embracing the project. One of our aims is to increase the feeling of community by linking the past with the present. This week we have been able to introduce the owners of a house on the High Street to the man that was born in their house in 1939. He’s going round for a tour of how it looks now and is looking forward to sharing his memories of how it was when he was young with them – which is what its all about I guess.

Thank you again

Philippa 14.08.2019

Open Morning – 27th July

Our first open morning is planned for Saturday July 27^th 2019 at the Village Hall at 10.30. We are looking to give you a brief overview of where we are and then to open the conversation up to everyone to talk about their memories of Bluntisham and to get involved, and to allow us to share their memories, photo’s, written memoirs on the website.

It’s still early days but we are getting contributions from more and more people, this website will develop on content and we now have a forum page on the website, where we welcome you to send us a message or post your own memories. Please feel free to join us on the 27^th, if you would like any more details or to talk to us about contributing please get in touch.

Welcome

Welcome to the Bluntisham Heritage project website, thank you for showing an interest and visiting our site.

We are often asked what are looking to include and how we will share our village’s heritage; our aim is pretty straightforward. We live in a village that people find hard to leave once they have either been born here or moved here. In some cases if people have moved away they seem to retain strong emotional ties to the village.

We realized that lots of people have lots of information on the village, be that a relative that lived in your house in 1881 or a memory of the old school fete or playgroup and that there was nowhere to share these memories. We wanted to provide a forum where this information could be shared and made available to everyone digitally wherever they were. We decided to link the past to present in a digital archive that can be maintained and added to going forward. In thirty years’ time the year Six pupils who are leaving the school will be 40 and they are creating the history of Bluntisham today, when Lily Norman becomes Prime Minister in 2055 we will rightly claim her as one of our own.

We understand that not everyone is online, and we want to include as many people as we can and that is why we are having a series of open mornings to run through where we are to date and what information people are contributing. Everyone is welcome and the same goes to anything that they want to share – be that the cricket team line up in 1995, the closure of the railway in the 1960’s or the playgroup in 1980, its all relevant and we want to gather and share as much and as varied information as we can.