FCA Magazine (FCAtoday) - Issue 53: Winter 2014
FC staff Retirement Association magazine. The content summary below was very kindly compiled by Diane Birkett, Bedfordshire. See PDF attachment below the text to view the full document. A total of 77 issues were completed between 1997 and the final issue in 2023.
Issue 53: Winter 2014
Articles
What To Do in Retirement?
In 2008 Peter Webb was invited to join a small local charity, “The Friends of the Forgotten Garden of Lewtrenchard” as their Woodland Advisor. The aims of the group were to restore the ancient woodland, to discover the route of the Woodland Walk and to find the site of the Holy Well. The work involved the thinning of the ancient woodland which had mainly been clear felled during the Second World War and had not been replanted. The result was a lot of sycamore and squirrel damage. The aim was to reintroduce native species such as oak, hazel and cherry. Within the woodland there were the remnants of plantings laid out in 1913 by the well known clergyman and author Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould to enable his disabled wife to enjoy it. Sadly the estate workers left Lewtrenchard to go to the First World War. In 1916 Grace Baring-Gould died and the Woodland Garden fell into disrepair. The Woodland Garden is now open to the public www.forgottengarden.co.uk
AGM 2015
Members of the Brecklands Group are working on the venue and tour locations for our 2015 AGM.
North Wales Group Activities in 2014
The North Wales Group has had a successful year in 2014, with a series of field trips to the far flung parts of their region. They aim to have meetings that are dispersed throughout our geographical area to equalise driving distances, that have pleasant picnic facilities, a good venue for afternoon tea and, above all, be interesting. Photographs show the Group on various visits.
Halcyoné: From Forth to Hebrides - Part 2 Peterhead to Arisaig
From the details in his wife Carole’s diary, Roddie Burgess continues his account of the sailing of their yacht Halcyoné from the home berth at Port Edgar on the Firth of Forth to the port in Arisaig, Camas an T' Salainn Bay, Loch nan Ceall.
Letter to the Editor
Martin Fletcher adds a postscript to Brian Greig’s article on bark stripping in the Dean. He remembers two tanneries still buying oak bark from the FC in the 1970s. They were Croggons of Grampound Road in Cornwall and J & F.J. Baker of Colyton in Devon. Only the latter is in business now.
Cosmos at Alice Holt Forest
Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Forestry Commission England unveiled a new sculpture by artist duo Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) entitled Cosmos at Alice Holt Forest in Surrey on 22nd October 2014. Cosmos is Semiconductor’s first ever public sculpture and was commissioned through the Jerwood Open Forest initiative. It is the culmination of more than a year’s research and development by Semiconductor who have collaborated with scientists from Forest Research, the scientific agency of the Forestry Commission. Their work explores the material nature of our world. Through this piece they consider scientific data as a means of understanding the environment, and the relationship between how science represents the physical world and how we experience it.
Wales’s Rarest Tree to be Planted in Usk
The woodland attached to Usk Castle is to become a proud custodian of Wales’s rarest tree. The Leys whitebeam (Sorbus leyana) has only 17 individual trees growing in the wild, clinging to a limestone cliff in the middle of the Coed Taf on Penmoel Allt, Merthyr. The tree’s site was re-discovered by forester Peter Charlesworth, who started work in the forest in August 1957. Peter died in December 2013, and is buried in Usk’s Natural Burial Ground. His widow, Eirlys Charlesworth, has been presented with 20 saplings of the tree and has chosen to plant some close to the burial ground to mark Peter's historic discovery.
From the Editor
A comment from Richard Toleman.
Obituaries
Ian Blake recalls the life of Robert “Bob” Clark aka Jock who retired in 2010.
Martin Fletcher reports that Wilf Lawes, who was a Forest Craftsman at Bramshill and Bucklebury Forests, died in July. He retired in 1994 after completing 41 years’ service.
Mike Whitlock has written to say that Ron Brown MBE died in September at the age of 91. A tribute was also written by John Gibbs.
Ian Blake has passed on the news that Ray Cole died in October.
Although not a past employee of the FC, many will remember William “Bill” Mutch who died in April aged 88.
Brian Lloyd Jones died on 26th October 2014. He was born in Mold before moving up to Gwernymynydd as a boy and living there until his forestry career took