Headlines for June Issue

Dedication of the Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham
The Sunday Eucharist on 6th May at Our Lady and St Anne RC church in Caversham was the setting for the Dedication of the Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham. In his own words of introduction, the Most Reverend Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham came to Caversham (accompanied by Sister Luke Lennon and Fr. Dominic Cosslett, his Secretary) not only as the principal celebrant at the mass, but as ‘a pilgrim’. He told the congregation more exactly that the shrine is 107 miles from Church House in Birmingham, alluding to the substantial dimensions of the archdiocese spanning the Staffordshire Moorlands in the north to the banks of the Thames. Unlike our previous…. (Read more)

Caversham buses: red route 22 update
It has been over three months since the new Caversham bus timetable came into effect on 19 February 2018. The impact of the new Red 22 route and reduced frequency has been felt by many residents. Concerned of Caversham was formed by concerned residents on the first day of the Reading Buses Caversham consultation back in October 2017, with the aim of raising awareness of these changes, and has worked tirelessly to see Caversham residents treated fairly and equally. Reading Buses have pointed out the routes in Caversham have not been making money for many years. However, the largest population of over 65s living in Reading reside in Caversham, and they quite rightly use their concessionary bus pass, along with a large number of…. (Read more)

Concert success at Gosbrook Road Methodist Church
On Saturday April 14th Revd. David Jenkins produced and directed an evening of wonderful music. David is very talented in being able to sing and play the piano at the same time. He also writes his own music. One piece was a Wedding March which he had composed for a friend. David fits in two or three ‘World Premiéres’ during each concert and we are lucky to be…. (Read more)

THE CAVERSHAM HEIGHTS SOCIETY
April saw the end of this season’s formal lectures for the Society with two fascinating talks. These were all the better because a new sound system made everything so much clearer. The first talk, on 4th April, entitled ‘Treasure beneath our feet’ was given by James Mather, a keen metal detector. James took us through how he became interested in metal detecting 25 years ago; how the hobby is regulated by the Treasure Act of 1996; and how any finds of significance have to be recorded by one of 38 Government appointees. Most of the time finds consist of…. (Read more)

Hundreds gather for Annual Service of Remembrance
Hundreds of people streamed into Reading Minster for the annual Service of Remembrance organised by funeral Directors A.B. Walker. Light shone through the stained-glass windows, as young and old gathered together for the moving service which was led by the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Andrew Proud. Those attending included Richard….(Read more)

Caversham Salvation Army
Back in 1955 I was “dedicated” into the Salvation Army as a baby and attended along with my four older brothers. My eldest brother played in Reading Central Boys Band as a youngster, but I went to Caversham hall up until it closed. My earliest memories were at the Sunday School which I attended with my father Fred Smith. We would often walk but as an upwardly mobile family the tandem bicycle and side car would come out with Dad steering and one of my older brothers peddling in the rear and the rest of us in the sidecar. The hall stood back from the edge of the road in Prospect St on the left side as you come down from….. (Read more)

CADRA AGM 17 April 2018
As part of the brief AGM business, Helen Lambert, CADRA Chair reported on another busy year for the CADRA committee. This included work on Planning, Conservation Areas, Traffic and Transport and Police and Safety. 2017 marked fifty years since the founding of the association. The special edition of the newsletter is still available at http://www.cadra.org.uk/en/CADRA-Newsletters on the…. (Read more)

Lampstands on Caversham Bridge
If you look closely at the bronze lampstands on Caversham Bridge, you will see that they are marked ‘Bromsgrove.’ The Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts, founded in 1898, was a company of modern artists and designers which grew out of the Bromsgrove School of Art. It was associated with the Arts and Craft movement. The guild worked in metal, wood, plaster, bronze, tapestry, glass and other mediums. In 1901 the metal workshop was expanded, with representatives of the…. (Read more)

St Peter’s Conservation Area.
The consultation on St Peter’s Conservation Area, undertaken last summer showed overwhelming support for the proposals which included extending the boundary to include, Bridge Street and Caversham Bridge as well as Church Street, up to and including the Telephone Exchange and Priory Avenue Surgery. The Conservation Area Advisory Committee formally submitted the re-appraisal to the Council in December. Following…. (Read more)

The Dawn Chorus: 6th May 2018.
Sunrise happens every day! But, the early morning May sunlight slanting through soft new green leaves and the sound of birds is magic! On 6th May, 20 early risers came to Clayfield Copse to enjoy it. At 4.30 a.m. Mars and Venus are still clearly visible, two tawny owls are signing off, and a muntjac barks at us. But as the sky lightened the air was full of birdsong as we walked stopped and listened across the playing field, through the woods, then…. (Read more)

MALLOW
Common Mallow starts flowering this month and continues to flower well into the autumn. The flowers are large, colourful and attractive, and in the past the leaves and roots have been used as food and as medicine. The English name for the plant has been in use since Anglo-Saxon times, and has found its way into literature. Tennyson, in his poem, The Brook, wrote about “many a fairy foreland set with willow-weed and mallow,” whilst John Clare, the poet of the countryside, remembered:

Then sitting down when school was o’er
Upon the threshold of the door,
Picking from mallows, sport to please,
The crumpled seed we called a cheese.

The round and flattened seed-capsules of mallow were thought to look like tiny cheeses, giving rise to such popular names for the plant as ‘bread and cheese’ and ‘fairy cheese.’ Children once ate the seed-capsules, and it was reckoned that they tasted like monkeynuts. Many of today’s children probably think that cheeses are oblong, and come vacuum packed, and probably don’t know what monkey-nuts are either. For me as a child, whole cheeses, piled up on the…. (Read more)

Pollution alarm in Caversham!.
There are no official statistics being gathered by Reading Borough Council to establish whether central Caversham is a pollution black spot. The worrying results from the four air quality test tubes that were installed in March by Caversham GLOBE group to measure the amount of dangerous nitrogen dioxide (NO2) per cubic metre (μg/m3) on local roads are:

Church Street/Prospect St. junction 41.18μg/m3
Church Street/Priory Avenue junction 46.83μg/m3
On Peppard Road near the Prospect Street traffic lights 54.17μg/m3
Church Road/St Anne’s Road junction 56.90μg/m3

What does this mean? It means we’re breathing in dangerous particles! The legal MEAN ANNUAL limit for… (Read more)

Caversham Horticultural Society
On Wednesday 24th of June come and learn about butterflies found in Berkshire and local efforts to save their habitats, when Peter Cuss of the charity Butterfly Conservation gives an illustrated talk. The talk will be…. (Read more)

Caversham Heights Townswomen’s Guild
In April Caversham Heights Townswomen’s Guild were in awe of Jane Windmill, who walked ‘The Length and Breadth of Britain’ in both fair and foul weather. Our ambling group managed to get as far as the Reading Lido for coffee and back, but we did encounter the foul weather! The Social Studies group followed ‘In the footsteps of Shackleton’ with Mr N.Stewart and his lovely wildlife photographs. Jane Austen’s connection to Reading was examined by Joy Pivworth at our…. (Read more)

Chazey WI
This April meeting was our last evening meeting. From May we shall meet on the first Wednesday afternoon in the month at 2.30 p.m. at Caversham Heights Methodist Church Hall on the corner of Highmoor Road and the Woodcote Road in Caversham Heights. We had a fascinating talk on shoes with lots of examples to look at and Margaret Keen formally thanked Irene Mansen, the presenter. Tea/Coffee was served with some birthday cake made by Margaret Keen, and members sang Happy Birthday to celebrate Chazey’s birthday! The competition was won by Margaret Keen, second was Ann Jones and third was Helen Hudson. The winner of the year for our…. (Read more)

Rosehill WI
We were welcomed to our March meeting by our new president Arlene Riley, who extended greetings to all members and visitors present. Arlene then said that the report for the April meeting was available for all to see. Secretary, Mary Robinson told us that the bulb order forms had now been received and would need to be completed by 1st June if anyone was interested. Mary also said that she had received a request from the RBH that they were desperately in need of blankets for their dementia patients. Which need to be about…. (Read more)

Caversham WI
To start the new WI year, we welcomed Sarah Moreland from Reading Voluntary Action (RVA). She is based in Reading Central Library and the team work with over 900 charities operating in and around Reading! So, if you’re thinking about volunteering but don’t know what local opportunities there are – these are the people to speak to. With RVA’s assistance, we are planning to increase the role of Caversham WI in our local community. If you’d like to know more – you can stop by to meet us at the Kiosk cafe in Caversham Court Garden over the second June weekend (Thursday 7th to Sunday 10th). Next month’s meeting brings the annual National WI Resolutions discussion. This time we are discussing…. (Read more)

A House called Caversham
In a rocky field in the Eastern is a house called Caversham! It is one of several buildings on the site of the Grow Hope Trust, which is a new project recently set up by Matt and Lauren Mbanga, one of the pastors of Highlands Presbyterian Church in Harare. It is a project that St Andrew’s Caversham supports and we hope that this will be a long term mission partnership. Matt visited St Andrew’s in 2017 and recently
addressed the congregation live via Skype at one of our services and members of…. (Read more)

St Anne’s school pupils have done well in two events during April
A team of Year Five children took part in the F1 Jaguar Primary School Challenge at the UTC in Reading. At the culmination of nearly three months incredibly hard work, they spent the day displaying and presenting their work. They gave a five minute talk about their experiences and discussed the engineering of their cars. They then raced the cars that they had designed. By the end of the day the “Furious Falcons” had achieved third place overall and were also…. (Read more)

 

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