The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.4 | March 2022

Local Group Programmes

to give it its correct title, were ‘the outward and visible sign of the spirit of resistance’ as Steve put it, who at their peak, numbered around 1.8 million members of whom many won medals and over 1,600 died whilst on duty. Jimmy Croft, one of the writers of the fictional Dad’s Army, wrote the role of Private Walker for himself, but it was not to be, and James Beck, the actor who played Walker, was sadly the first of the platoon cast members to die. Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike, is the only member of the Warmington-on-Sea platoon who still survives. The now immortal line uttered to him by Captain Mainwaring when a German officer demands to know his name - ‘Don’t tell him, Pike!’ - has been voted the 3rd greatest British television comedy moment of all time. (December) Members’ Xmas Meeting Our last meeting of the year was a festive affair involving whisky, wine, tinsel, Santa hats, Christmas jumpers, antlers and mince pies – what more could we wish for?! An added bonus was that it was held virtually, so no cars were involved. Our organiser Kay kicked the evening off by giving us a short talk entitled Christmas Happenings which began way back on 25th December 800, when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; she then took us forward in time via various other occurrences, right the way up to Christmas Eve 1968 and the historic Apollo 8 moon shot, when the astronauts broadcast the first lines of Genesis during one of the first ever lunar orbits. This was followed by Brian Ashford reading us a most evocative account of the memories of his aunt’s Christmas of 1920, before the meeting was opened up to general chatter and laughter, all nicely oiled by our various tipples. Thank you, Kay, for organising such a varied and interesting year of meetings for the Romsey Our group organiser Kay wished all attendees a Happy New Year before hosting a long chat about the exciting forthcoming 1921 census release, including the welcome fact that browsing the index is free, before moving on to the main event of the evening which happily combined two of Kay's interests – quizzes and PowerPoint –a fortuitous coincidence for the group. We were asked 40 testing questions which had been sub divided into four categories – New Year, Years Past, Genealogy and Trivia... and I have to report that our group did not fare at all well with the genealogy section, red faces all round. Forthcoming Meetings: group - and under such difficult circumstances too. (January) Members' Quiz Evening – Kay Lovell

Searching for Dora

March 7th April 4th May 3rd June 6th

Les Mitchinson

Members’ Evening – Funny Stories

The Civil War in Hampshire

Alan Turton

My Czech Roots

Margaret Bowman

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