Saturday 21 June 1947 – Death of Florence Elizabeth Green
LATE MRS F E GREEN
LATE MRS F E GREEN
In May 2023, Paul Foreman contacted the Badsey Society concerning his Knight ancestors. Paul’s father, Malcolm Foreman (1931-2010), by the time of his death, had accumulated a vast amount of material relating to his mother, born Ada Knight in Badsey in 1898, and his aunt, Daisy Knight, 19 months younger, who had both been sent to an orphanage after the death of their mother. Using documentary sources provided by the orphanage that the girls were sent to, combined with information from Badsey records, this is the story of Ada and Daisy Knight.
On a hot and sunny Friday evening, 24 people set off from The Wheatsheaf in order to explore the new QR trail set up by Alan and Shirley Tutton. The participants included Mike Tennant, parish councillor, and Andrea Evans, parish clerk, representing Badsey & Aldington Parish Council who kindly funded the project. The youngest member of the group was a teenager with her grandmother, the oldest was local historian, Terry Sparrow. Despite not having a smart phone, he found the trail very informative.
The surname Collett is a common name in Badsey records. Ruby Collett, who is the subject of this article, was not from a Badsey family, having grown up in Huntingdonshire. But, as she spent a number of her working years based in Evesham, she would undoubtedly have visited Badsey, Aldington and Wickhamford in her role as an inspector in the Ministry of Agriculture. Thus, her story is told here of this pioneering woman.
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On Saturday 6th May 2023, King Charles III and Queen Camilla were crowned in Westminster Abbey. Like his mother’s coronation 70 years earlier, rain fell for much of the day, but this did not detract too much from the spectacle. Sadly, some of the coronation events planned locally could not take place because of rain, but some events went ahead and were much enjoyed. Click on the images below to see what went on in Badsey and Wickhamford - and, for one lucky person, in London.
The fourth and final evening of “Letters from a Badsey Family” comprised readings of letters from 1917-1919. A new cast member was Bernard Sladden of the 2nd Auckland Company (the Sladdens’ cousin from New Zealand), played by his great-great-nephew, Jonathan Miller – who came complete with an authentic “lemon-squeezer” hat!
Ian Gibson took us on an informative tour of the wildlife in the local area – we had no idea there was so much wildlife teeming in our gardens! Ian is beginning to share his photographic collection in a new section on the website called “Nature Notes”.
During the business part of the meeting, the same Committee and Officers were re-elected. The annual Tony Jerram Award was given to Patrick Sparrow, in recognition of his long record of service to the community of Badsey & Aldington. Until his retirement in 2016, he served as Honorary Treasurer of the Badsey Flower Show Committee for 40 years. He was prominent in the formation of the Aldington Residents’ Association and served as its Chairman for ten years.
The third Richard Phillips Memorial was delivered by Dr Alan Wadsworth of the Worcestershire Farmsteads Project. Alan, who grew up on the family farm in Yorkshire, moved to Badsey 15 months ago from Wiltshire. Having taken early retirement from a job in industry, he returned to his farming roots whilst in Wiltshire and became Project Leader of the Wiltshire Farmsteads Project. On moving to Badsey, it seemed only natural that he should start on a similar project in south-east Worcestershire.
Alan began his talk by explaining that the River Avon rises close to the Village of Naseby and flows through the west midlands to Tewkesbury where it meets the River Severn. Along the way it passes through some of this country's finest countryside and the place where we all live.