American and European students are working side by side with village school
children and grown ups at Whittington near Lichfield in an ambitious project
to build what they believe will be the finest village hall in the Midlands.
For the past fortnight the students, 17 in all, have been working on the
site from 8 am to 5 pm. They eat and sleep in the nearby country primary
school, and twice a day snacks are served up to them on the site. With an
age range of 16 to 18 (maybe 19) the six boys and 11 girls come from
Sweden, France, Germany, all over England and America.
They have dug out the foundations and levelled off the site. Since the
school holidays began, scores of children have flocked to the site to help.
“We enjoy having them and they do a lot of work,” said one of the students.
Help from the students was obtained through the Staffordshire Rural
Communities Council. They are one of the working parties to help community
projects organised by an international Quaker organisation.
Every night each visitor is invited out to a separate home to have a bath
and a chat with the family. They all speak English. Camp leaders are Mr
and Mrs Bud Kenworthy, teachers at the Germantown Friends School,
Pennsylvania, and two of their students are in the party.
Sponsored by the Parish Council, the hall project has been vigorously
supported by residents of the rapidly expanding village. Materials will
costs £4,500. Grants of up to £3,100 are expected, which leaves another
£550 to be raised.
Local volunteer labour will complete the job.
Students lay foundations of village hall
Members of the international student group who spent three weeks working on
the preliminary building stages of Whittington’s new village hall were
enthusiastically cheered by nearly 200 villagers when they gave a farewell
entertainment in the school on Friday. The students departed on Sunday and
Monday.
At the close of Friday’s social evening, officers of the Village Hall
Committee expressed thanks to the students for the work they had done.
It was a truly international programme, ranging in song from “Viga over
daggastarka berg” by Swedish Eva Granath and Inger Lungren, to “Comin’ round
the mountain”, sung by Bud Kenworthy, joint camp leader, and his wife.
Skits in humorous vein included “Work” by Alistair McHaffie (Scot) with Ed
Rainery (American) and “Clowns” by Pierre Chantereau (French) and Jorg
Schlee (German).
Written on a blackboard prominently displayed on the platform was: “Many
thanks for all these things and more” with an accompanying illustration of a
man scrubbing his back in the bath, a pile of fruit and an iced cake.
The students received generous hospitality when they went out for their
nightly baths at the end of each day’s work and were plentifully supplied
with fruit and vegetables and other things to eat.
The girls made the sandwiches and the boys did the washing up afterwards.
On Saturday they were cleaning up their “camp” quarters in the school where
they slept and had meals.
Good progress was made with the building work, with all the foundations laid
and walls up to damp course level. Many of the 15 students, most of whom
were girls, had no previous building experience. They put information found
in such booklets as “How to mix better concrete” into practical use.
During their three weeks’ stay the students had a daily programme beginning
at 7 am, with work starting at 8.30 am. They worked until late afternoon,
went for their baths and then assembled for dinner at the school, followed
by a recreational evening.
On free afternoons the students visited Lichfield, Tamworth, Warwick and
Stratford. Last week they attended a meeting of the Parish Council
sponsoring the new hall and took part in a lively discussion.
Staffordshire Rural Community Council obtained the help of the students
through an international Quaker organisation which gives aid to community
projects in England and Europe.
Volunteer labour by villagers will be used to complete the work on the
village hall.
Caption to photo:
Singing heartily after their last full day’s work, on Friday, on the new
Whittington Village Hall are members of the international group of students
who spent a three-weeks-“building”-holiday helping villagers with their
ambitious project. Earlier in the evening they gave a concert for the
villagers.
November 1960
Critics of the progress that is being made with Whittington’s partly erected
Village Hall – they complain that nothing has been done for the past year –
were answered on Wednesday night by Mr W A Cubitt, chairman of the hall
committee, at a public meeting in the village school.
“The village hall is going up, very slowly, but it is going up. Every
organisation in the village is represented on the committee and they are
just as determined as I am to see the hall built”, said Mr Cubitt.
Reason for the delay in building the hall was a legal one, he explained.
The Ministry of Education, who were to provide a grant of £3,100 towards its
cost, had queried the deeds of the site on which the hall was to be built.
It had been said that the site was compulsorily purchased, but an extensive
search of past correspondence showed that that was not the case. “This
ground has always been allocated for a village hall. In the interim period
it was used as allotments”, Mr Cubitt told nearly 40 villagers present.
Snags
The committee had “got cracking” while they could with the building 18
months ago, but unfortunately had been unable to see the snags that lay
ahead.
The first very big one came after all the applications had gone to the
Ministry of Education. They refused to grant aid until the title of the
land had been clarified.
For a whole year the parish clerk (Mr H Berks) and a solicitor had been
searching for information about the ground to elucidate the position for the
Ministry. Eventually, only a few weeks ago, they had been able to satisfy
the Ministry. Nothing more had been done to the hall because the committee
had been trying to clear up the matter of the land.
A new model deed was to be drawn up, copies of which had gone to committee
members. It was to be the subject of a joint meeting between the committee
and council on November 10.
Mr C H Inge, chairman of the Parish Council, said that the earlier deed was
not a “fake”. It had been drawn up between the council and the committee,
but was wrongly made.
Entitled to build
Replying to Mr E Fisher, Mr Cubitt said he was satisfied that no part of the
land that was being built on had been compulsorily purchased. The committee
were quite entitled to build on it.
“Quite a few people, including myself, are not satisfied that you are
building this hall on ground that is your own,” said Mr Fisher. He thought
that before embarking on a project costing £4,000 to £5,000 the first thing
was to ensure beyond any shadow of doubt that the land they were intending
to build on was their own.
Mr Cubitt said the new deeds had to be drawn up because the Ministry and the
Church Commissioners who were providing money for the scheme wanted to be
mentioned in it. “They want some say in the matter regarding the money that
they are handing over, but they will have no control as to what you are
going to use the hall for”, he said.
Mr J A Broughall, the newly appointed treasurer, presented the committee’s
accounts up to July 20. They showed that £600 had been received in
donations, more than half of it from the former Village Nursing
Association’s balance.
The total income was £1,466, and expenditure amounted to £388. Over £900
had been spent on building materials. A balance of £173 was being kept in
hand, although there were outstanding bills of over £300.
Mr Broughall mentioned that a scheme for the early erection of a committee
room in which certain functions could be held was being examined.
Mr Maurice Fisher pointed out that an additional £400 was needed to reach
the target set of £1400 to be raised in the village.
“As soon as we get our grants we shall go forward again and everything will
be plain sailing”, said Mr Cubitt.
1963
Volunteers make a start on Village Hall
Saturday was a proud day for members of the Whittington Village Hall
Committee. They saw the first of the concrete bricks to be used being put
into place.
Performing the ceremony was 16 years-old Miss Janette Flaherty, the daughter
of a local builder of 9 Church Street, Whittington, near Lichfield. She is
one of the 12 young people who are providing the voluntary labour.
As the first brick was laid, Mr M B Fisher, chairman of the committee,
immediately appealed for more help. “Those who have maintained their
interest in the village hall over the past four years and are helping to
build it have done – and are doing – a fine job of work. But we need more
help”, said Mr Fisher.
“It is an ambitious project, which when completed, will serve the village
well. The more help we get, the sooner it will be ready for use.”
Attending the stone-laying ceremony, the Vicar of Whittington (the Rev. W.
H. Davies) told the “Observer”: I hope that now a start has been made on the
erection of the walls, it will give encouragement to more parishioners and
that they will rally round the committee and strive to get the hall
completed.”
Plans for a village hall at Whittington were settled four years ago and
members of the international students group – Americans and Europeans –
worked side by side with village school children and adults for several
weeks during which time they dug out the foundations and levelled off the
site.
The steel framework of the hall was erected, but building had to stop
suddenly when it was discovered that the land belonged to a local trust.
For two years after that nothing happened, but in January the village hall
committee bought the site from the Charity Commissioners and in June
volunteer teams of local youth began working on the site again.
Mr Fisher predicted that the hall could be finished in two and a half years.
Costing over £4,500 for materials alone, the buildings will have a main
assembly room and a committee room. There will be a stage in the hall.
1963/1964
Example of unselfish service
The spirit of voluntary workers who are putting their backs into creating a
communal centre for the village of Whittington is exemplified by the efforts
of Mr William Webb, who, at 71, turns out to help build the new hall.
After a lifetime’s work, mainly in the building trade, Mr Webb retired last
year and now he gives up his daytime leisure to work for nothing. Patiently
laying bricks on Monday afternoon he explained: “We have got nothing here
and a village hall is essential.”
His efforts must set an example to all villagers and there is little doubt
that he was correct when he said on Monday: “Why if three or four young
bricklayers would lend a hand we could have this place up in a month.”
Organising the effort behind the project is Mr Webb’s son-in-law, Mr M B
Fisher, chairman of the hall committee. By hard work from village
volunteers a real start has now been made on the building and the walls are
creeping up.
It should not be too long before Whittington people are able to meet in
their own village centre and when they do, it will be to men like Mr Webb
that the praise will be due.
1967
Crazy Project Opens after ten years of muddles and delays!
Members of Whittington’s voluntary committee set up to plan the building of
a village hall pressed ahead with the project despite “trials and
tribulations”, legal muddles and delays.
And on Saturday, over ten years since the first parish meeting was called to
discuss the scheme, the new hall was officially opened by Cllr Arnold Ward,
chairman of Staffordshire Education Committee.
Built at a cost of £8,500, complete with furnishings, the hall seats 200
people, and includes an entrance hall, cloakrooms, stage and committee
room. It was designed by committee members themselves who visited many
village halls within the country, choosing the best features of each and
incorporating these in their design.
Cllr Ward pointed out on Saturday that the village owed a great deal to the
original committee set up after the parish meeting in 1956. Referring to
their “trials and tribulations”, he said these stemmed not only from the
Ministry, but from the village itself – he himself, he added, was among
those who had thought at first that to attempt the building of a village
hall was “a crazy project”.
It was in April 1958 that the original application was made to the education
authority for the erection of a hall. The scheme was put before the then
Ministry of Education, by which time there was already a balance in hand of
£600 and grant aid was offered. Permission to start the work came in 1959,
but it was not until 1962 that grant aid was actually received.
Fully booked
“I hope it will be used to the fullest possible extent by the public and
already bookings are such that you will have visitors from far away”, he
said. A vote of thanks was proposed by Mr W Chapman, vice-chairman of the
management committee.
Guest speaker, Mr S M Gibb, secretary of Staffordshire Rural Community
Council, who suggested that village life had a valuable contribution to make
to the country’s future and could be one of its stabilising influences.
Chairman of the hall management committee, Mr M B Fisher, said after the
opening: “It is true that at first a lot of people felt this scheme was a
little too ambitious for Whittington and this went on for some time.
But as the project neared fruition, it became generally supported and I
would wholeheartedly agree with Cllr Ward’s view that it brought the older
and newer residents together.”
He explained that for nearly three years they had been unable to do any work
at all because the parish council, which was prepared to give land for the
hall, discovered that it was not in fact the owner and Queen’s Counsel
opinion had to be sought.
The village raised money for the hall by organising coffee mornings, whist
drives, /Christmas bazaars and Spring “fayres” and there had been grant aid.
More money-raising efforts were being held, added Mr Fisher, to pay of the
remaining £3,000 debt on the hall.
Overseas telegram
Among the visitors at the opening was Mr A McHaffie, one of the former
students in a working party who came to clear the site and help lay
foundations for the hall in 1959. The party, accommodated in the local
school, was arranged by an international Quaker organisation. Its leader,
Mr Bud Kenworthy, sent a telegram from America on Saturday, expressing his
congratulations and good wishes.
Flowers were arranged by Mrs Cecil Smith and there was a display of
photographs showing the various stages of work on the hall, which had been
mounted by Colonel Pitz.
Also present at the opening were the President of the Committee, Mrs C E
Jamison, Mrs Ward, the Vicar of Whittington, the Rev W H Davies and Mrs
Davies, and the Clerk of Lichfield Rural District Council, Mr N Barton.
Common effort
Cllr Ward went on to say that although legal muddles and delays held up the
work for a long times, it had the effect of uniting both established and
newer residents in a common effort.
Whittington parish had doubled in size since the scheme began and when small
villages expanded there was always the danger that they would develop into
two communities – the older residents sticking together, and the newcomers,
many of them commuters, having very little connection with their home
surroundings.
This had not happened at Whittington, added Cllr Ward, and he felt one of
the reasons for this was the united effort behind the village hall scheme.
All over Staffordshire small villages were expanding and something must be
done to guard against the danger of a divided community.
He commented that the design of the hall “was a work of great vision” and
added that it was the best village hall he had ever been in.
21 January 1971
Happy sequel to village hall competition entry!
The happy sequel to Whittington’s Village Hall winning last year’s “Best
Maintained Village Hall in Staffordshire” competition came at a special
ceremony in the Hall last Thursday when a trophy to commemorate the win was
presented.
Almost one hundred villagers attended the ceremony to see Mr Robert Douglas,
vice-president of the Staffordshire Community Council, present the “R M
Douglas” trophy to Mrs Mabel Jamison, president of the village hall
committee, for Whittington’s success in the competition.
In his speech Mr Douglas said that Whittington competed against 18 other
villages to win the trophy for the first time ever.
He went on to stress the need for recreational centres in villages where one
fifth of the country’s population live.
“They help to provide the social activities for the newcomers from the urban
areas”, said Mr Douglas.
In her acceptance speech Mrs Jamison said that after winning the trophy for
the first time she hoped the village would now have further success in the
competition.
A certificate to mark the win was also presented by Mr G L Jacques, chairman
of the Community Council.
