As is traditional Bernard Mills was welcomed by members at the December meeting of the Circle. Where he took us on his travels through 2024.

He stated on the South Devon Railway and then onto the Plym Valley Railway for the mince pie specials. Various shots of Swindon Steam Museum were seen after Bernard had visited there to give a presentation to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Western Locomotive Association.

In the Spring Bernard closely documented the demise of semaphore signals showing their replacement with colour lights, on the main line through out mid Cornwall.

Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum which has small narrow gauge with a number of steam engines featured as Bernard had visited there in May.

In June Bernard had made a visit to the rarely open North Cornwall Miniature Railway and Toy Museum. This is situated near St Teath and fascinated Bernard so much that he made a return visit in August. As he told us its well worth a visit but the opening times are severely restricted by planning constraints.

Some of the other highlights of Bernard’s year were the Trigg Morris Men dancing on Bodmin Parkway Station in memory of the late Maurice Dart in July.

Also towards the end of the Bernard was there to witness the arrival of an HST power car at the Plym Valley Railway where it will be on static display.

Bernard’s year finished with a look at the engineering works that were carried out at Keyham in December.

The Circle’s next meeting is on Friday, January 17. Starting with the AGM after which Andrew Roden will give a presentation entitled “Flying Scotsman” as well as an update on the Northern Working Group.

On Saturday, December 14, members of Granville Lodge of Freemasons along with friends and family joined together for a delightful traditional Christmas meal at the home of Denise and John Weller in Poughill.

The atmosphere was convivial, and everyone said how much they enjoyed the company and excellent food. Donations from those attending and others unable to attend raised £600 which will be sent to Crisis at Christmas.

Crisis is the UK national charity for people experiencing homelessness. The charity offers year-round education, employment, housing and well-being services from its many centres around the UK.

If you are interested to know more about Freemasonry in Cornwall, please call 01872 276191 or email [email protected]

What started as a hobby has led to worldwide travel and TV stardom!

This is what we learned from our own WI member, Judith Taylor, at our December meeting. Having a long time love of flowers, in the 80’s she attended Christmas flower arranging classes in Bude and then joined Launceston Flower Club - soon becoming a committee member.

This was followed in the early 90’s with Judith obtaining her City & Guilds certificate at Duchy College.

All Flower Clubs belong to the National Association of Flower Arranging Societies (NAFAS) which organises all the local, regional, and national competitions and are participants in international events.

Having become an Area demonstrator she progressed to Area Judge. This was all alongside continuing to compete either as an individual and as part of the Devon & Cornwall Group at local and National Shows.

She also carried out demonstrations both in this country and abroad, her first one taking place in Spain.

Next step up was being asked to represent Devon & Cornwall with a friend at the World Show being held in Glasgow where they won a third prize.

She then moved on to become a National judge, joined the National committee and, after seven years, ended as Chair. This led to becoming a judge at the World Show in Boston USA. She was also asked to go to Barbados to train judges there and had the pleasure of returning and working with some of the people that she had trained. On holiday in India she stepped in to judge at the World Show when another judge had to pull out.

Other high spots in her career included taking part in a flower festival at Canterbury Cathedral in 1998 with the Devon & Cornwall Group where they had to work from 8pm to 8am; in 2006 competing in a competition for the TV production The Village Show where she came first at a heat in Montacute House and second in the final which was held at Highgrove House; doing arrangements three times at Westminster Abbey for Remembrance Day, Commonwealth Day and a flower festival. In the SW she has helped decorate cathedrals, abbeys and National Trust houses as well as travelling all over the country.

The pinnacle of her career was her involvement at the Chelsea Flower Show where she was coordinator between the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) and NAFAS for their Spring Shows and Chelsea. In 2010 she was part of the Devon and Cornwall team representing NAFAS at Chelsea. It took 1 year to fund raise and prepare. Philip Warren kindly lent them his cold store so that they could work on their 18 ft square model throughout the year. At the show they were allowed to work on their display from Thursday to Sunday with judging on Monday and open to the public from Tuesday to Saturday – a total of 11 days working from 8am to 8pm. One year she appeared on TV with Adam Frost who was doing a piece to camera on the various flower displays. It was all obviously worth it as she showed us the Medals she had won at various shows!

After she finished her talk, as it was the December meeting, members had plenty of time to look at Judith’s various memorabilia and ask her question whilst enjoying all the Christmas treats that had been provided by the members themselves – including some delicious non-alcoholic wine!

Bridgerule twinkled with 23 decorated Christmas Trees recently and the new festival proved to be very popular with many people visiting the chapel and also tucking into mince pies etcetera.

Each tree represented a club, group or business connected to our village and a lot of thought had gone into the very clever decorations.

Bridgerule's Primary school decorations had lovely kind messages on each one - our school is teaching their children to be caring, considerate and nice - how good is that!

Volunteers at our new village shop managed to decorate with tiny packs of items sold in the shop - plus crochet pasties, and our BUZZ village magazine tree was covered in crochet bees and small copies of the many cover designs.

In daylight the trees looked amazing but as darkness fell they really twinkled giving the chapel a lovely feeling of peace and tranquility. Thank you to everyone who took part.