With the aim of getting more footage for my forthcoming wildlife film my daughter, Sarah and I visited King Arthur's cave after dark on Wednesday to film bats.

On most previous visits to King Arthur's Cave, both Tina and I have experienced strange phenomena. This visit proved to be no different. Sarah and I did manage to film a bat, but in the total darkness, King Arthur's Cave can be a very spooky place to visit.

Our infra red camera not only captured a bat but also some strange ghostly lights, more reminiscent of the type of thing picked up by the 'Most Haunted' team's infra red cameras. If you watch this week's WNTV programme you will see what we mean. Spooky! But actually we think the light anomalies were possibly just insects, which is something the 'Most Haunted' team would never admit to..

Sarah was extremely brave while we were there. After our long walk down through the dark woods to the cave, I realized that I had left my glasses back in the car, making me as blind as the creature we had gone there to film. Not wanting to have to hump all of the heavy kit back up to the car and back, Sarah stayed in the cave alone, while I took the walk alone back through the same dark woods to the car to fetch them. I didn't tell Sarah at the time but I was nervous, imagining all kinds of Awks, Ents or Goblins that could easily have eaten either one of us!

John Kyrle High School has a wonderful music department and the orchestra and choir seems to grow at every concert. A great deal of work by students and teachers had been put in to achieve a very professional concert, part of which can be watched in this week's WNTV News.

The compere for last Tuesday's event was Ewan Macintosh, a Canadian teacher who is on a year’s exchange programme. Ewan was certainly a very good stand-in for Ben Abbott, with the same ability to ad lib, and to have the audience in stitches between items while the students moved music stands or retuned for the next item on the programme.

The programme started with the Training Orchestra playing Final Countdown, This was followed by the ‘Saxophone Quintet’ comprising of Oliver Bell, Emma Reith, Nicola Burton, Rebecca Howson and Edmund Evans who played ‘Cakewalk’ from the Children’s Corner Suite, after this came a lovely flute solo by Emma Hembry playing Handel’s ‘Allegro’ from Sonata No 3. This was followed by the Junior Choir accompanied by Edmund Evans they sang ‘Heavenly Aeroplane’ and this was followed with an absolutely beautiful performance of ‘From a Distance’. Considering this choir had only been rehearsing for 4 weeks they did very well. They show great promise and will be the ‘Joseph’ choir in the school’s forth coming production. This was followed by the Training Orchestra with a very good rendition of ‘Santa’s Classical Christmas - a medley of all sorts of seasonal music complete with some of the orchestra dressed for the occasion. After this was an exceptional Piano Solo by Katy Rogers-Davies playing ‘Allegro Con Spirito’. The final item in the first half was the Training Orchestra conducted by Henry Thorne, directed by Chris Kear playing ‘The Adams Family’. This was very good indeed. Some of the children in this orchestra are only in year 7, and this was their very first public orchestra performance. Well done to students and teachers for the standard they achieved.

The second half started with the Senior Concert Band who played ‘The Blues Brothers’ and ‘As Time Goes By’. This was followed by a piano duet by Hannah Knight and Heather Watts, ‘Ballet Music’ from Rosamunde with was superbly played, followed by a delightful performance of the Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon Choir accompanied by Katy Rogers-Davies who played ‘Dance of the Reed Pipes & Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’. A brilliant Lower Sixth Ensemble with ‘Hallelujah’ followed - superb. Then came a Trumpet Solo by Oliver Bell accompanied by Helen Setchfield playing ‘First Movement’ from Trumpet Concerto. Oliver is a very talented musician and had just heard that he had been accepted for a 2nd year in the National Children’s Orchestra. Well done Oliver. Then came the Senior Choir first singing a ‘Medley from West Side Story’ followed by an absolutely stunning performance of ‘You Raise Me Up’. They did, raising the roof with this fantastic singing. The Senior Concert Band closed the concert with 2 numbers the first ‘Roller Coaster’ and then ‘Mission Impossible’. Brilliant! The current Senior Concert Band certainly show the younger members what they have to strive for and are so professional that some of the teachers are also members.

John Kyrle High School certainly has a music department to be proud of. Congratulations to Deb Blake and Hilary Petrie for such dedication to achieve this. The concert was enjoyed by all who went, and many parents attending their first concert were astounded at the standard of the performances.

I look forward to the School’s next productions of the Messiah on 17th December, and to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which runs from 28th February to 1st March.

Found in Bridstow, this cat was very much in need of food and cuddles.

He / she has distinctive markings on face.

If you believe he / she belongs to you, please contact Rich or Amy on 01989 770860.

Magda Praill and Tim and Katya Coupland of Field of Vision, a company specializing in interactive heritage interpretation got together in 2002 to develop an ambitious intergenerational project to help reconnect a whole county to their rivers though the sharing of firsthand experiences. The plan was to hold 50 River Tales reminiscence workshops, interview thirty plus people on camera and involve schools in River Tales. The idea was that a DVD would be produced to be given out at the end of the project by Age Concern to groups, coffee mornings and care-homes, libraries, museums and heritage centres to spark more memories and to get people talking. The DVD was to be developed as an resource for the schools of Herefordshire fulfilling national curriculum requirements and developing an appreciation of aspects of their own local rivers and hopefully looking at older people in a new light.

Two years ago the generous support of the Heritage Lottery fund and European funded LEADER+ made the idea a reality and through sharing their memories nearly 600 people began to paint a picture of four of the rivers of their county through their lifetime. Thirty six interviewees were filmed for the River Tales DVD and wonderful archive film and pictures of wildlife were to add to the tales.

Continued . . .

The oldest participant paddled in the Wye in the first decade of the last century and some stories span generations reaching back into the 1800s with a geologist's perspective rolling back millions of years though not through first hand experience in that instance!

The tales - some shocking and dramatic, some genuinely funny ones - are made up of clips taken from interviews with people who live in the county including many well-known local faces. The speakers bring with them a huge depth of knowledge but delivered with a fierce passion and dry sense of humour which makes for a hugely entertaining hour and a quarter.

'The film I really wanted to make was at least 36 hours long,' said the producer. 'Each interview was under an hour and I only just scraped the surface. That said, when it came to editing I found the clips from the interviews wove themselves together into satisfyingly complete conversations about the rivers, which are much more than a series of beautiful views of Herefordshire.

At the launch of 'River Tales' at the Courtyard Theatre Hereford one of the interviewees, Tony Norman commented. 'The stories just seemed to flow together naturally'. Two others had tears in their eyes as they said how marvellous they thought was and that they did not want to stop watching.

'I couldn't have wished for a better response.' said director, Katya Coupland. 'I think this is a fantastic resource which will prove to be of great value to students in Herefordshire. It will be useful to support many areas of the curriculum, not least in exploring environmental issues and citizenship. I think a particular strength is in one generation educating another in local issues and preserving a traditional heritage.'

A copy of the DVD will be going to the Ross Heritage Centre and Ross Rowing Club. Borderlines film festival may be showing it and Flicks in the sticks will be showing a tale before main feature films. The DVD isn't for sale but will be given to all the schools, libraries, and heritage centres in Herefordshire as well as a selection of other venues throughout the county, with individual interviews being lodged at the Hereford Record Office.

River Tales was directed by Katya Coupland and produced by Field of Vision multimedia, telephone: 01568 760 545, email: katya@fieldofvision.co.uk . For details of how groups in Herefordshire can obtain a free copy of the River Tales DVD please contact Nicola Hampton at Age Concern Herefordshire & Worcestershire: telephone: 01905 726652, nhampton@achw.org.uk.

NOTICE is hereby given that a meeting of the FULL COUNCIL will be held on MONDAY, 10 DECEMBER at 7.00pm in the Council Chamber, The Corn Exchange, High Street, Ross-on-Wye.

Items to be discussed are detailed below and members of the public are welcome to attend the meeting.
Prior to the meeting there will be a 15 minute session when members of the public will be able to ask questions of councillors

AGENDA

Signed

Town Clerk

NOTICE is hereby given that a meeting of the PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE will be held on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 at 7.00pm in the Corn Exchange

AGENDA

Signed

Town Clerk

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