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Ashleigh Primary School Opens Pre-Loved Uniform Shop - £1 per Item.
A new uniform shop has opened at Ashleigh Primary School, giving families easier access to preloved uniforms, coats and shoes.
The uniform shop is housed inside a shed on the school playground and was made possible thanks to a Members Ward grant from Wymondham councillor Michael Rosen.
Cllr Rosen said: "I’m excited to see the Uniform Shed open for business. It’s so important that parents can keep the costs of school uniform down at the same time as making sure that we tackle the climate and environmental problems caused by just throwing things away. Very pleased that the money available from South Norfolk's Ward Grant scheme has been put to such good use. Thanks to everyone at Ashleigh that made this happen."
All items - including coats, wellies, summer dresses and school-logo jumpers and cardigans - are on sale for £1, and all the money raised goes to Ashleigh Friends PTA.
Ashleigh Headteacher John McConnell said, “I would like to say a huge thank you to Councillor Rosen for the grant, which will be a fantastic help to lots of our families. The Uniform Shop is going to make uniforms even more affordable and easier to find. We have a wonderful PTA at Ashleigh, and this is a great example of the brilliant work that they do.”
It is intended for the shop to be open every day at pick-up time. All items are £1. Any uniform to be donated to the shop can be left in the green wheelie bin by the year 1 classrooms.
Community Centre Updates: Damaged Bench Repaired and Upcoming Festive Events
The damage caused to the bench outside North Wymondham Community Centre has been completely reversed.
The repairs have been completed and due to the involvement of Norfolk-based charity, The Bench UK, the restored bench has become the latest addition to a national listing of potential meeting points for people experiencing loneliness.
The charity has reimbursed 50% of the insurance Excess, as their contribution to the restoration cost.
Visit their website for more information.
In other news, North Wymondham Community Centre is getting into the festive spirit with a Community Christmas Drop-In event in the hall on Tuesday 17 December 2024.
Timed to begin at 3:15pm when the children come out of school, it will be an opportunity for residents to have a free mince pie and seasonal punch, whilst listening to carols sung by members of the Wymondham University of the Third Age Music Group. There will also be a Christmas Tombola.
It will be the last event of the year to mark the 50th anniversary of the charity-owned building in Lime Tree Avenue, Wymondham.
Kitchen Renovation Funded by Morrisons Foundation for Star Throwers Cancer Charity
The Wymondham-based Star Throwers, a charity that provides support to people affected by cancer in Norfolk, were delighted to receive a donation of £8,000 from the Morrisons Foundation.
The grant will help the charity with the renovation of their kitchen facility which used to make refreshments for cancer support groups and visitors in Wymondham.
Victoria Pigg, Operations and Fundraising Manager at Star Throwers said: “"We are incredibly grateful for this grant from the Morrisons Foundation to help us update and improve the kitchen area at our cancer support centre in Wymondham.
“The grant will transform the kitchen space which is used for a number of our free groups and workshops for those affected by cancer including our 'Craft & Chat Groups', Art Workshops, Nutrition Q&A Sessions, Paper Crafts and external support groups such as Head Wrappers and Keeping Abreast.
“This area is also used at a number of our community events throughout the year including our Coffee Mornings, Garden Party and Christmas Wreath Making Workshops, improving the space will allow it to be more accessible and usable by all and also give it a much needed makeover!
“Star Throwers has provided free cancer information and support services from our centre in Wymondham for 15 years and we are incredibly grateful for the ongoing support of our local community, trusts and foundations and businesses for allowing us to continue this vital support for those affected by this disease."
Sharon Watts, Community Champion at the Morrisons store in Wymondham, recommended the charity as part of the Morrisons Foundation’s ‘Community Spaces Fund’ which was established to celebrate the supermarket’s 125th Anniversary.
The fund invited 125 charities to apply for a share of £1 million with grants of up to £8,000 each to enhance community spaces and local facilities, helping them to make a difference for many more years to come.
Sarah said, “I’m thrilled to donate the grant of £8,000 to Victoria at Star Throwers in Wymondham! The charity is very close to our hearts as cancer affects so many families in our community. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to help renovate the kitchen facility, which will make a huge difference to the charity’s vital work for many years to come.
“For the past 125 years, Morrisons has always aimed to support our local communities and it was an honour to present this donation to such a worthy and well loved local charity.”
The Morrisons Foundation was set up by Morrisons supermarket in 2015 and awards grants for charity projects which help improve people’s lives. Since launching, over £44 million has been donated to hundreds of charities across England, Scotland and Wales.
Vote for your Favourite Pub or Retailer
Residents are being encouraged not to miss their chance to vote for their favourite pub and retailer of the year in South Norfolk and Broadland Councils’ Business Awards.
There will be four winners in total, two for each district and one for each category, so residents are being encouraged to vote for both their favourite retailer and favourite pub for the best chance of winning.
Everyone who votes in the Retailer and Pub of the Year Awards via the Council’s website will be entered into a prize draw to win £100. Votes must be in by the 13 December to be included in the prize draw.
The Retailer and Pub of the Year Awards are part of the South Norfolk and Broadland Business Awards. In addition to these there are several categories for which businesses can nominate themselves, such as innovation, growth and environmental impact.
The awards ceremony will take place in March 2025. The Business Awards are sponsored by local law firm Birketts LLP.
Visit this website to nominate a business.
Roses Donated to Bloomers
Wymondham in Bloom volunteers would like to extend a huge thank you to the fantastic team at Peter Beales for their kind donation of beautiful roses!
These fabulous plants will be making their way to public spaces and community gardens around town over the next few weeks.
Ian Limmer from Peter Beales presented the plants to volunteer Diana Grant and Lesley Clarke, Garden Designer.
The first batch of rose bushes was planted on Fairland Street near Domino’s to brighten up the patch of land next to the public bench.
The Bloomers are out brightening Wymondham nearly every week year-round, usually on a Monday from 10am-noon, finishing with refreshments. All are welcome to join in and everyone contributes only with what they enjoy doing. Email wymbloom@gmail.com or phone 07941 514 766 to chat about getting involved.
Students Launch Petition Against Cuts to State School Budgets
Students at Wymondham High Academy have launched a petition opposing Norfolk County Council’s decision to cut special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support funds. The budget reduction, announced last June, has affected all state schools in Norfolk and has cost millions of pounds collectively.
At Wymondham High, this has meant two loyal members of the senior leadership team (SLT) have been made redundant. Students and staff are both deeply disappointed at this outcome, with many classes now changing teachers, massively disrupting their learning. In Year 11 classes, this has come just weeks before mock exams and months before final examinations.
However, this has not been the only negative effect. In addition to redundancies, many staff who resigned have gone unreplaced and the use of some online resources for students are having to be reconsidered.
Unfortunately, this policy and its effects are not just exclusive to Wymondham High. Many academies, particularly SEND specialist schools, are facing extreme financial problems, with the prospect of bankruptcy a reality for some.
Consequently, we, a group of students at Wymondham High have come together in opposition to this policy. We will not allow our education to be affected by reductions to budgets and so we have begun a petition for the County Council to reconsider this policy.
We believe everything about this policy is wrong. It is wrong to cut education. It is wrong for that money to come out of SEND support funds. It is wrong to give schools such a short window to adapt. The list goes on.
Without your support, we can’t change this. But with enough signatures, we believe that we can make the County Council reconsider this decision. Please, we urge you to sign this petition and help us stand up for education.
As well as signatures, we are also looking for all kinds of help: councillors on all levels to support our cause, volunteers to help promote our message and students from other schools to spread this petition as far as possible. If you think you can help us, please email us at petitionagainstbudgetcuts@gmail.com.
Ex-Services Club Honours Fallen Soldiers with Commemorative Bench
Wymondham Ex-Service Club members have raised money for a commemorative bench which sits outside the Club.
The official unveiling of the specially commissioned iron bench happened on Commemorative Sunday and was witnessed by our mayor, Suzanne Nuri-Nixon.
Mr Howes thanked Sharon for her fundraising efforts from behind the bar.
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Jamie's Transport Matters
December 2024
Our resident transport expert, Jamie Collingwood keeps you up to date with what's going on in the Wymondham area.
Bridge over troubled (Anglian) water
The road under and next to Wymondham station’s bridge has been subject to closure numerous times in recent months, causing chaos for residents in Silfield and villages beyond and prompting articles to be written and even a response from local MP Ben Goldsborough criticising the matter.
These are mainly due to Anglian Water needing to dig up the road in order to complete gas and water works, but the disconnect they seem to have between jobs mean they have been reclosing the road for each job. As someone that relies on Station Road to access Wymondham and other areas, I have experienced the delays firsthand and therefore know how frustrating it all is - the official diversion is a 10-mile trip via Hethel
Furthermore, there is work planned to widen the bridge to accommodate a mixed use cycle path into the town from Silfield which was supposed to be completed by the end of this year (2024) but does not yet seem to have made much progress. But this begs the question: when will this all end?
Park & Chide
Not directly in Wymondham, but a service surely used by lots of our local Wymondhamers, the Norwich Park & Ride (P&R) service has long been a useful and cheap option for those travelling into the city for work or for leisure purposes. Currently, bus fares from the P&R sites are £3 for a day ticket, and £1 for each additional ticket on the same transaction.
However, this could be all due to change with Norfolk County Council’s decision to find new operators which can operate without subsidy. First Bus will take over services from Thickthorn, the closest P&R site to Wymondham, as well as Airport and Sprowston sites, promising earlier and later buses on current operating days and a Sunday service. The details are yet to be revealed but what we do know so far is that Sprowston’s service will be integrated into the local ‘Pink Line’ service, meaning that fares will be charged at First’s standard adult ticket rate of £6, a doubling in cost with no group travel deal! Could this set the precedent for the other P&R sites like Thickthorn? We will find out.
If so, this could massively damage the value-for-money reputation that P&R currently has and I foresee a declining interest in the service with people preferring to park their cars directly in the city centre instead.
Baying for more
Ah yes, our favourite - Beryl returns to the headlines. Well, not really, but a bay has now been installed in Silfield on Aspen Drive, meaning those living in Silfield can now get to the station and into town without a car (or a long walk)! Scoot/cycle carefully around any roadworks please.
KIT THE BRAKES
Is it just me or has there been a notable spike in cat deaths and injuries on Wymondham’s roads this November? I’ve counted no fewer than four fatal incidents in as many weeks on the town’s social media groups. It’s not clear what’s causing the uptick: darker nights or just bad luck. Let’s hope things improve this winter.
Free Publicity For Arts Events This Spring
Wymondham Magazine will once again be sponsoring the Spring Arts Festival initiative to promote music, arts and craft events happening in April/May next year under one banner.
If you run a group or are an individual artist, get in touch to register your interest in appearing in our special Spring Arts Festival programme via springarts@wymondhammagazine.co.uk.
Town Council Watch: Autumn Roundup Special
Local Democracy Sketch
Welcome once more to the quarterly round up of all things Wymondham Town Council covering September, October and November. And thanks to all of those who wrote in to say how much you miss the column in the off months.
I do know your handwriting, mother.
Wish you were here!
It was heartening to learn from a councillor’s official public Facebook page that a group of four members of the Town Council had popped off on their holibobs together in September, for some much needed R&R.
It’s been a busy year after all. With each councillor in the post having passed a motion last year declaring a Climate Emergency, the quad jetted off to Turkey on a 378kg of CO2 per person emitting return flight, to take their minds off the world’s impending thermal doom.
And to think people worried the emergency declaration was just insincere posturing.
“The time for procrastinating on [climate change] has long gone.”, warned one of the holidaymakers, Mayor Judith Chalmers Suzanne Nuri-Nixon (Lib Dem) while voting to declare the emergency back in 2023. While fellow jetsetter Cllr Michael Palin Lucy Nixon (Lib Dem) agreed, telling people in Wymondham at the time: “All of us need to be doing our bit.”
Absolutely. And it’s great to see our councillors showing us the way.
Youth Council
The Town Council got down with the kids in September with a totally rad idea.
No, they've not built a skill new skatepark that polled local teenagers ranked near the bottom of their priorities (not yet anyway).
Instead they voted to set up a wicked new Youth Council at Wymondham High School and bunged them £1000 to spend on projects of their choice.
Encouraging a new generation of councillors? This is an idea TCW can get behind.
Zero Fox Given.
September saw the Town Council debating that great unifying topic of British public opinion; foxhunting.
Local trail hunting group Dunston Harriers had written to ask permission to use Market Place for their Boxing Day meet - an event that social media reliably informs TCW is either a cherished long-standing, countryside market town tradition or the most deplorable thing to happen to Wymondham in the history of humanity.
A bit like this column then really...
Up stepped TCW superfan Cllr Robert Savage (Con) to make the case for the horse-mounted bugle botherers. He urged councillors to consider that they should be “making decisions on behalf of residents, and not on your own personal opinions” saying people in town “vote with their feet by turning up on Boxing Day” to watch the “spectacle” in their “thousands”.
Sticking up for the nation’s most well regarded chicken shredders, the Mayor cited the lack of a risk assessment as reason to deny the application.
But it was the health and safety of the other councillors TCW was worried about, as they tripped over each other to come out with the strongest condemnation of trail hunting, in the meeting and local media afterwards:
Cllr Lucy Nixon called it “historically cruel”. Cllr Paul Barrett (Green) was “fundamentally against what Dunston Harriers and these types of groups represent”. While Cllr Michael Rosen (Lab) said: “Times have changed, the town has changed. It’s a tradition that’s had its day.” Construction expert Peter Broome (Con) built a fence to sit on and abstained.
The request was denied and the Boxing Day hunt won’t start in town.
Shame all this animosity though. If councillors got in the room with the hunters, they'd probably find they had more in common than they realised.
After all, many of them share a joint passion of getting on their high horses and blowing their own trumpet.
Defo Not Wynterfest
By the time this issue hits doorsteps, the Town Council’s Definitely-Not-WynterfestTM Christmas event will have happened, marking the first time in recent memory the council’s got directly involved in organising a mass town centre event.
Some fresh, proactive thinking from the new Town Council has seen them use the Town Coordinator employee, hired by the previous Town Council, to organise an event based around turning on the Christmas lights, purchased by the previous Town Council, held around the Market Place Christmas tree, whose permanent base was installed by the previous Town Council.
Credit to the new council there then.
But where Wynterfest had been too successful “commercial” in the eyes of today’s Town Council, the completely different Definitely-Not-WynterfestTM event - publicised using images from previous Wynterfests and promising suspiciously similar music, rides and stalls to previous years - would “not allow commercialism to take over”.
With that business-friendly rhetoric ringing in their ears, local firms were thrilled to then receive a begging email from the council, inviting them to cough up £500 to sponsor a sign at the event. For 3 hours. In the dark.
Sponsorship? Advertising? Nice to see commercialism not being allowed to take over.
Bleed Kits
In September the Town Council voted to install ‘bleed kits’ within existing defibrillator units around town. The kits contain vital gear to stop catastrophic bleeding for incidents including stabbings, with Cllr Dave Roberts (Lib Dem) warning that people can bleed out in just 2 minutes.
Shame on you for expecting a joke at the end here, reader. Go away and think about your life.
Forking Hell
Anglian Water had allotment holders in Wymondham spluttering thermos flasked tea all over their turnips in November. The water company wanted their land back, which the Town Council lease off them. And gave tenant plotters 12 months to sling their hooks.
TCW’s legal team took a rare break from processing complaints to conclude that the Town Council is legally obliged to at least investigate finding a replacement. The issue could easily become a political headache.
Either way, Anglian Water’s decision has delivered a big dollop of the brown stuff for authorities to deal with.
So a first time for everything, eh?
Musical Chairs
Following the earth-shatteringly sad news that the Town Council’s ever jovial full-time Clerk is retiring to his gold-plated pension, the council swiftly appointed a replacement in November.
Having advertised the role externally, councillors eventually chose current Deputy Clerk, Laura Trabucco for the position.
The rapid-fire promotion marks an eye-openingly stratospheric rise for the Deputy Clerk, who was only just hired this summer and whose role had only just been created.
TCW’s condolences go out to any external candidates whose credentials unfortunately didn’t make the grade during the hiring process. They can always apply for the now-vacant Deputy Clerk role when it’s advertised.
One happy side benefit of the near-instant promotion will be that the outgoing Clerk has had a handy few months to show the person who’s now his successor the ropes.
Very fortunate indeed. In fact, mystics might wonder if the whole thing was written in the stars all along.
As part of a new rolling featurette, TCW’s been keeping himself busy during the long dark nights making some Freedom Of Information requests on local councils, to see what dirt public interest stories he could uncover.
Everyone's got their hobbies.
‘Local Press Issue’
Step forward a fascinating set of emails involving Wymondham Town Council that point to good old TCW not exactly being flavour of the month among councillors over at Fortress Kett’s Park.
Perish the thought.
As far back as January, a council employee had been asking to advertise the local economy boosting Visit Wymondham initiative in Wymondham Magazine:
“[It's] delivered to every Wymondham household, circa 8,700 every quarter...”, the employee enthused, before hailing the publication “...the most cost-effective way of reaching residents...”
Gosh, it is good actually isn’t it?
But emails show the request was ungratefully received, amid some top level thin-skinnery behind the scenes.
A tetchy meeting saw town councillors cite TCW’s regular light-shining, humour-prodding column as reason not to use the Magazine to advertise Visit Wymondham, which had been designed to benefit embattled local traders in town.
TCW just hates it when egos get in the way of progress for the town, dear reader.
Following up, town councillors then formally emailed the employee asking them to “not interact” with Wymondham Magazine.
Must have been something I said...
Ted Talks: Carol Singers
It was December, 1942. A 10-year-old Ted Barham was part of a small group of children walking through the villages near Wymondham. Ted carried a shepherd’s crook, to which his father, George Geoffrey Barham, had tied a clean and empty jam jar. He was hoping that folk would put tuppences into his jar and maybe even a threepenny bit. War or no war, Christmas carol singing was a serious enterprise.
Most of the kids with Ted were from Wymondham, but there were also some evacuee children from Gravesend. Ted remembers a six-year-old evacuee girl wrapped up warm with a balaclava and a pink coat. This young friend of Ted’s didn’t have to walk as she was pulled on a sledge through the snow.
Adults were looking after them. There was Mrs. Barneycote, a local primary school teacher, Mr. Friar, a farmer who did a lot of charity work, and Herb Bligh, who had a knack of persuading local adults to sing along with the children.
They sang outside people’s houses. They sang close to the Christmas decorations outside of the shops, and they sang in village halls. Ted recalls that they were organised with a setlist of four carols. His favourite was “Good King Wenceslas.”
The locals were very welcoming to these young travelling singers. Ted recalls, “There was a sense of togetherness at that time.” He remembers people coming out of their houses to greet the children in Bowden Terrace and Bridewell Alley, and they often had food for them, such as hot chestnuts or sometimes a roast potato.
There was an American soldier called Reggie Carrot who organised gigs in which the kids sang to the members of the U.S. armed forces who were based in the town. Reggie, who also lent a hand at a local fish shop, saw to it that the young carol singers were fed on those cold and dark nights.
The children continued to sing their carols annually to the people of Wymondham and the surrounding villages throughout the War and up to the late 1940s. Ted has happy memories of singing near the warm bonfires in the run-up to Christmas which were commonplace in those post-war days. “They were special times; it got all this meaning!”
What's in a Photo? A Nativity Play
A Nativity play was staged most years at the Fairland Congregational Church (now Fairland United Reformed Church) in the 1950s, and this photo is taken from Christmas 1958.
The girl kneeling in black is Elizabeth Edwards, and next to her is Elizabeth Chapman as Mary.
The three angels in white at the back are, from left to right, Hazel Patrick, Annetta Hewitt and Elizabeth Smith.
If anyone has further information about this photo or, indeed, any other photos from events at the Congregational Church, I should be pleased to hear from them at philipgyaxley@outlook.com.
Short Story: Reviewing Christmas
Peter ambled to the phone box. He lived directly opposite, in one of the small white cottages with a small, haphazard, hollyhock-invaded front garden. He hated gardening, whereas he liked to keep the small library in the old red box neat as a pin. He drew the line at magazines as they were not easy to display (and anyway, who wanted to read ‘Trucking Tirelessly’?). And his new neighbour, Heather, had recently requested more adult fiction and creative magazines, such as ‘Sewn Up’. People had unrealistic expectations, he surmised.
It was nearing the end of summer and he could see the usual piles of books from a school holiday clear-out. He had been keeping aside the Christmas-themed books, planning to introduce them to the shelves in November.
Whilst flicking through ‘Blinging Baubles’, written by an ex-Love Island contestant, a pink post-it note fell out. ‘Not everybody should write for a living. If you want to get through the next Christmas with your brain cells functioning, don’t read this book.’
Well, well, well, thought Peter. We have a book reviewer in our small village. He wasn’t a reader himself. He preferred dogs. Walking, training, and swimming with them in cold salty water. He owned four scruffy cross breeds, and they were like a small skilled SAS unit. They walked obediently at his side without leads and when asked to ‘sit’, there was an immediate response.
Peter found more notes as he sorted through the donations. ‘Snowing in my Heart’ attracted his attention by its ridiculous title and illustration of a vivid lime green heart laying in a snow drift. The review read: ‘Started out ok but didn’t feel anything for the protagonist and it was highly unlikely that she would bump into her stalker in the middle of a field in Denmark. Read this if you don’t mind wishy-washy conclusions and strident males.’
Clearly this reader enjoyed Christmas fiction but couldn’t find a decent story, hence the post-it notes. Was this one of those Christmas-obsessed people with Christmas trees up all year round, he wondered? Did they live in the village. The people at Slack Farm seemed to have fairy lights on their holly bush all year round. Or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to remove them each year.
Two can play at this game, he thought. He looked at the cover of ‘Christmas at Pear Tree Cottage’: a pink thatched cottage with lights twinkling on a Christmas tree by the front door. Taking up his trusty black Japanese rollerball pen, he wrote on a post-it note, ‘What a joy this book was from the beginning to the end. This has filled my empty heart with comfort and renewed faith in mankind.’
By the time Peter had written a few more positively cheesy reviews, he was getting bored. He wrote of ‘One More Present Under the Tree’, ‘I was shocked by such explicit and daring writing. This reader has had many stimulating evenings recently and I had to resist racing ahead to the big reveal. I was not disappointed and will have to reconsider my gift to the wife this year.’
To his surprise, he realised he was having fun. He headed to the kitchen to feed the hounds and pour himself a whiskey. A surge of feeling descended upon him and he felt not for the first time, a little alone. Gulping down the fiery brown liquid, he headed out for the last walk of the day.
Someone was in the phone box. They were standing on tiptoes and reaching up to the top shelf. He hung back and whispered “sit” to his dogs. Maybe this was the reviewer… it was the new neighbour, he realised. Her red hair caught the light of the evening sun. A green check blouse tight across her ample breasts. She spotted him.
“Hello there, just swapping out some books,” she said. “I was hoping to see you, would you like to come over for my Christmas dinner rehearsal on Sunday? I like to remind myself how to cook the turkey and all its trimmings before the big day. I’ve made my own Christmas pudding, crackers too. My late husband used to do all the cooking, so I need to know what I’m doing when the kids visit this year.”
Likely story, he thought to himself, catching the aroma of pine needles in the air. “Thank you,” he said, smiling. “That sounds lovely. Shall I bring some mulled wine?”
Losing the Plot
Anglian Water to Close Chapel Lane Allotments Site
With Town Council allotment holders served 12 months’ notice to leave their plots, due to Anglian Water claiming back the leased land they stand on, plotholders share their hopes for a positive resolution
Lisa Burrell
I am deeply saddened about having to vacate our allotments, though I understand why Anglian Water made that decision. The allotments are more than just growing your own; we are a community.
I have had my allotment since December 2020. I attend my allotment regularly, either on my own or with my children. As well as trying to live more sustainably and grow my own fruit and vegetables, my allotment is my sanctuary. It is therapy away from my fast-paced everyday life.
My two children (6 and 8) love our allotment and are very upset that we only have a year left. They understand the importance of growing your own, reducing our carbon footprint, living more sustainably and also how amazing allotments are for pollinators and the local wildlife.
Our site is an amazing community. I have made many friends. We have regular bacon buttie mornings. We help the local community by donating our surplus produce to the food banks. Committee members get discounts at the local garden centres - which is a great incentive for us to shop locally for our allotment needs.
I really hope that a suitable new site will be found soon before us having to vacate so we can have sufficient time to move.
Kevin Stuart
Plot holders were shocked to receive notice that the Chapel Lane Allotment Site was to close late next year. The allotment community offers friendship, a sense of achievement, and an outlet to unwind and balance mental well-being. I get the benefits of the physical effort and the joy of growing my own veg, herbs, soft fruits, etc. I often have the grandchildren down learning how things grow and enjoying the taste of fresh produce. (There are never many peas or raspberries left after one of their visits.)
The allotment community is varied, with young and old members, some who have been there for only a year, while others have been there for nearly 20. We have worked to ensure that our members with disabilities are all welcome and supported. We also donate excess produce to the Community Outreach Project's Foodbank and occasionally to the Steps Community Food Shop at the Hope Church, with a little over 26 stones (167kg) being donated in just 9 weeks during 2024.
Cllr Michael Rosen
Anglian Water's decision to end the lease is understandable; I am sure most people understand the importance of their work. However, this has an impact on our allotment holders and the contribution they make to our town. People have invested time, money and love in their allotments. We must find a solution that reflects that. It is not going to be easy to find suitable land, go through the legal processes, and let people start anew.
I'm pleased that our MP, Ben Goldsborough, is talking with Anglian Water about resolving some of the practical problems. Ultimately, however, the Town Council will decide whether it can continue to provide allotments and what help can be given to the allotment holders dealing with the practical problems of ending the existing lease.
As Councillors, we have a responsibility to help. I want this community resource to continue. Achieving this requires us to work together. We acknowledge that the Council has limited resources. Having met with, and listened to, people who are affected by this, I appreciate the importance of finding a way forward. As both a Town and District Councillor, I will strive to achieve this.
Samantha Holden
My husband and I were shocked to receive the letter from the council. Whenever we are troubled or just feeling down, our allotment is our sanctuary, and it’s so rewarding to know that the food on our plate is something that we have grown. I’m trusting them to find another site for us as soon as possible.
Allotment Association Chairman, Howard Fuller
The allotment site will close on the 7th November 2025, and all plot holders have to remove all they can by that date. The town council gave notice in the correct way and has said they have put out a request for a suitable site, approximately 6 acres. The council leader has also said that they will provide help moving stuff from the site, as they are well aware many will not be able to do so. The Wymondham Allotment Association has also said they are prepared to work with the council to find an alternative site. One can understand that the plot-holders are upset and angry that nothing is in place at present.
A plot-holder who wishes to remain anonymous
I am disappointed with how the council has dealt with this so far. I am surprised that as the lease was due to end in 2027, there wasn’t a contingency plan already in place. The town council has declared a climate emergency. Now they need to step up and prove that it wasn’t just fine words.
Q&A with Father Andrew, Wymondham Abbey's new vicar
On 12th September, Reverend Andrew Hammond, aka Father Andrew became the new Vicar of Wymondham Abbey, as the congregation said goodbye to Father Christopher who had been brought back for an interim period. We sat down with him to see how he’s settling in.
It might be assumed that a senior Bishop decrees which priest goes where in the CofE network but that isn’t the case. So how did he get the job?
“It’s basically an open recruitment process. The job I was doing in Cambridge as Chaplain was a fixed term. I looked in the Church Times for job opportunities and this one came up. Here the Bishop of Norwich took an interest in the recruitment, probably because he is Patron of the Parish. He’s very aware things haven’t always been easy here and was keen to see a very smooth transition. I had to fill in a madly long form, full of qualitative answers as well as basic information. I also had to preach a bit, give a presentation about how I’d like to move things forward, and an hour of questions.”
"What did you do before coming to Wymondham?"
"I turned 40. Most people have a mid-life crisis and buy a leather jacket and a motorbike, whereas I became a priest. It’s what I call my mid-life synthesis.
I was an opera singer to start with and then in my 30s went into music administration. The Bishop of Norwich teased me during my induction sermon as I used to be casting director of Thursford for years, the Christmas show, which I don’t put in my CV. So that’s my past Norfolk connection. The experience is quite handy for what I do now, as there’s plenty of singing and organising.
Most recently I was Chaplain of St John’s College, Cambridge, and before that I was chaplain at King’s College. It’s quite unusual to do two roles at the same university, I’m probably the only person in history to have done both of those jobs. I really loved working with students. When I first went there I had no idea whether I’d be able to, as a single man with no children I had no idea about teenagers. I had good advice from people, one thing you need to know about young people is that they have the most amazing B.S. antennae. So you have just got to be you and authentic."
"What did you say in your pitch about your vision for the future of the Abbey?"
"I tried to put in a health warning because people worry when they see a new vicar coming. The current Archbishop of York wrote a book called ‘hitting the ground kneeling’ because he got fed up going to meetings where people said they wanted a new vicar to hit the ground running. No, you shouldn’t hit the ground running because you need to first watch and see how things are. It’s a bit like taking over a garden; you need to see what’s coming up.
I made my pitch that the essence of being an effective parish priest is doing church and pastoral well. Making everything that happens in the church building itself, speak of the holy and the sacred but also about warmth and hospitality. That enables your pastoral work to spring out from that. It’s all related. What happens in here relates to what we do around the town.
The active thing we’ve done is to acquire a parish nurse. I hadn’t heard of that before, at first it sounded terribly Victorian but of course it’s anything but.
The magic trick that the CofE has is its presence. There’s a building, there’s a vicar. It’s geographically specific. There is the parish of Wymondham, which is a big parish and getting bigger because of all the new developments. But the vicar is there for everybody. The old phrase is that he has ‘the cure of souls’. You’re there for absolutely everybody. It’s important to be able to live that out in a way that is mostly nurturing, encouraging, maybe even slightly challenging. It’s not about notches on the evangelical bedpost.
People are just inundated with messaging from every quarter on how to be better, look better, do better, have more. So the old ‘stand on a box and shout about Jesus’ method isn’t going to cut it as it’s just another message. It’s more about presence and word of mouth. I used to find this with students, people used to come to see me because another student had told them about me.
I do enjoy visible, joyful events. In previous places we’ve had events on Patronal festivals. Mary has several days, September 8th is her birthday and mine. We could do something like a carnival. When churches have processions they can be quite quavering, nervous, in your face ‘come to Jesus’. It can be better to be a bit more mediaeval. A festival which culminates in a service here which appeals to everybody. You have drums, instruments and kids dressed as bees or something. Banners and the whole thing, it’s about FUN."
"What’s it been like becoming a new resident of Wymondham?"
"It’s been great! Because I built in some holiday time where I had a buffer to move here ahead and get to know the area before starting work. I grew up in a market town in Nottinghamshire, which also had a market cross as it happens. I’ve been rediscovering that feel of a market town. Undercover, not wearing my collar of course. I do wear it now as you don’t have to introduce yourself. I’m always whizzing around on my bike and people will shout ‘morning Vicar!’
I remember as a boy growing up in a market town we had this really gently formative parish priest who was called a rector then, from when I was aged 8-18 that really important time, and I learned from him the basics of being a decent parish priest."
"Do you still do TikTok?"
"I’ve done hardly any in the last few months. I’ve been trying to work out if I should repitch it slightly. It was some students a few years ago who came to me and said you should do it! I said ‘I’m not going to lip sync to Taylor Swift songs.’ They said ‘no, you just do you, and you’ll get views.’ It’s amazing; it’s such a vast world with 1.2 billion users. Anything you put out could be looked at by any of those 1.2 billion people, including the Bishop. It could have pastoral consequences as people start asking quite tough questions. I’ve stopped receiving direct messages as I can’t properly deal with pastoral issues over TikTok DMs.
One of the things that has to happen here is finding a way of connecting with teenagers and young families. TikTok might be an amusing aspect of that. People can just look at it and suss you out - ‘what is this person like?’"
"What is pastoral work?"
"I’m not a trained mental health professional. The classic idea of pastoral work for the parish priest is firstly talking to people who come here who clearly want to talk, often there is a mental health issue. From ten years of working with students I’ve got quite honed ideas about what I can and can’t do and how I refer and advocate within local provision. We also do home visits and visits to care homes and schools. All organisations have to be clear about what they can and can’t do, we’re not clinical professionals. In some ways parish priests are filling in the gaps. Occasionally a student would say ‘are you an expert in anything?’ If I call myself anything it’s an ‘inner life specialist’.
There’s this Lutheran pastor in Denver Colorado who does YouTube videos. One of them is called ‘forgiving assholes’. It’s about forgiveness understood as therapeutic. If something bad has been done to you by a person, one of the things that sustains it as a trauma is the power that it still has over you. What this woman says is, "you can break the chains you’re bound by, take bolt cutters to them.” That’s not saying ‘pull yourself together’. It’s you retrieving your agency. You stop being the object of your sentences, and you become the subject. It’s not saying the thing that happened to you didn’t matter; it’s that it mattered so much you’re not going to be held by it. It’s not saying to somebody, ‘you can do it, it’s up to you’, which will immediately pile on extra stress and obligation. It’s just saying this is possible. It may be possible that you find the power to do that. So we describe things that may be helpful but we don't prescribe."
"Any message for the people of Wymondham?"
"Yes, come and see what we do! The Abbey is there for absolutely everybody. It’s a very beautiful place but it isn’t a cut glass vase. You should be able to experience it as a place where you can sense your muscles relaxing, literally or metaphorically. It doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe. It’s a place of sanctuary. And a place of encouragement and even challenge. We do church, but we do other stuff too. We have an amazing team of volunteers looking after the building.
My mantra to the people in Wymondham is to think of me as totally non-judgmental, totally unshockable and pretty available."
Mud: The Secret Farmer's Diary
Our mystery farmer in the Wymondham area takes a break from rodding drains to tell you what he’s been up to in the last month.
Shovelling up the kids’ rotten pumpkins. Picking up firework sticks. November is a month of mud on roads, complaints about mud on roads, snatched windows of opportunity to drill more winter wheat (cereal crop varieties are either called winter or spring, depending upon which side of winter they’re designed to be sown), spray for diseases and then harvest some of our sugar beet.
It’s also the first month after harvest where the weather allows you to take a breath, enjoying shoot days - whether you’re on a peg or beating through the undergrowth - and perhaps, livestock permitting, a couple of nights off-farm.
Early November was dry, the rain in October seeming a distant memory. The weather, and particularly the rain, shapes the rhythms of the farm through the year. “Well sown is half grown” as they say, and judging the right conditions to go out and drive machinery over a field is often in reality a judgement call, as to the least worst conditions you can afford to go out in. In 2024 a farmer’s window of opportunity to plough, or cultivate or drill is comparatively narrow.
A modern farm must work with minimal staff and a small number of larger machines to work efficiently. The UK has one of the highest wheat yields in the world, partly due to our favourable weather, but also because our high cost of production requires us to be efficient with what we’ve got: soil, seed, inputs like fertiliser and chemicals, machinery and labour. During our busiest seasons we’ll be working long hours (too long to say here without the clipboard brigade getting excited about it) and we use satellites and soil mapping data plugged into onboard computers that control how much of an input we apply.
This saves money and is better for the environment: any input not taken up by the soil or plant will wash away into our ditches and rivers, which is bad for water quality. The government say that farmers compete with Anglian Water to be the biggest polluters of our waterways, but they comfortably beat us every year.
We’ve recently bought a new drill (as in drill, the machine that goes on the back of the tractor that puts seed into the ground, that kind of drill, though we have the other kind in our workshop too) that promises to move less soil than our other drills, and therefore also wear up less metal, burn less diesel and take less of our time. Everything in farming being a compromise however, you need to apply more chemicals to control your weeds and the drill won’t work so well later in the year when the ground is wetter. A grant from the government helped justify the expense of a new piece of machinery, since without it we would have had to sell one of the other drills to justify the cost – and those drills are the ones we need when the weather is bad.
If you follow the news you’ll have seen a lot about farmers and farming after the Budget. Without getting into a debate about the merits or otherwise of the recent changes, UK farming is a heavily regulated and subsidised sector, cheap abundant food being considered the highest of our needs alongside clean water and good sanitation. It’s been this way since before both world wars and before the Corn Laws in the 19th Century. We farmers talk (complain, mostly) a lot about regulation because we are reliant on the kindness of strangers to keep us in business, chiefly taxpayers and consumers.
Fortunately for us and our muckspreaders, farmers enjoy a lot of support from the British public, so we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for any support you give and are able to give us, whether that’s your patience when we’re blocking the road with large machinery, your custom when buying food from the supermarket (marked with the Red Tractor) or supporting your local farm shops and farm businesses.
Considering Tax When Gifting This Christmas
Christmas shopping usually means a visit to the high street or browsing online retailers, but the season of giving can be a good time to make sure you’re maximising your opportunities for Inheritance Tax reliefs.
While larger gifts may be taken into account for Inheritance Tax purposes, you can make certain gifts without Inheritance Tax being applicable. The Autumn Budget, heard on 30th October 2024, confirmed that the allowances for gifting (non business or non agricultural assets) legislation is not undergoing any changes at this point.
Broadly, the gifts that you can make come under two headings. There are gifts which attract an automatic allowance from Inheritance Tax and those where the allowance must be claimed if you die within seven years.
Gifts can include money, household and personal goods, property, land, and stocks and shares.
The small gift allowance means that you can give a gift of money up to a value of £250 to multiple recipients each tax year without it being considered for Inheritance Tax when you die. It is useful to know that if you sell something to someone for less than it is worth, then this may count as a ‘gift’ for these purposes.
The annual exemption allowance of £3000 can be used to make gifts to one or more people Inheritance Tax free. There’s an added benefit that if the allowance isn’t fully used in any year, any remaining allowance can be carried forward one year. It cannot however be combined with the small gift exemption for any one individual.
You may also know someone getting married or entering into a civil ceremony this Christmas and you can give a cash gift on these occasions which is Inheritance Tax free. The limit each tax year is £5000 for a child, £2500 for a grandchild, or £1000 for those outside immediate family.
Gifts whereby the Inheritance Tax free allowance must be claimed upon your death include an Inheritance Tax relief applicable to gifts out of your surplus income. So, you may make a regular gift of money such as a monthly contribution to a grandchild’s savings account and this may be Inheritance Tax free if the gift is part of a regular pattern and if you can demonstrate that you maintained your normal standard of living after making the gift. You should keep a good record of your income and expenditure in order for this relief to be claimed successfully.
Aside from the above, most other gifts of value made this Christmas may be considered for Inheritance Tax purposes if you die within seven years of making the gifts – these gifts are known as ‘Potentially Exempt Transfers’.
If you are considering making larger value gifts this Christmas and need some advice, or would like to discuss anything in this article, please contact our Wills, Tax & Probate team on 01953 606351 or email info@spiresolicitors.co.uk.
Here's to the next chapter...
Twas the month before Christmas,
and across Norfolk, through villages and towns
People were plotting, and moves were abound;
Houses were listed for sale,
While people sought their own personal white whale,
Seeking that perfect desirable home
Maybe 2-bed, 3-bed, all decked with stone?
A little privacy, some big green space, so maybe detached?
Or out in the country, away from it all,
and probably thatched?
Twas a time to use those Rightmove notifications,
While you plan for those pesky staying relations;
But while we sit back and think of the incoming reindeer,
I have something new, something different from yesteryear.
A little news, a little titbit,
An expansion of my business toolkit;
A new home of my own,
To show how much we have grown.
You can now find us at Ketteringham Hall;
Come see us, (after a quick phone call);
A space of our own,
Away from the shopping zone.
With quiet and parking and an amazing tea shop
as the trump card;
And yes, because it’s us, even a few fluffy sheep,
right in the front yard.
Expanding soon, in other small ways,
Look for us hiring more in the upcoming days.
But as your local agent of estates,
I know the season brings much to contemplate;
So from us at EweMove Wymondham
(the ones with the sheep of all white),
We wish you a Happy Christmas,
and to all… a good night!
Call (24/7) 01953 665 785
Mobile / WhatsApp 07923 236 076
Visit ewemove.com/instant-valuation
Meet Wymondham Whistledown, the town's new agony aunt
Now accepting your confessions
Welcome to Wymondham Magazine’s newest feature: your very own locally-based agony aunt. Send your most candid problems right here, and the best ones shall appear in our next edition with advice from yours truly.
Fun, saucy contributions are greatly encouraged - but problems of all kinds are welcome. Your email address is not shared with me - your identity will remain entirely anonymous. And even if you choose to divulge it, that is one thing I’ll never reveal.
And who am I? I can’t tell you that either. How would you look me in the eye the next day?
But I live amongst you: an anonymous Wymondhammer with a bad case of advice-giving ego complex.
Write to me. You know you want to. XOXO,
Wymondham Whistledown.
What Were the Rotary Club's 12 Charities of the Month?
Summer 2024 is a fading memory, but many will remember the great day we all had at the Food and Drink Festival at the end of June. When all the bills were paid, and the final numbers had been 'crunched' we were able to bank almost £5000 to be distributed to local charities. So what happened to that money?
In previous years we have selected a 'Charity of the Year' but for the current Rotary year we have chosen 12 good causes with a local connection to be 'Charities of the Month'. Each has received a cheque for £400 and, as well as promoting them at our fundraising events throughout the year you will be seeing them featured on our social media sites until June 2025.
The good causes are:
~The Magdalene Group, a sexual violence and harassment charity advocating for the most marginalised women in society
~East Anglian Car Ambulance, which provides advanced critical care by air or road to the most seriously ill and critically injured in East Anglia
~YANA (You Are Not Alone), a charity for agricultural or rural business staff with mental health issues, stress, or depression
~Norfolk Knights, the home for exciting opportunities in wheelchair rugby
~MNDA funds research and provides practical care and support for families affected by motor neurone disease
~Teenage Cancer Trust gives every young person facing cancer the best care and support
~Finbar’s Force fights childhood cancer in Norfolk and supports families affected by it
~EACH (East Anglian Children’s Hospice) ensures the best possible quality of life for their children
~Nelson’s Journey supports children and young people in Norfolk who have experienced the death of a significant person
~Poppy’s Pantry provides invaluable work opportunities for people with disabilities or disadvantages
~Wymondham Scouts and Guides, the outdoor children’s scout group whose grant will allow them more camping equipment
~Wymondham Primary Schools, whose grant will buy the children more books for their libraries
Other fundraising this year will support additional charities including Star Throwers and the Community Outreach Project Christmas appeal both of whom have recently received a grant. If you would like to suggest a charity or good cause that we could considering supporting in the future then do get in touch through our Facebook page or by emailing wymrsg@gmail.com. And of course, if you would like to join us in our fundraising, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Social Club Holds Free Festive Film Evening: White Christmas and Big Business
There will be a grand Christmas film show in the Regal Lounge at the Wymondham and District Ex-Services Social Club on Sunday 15th December, commencing at 2:15pm - and admission is free!
The main feature will be the quintessential festive movie White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, a thoroughly entertaining musical replete with spectacular musical numbers and Irving Berlin’s hit songs. Our supporting feature will be Big Business, an evocative short film from 1929 starring famous knockabout comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in "another fine mess" - this time at Christmas. There is also a short documentary about the once-popular Norwich Hippodrome and Stan and Ollie's appearance there in 1954.
Any donations to the US 389th Bomb Group Memorial Museum at Hethel are welcome and can be placed in a tin on the day.
MERRY...and not so Merry
Merry Christmas from Browick Road Community Orchard, where Greening Wymondham will be celebrating a great year with Christmas goodies on December 7’s working day. More orchard, more veg, more composting – and more awards.
Our new South Norfolk MP, Ben Goldsborough, has told us he would like to visit the orchard – and we warmly welcome the chance to spread the word about the importance of community green spaces to local people.
Which brings us on to the not so merry and hugely depressing news, covered elsewhere in Wymondham magazine, that Anglian Water has ended the town’s lease on the allotments a year early.
We know the mental, physical and emotional benefits of looking after the land and growing things – and the sense of community it brings. May the council find a timely, suitable and convenient replacement - we will offer what help we can give.
Ironically this comes just at a time when our district council is looking at a plan for green infrastructure along the A11 corridor – compensating for increased building by expanding public open spaces, establishing footpaths and planting more trees. We’re using our knowledge of the town and previous work on footpaths to ensure we can contribute useful suggestions.
And another irony for our river testing: the new works at Anglian Water’s treatment centre in Chapel Lane won’t solve pollution problems upstream, though it should reduce the amount of untreated water released from the pumping stations. So we’re delighted to say we have two new river testers, Paul Barrett and Vivien Burch, bringing us to six, and that Professor Michael McArthur will be taking our samples to further isolate coliforms and intestinal pathogens at his lab at UEA.
Christmas Social and The Lady in the Hobnailed Boots: Garden Club Updates
Whilst Gardens slumber under the British winter, there’s still plenty to occupy Wymondham gardeners – from pouring over gardening catalogues, to planning what to grow once winter is over to coming, to talks at Wymondham Garden Club meetings!
We have our Christmas Social on December 9th, 7:30pm, at Town Green Centre. We would love to have you - please email us at wymondhamgardenclub@gmail.com if you are interested.
The Garden Club has an exciting programme of talks lined up for 2025, kicking off on Monday, January 20th, with a talk about Gertrude Jekyll, the influential garden designer, photographer, artist, plant breeder & author. She was the genuine doyenne of Victorian & Edwardian gardens – aka, “The Lady in the Hobnailed Boots”.
The speaker is Andrew Sankey, who gave a wonderful talk on “Colour in the Garden” last May. The club are delighted to welcome him back. Expect to learn fascinating insights into Jekyll’s life and the many plants she grew. As she famously said, “the love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.”
The 2025 club programme has a variety of talks, with some familiar and some new speakers. These include Dr Ian Bedford (Bugs – Who on Earth Needs Them?), Guy Barker (Spring Treasures), Jim Paine (Secret Life of Plants) and Neil Thomas (The Very Varied Life of an Arborist).
If you would like to know more about the club, please come along to a meeting. Inflation has caught up with the club & we have had to increase the membership fee to £25 – still a bargain price for 12 meetings a year. Guest admission has also had to increase to £4 (which does include complimentary tea/coffee). As ever, meetings are held on the third Monday evening of the month at the Town Green Centre, Wymondham.
Young Farmers Invite You Up the Beanstalk for Children’s Charity
As the dark evenings draw in and the leaves fall in Wymondham, we are edging closer to pantomime season (oh no, we’re not!).
Join Wymondham Young Farmers from the 8th-11th January 2025 for a fun and family-friendly Jack and the Beanstalk production at Wymondham Central Hall.
Each year, we select a charity to support through various events. This year, the Pantomime will raise funds for Break, a local organisation close to our hearts that supports children in the care system across East Anglia. Break is committed to helping all children achieve the bright future they deserve. All net proceeds from the pantomime will be donated to this wonderful cause.
Tickets are now available online. All performances begin at 7:30pm, with a matinée performance at 2:30pm on the 11th of January.
‘Broken Sea Defences’ and ‘Beady Eye’
WPS Photos of the Month
WPS had the first cumulative print competition for our Tier 1 and 2 photographers last week. In Tier 1, a very high standard of images was judged by Andy Swain, with seven scoring between 9 and 10.
The judge's overall favourite was ‘Broken Sea Defences’ by Anthony Cooves, which the judge liked as a simple seascape, with the handling of the moving sea and sky on a low shutter speed done very well.
In Tier 2, there was again a great collection of very differing images, with thirteen scoring between 9 and 10. The favourite was Jez Wood’s fantastic image of a shag bird called ‘Beady Eye’. The judge loved the detail in the feathers, with no distractions in the background and the titular eye in sharp focus.
Come to the Heritage Museum’s Edwardian Christmas
Come and have a taste of Christmas past on Saturday December 7th. Between 12 and 6pm, the museum will be celebrating a Victorian and Edwardian Christmas. Admission is free!
The Bridewell will be decked out with traditional decorations including paper chains, crepe paper decorations and pine cones. Father Christmas will be arriving by sleigh at 2pm. Children will receive a mystery traditional Christmas gift. And there is even a children’s 12 Days of Christmas trail.
In The Bridewell Tearoom enjoy a hot cuppa or a soft drink while you tuck into a mince pie or indulge in seasonal homemade cakes and treats.
Entry is £6 per child. Visit the museum shop and its wide selection of local books and souvenirs that make the ideal present, perfect for stocking fillers.
Cmglee Wymondham Heritage Museum is licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0..
Star Throwers Invites You to their Christmas Afternoon Tea
This year we celebrated 15 years since the Star Throwers Centre opened. The charity has supported thousands of people of the past years with a large range of information and wellbeing services, all free of charge thanks to the generous support of our local community. We are incredibly grateful for your support for our charity and look forward to being able to continue to deliver our vital cancer support services for many years to come.
We still have some tickets available for our Christmas Afternoon Tea takes place at Park Farm Hotel in Hethersett on Sunday 15th December – tickets are still available, contact us to book at victoria@starthrowers.org.uk
We have several challenge events that supporters can take part in next year: Blickling Half Marathon on Sunday 16th March, the Norfolk Marathon on Sunday 13th April and our annual Skydive Day in June – please contact us to find out more.
And thank you to Nicky O’Grady from The Enchanted Willow who is running our annual Christmas Wreath Making Event – every year this raises of £1,000 for Star Throwers! Thank you to the Wymondham Rotary Satellite Group for donating £500 to help us purchase a new gazebo for our events and for use at our Treasure Trove Shop. A big thank you to the Morrisons Foundation for a donation of £8,000 to support the refurbishment of our kitchen – we are looking for local tradespeople to work with on this exciting project, please contact us if you are a kitchen fitter, plumber, electrician, supply and fit flooring or think you could support us in any way: info@starthrowers.org.uk.
New Weight Loss Group
A new community group will begin in January for people who want to help each other on their weight loss journey.
The group will be facilitated by a peer supporter who has been in the same boat and wants to help others.
If you feel like you've tried everything, need advice and want to be part of a group trying to get healthy without counting calories or gruelling exercise, get in touch.
The group will share experiences and look at the latest research and healthy lifestyle plans.
You will not be asked to buy special branded products nor pay a fee to take part.
For more information visit wymondhamweightloss.co.uk.
Methodist Church Invites You to Festive Events
On December 1st, Wymondham Methodist Church will be open for a Nativity Crib Display as part of 'Wymondham Christmastime'. Refreshments will be served at the Town Green Centre.
WMC also invites you to Messy Church, a children’s activities’ fair on December 7th from 10:30-12:30. This free event will provide activities, crafts, songs, games, food and stories. Aimed at ages 4-11 years, children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
On Christmas Eve, there will be a free Candlelit Carol Service at 6pm. The December 25th Christmas Day Service will be held at Hethersett Methodist Church at 10.30am.
Make Time for Self-Care
I love this time of year, Autumn being my favourite season. I channel my inner Dane, embrace the Hygge and take every opportunity to enjoy blustery walks in the chilly air, followed by warming food and drinks by the fire. There is nothing quite like cosying up in a comfy armchair with a blanket and a good book or magazine. I think I share much in common with hedgehogs because I like to hibernate when the season of falling leaves arrives!
I know that not everyone shares my preference and it seems that most people I talk to, lament the end of summer. Many dread the end of long, warm days and the opportunity to be out and about as much as possible. This is especially true of those who are bereaved, particularly those who now find themselves living alone.
Motivation can wane and doing anything can feel like more of an effort. However, it is more important than ever at this time of year, to make self-care a priority.
Self-care can sound a bit selfish but it really just means taking time to look after yourself and doing things that make you feel recharged and warm inside. It might involve spending time alone, to rest and relax or reaching out to engage with others.
This could mean volunteering for an organisation or charity which gives a sense of purpose by knowing we are helping others and making a positive difference in the world.
We can also make time to meet with others. Inviting someone round for a coffee or meal, or going out together, could mean a lot to someone who also lives alone.
Those who are bereaved can sometimes experience feelings of guilt if they start to enjoy life again and engage with others. This is not unusual and does not mean that we are leaving our loved ones behind or being disrespectful to them. It simply means that we are trying to make the most of the life we have now. We are all entitled to experience joy, happiness and connection in life – it’s what makes life worth living.
So, this Autumn, make time for self-care: Meet with others, enjoy some good food, watch an uplifting film, read a good book, have a long soak in a fragrant bubble bath or whatever else makes you feel warm inside.
Our next Bereavement Support Groups start in January. All our groups are free and open to everyone. Please book your place by calling 07901 888 122 or pop into your local Rosedale branch.
The Lowe Down: 2024 in Review
Christmas newsletters are funny things. I sat down to write this December Lowe Down – traditionally the one where I sum up various major 2024 events, etc. – and thought the best place to start was Miranda Hart. She hit the British headlines this year: not only did she publish a book (I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You – it came out the same day as Boris Johnson’s Unleashed and she quipped that the titles ought to be swapped), but she also – more importantly – got married! I heard the news and instantly sent these texts to one of my best Wymondham pals:
“MIRANDA HAS GOT MARRIED” (11:35am)
“Sorry – followed by normal words like, ‘hello, how are you doing and how’s uni?’” (11:36am)
This friend amusedly wrote back and said that other devout Miranda fans from our Sixth Form days had got in touch too. “Miranda fans unite!” In all seriousness, after the hilarity and happiness she has brought to so many people through her work (watching the Miranda Christmas special is a yearly tradition), she wholeheartedly deserved to find happiness herself. Those after a Miranda fix should watch her show and see her performance as Miss Bates in the de Wilde adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma – which has many festive scenes.
But another reason I thought of her is that she perfectly satirises end-of-year Christmas newsletters. In the second Christmas special, her fictional mother – played by Patricia Hodge – is furious at the smug, pompous perorations from her relatives’ Christmas newsletters and is consequently dismayed that all she can think to write is “Miranda’s a fat temp”. (Harsh - because the audience of course loves her!)
“Miranda, I’ve got another ghastly Christmas newsletter.”
“And hello to you Mum – Christmas cheer.”
“Stop it – we’re British, sober, and no-one’s going to prison.”
However – let’s give it a go anyway. 2024 has been wild, not always for the happiest of reasons. War rages in the Middle East. Climate change gathers pace at a rate even the West now cannot ignore. And it’s been a hefty year for elections: the UK general election, the UK Tory leadership, and most recently, the US presidency. It is a bit hard to know what to say when faced with that.
Of course, some good things arose from those – Wymondham got our fabulous new MP, Ben Goldsborough, who spoke to us for the magazine when he got elected. It’s depressing that this is one of the most refreshing things about him, but it is worth saying: many things he pledged to do in that interview have since happened. He told us he wanted to work with Wymondham High; that has since happened. He got the ball rolling by meeting the head and several students, discussing (among other topics) the SEND crisis and the importance of the arts, both issues he told us he planned to focus on. He also told me he planned to set up telephone surgeries to make it easier for full-time workers – he has since done that multiple times with great success. Proof we are in good hands as 2025 rolls on.
2024 also saw the death of Dame Maggie Smith, among many notable people. Smith was incredibly inspiring – she spent most of her career doing stage work, and then in her 60s and 70s, starred in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey and was catapulted into international recognition. Proof that it is never too late in life for anything. She quipped that many people thought she had never existed before Harry Potter. As iconic as she is in both of those, you are missing out if you haven’t seen her in Murder By Death, Death on the Nile, and Evil Under the Sun. She is hilarious in all of them. She will be very sorely missed.
There seems not much more to say than Merry Christmas to all Wymondhammers! (If you celebrate Christmas.) Here’s to everyone who did GCSEs and A-Levels this year, in particular. Life is often far too complicated to summarise in a single bulletin - as Miranda Hart’s sketch epitomises beautifully - but Christmas provides a constant. Whatever your circumstances, whether you’re alone or navigating several large-family-meetups (both have their merits, as we all know!), we at the magazine hope you have the best time possible. Cheers - and let’s hope 2025 has some ups as well as downs.
"Miranda Hart: Actress, Writer and Stand-up Comedienne _MG_9620" by rodwey2004 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Click here to view a copy of this licence.
Vic's Picks: Best Places to Grab a Hot Drink
As the weather takes a turn, something that is always welcome to warm up cold hands is a nice hot drink. Not to mention they are quite tasty too. Whichever hot drink is your favourite (hot chocolate, coffee, or tea), here are some of my favourite places in Wymondham to find them.
My first choice is Wymondham Garden Centre on Tuttles Lane. They have all the hot drinks you could want, including herbal tea and a range of syrups. They offer a luxury hot chocolate alongside their regular hot chocolate if you’re feeling fancy. Wymondham Garden Centre is also particularly great this time of year with their fabulous Christmas items contributing a festive ambience.
Next on my picks is Cavick House Farm on Cavick Road. Where this pick really excels is their wide variety of coffees, hot chocolates, and teas. Some standouts for me include the rose and lavender lattes and the white hot chocolate. It’s a great place to find drinks you may not have had elsewhere, such as their turmeric hot chocolate!
Loaf Micro Bakery is next. You can find it on Middleton Street. Not only is their coffee made from a yummy local roaster, but they also offer small-batch hot chocolate imported from family farms. I not only enjoy their hot drinks, but also that their takeaway cups are fully biodegradable. They also have a range of sweet treats to accompany your coffee.
Kendall & Franklyn on Fairland Street shines with not only their coffees, teas (which include blood orange), and hot chocolate, but that you are able to buy the same roast they use to take home and make yourself, and they sell different types of local Norfolk honey to mix into your tea whenever you’d like.
Last but far from least is the Lemon Tree Cafe on Damgate Street. This pick serves all your favourite coffees which can all be made caffeinated or decaf. You can decide from a hot
Chocolate or a deluxe hot chocolate and a great selection of herbal teas including red berry and flower.
Now this edition of Vic’s picks was probably my hardest to decide. The truth is Wymondham has so many great and different options when it comes to hot drinks. I could probably write this same article three more times. But unfortunately, I do have to choose. I hope sharing some of my choices with you is helpful, and I hope everyone can find some joy (and some warmth) in a hot drink this December.
New York City Marathon Diaries
If you look up the TCS New York City Marathon, it is described as a "challenging race that tests your strength and stamina. The course is not flat, with long inclines up bridges and hills on Fifth Avenue. Some say the final 10k is especially difficult..." Unfortunately, three Wymondham Athletic Club members, Hilary Byrne, Rachael Lockwood and me, did not Google this before we travelled the 3486 miles across the Atlantic to run the race on Sunday, 3rd of November.
The main reason for the trip was to celebrate Rachael’s 50th birthday. What better way to do this than a marathon? We assumed it would be a great way to see the sights and soak up the New York vibe. When we arrived, it was 20 degrees and absolutely bonkers. Halloween was in full swing with hoards of people in amazing costumes - bright lights, constant noise - a world away from little Wymondham!
We visited the Marathon Expo the following day in the Jacob K Javits Centre. Once we picked up our numbers and had multiple photos taken at the many marketing stands, the reality hit that we actually had to run. My highlight was bumping into Adele Roberts, a radio DJ and TV personality, who runs with a stoma bag following treatment for bowel cancer. Rachael was more excited by the Sesame Street stand(!).
Another day of sightseeing later, the enormity of what we were about to take on started to sink in. We were standing on the top of the Edge, gazing out to Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty and following the route right back through to Central Park. "It’s quite a long way," we murmured.
Sports Tours - the company we booked it through - kindly held welcome drinks in the evening, and Snoop Dog decided to sing for us in Times Square. Chris Evans was also at the drinks, but sadly, none of us managed a selfie!
After a night of carb-loading at the Olive Garden in Times Square (if you've tried their breadsticks, you'll know why we had to go there!), race day was upon us. We had to meet at 5:30am to catch a bus to Staten Island before the roads closed. We counted down the waves until it was our turn - watching the elites flying off, knowing they would probably have finished before we had even started.
Each wave was sent off by a cannon, the American national anthem and New York, New York blaring out. If you didn't feel patriotic before, you certainly did by then! Rachael and I wore Statue of Liberty headbands all the way. The marathon route turned north through Brooklyn and Queens, then west across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, north into the Bronx and then back into Manhattan with the finish line in Central Park.
The first 15 miles went well. The crowds were phenomenal. Think of the London crowds times a million! We had to attack the water stations strategically, as there was a high risk of crashing into another runner or slipping on the discarded cups. We loved seeing the friendly faces of our friends and family in the crowd - even if we didn't spot them at first and ended up running back to try and find them!
Then we hit the Queensboro bridge. Everything went quiet. There were no crowds. It was uphill. A lot. Forever. On and on. Every corner we turned, there was another hill. Why didn't we know how hilly New York is?! We necked gels and Kendal Mint Cake like it was going out of fashion. My knee decided it wasn't happy with me making it go up and down all these hills, which added an extra fun element of pain, especially on the downhill bits.
The last 10k were most definitely the hardest I have ever run. All uphill. Everything hurt. We started seriously questioning our life choices and kept trying to remind ourselves we had chosen to do this and should be enjoying ourselves! The route finally took us into Central Park, but we still had two miles to go - how big is Central Park?!!
After 26.93 miles (yes, it was more than 26.2 after all the weaving in and out), we grabbed each other’s hands and made a last effort across the finish line. It was finally over. We didn’t so much walk as stumble our way out. Each finisher got given a lovely shiny red apple: the most delicious apple I have ever tasted, especially after the rubbish I had consumed to keep going. We were also given a very smart fleece-lined bright orange poncho to keep warm.
The elation which follows a huge race like this took a while to come. I was so exhausted, felt sick and was in pain. But the trip was rounded off by a brilliant after-party at the Hard Rock Café with free drinks and a live band. I'm not sure any of us were particularly up for dancing, and we definitely didn't make the most of the bar, but being applauded on arrival was an amazing end to a rather surreal day.
In conclusion, looking back, it was a bit like childbirth. We had no idea what to expect other than what other people had told us. We knew it would be hard but didn't know how hard. Immediately afterwards, we announced our retirement from marathon running and said, "never ever again."
And if you want to support the charity Finnbar’s Force, the charity for whom Rachael ran the marathon and will be running next year’s Cambridge Half, you can click the link here.
The next event in the Wymondham race diary is the New Years Day 10k - Set in the beautiful countryside on the outskirts of Wymondham, the race is run on undulating and quiet rural roads. The race starts and finishes on Lady’s Lane. Refreshments and cake are provided and the support from the enthusiastic marshals is second to none. Entry details are here.
Sunday 1st December
Nativity Display
3pm-6:30pm, 
Town Green Centre
Come view a wide range of nativity cribs. Refreshments will be served.
wymondhammethodistchurch.com/
Charity Poker Night 7:30pm, White Hart Pub
Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place! £10 scratch card for highest hand. £10 Landlord Knock-out Bounty. £7 Buy-in £5 re-buy-in. Book your place in advance by phone, in person or Facebook message.
01953 798574
www.facebook.com/thewhitehartwym
Tuesday 3rd December
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dell Bowls Club
Macro studio evening: trying macro set-ups
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Wednesday 4th December
Art Society Christmas Social 7:15pm, Catholic Church Hall
www.wymondhamart.org
Saturday 7th December
Community Orchard Volunteer Workday 10am-12pm, Browick Road Orchard
Refreshments and tools provided but bring your own gloves. Entrance opposite Gunton Road NR18 0QN or Ayton Road Car Park.
www.greeningwymondham.org/
Messy Church 10:30am-12:30pm, Town Green Centre
Free event for children aged 4-11. Parent/Guardian must also attend. Further details from Sarah at emmens.cfw@gmail.com
wymondhammethodistchurch.com/
Monday 9th December
Service of Remembrance 7pm, Baptist Church Queen St
Remembering those we love at Christmas. The service is free to attend and open to everyone. Rosedale Memorial Tree. Refreshments will be available.
01953 601103
rosedalefuneralhome.co.uk/
Garden Club Christmas Social 7:30pm, Town Green Centre
Annual end of the year club social with Christmas Fare, Fauna, Song and a few surprises!
Award Presentations: Banksian medal, Presidents Cup,
Gavin Brown Cookery trophy.
Members £5, guests £8.
Please RSVP in advance wymondhamgardenclub@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077254060337
Tuesday 10th December
Volunteer Workday 9:30am-12:30pm, Friarscroft Wood
Meet by Windmill Surgery. Refreshments at 11:00am. Bring yourself, a pair of gloves & sturdy boots.
www.greeningwymondham.org/
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Astrophotography: A talk by Shaun Reynolds
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Thursday 12th December
Working the Tides Talk by Dick Foyster 7:30pm, Town Green Centre
Join WyNG for an ilustrated talk on Breydon Water conservation work in all weathers, working between and with the tide. All welcome - admission £3, NWT members £2 – no booking required. Questions to Wymondham@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
01953 602 876
www.facebook.com/WymondhamNatureGroup/
Saturday 14th December
Lizard Volunteer Workday 10am-12pm, The Lizard
Join volunteers to help this natural area to thrive. Meet on the Lizard at the Orchard. Refreshments at 11am. Bring yourself & a pair of gloves.
www.thelizardwymondham.co.uk/
Tuesday 17th December
Volunteer Workday 9:30am-3:30pm, Kett's Park Woodland
Join volunteers to help this woodland to thrive. Refreshments at 11:00am. Bring yourself, your lunch, a pair of gloves and sturdy boots.
www.greeningwymondham.org/
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Christmas Buffet and Quiz
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Saturday 21st December
Community Orchard Volunteer Workday 10am-12pm, Browick Road Orchard
Refreshments and tools provided but bring your own gloves. Entrance opposite Gunton Road NR18 0QN or Ayton Road Car Park.
www.greeningwymondham.org/
Tuesday 24th December
Candlelit Carol Service 6pm, Wymondham Methodist Church
Everyone Welcome
wymondhammethodistchurch.com/
Tuesday 7th January
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Living & working as a photographer in Namibia - Scott Hurd
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Thursday 9th January
Talk: British Trust for Ornithology 7:30pm-9:30pm, Town Green Centre
Join WyNG for an illustrated talk by Drew Lyness. Overview of the BTO and its research – honing in on what is happening to species locally. Admission £3, NWT Members £2. No need to book.
www.facebook.com/WymondhamNatureGroup
Tuesday 14th January
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Open Print Competition Round 2
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Saturday 18th January
Cavick String Quartet 7:30pm, Becket's Chapel
To raise money for further upgrades to the grade 1 listed building. Tickets available online
www.becketschapel.org.uk/event-details/cavick-string-quartet-4
Monday 20th January
Garden Club Talk on Gertrude Jekyll 7:30pm, Town Green Centre
The Lady in the Hobnailed Boots: Andrew Sankey will speak about the life & work of the doyenne of Victorian & Edwardian Garden design whose gardens still exist today. Gertrude was also a prolific article writer, a painter & plant breeder. Members Free, guests £4. Further info email wymondhamgardenclub@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077254060337
Tuesday 21st January
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Club AGM
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Thursday 23rd January
Heritage Society Social Evening 7:30pm, Fairland Hall
Join Wymondham Heritage Society for a social evening with information sharing. Free for members - visitors £2. New members can join at a meeting or contact Janet Benjafield on 01953 606257.
www.wymondhamheritagemuseum.co.uk/?p=programme
Tuesday 28th January
Photographic Society 8pm-10pm, Dells Bowls Club
Passion for wildlife - Talk by Kevin Pigney
www.wymondham-ps.org.uk
Sub-editor: Freddy Lowe. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, Wymondham Magazine can accept no responsibility for any error or omission that may arise. The views and opinions expressed in Wymondham Magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Wymondham Magazine. This magazine may not be sold or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanical, without prior consent of the publishers and copyright holders, Wymondham Magazine is a brand of MYOB Digital LTD. Registered address: Black Hall Farm, Traice Road, Fundenhall, Wymondham, NR16 1HQ, VAT number: GB328358189 © Wymondham Magazine