Mystery

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Birthday Surprise

Among greetings received by Ann Pickard, of 59 High Street, Bideford, on her 15th birthday was a letter that was both a surprise and a reminder.

Enclosed in the envelope was a square of cardboard. Then she remembered that a few months ago she was playing with her young brother on the river near Monkleigh when, for his amusement, she wrote her name and birthdate on a piece of cardboard, adding a joking 'Ha, ha' and put it in a bottle, intending that her brother on the other side should get it and open it.

The bottle never reached the other side, and was forgotten until a letter arrived on Ann's 15th birthday, intimating that it had been found by 21 years old K Staddon, of Holly Farm, Monkleigh, who also added a joking 'Ha, ha'.

Gazette article dated 14 November 1958

A strange North Devon ‘cure’

Rev F G Scrimner, writes from Sutcombe Rectory to the ‘Western Morning Fews’ –

North Devon is full of strange folklores and beliefs (we won’t call them supertitions). On Sunday the Parish Church of Sutcombe, a small village between Holsworthy and Hartland, was the scene of a revival of an interesting old faith cure.

A woman in the parish has of late been a sufferer from epileptic fits, and at the persuasion of a neighbour who 19 years ago had done the same thing and had not suffered fits since, she went round the parish and got 30 married men to promise to attend the Parish Church at the morning service. It was a gratifying sight to see so large a congregation, drawn together out of sympathy for a neighbour and a desire to do anything she thought might help her. At the close of the service the Rector desired the selected men to pass one by one, and as they passed through the porch they found the woman seated there, accompanied by the neighbour who had done the same thing 19 years ago (as many who were present remembered). Each man as he passed out put a penny in the woman’s lap, but when the thirtieth man (the rector’s churchwarden) came he took the 29 pennies and put in half-a-crown.

A silver ring is to be made out of this half-crown, which the woman is to wear, and it is hoped that the result will be as satisfactory in her case as it was on the previous occasion.

In a small parish (less than 300 population) it was not easy to find 30 married men, but all were willing to help – farmers, labourers, and tradesmen – and the whole incident passed off very quietly, and all was done with the utmost reverence and decorum. The woman takes her seat in the porch when the preacher begins his sermon, and from the time she leaves her house until she returns she must not speak a word. We have not heard whether she complied with this condition.

Can any of your readers furnish me with the details of any similar case?

Gazette article dated 15 May 1906

Appledore-made Pop

Rummaging around at Torrington, schoolboy Bryn Williams and his friends came across a bottle that intrigued them

although it was broken at the neck. Not only was the glass extremely thick, but embossed on the bottle was ‘Rogers, Excelsior Works, Appledore.’

Bryn was the more interested because his father, Emlyn, is headmaster of Appledore County Primary School. Mr Williams could tell his son that the bottle was of a type used for ‘pop’ – in the days when it was a fizzy drink and nothing to do with music – and that the pressure of the gas sealed in the contents by pressing a glass marble against a rubber ring.

But he knew nothing of the makers and inquiries, even from someone who has lived in the township for over 70 years, produced no real information. All that seems to be known is that a man called Rogers once had a chemist’s shop in Bude Street – and I am told chemists were known to manufacture mineral water many years ago.

Gazette article dated 13 May 1977