Bideford

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.

Mrs Vivian Patt, of Bideford, has become the first woman member of the North Devon Water Board. She is a representative of Devon County Council.

First woman president of North Devon Master Bakers

Mrs Vivian Patt, former Mayor of Bideford and now a member of Northam Council, has been elected the first woman president of the North Devon branch of the Master Bakers’ Association, and is among the very few women in the country to have held such office in the association.

Devon, in fact, now has two women branch presidents, Mrs Matthews at Torquay and Mrs Patt in North Devon.
At the annual general meeting of the North Devon branch Mrs Patt was unanimously voted to succeed Mr Colin Dudley, of Combe Martin, in the office.
For 22 years in the bakery trade, Mrs Patt told the Gazette she was thrilled by what she considers is the greatest honour to be paid to the business. But she emphasised it was one she shared with her husband, Mr Fred Patt, who had himself been unable to accept an invitation because of the demands of business, but had readily agreed that she should do so and made it possible for her to accept.
The office involved a fair amount of travelling and attention to wider aspects of the trade.

Gazette article April 1972

Bideford ‘What’s My Line’ Challenger in 1954

Mrs F Patt, of ‘Raleigh View’, Bideford, failed to beat the ‘What’s my line’ television panel on Sunday evening’s programme.

The panel were up to their last two questions when they discovered her occupation which she gave as ‘putting jam in doughnuts’ – ‘giving them a hypodermic injection’ as panel member David Nixon described it.
Earlier Gilbert Harding had made a geographical guess that Mrs Patt might be ‘a Cornish pastry filler-upper’.
Mrs Patt, who said she had brought to the studio a very nice cake from the people of Bideford, invited the panel – David Nixon, Lady Barnett, Gilbert Harding and Barbara Kelly – to sample it after the show.
She concluded with a ‘good night’ to her three-year-old daughter, Diane, who was watching her mummy on television at home.
In the photograph of the TV picture, Mrs Patt is seen next to Eamonn Andrews, the Question Master, who has the score card in front of him. If the challenger replies ‘no’ ten times in the course of questions by the panel who endeavouring to ascertain his or her job, then the challenger has beaten the panel and gets a certificate to that effect.