Torrington

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.

Among those nursing children wounded and ill in Amman following the Jordanian civil war is Miss Audrey Brunt who, from 1957 to 1960, was district nurse in Torrington.

Always she spends part of her leave in this country at Torrington where she was a member of the Baptist Church and a Sunday School teacher. She has addressed meetings about her work with the Save the Children Fund in the Middle East, and the Church has worked for her making and collecting clothes and blankets, which she has distributed.
On leaving Torrington Miss Brunt trained as a health visitor in Bristol and was a public health nurse in Canada before working for the Save the Children Fund in the Middle East. She nursed refugee children in North Jordan in 1967 following the six-day war, but has spent most of her time starting and running clinics for mothers and children at Ma’an in the south of the country.
She is now in a second term with the Fund which flew her to Amman.

Town Crier, Bert Waldron, Calls It A Day

Mr Bert Waldron, Torrington town crier and eight times British champion, has, at the age of 68, retired on health grounds.

His stentorian voice was first heard officially in1930 but five years later he gave up the job. In 1954 he made a comeback and two years later, at Hastings, he won his first national championship. The job took him to America and to the Continent as well as to radio and TV studios and plush hotels, and he was featured on a pop record.

Gazette article dated October 1971

New flats will rise on site of old almshouses

On the site of the old Clinton almshouses in New Street, Torrington, which have been demolished during the past week, will rise blocks of new flats with modern amenities and intended to carry on the tradition of the site by being primarily for old people.

The future of the old almshouses, which had seriously deteriorated in condition, has occupied much earnest consideration by the Town Council since it was intimated that the Clinton estate wished to offer them to the town. To meet legal requirements they came into the Council’s possession by nominal purchase from the Town and Alms Lands Charity to whom they were transferred from the Clinton Estate.
For a while serious consideration was given to the possibility of reconditioning the old almshouses with their picturesque porches but it was found that this would be comparatively expensive and not completely satisfactory. Now there are to be built on the site eight one-bedroomed flats and two two-bedroomed flats in the place of six one-down and one-up almshouses, only one of which was occupied at the last. This tenant, at present staying with relatives, will be offered one of the new flats.
There will be a block of four flats on the road frontage with a 10-foot wide access each side to a block of six flats in the garden at the rear.
Each of the flats which can be used by one or two occupants, has a living room, a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and larder. They will be very similar to the Marwood Court flats which the Town Council erected some time ago and which have proved very acceptable.
At this month’s meeting of the Town Council it was reported that the Minister of Housing and Local Government had agreed to the acceptance of Mr W H Tolley’s tender of £18,216 for the erection of the new flats and had also approved the dwellings for the purpose of subsidy.
Six of the flats are due to be ready in six months and the remainder in four more months.