Hill & Valley
February 2003
Parish Magazine serving Hurstbourne Priors, Longparish, St Mary Bourne & Woodcott
The maintenance team of H.C.C. Rights of Way maintenance team recently completed their work on Long Bridge on East Aston Common. Using the existing concrete supports they have built a most attractive wooden bridge with rails on both sides. In keeping with the policy of trying to improve access to the countryside, they have built ramps each side and built a new bridge over the carrier so that there is now wheelchair and pushchair access to the bridge. Residents are delighted to have the use of footpath 3 restored and the new bridge is a great improvement on the old one. Thanks have been sent by the Parish Council to Peter Watson, our Rights of Way Officer and his team.
Calling all parents of children aged 3 and under. We have a wonderful new group starting in Longparish called Music with Mummy. Of course it can be with anyone - Daddy, granny or anyone else important.
Music with Mummy is a structured programme of pre-school music education, which has been running successfully since 1992. It takes the form of a series of weekly sessions designed specifically for small children.
The objectives of the classes are as follows:
To foster in young children the idea that music is a pleasurable social activity.
To encourage listening skills, so essential not only in music but in all other areas of learning.
To develop a sense of rhythm through movement, games and the use of simple instruments.
To promote speech development.
To provide early training in singing.
To introduce some basic concepts such as "stop" and "start", "loud" and "soft", "up" and "down" etc.
To have lots of fun!
There are two sessions of 30 minutes in Longparish on Tuesdays at 10.15 and 11am. The groups will be limited to 10 children, (accompanied by an adult).
For further details tel. Nicky Derrick 01264 720452
St Nicholas Wives Group
The next meeting of our group will be on Thursday 20th February. The meeting will be held at Woodstock “Television in the early days” is the title of the talk that Stuart Bevan is going to present to us. The meeting starts at 7.30pm.
Gloria Goodliffe
Parish Council Profile: Ricky Bourne
Ricky and Liz Bourne moved to Longparish in 1981 with their two young daughters, Becky and Bobby. They bought their current house in Gladstone Terrace and instantly felt at home in the village. It was only after their move that they discovered from a
cousin that Ricky’s great grandmother, Mrs Bishop, had lived in the village in Southside Cottage and that his grandmother was born here.
Ricky was born in Poole and brought up with his twin sister in the New Forest in a family which has been in farming for generations. It was natural that he should study at Sparsholt Agricultural College and there he met Liz at a Young Farmers’ dance.
They settled in the New Forest and Ricky became a self-employed agricultural contractor. They remember producing masses of beansticks from hazel coppice together. Increasingly Ricky became involved in training others to use agricultural machinery, and decided to qualify by doing the Certificate of Education in Agriculture at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Since then he has spent about three quarters of his time training people to use a variety of machinery, from quad bikes to lorry-mounted cranes, in places as varied as Marwell Zoo, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court, wine cellars, prisons, as well as farms and factories. He says that he only teaches what he himself is proficient in and as a registered instructor he works to strict standards. During harvest he has a break from training others and spends three months hauling straw bales. He and Liz are both long-term members of Stockbridge Growmore Club and Liz is just retiring as Chairman.
Ricky joined the Parish Council in May 1999. He became interested after he had attended some meetings to raise issues with the Council, and as a committed councillor he tries never to miss a meeting. In his view councillors should always seek to make decisions in the interests of the village as a whole. He is particularly interested in planning issues and in trying to ensure that Longparish retains some affordable housing. He thinks that more low-cost rented housing would help to keep a social mix in the village. Another priority is to encourage more business and employment opportunities in the village. He is on the Footpaths Committee where his practical skills are greatly valued and he is keen to ensure that the footpaths are kept open.
