Village Voice by Rosie Warrillow, 18th November

Our W.I ladies enjoyed their open evening last week with local speaker John Ashton. John has lived in our community for many years and has become something of an expert on the local wildfowl on the river. There are many species of geese, duck, swans and the African cattle egret, a visitor turned resident bird. John loves to photograph the birds and also is an accomplished artist and he talked about how birds had developed from dinosaurs right through until the present day with the birds we would recognise now on the river. He also brought along some examples of his taxidermy work, made from birds unfortunately found dead either on the road or having flown into windows. Johns’s wife Dinah assisted by showing the many colourful slides of the birds mentioned, and they showed aspects of the bird’s talons, and some lovely pictures of our osprey which visits regularly catching fish on the river. A vote of thanks was given by a member at the end of the talk, and the ladies and their guests enjoyed refreshments supplied by the members of the institute. The group has now become quite low in numbers and the ladies would be delighted to welcome new members, the meetings take place each month on the second Thursday of each month in the village hall at 7.30pm.                                                           

The drainage works on the green are now nearing completion, and the ground is starting to resemble a village green instead of a moonscape! Work will continue to restore the area to pristine condition, and then grass seed will be sown, hopefully looking something like normal before too long. The walk through the green to the village shop has been restored, although the fencing is still up.                       

Aveton Gifford paid its respect to the fallen from two world wars on Remembrance Sunday. The service was led by Rev Matt Rowland and the names of the dead were read out by a Royal British Legion representative. Local organisations laid their wreaths, including the Parish Council and the village hall, and the Primary School wreath was laid by three children from the school. Inside the church the last post was played by a young musician from Modbury, Matthew, how beautifully he played too. So nice to hear the last post played live! Vanda played some familiar hymns and Caroline Barker lead the intercessions.

St Andrews will have a Holy Communion service this Sunday, starting at the usual time of 11am with Rev Neil Barker leading.