South Downs Probus Club

South Downs Probus Club

November 2024

South Downs Probus Club have had a good couple of months with several new members joining us. As usual they are all from a variety of backgrounds, a banker who has worked all over the world and been involved in many well-known investment deals. A doctor, a retired Ofsted manager who is still working as a consultant to schools, another educationalist who has also worked in many foreign countries (particularly in Pakistan) helping improve the social well-being of children. And a chartered surveyor. Quite an eclectic diaspora!

Last month we went backstage at Chichester Theatre. How they manage to put those shows together with the tight facilities they have is a marvel, yet the staff are all so enthusiastic in their specialities, be it electrics, or hats, or makeup, or costumes. It was great to stand on the stage and imagine yourself as Larry Olivier or Noel Coward; but there was no audience to appreciate me! Afterwards we all enjoyed a meal in the brasserie which is a superb venue for quite an exotic meal in theatreland.

The pub to which we go for our regular monthly meetings, The George and Dragon at Dragon’s Green has recently been taken over and some refurbishment has taken place. This meant that in October we had to find an alternative and we alighted at The Roundabout Hotel in West Chiltington. Our speaker, Bill Lonergan, gave us a good talk on “The Spitfire Sisters”. During the war a few hundred girls eventually piloted all sorts of aircraft, trainers, fighters and bombers, around the country delivering them where needed and thus saving the men to go off and fight. The story unfolded of their difficulties in being allowed and getting permission to fly them against the current thinking of the government that they shouldn’t be involved. It was only by the tenacity of a few redoubtable ladies in the early years that they managed it. They were popularly known as the “Attagirls”. Bill had been born in New Zealand and learned to fly there before he came to the UK in 1959, where he joined the RAF and became a fighter pilot before becoming a trainer.

In October we returned to the George and Dragon and were treated to an excellent roast beef lunch with a new chef after a totally contrasting talk by an amazing speaker, who is renowned in other circles as a Professor of Interplanetary Science and Astrophysics. However, Alan Aylward came to us to talk on behalf of “The Woodlands Trust”! We all know it exists but don’t realise how active they are in saving threatened woods and managing them. As a country we have the least proportion of our land as woodland, particularly “ancient woodland” in Europe. And most of ours is in Scotland! The Forestry Commission has spent decades planting new woods with a lot of the “wrong trees” after the woods had been decimated by the needs of two world wars. But now seem to have a better concept and policy and are working in a good fashion with The Woodlands Trust. Of course, they are not only saving trees but also the wildlife which goes with it. The older ones amongst us will know the paucity of birds, butterflies and hedgehogs compared to our younger days, so we should be supporting The Woodlands Trust whenever we are able to do so.