Newspaper Cuttings
Thanks go to Rosemary Haynes for this collection of cuttings from the 1970's. Rosemary is a great source of information about the village as she was born here in Swan Farm (the site of the old village pub). After leaving to live in Daventry in her early married years, she and her husband returned to live in a house they built on part of Swan Farm's land, where they still live today.
The articles are real gems as to the life and times of the village. Reading them made me think that they were much older than they actually are. It's only 23 years ago for some of them, yet the style of journalism is completely different to what we are used to today.
Scathing
Not only that, the content of the articles can be quite offensive to our more modern way of thinking in that they are totally prejudiced and make vast sweeping statements about the village and the people who lived in it at the time. Given that some of those people still live here, I wonder if they are still inclined to think the rest of us are merely 'outsiders' or 'dormitory residents'. Perhaps it's better not to know!
We bought our house from a family that had been here for 30 something years. They seemed daunting to us because they had been here so long, but at the time of these articles they would have been examples of village newcomers to whom the real residents (ie those who were born here) said "there is no feeling of animosity, merely one of non-involvement."!
As we are now a village peopled in the most part with 'outsiders' I think we've moved on a bit since then and can make new people feel welcome immediately, not 30 years later!
Silver Cup for Gardening
A couple of the articles refer to a cup which was presented to the owner of the 'Prettiest Garden' in the village. Given the frantic activity in Preston Capes and Little Preston in the run up to the open gardens event, and the shear talent and skill on display at this time, I would think awarding a cup to only one person would be tantamount to all out warfare! I wonder what happened to the cup though. Does anyone know?
Temporarily No Pictures
Although most of the articles have photographs with them, I'm unable to show the pictures at present due to a broken scanner!
A Contented Village with Few Problems
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
Where Retired Work Hard - At Gardening
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
Not Looked on as 'Foreign'
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
£3,000 Needed Quickly for Church Repairs
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
Post Office in Hallway
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
100 Years of Service to Rugby School
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
Loyal Farm Workers
Mercury & Herald, June 3rd, 1971
Origins Behind the Name of Preston
Capes...
Mercury & Herald, March 21st, 1974 *
Village Lets World Go BY
Mercury & Herald, May 17th, 1979
Thriving Institute
Mercury & Herald, May 17th, 1979
No Sewer, Street Lights or Pub
Mercury & Herald, May 17th, 1979
Footnote
* This is by far the most fanciful of the articles and I'm not altogether sure of its accuracy. The fact that I know some of the information is wrong, mixed up place names, houses etc, makes me nervous about accepting the rest.
But it is wonderfully flowery writing. They don't write them like this anymore! Enjoy, but if anyone can factually contradict the information in the article I would love them to confirm the details to me so that I can write up a challenge to the material.
For example, I thought the Roman camp was built on the edge of the ridge towards the end of Old Forge Lane, close to Old West Farm, but this makes it sound like it was on the same site as the Norman castle of later years.
Where exactly was the bakehouse? This makes it sound like it was half way down High Street on the left, yet those cottages have been here to hundreds of years.
Where are the foundations of the Roman Temple to the Sun that it refers to as still visible?