Your local site for information on the Cambridgeshire village of Isleham

PROGRAM OF VISITS & LECTURES 2011 - 2012

Dates can also be found on the Events Calendar

What is the Isleham Society?

The society is a group of friends interested in our village, it's history, traditions, it's preservation and development.

It is a non profit making society registered with the Charity Commission.

We meet regularly throughout the year, generally this is on the third Thursday of the month, in the Village hall, meetings are at 7.45 for an 8pm start.

All members are welcome and may bring a friend. There is always a Guest Speaker. Subjects range widely, often with special emphasis on topics of local or general East Anglian interest. The society also organises outings each summer.

Though primarily a group of Isleham residents, the Society welcomes members from all over. It will flourish for as long as sufficient residents and friends of Isleham – young as well as old – continue to care about all aspects of our village and become active Members.

Annual subscriptions for

2011 ~ 2012

£10 per person or £15 per couple

Visitors are welcome to attend all meetings @ £2.00 per session

The Isleham Society

17th March – At short notice, one of our village residents, Architect David Alberry-King gave an illustrated slide show entitled “East Meets West” in which he compared the two communities of Isleham with St. Kilda which is the name given to group of three main islands located in the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the Gulf Stream. The Isle of Hirta was the only one of the group that was inhabited – the last inhabitants were evacuated in August 1930. It became a National Trust property in 1956 and a world-wide heritage institute in 1987. It is now home to thousands of puffins, fulmars and gannets.

21st April – The AGM The chairman, Vernon Place reported on the activities and meetings over the last year and thanked all who had given their support in making our year a successful and interesting one. Our membership is being maintained and we have many non-members who are always welcome additions to our meetings.

There had been little activity on the CCAN website, however, we do have material we can include and would value support from anyone who is interested in preserving the history of our village on the World Wide Web. Several photos relating to our village have been received by the Society, all of which were allowed to be copied, with the originals being returned.

We have also dealt with enquiries regarding people’s past relatives or friends. Michael Kelly and Vernon Place have been involved with the project regarding evacuees and the Jews coming to this area – Mike Rouse has written a play about the evacuation for Viva (Soham) to perform plus there will be a display of photos etc. (hopefully coming to Isleham and other venues).

Vernon Place attended the Annual Parish Meeting to report on the Society’s activities during the past year.

Appreciation was expressed for the help given by Clive Patterson for entries of our activities into the village website.

The committee was elected as follows :

President – Arthur Houghton,

Chairman – Vernon Place,

Vice Chairman – Peter Flatt,

Secretary - Mrs Rosemarie Evans,

Treasurer – Bryan Wynn,

Programme Secretary – Mrs Betty Ashley,

plus Committee members Mrs Barbara Brown, Mrs Pam Martin, Mrs Beryl Powys and Ian Powys.

A special mention was made regarding the 100th Birthday of our President Arthur Houghton later this year.

After the AGM an interesting talk was give by Editor Ed Mayall on “Producing and Publishing the Informer”. He illustrated the progress of the publication since its inception and emphasised how it much relied upon support of the sponsors and the contributions of reports from the various village organisations plus those who helped in the production and distribution of the magazine. He was thanked by the Chairman for his talk and his work as Editor.

The evening was rounded off with refreshments provided by the members.

19th May: This talk was the one planned for 17th March, which had to be postponed. “Isleham Air Crash - 13th October 1949” An illustrated talk by Stewart Evans and Guy Bettley-Cook. They described how a USAF B50 Superfortress (similar to the pictured above) on a training mission to Heligoland in the Baltic Sea took off from a foggy Lakenheath at 0930 and shortly later came down in a field to the north of Beck Road.

The crash resulted in the detonation of the aircraft’s payload of sixteen 500 lb bombs, killing all 12 crew and shattering windows and cracking plaster throughout Isleham. Fortuitously, the blast was directed away from the village and no-one on the ground was injured, despite the crash site being barely half a mile from the village centre. Stewart and Guy speculated, from (often contradictory) eye-witness accounts and research into the safety records of B50s, that the crash followed an engine fire.

The evening concluded with memories of villagers, from the horror and excitement of those in the school at the time, to the relief of the Ave's twins that the explosion they heard was not a tyre bursting on the tractor-load of sugar beet they were taking to the station!

We welcome all visitors to our meetings – you don’t have to be a member.

Vernon Place, Chairman of The Isleham Society

(reproduced from the Isleham Informer)