Capel Choral Society is well into its autumn ‘term’ and has enjoyed a first ‘sing-through’ of the music it is singing during the 2014/15 Season. It has also taken part in a ‘Come & Sing’ event at Dorking Halls at which the new work Dances of Time by Bob Chilcott was sung for the first time. – the piece was especially commissioned for the Leith Hill Musical Festival.

As well as music for the Festival, the Choir will be learning music for its Christmas concert (on 15th December) – this will include Charpentier’s delightful Messe de Minuit, and Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium.

On a non-musical level, the Choir will be holding a Coffee Morning on Saturday 4th October, in the Memorial Hall, from 10am to Midday. Please do come along and meet members of the choir, enjoy a cup of coffee and some cake, take part in a raffle, and of course buy some goodies on offer. Capel Choral will be celebrating its 110th birthday this month, and we are hoping to grow the choir this season to ensure that it will still be singing in 2024 and beyond. We would still welcome new singers (it will be fairly easy to ‘catch up’ at this stage of the term) and especially MEN. Choral singing is an enjoyable activity with proven health benefits, and few things beat the satisfaction of mastering a new piece of music!

See information about, and pictures of, the choir on our website, www.capelchoralsociety.com – or contact our Secretary at secretary@capelchoralsociety.com or phone 01306 712365

After our summer break, our group will resume, having meetings on every other Tuesday (with exceptions). At the moment we plan to meet at 10am on 7th and 28th October, 11th and 25th November and 2nd December.

We meet at 72 The Street. Anyone who is interested in learning about Capel’s local history is more than welcome to come.

C.C.

On the 18th August we set off for Capel Manor Gardens which, surprisingly, is not in our Capel but in Enfield. The weather was fine we had a good trip along the M25.

The Gardens themselves are really lovely with many small-themed gardens such as Australian Garden, Japanese Garden and a recycled Garden. We went into the Maze and really got lost and kept passing the same crisp packet over and over. We never did get to the centre and wouldn’t have got out if we hadn’t been rescued by one of the other Evergreens. There was an animal stockyard where the main attraction was the Meerkats who kept everyone entertained.

Altogether a most interesting trip.

K.R.

The first film of the season is “Jimmy’s Hall”. It will be shown on Tuesday 7th October at Capel Village Memorial Hall. Tickets, sold at the door, are still £4 each. Doors open at 7:30 and the film begins at 8. Jimmy’s Hall is based on a true story: it takes place in rural Ireland in the 1920s. Jimmy Gralton builds a community hall but the Church and the local landowners see this as something dangerous and subversize. The film is directed by Ken Loach and stars Barry Ward, Simone Kirby and Jim Norton.

On Saturday 18th October the Village Hall are having a fund-raising event and we can have been allocated a stall where we are planning to sell CD’s, DVD’s and even VHS tapes. Please can you look through all your old stock, perhaps ‘freebies’ you hae collected from daily newspapers in the past, and either bring them to the first film on October th for collection – or on the day. Any offers to help sell stuff on the day (10 am to midday) would be most welcome, please let Chris Coke or Mandy Shryver know if you can help in this way.

The season has now just about drawn to a close in what can be described as an indifferent season. The highlights have probably been the success of the Colts Section in particular at our own six-a-side tournament, the development through the Sunday side and the progression of some good youngsters into adult cricket.

The Club Awards Evening is booked for Saturday 04th October with a Bar B Que so all welcome.

New Sports Pavilion

Internal Fundraising has continued for the new building and we have 2 or 3 Grant Applications that are currently under consideration.

A date for you diary is our RACE NIGHT, which will be held in the Village Hall on Saturday 08th November. Ticket Details will be published on notice boards around the village and in the next Magazine issue. Anyone who would like to pre-book can contact me on 07841 373198. We will also be booking for Race Sponsors at £25.00 per race and how about sponsoring the whole event!

Look forward to seeing the village regulars there, all with the option to dress as if you were attending Ascot or Cheltenham.

Anthony Birch

Many thanks to everyone who supported my charity bric-a-brac stall again this year at the Ockley and Capel flower shows. We were thankfully blessed with good weather at both shows, and it was lovely, as always, to catch up with old friends. Over the two weekends, we were astounded to have raised a total of £600, which is the most we’ve ever raised. It will be put to good use, split between 2 charities. Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) use planes to help people in the most remote parts of the world receive doctors, pastors, food, medicines, school books and anything else that can only be safely and speedily delivered by air. The second half of the money raised will go towards the building refurbishment funds needed at St Margaret’s Church, Warnham.

Mandy Tanswell

As soon as Chris Hare started his talk – 40 Years Without a Proper Job – we started to laugh and we were still laughing after nearly an hour.  He told us stories of his times as a Theatre Manager at many different theatres and of the many comedians and musicians he came into contact with.

Chris is the son of a musician and a model who worked at Fenwicks.  After playing in a jazz band at the age of 17, he then decided to join the world of show business.  We heard several anecdotes about famous people such as Norman Wisdom, Tommy Cooper, Victor Borge and Sarah Vaughan and many, many more, all of which were extremely funny.

He was involved with the Water Rats and worked with many variety acts during his career but he always loved pantomimes and told us how children in the audience always managed to steal the limelight from the actors on the stage!

It was a fantastic talk and we won’t forget Chris Hare, that’s for sure!

Sue Falvey

Although many have forgotten much of the history they learned at school, most can probably remember at least that the Stone and Bronze Ages were followed by the Iron Age, which dawned about 4,000 years ago and was to significantly shape the course of history.

Before it’s discovery, other available metals, such as tin, coppper, silver and gold were malleable and could be worked cold, but were not very strong.   It was then found that iron, heated at high temperature, shaped whilst hot and cooled rapidly was immensely hard and durable.  It also turned out to be the fourth most plentiful element in the earth’s crust – both accessible and widespread.  Iron is extracted from four main ores, of which magnetite, a black oxide, is most commonly used.  This became known as ‘black metal’ from which the term ‘blacksmith’ arose.

The earliest smiths were itinerant, travelling from manor to manor to fashion armour and weapons for their squires, who were always off to war somewhere or other.  Some found permanent work in the castles of the nobility, where the need for security was met by the forging of grilles, stout hinges and locks – today’s wrought iron gates are a direct descendent of the portcullis.  In time their work expanded to serve the needs of a largely agricultural society, and the first workshops appeared in most villages – usually sited strategically in the centre of a village at a crossroads. Soon, no rural community could exist without it’s smithy, it was the hub and very heart of the village.  Here, horses were shod, craftmen’s tools, farm implement and domestic necessities were manufactured and mended.  It was also a popular place to get warm and exchange gossip.

The blacksmith had , first and foremost, to be a strong man, and very much his own master.  He was highly respected and, in the Middle Ages was believed to have supernatural powers, which included horse-whispering.  He was often called on for advice or to arbitrate in village disputes and, as a sideline, sometimes acted as village barber or tooth-puller!  He was even permitted to carry out a form of wedding ceremony over his anvil.

The design of the cast iron changed little over the centuries, with its square ‘face’ at one end and the conical ‘bick’ at the other, on which horseshoes, loops and links were shaped.  It was mounted on a stout wooden block, usually elm, that acted as a shock-absorber and provided ‘bounce’  for the hammer.  Hammers and tongs, virtual extensions of the Smith’s hands, were his most important tools and hung with a variety of others beside the forge or furnace.   In front was the ‘bosh’, a water trough in which the hot iron was quenched.  The blacksmith’s leather apron was often fringed at the hem to brush dross off the anvil.  He could not work entirely alone; he needed a labourer or an apprentice to hold the horses and carry out simple tasks. Under the Smith’s instructions, he would work the 6 foot wide leather bellows, which delivered a forced draught into the furnace through an iron ‘truyere’ or nozzle.  Juding the required heat was a particular skill; the various colours of the heated metal were given nicknames that ranged from ‘slippery’ through several shades of red to ‘snowball’ white and the hottest of all.

The Industrial Revolution led to the inevitable demise of the Smithy.  Farriery, however, remained much in demand and went on to develop into the specialised profession we know today.

JR

Capel Trees 2014

Christmas is coming
Thoughts turn to trees
Capel groups do a grand job
Are you one of these?
Over the years the tradition has grown
To light up our village
We’ve become well known
The date has been fixed
Last Saturday in November
Put it in your calendar now
So that you remember
The Rules!! Try hard to adhere
We need to remind a few folks this year
6ft maximum for height of tree
As for decorations feel free
BUT please affix tightly (with wire)
Some weren’t last time, were these yours??
Our electrician works hard to correct every fault
To keep the show looking good
Some new lights he bought!
To avoid any upset while decorating our trees
To abide by the rules no money making please.
We are grateful to the folks who GIVE of their goodies
Let’s be grateful and keep it this way
A community occasion in every way!