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Tuesday 31 December 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR WORLD!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

TO THE WORLD!

I have been watching the New Year celebrations from across the World today and it has been fantastic!  Here in the UK, the wind in howling and the rain is crashing onto the window panes but it will not stop us celebrating!! We  have just under 3 hours to go and the excitement is building.

Adrian, Hazel, myself, Staff and Stallholders at Hungerford Arcade thank you all for your support and wish every one of you around the World, a very Happy and Peaceful New Year!
Rita




 




For our latest Newsletter go on-line at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk

Monday 23 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE SENDS A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GREETING

HUNGERFORD ARCADE
A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GREETING

We have had a wonderful time at Hungerford Arcade this Christmas.  Happiness seems to be the order of the day with everyone smiling and excited (especially the children!) as Christmas Day fast approaches.  I love the atmosphere that surrounds this wonderful event.  You would be surprised how many children and young people come to the Arcade to buy that special present for their friends and loved ones.  It could be a paperweight for dad, a beautiful necklace for mum, a lovely plate or cup and saucer for grandma or an old compass for grandad.  Not forgetting the hundreds of books that leave the Arcade every week!   It is very refreshing that the younger generation are taking such a keen interest in antiques and collectables.  For many, it is the only place they will shop for gifts for their friends, family and of course, themselves.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the Arcade will be buzzing. We have had visitors from across the world coming to stay with friends and relatives for Christmas.  Some come every year and cannot wait to visit the Arcade.  They love to buy presents to take back home to their family and friends.

All the staff and stallholders join me in wishing all our friends across the world a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Peaceful New Year!
Rita

 
                                Hungerford Arcade re-opens at 9.15 a.m. on Friday, 27th December 2013.

HUNGERFORD ARCADE CAROL SINGING

What a fabulous time we had yesterday with the Hungerford Arcade Carol singing.  The choir is made up of staff and stallholders in the Arcade who raise money for our sponsored charity, Walking With The Wounded.  As you can imagine, the Arcade was very busy but it did not stop the customers from taking a break from their shopping to listen and join in with the singing.  It was a great success and everyone enjoyed it.  We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all our customers and who gave so generously to our charity.
Rita

L-R: Ann Parker, Alan Bullock, James Hill, Elaine Panting,
Cherry Dalzell, Sue Hughes, Alan & Jennifer Bartter

Lovely, Elaine Panting singing her little heart out!

The Hungerford Arcade Choir in full swing
Conducted by Alan Bartter

Friday 20 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE SANTA'S GROTTO

HUNGERFORD ARCADE
IS
SANTA'S GROTTO

Hungerford Arcade has been buzzing with buyers from across the world this Christmas and I must say, it is brilliant!  Many people come to buy fabulous presents for their loved ones and friends and the one that they cannot resist - for themselves!  Of course, all of these gifts will be unique and will have history attached to them.  I like to imagine the very first person who purchased an item and how excited they must have been to own it.  Very often, these objects have been passed down the family for generations!  I hope that all your Christmas preparations are going to plan.  Just a few more days then we call all relax and thoroughly enjoy ourselves!  Keep in touch with us at Hungerford Arcade through our Blogs, Twitter and our Newsletter (latest copy out today at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk
We will be back with more news very soon!  Don't forget, Sunday 22nd December at 3.00 p.m. Hungerford Arcade Carol Singers will be raising money for Charity.  Please do come and support them.
Rita

Hungerford Arcade's Festive window

Hungerford Arcade Stallholders, The Two Anns
in Festive spirits!

A small section of the Hungerford Arcade Carol Singers
Left to Right: Stallholder Alan Barter, his Wife Jennifer
Hungerford Arcade Co-Owner, Adrian Gilmore and Student , Abi Pym, daughter of
Stallholders David and Chris Pym

Tuesday 17 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE CAROL SINGERS




THE HUNGERFORD ARCADE
CAROL SINGERS
SUNDAY, 22ND DECEMBER
AT 
3.00 P.M.


The Hungerford Arcade Carol Singers will be performing inside the Arcade at 3.00 p.m. on Sunday, 22nd Decermber, raising money for Charity.  Do please come along and support them - they have all got great voices!
Rita



For all the news and stories, please read the latest edition of the Hungerford Arcade Newsletter at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk

HUNGEFORD ARCADE: HUNGERFORD VICTORIAN EXTRAVAGANZA

The whole day was charged with excitement although it was raining.  Hungerford High Street was closed off to traffic at 5.00 p.m.  The forecast said that it would dry up by 6.00 p.m. which it did (not that the rain would have dampened the spirit of the town!).  The fairground was set up along the road outside Hungerford Arcade with the Big Wheel, Merry-Go-Round, Stalls, food being cooked, refreshments, big old Steam Engines and much, much more.  Hungerford Arcade stayed open until after 9.00 p.m. and was very busy.  Many people dressed in Victorian attire and looking fabulous and the noise of children excitedly waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus made it a very charged atmosphere of fun.  Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what it was like - marvellous!!! 
Rita




Big Wheel part of the Fun Fair
outside Hungerford Arcade

Beautiful old Steam Engine providing the electricity for
the Fun Fair
Hungerford Arcade Manager, Alex Rogers looking fabulously handsome
alongside a beautiful old Steam Engine
Another photo of Alex.  This time next to the
very Grand old Fair Ground Organ

Hungerford Arcade stallholder, Dennis Bennyworth
with his gorgeous children, Elsie and Barney





For news and articles, please read our latest Newsletter at  www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk


Sunday 15 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE AND FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN

Our wonderful author, Stuart Miller-Osborne has struck Gold again with this article on the Festival of Britain.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Rita

“ Flow proudly Thames! The emblem bright and witness of succeeding years ! “
                                                                                                                 
Thomas Love Peacock  

When browsing through a bookshop recently I came across a News Chronicle brochure for the Festival of Britain which was held in 1951. I purchased the souvenir and read it on my journey home that evening. It was like looking through the looking glass into another world. I can remember my parents talking of the event as a child and have vague memories of various souvenirs of the Festival of Britain being dotted around the house, It was however an event which in some ways has faded from the collective memory. 

I feel that 2012 this year has all the makings of a memorable year. We have had a balmy March followed by the wettest April on record. It is the Queens Jubilee Year with all the associated street parties (Including one here in Hungerford). Beacons are to be lit (I think the nearest to Hungerford will be on Inkpen Downs but I may be wrong). The Queen is meeting her people. All we need is for the sun to shine. 

On the sporting front we have the test series against the West Indian tourists. The national football side is going to complete in the European Championships and to top it all off the Olympic Games are due to commence during the latter part of the summer. For many reasons 2012 may well be regarded by many and for different reasons as a year to remember.

After the austerity of the years following the war the early fifties for varying reasons (both good and bad) were memorable. We lost the King in 1952 and the current Queen was crowned the following year with a great deal of celebration. Although I was not born during this period my conversations with people who were old enough to remember the Festival of Britain has led me to believe that the two years that followed the festival somewhat eclipsed the event.

The actual idea for the festival was conceived during the dark days of the war in 1943 within the Royal Society of Arts. The intention was to celebrate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851. When peace returned in 1945 the idea took hold. Due to restrictions, the original idea of an international exhibition was downsized to that our own island. Gerald Barry (1898-1968) the Festival Director described it as “ a tonic to the nation” 

In the century that followed the 1851 exhibition much had changed in Britain. We were no longer the power we were in 1851. Our Empire was crumbling and the country had been brought to its knees by two costly world wars. The idea was to showcase what was good in Britain. We may have been bruised and battered but were now off of the ropes. Britain wanted to show the world its contributions to the sciences, industrial design, the arts and the new architecture to name but a few.

Most of us are aware that the centrepiece of the festival was on the South Bank of the Thames. But the festival was spread out. The architecture area was in Polar in East London. The Festival Pleasure Gardens were located in Battersea and the science exhibition was located in South Kensington. Further a field there were exhibitions in Cardiff, Glasgow, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bournemouth, Bath, Oxford and Inverness as well as many other locations.

The centrepiece of the festival on the South Bank at Waterloo was the unfortunate Skylon which most people remember. It was a cigar shaped aluminium steel tower some three hundred feet high. It appeared on most of the promotional literature of the time as well as stamps and many souvenirs (including my recently purchased brochure). My mother who visited the exhibition at the time noted that the exhibit was lit from within at night and remembers seeing it for the last time as she crossed Hungerford Bridge on her way home from the festival with my father.

As with the later demolition of the Euston Arch on the say of the Conservative Government it was incoming Conservative administration of Winston Churchill ( Who saw the festival as associated with the post war Labour Government of Clement Attlee) that laid waste to most of the site. After the event was over the exhibition was demolished with haste including the spectacular Skylon. It was toppled into the Thames and sold for scrap and as with the Euston Arch has been the subject of much interest in the last few years. Indeed I believe there are plans to rebuild the Euston Arch as the location of many of its remains have been identified. However the Skylon is lost to us for ever and is only stationed in the memories of those who saw it and in the photographs and films of the time. 

Happily one building that did survive was The Royal Festival Hall which today looks very much as it did in 1951. The International Modernist style was in evidence in the area with many elevated walkways and buildings on different levels. I was for many years a member of the National Film Theatre and it never ceased to amaze me how this area could be seen as being futuristic as well as being historical in one go. A majority of the area still exists reasonably unchanged and is worth a visit.

The Festival Pleasure Gardens in Battersea Park was to some extent another survivor later becoming the Battersea Fun Fair and only closed in the mid 1970s. I can still remember visiting it during my childhood. As with many exhibitions if one looks hard enough one can see remnants of these events tucked away. As with railway stations many notable examples still remain for a variety of reasons such as local pressure, other uses, general apathy or they were just missed.

Over the years I have seen many souvenirs of the exhibition although in the last five years I have not found so many. If you look hard enough you should be able to find the mass produced memorabilia of the time. I do not really collect these items although on occasions I might purchase one out of interest and to consider the social history of the time. One does not have to be very old to appreciate the massive changes that have taken place in the last sixty one years. I wonder what my parents generation would have made of the internet and mobile phones in 1951.

At the end of March this year I took tea with my mother in the ancient village of Lacock.I had the festival brochure in my bag. We hardly spoke over tea as my mother looked at the souvenir. She agreed that the festival was indeed another country. The thin volume she read brought back many memories including the extreme overcrowding in the Dome of Discovery (which sadly shared the same fate as the Skylon) and her fascination with a ruby dressing table set which she had not thought about for over fifty years. Another memory was the statue by Daphne Hardy (1917-2003) which she greatly admired at the time.

She did at times mention the festival during my childhood (especially when I accidentally broke the more fragile souvenirs). But over tea during that unseasonably warm afternoon she confessed that really she had not thought of the festival for over a generation and the black and white photographs had brought back many happy memories.

I think a quote in the brochure really sums up the festival as certain writings will sum up the year of 2012.

“ From the flashing beam on the South Bank’s venerable Shot Tower to floodlit Big Ben, Festival Thames-side glows brilliantly under the night sky. Across the river from the soaring Skylon is Cleopatra’s Needle, which stood beside the Nile when Britons were paddling their coracles past the swamp that is now the South Bank.”  
 
It was indeed a celebration of what it is to be British and every now and then we should be allowed to pat ourselves on the back and consider the history of this small island of ours. I look forward to the exhibition of 2051 and maybe I will write of its wonders as numerous writers have done in their coverage of the two previous exhibitions.
 

Stuart Miller-Osborne









For all the latest news and events, please read our Newsletter at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk



Monday 9 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE: WINDMILL IN EAST SUSSEX HOVE

THE WINDMILL AT
SMOCK MILL WINDMILL
WEST BLATCHINGTON
EAST SUSSEX

We had a lovely couple come in to shop at the Arcade Peter and Joan Hill.  When we got chatting, Peter told us about the Windmill at West Blatchington where he and Joan have been working for 37 years as volunteers!  They do illustrated Mill talks and Travelogues.

The Windmill was built on a barn complex in c.1820.  The original machinery remains as the heart of a fascinating museum of milling.

Joan and Peter with our Adrian


West Blatchington
Smock Mill, Hove, East Sussex




For the latest edition of our Newsletter, please go to our website at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk

Wednesday 4 December 2013

HUNGERFORD ARCADE: THE GREAT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS SPECTACULAR

THE GREAT HUNGERFORD CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR

The Hungerford Town Band - Magnificent!
A huge crowd gathered as the band played Christmas music on the steps of the Town Hall which went down a treat!

The children get ready to sing standing on the other side of the Town Hall steps,
excitedly waiting for the Christmas lights to go on!

The children singing Christmas Carols so beautifully!

They're on!!! The lights are on!!! The length and breadth of the High Street and Bridge Street
are spectacular!
Minor adjustment to one of the many trees that run the length of Hungerford Arcade

Plenty of refreshment and food available outside Hungerford Arcade and next door
outside the Kitchen Monger and WOW! a Hog Roast!!!

Everyone very happy and having an amazing time
"Ho! ho! ho!  Merry Christmas to you all!"
  
The huge, majestic Christmas Tree really has to be seen, it is so beautiful.
The balloon seller in the foreground with his Father Christmas and other festive balloons


Keep up to date with all the news in the latest edition of our Newsletter at www.hungerfordarcade.co.uk