As is normal during the school holidays and the month of August, our hall is very quiet in terms of bookings – especially children’s parties. Looking ahead to September though, things return to normal once the children return to school. Like most gardens, ours has struggled with the warm weather and lack of rain during the last few weeks, with most concern for all the trees newly planted this year as part of the Jubilee celebrations. A big thank you to our gardeners for rallying around, regularly fetching their watering cans and watering our new trees plus, of course, many of our established plants and trees over these difficult weeks for the garden. Our regular monthly gardening meeting for September is on Saturday 17th from around 9.30 am for an hour or two. Please join us if you can; it is not too strenuous with refreshments served along with a chat.

This coming November it will be one hundred years since the opening of the first Memorial Hall in 1922. To mark the occasion, over Armistice Weekend (11th – 13th) we plan to hold a three-day exhibition that celebrates people and events in Platt from the last century. It will include display boards, artifacts, and films covering every decade up until the present day. We would like to hear from anyone from the parish interested in being involved, whether it be helping out over the weekend or submitting local photographs, stories, or objects which, you think, would be interesting for others to see/read. Additionally, to remember those who have lived in the parish and have either passed away or moved elsewhere, we also plan to create a village ‘roll of honour’ to keep their names alive in our community. To submit these or register your interest in helping out, please email scott@plattmemorialhall.org.

On the 12th of November, we shall be thrilled to welcome back to Platt archaeologists Sean and Colin Welch, the ‘Crater Locators’ who, you may remember, excavated the field near Crouch last autumn and uncovered the remnants of the V2 German rocket that crashed there on Valentine’s Day 1945. They will give a presentation on their findings and bring along some of the fragments they found, which have since been cleaned up and preserved. This promises to be a fascinating evening and a must for anyone interested in local history and the V-weapons offensive of 1944-1945. Tickets (free) will be available nearer the time; look out for details in the next Village News and on our website/Facebook page.

Shortly, we shall publish the first (1920-1929) of ten local history books containing transcriptions of newspaper articles carrying stories about the parish from each of the decades that the Memorial Hall has existed. Many aspects of local life were recorded, including accounts of family celebrations such as weddings and anniversaries, funerals and obituaries, crimes and tragedies, sporting fixtures, exhibitions, fundraising events, village fetes, and many more items we are sure will be of great interest to villagers. More details about these will soon be available in the history section of our website www.plattwarmemorial.org and on social media.

David Vallance, Chairman of Trustees & Scott Wishart