Leonard Stanley Wine Circle Report: Annie Blick from Peckhams gives an illustrated talk

DAVID Price took over his role as vice chairman due to Bob being away and performed with confidence and welcomed everyone.

Business was short with David reminding people of the Christmas Dinner on Thursday, December 17, and menu forms and 2016 programmes being available from the secretary.

Subs are also due and these should be paid to the treasurer by the end of the year.

With the Burns supper approaching, he asked for volunteers from the ladies to make puddings for this event, which he duly received together with one gentleman Noel.

Although the programme has been organized for 2016, a programme secretary is still required for 2017.

He then introduced Annie Blick who worked for many years at Peckhams, the photographers in Stroud who gave an illustrated talk on the Stroud Valleys through the lens of Edwin Peckham.

Poor Annie was suffering from a bad cough but soldiered on and managed to cover a wide area of interest with the aid of some of the many negatives that were found when the shop closed in December 2008, a total of 82 years.

It turned out that Annie is David’s youngest sister so it was good having a family connection.

Annie you could see loves this area and although not a historian, gave us a good insight into how Stroud and the surrounding area looked in the 20s, 30s and 40s etc and how it looks now.

It was fascinating to see some areas more or less unchanged but others completely different.

Of particular interest to us, was shots of Kings Stanley and Leonard Stanley. Also many people could remember the Ritz Cinema – in fact Stroud had five cinemas at one time and as children a lot had gone to Saturday morning pictures.

We loved seeing the ones of the Home Guard which definitely had a look of Dad’s Army, VAD day with everyone dancing in the streets, and the bread queue with hundreds lining the pavement to get their bread from Walters Bakery.

There were too many photographs to mention but there were lots of oohs and ahhs from our members as we saw Timothy Whites and MacFisheries in Stroud and a life of what was then and the old cars and shops no more.

A very interesting presentation which was enjoyed by all of us.

We then had our well stocked supper, a good chat over a glass of wine and departed out into the cold after spending a few hours in a nice warm hall