Members of Cury & Gunwalloe Old Cornwall Society met on Thursday 9th September at Cury Village Hall, the first time since the Covid pandemic. They were welcomed by their President, Priscilla Oates who since we last met indoors has been made a Cornish Bard at the Gorsedh in September 2020.
Priscilla also welcomed Rosemary Hawking who came along to tell us about the beautiful banner she made for us, taking over four hundred hours of cutting, stitching etc required to complete it. She said when Priscilla came to see her and explained what symbols the committee had decided on she had never been to Cury or Gunwalloe but after being taken there and taking some photographs of the Church she knew then what she needed to do. She was fortunate to have some lovely silks and threads which she purchased in Liberty’s in London several years ago but never had the chance to use until now.
Rosemary then handed the banner to our Banner Bearer, Samuel Shaw who is off to Sheffield University shortly.
Penelope Oates showed the picture by Jean Francois Millet of The Gleaners, depicting a trio of women gleaning the last bits of wheat from the field. Priscilla told about guinea fowls also known as Gleanys because of their habit of gleaning their food from the ground and how they are excellent at warning of intruders being very noisy birds and roosting mainly in trees.
After a pasty supper David Turton accompanied us for the singing of some harvest hymns and finally Phil Greet with his wonderful music machine played The Wurzels, ‘I’ve got a brand-new combine harvester’ with a hastily pulled together backing group, which caused great hilarity!