Our meeting this month …

Wednesday 15th September 2pm, Tiverton Rugby Club and Zoom The Great American Songbook - Roger Browne

Jazz, Minstrel Music, Blues, Opera, Operetta, Musical Theatre, The Two World Wars, The Financial Rollercoasters of the first half of the 20th century and The Golden Age of Radio, were all influencers of, and inspirations for, the great composers of the years between the two wars. Composers such as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Harry Warren, Hoagy Carmichael, and many others, between them, wrote thousands of richly melodic masterpieces, with equally memorable lyrics. The output of this period became known as “The Great American Songbook” In this talk, Roger traces the history and music of this genre and, as with all his talks, he illustrates it with live examples on the piano, and the hilarious stories about the people, places and events that fuelled the development of this unique milestone in Western popular music.

… and next month

Wednesday 20th October 2pm, Tiverton Rugby Club and Zoom Illegal Immigrants - Dr Francis Burroughs

The story of how many of our familiar garden plants arrive in this country. Many of you will remember Francis’s wonderful talk two years ago about the Victorian Garden. In October he returns to tell us about some Illegal Immigrants: plants we now take for granted that really shouldn’t be here.

(Clearing the Olympic site of Japanese knotweed was estimated at £70 million. Research indicates that it takes at least ten years to eradicate giant hogweed and three

to four years to eradicate Japanese knotweed.)

Francis has many years’ experience as a public speaker and was honoured for his work in the Local Community and for Charities.

**************************************************************************

Our Website http://u3asites.org.uk/exevalley Facebook Exe Valley u3a

National Website http://www.u3a.org.uk/

Newsletter 164 - September 2021

News from the Committee Don’t forget that we are really looking forward to meeting again face to face on 15th, so please make an effort to come if you can. Takeup is low at the moment, so there should be room for those who just turn up on the day.

Please observe the following from our Risk Assessment:

All attendees should have had both vaccinations. Please do not come if feeling unwell.

If you fall ill after the meeting, please inform a Committee member so that the Test and Trace system can be alerted.

Please observe car sharing precautions (masks and ventilation).

Hand Sanitiser will be provided.

The seating in the hall will observe appropriate distancing and windows will be open to ensure air flow, which may make it chilly.

Please bring the exact change (£2). Or use the card keypad that we will be trialling.

We will be filming the Meeting on Zoom if you would like to take part from home. Login as usual. Feedback on this would be appreciated.

We have a new Interest Groups Co-ordinator this month: Nickie Haynes. She will be getting in touch with Group Leaders as meetings resume to see what we do, and if she can help in any way.

We are still looking for new Committee Members for March. Please get in touch if you might be interested.

Last month’s Cyber-crime talk This must have been one of the most useful (and alarming) talks we have ever had. Laura and Grahame from the Devon and Cornwall Police’s gloriously titled ‘Digital Capabilities Unit Intelligence Directorate’ took us through a host of frauds that are being perpetrated on the public online, many of which members of the (sadly depleted) audience had experienced first-hand, while showing us what we should do to improve our own home security.

Most important seems to be to check that our home routers, the front door to all we do online, have a secure admin password – change yours today, it’s extremely easy (see the link at the end of this report).

Above all, never click on an emailed link, however familiar it seems to be (Fedex, Dpd, HMRC, banks, Microsoft etc) in an unsolicited email. Check that all your passwords are as long and complicated as possible. Use the Block and Report facility on both landline and mobiles.

Some ingenious strategies were shared to deal with nuisance phone calls – though we were warned against just leaving the phone off the hook – after a couple of minutes, apparently you could find yourself charged in your turn at international rates.

Ransomware seems, frighteningly, to be becoming ever more common of late, with lots of schools in particular finding all their data ineradicably encrypted and lost, with ransom

demands for hundreds of thousands of pounds. We all need to back up all our data regularly, on a separate hard drive as well as on the Cloud (don’t rely on Windows Backup to do it all for you).

Do beware of all those online quizzes, prize draws and personality surveys – all that personal information, from your favourite car to your first pet, could be used against you.

Finally, don’t forget all those regular Windows Updates and upgrades. They are annoying and can take ages to complete but are legitimate ways in which commercial companies try to protect us against all the latest hacks and frauds.

PC Laura has sent us links to many helpful sites: The National Cyber Security Centre: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/ - Great advice on all aspects of cyber security from the NCSC for businesses and individuals Take Five to Stop Fraud: https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/ - Advice on financial and banking fraud Cyber Aware: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberaware/home - Top tips on passwords, turning on 2FA (Two Factor Authentication, requiring a message to your phone before approving access), back-ups and the importance of updating your devices Another useful tool is to input your email address into the ‘Have I Been Pwned’ website and the site will advise if your address has been involved in a data breach: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ - Very useful to check this if you are receiving a lot of spam email in your account. If you find that your account has been compromised, change your password immediately. Reporting fraud and Cyber Crime to Action Fraud: Telephone number 0300 1232040: www.actionfraud.police.uk Suspicious emails – forward to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC): report@phishing.gov.uk Forward suspicious texts (SMS) to OFCOM: 7726 If you would like advice on securing your router, the City of London Police have provided this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfRzIspjJfY

Encouragingly, the speakers concluded by telling us that we should not panic, just take the reasonable precautions that we used to do with anyone coming to our door, in a shop, or asking for funds in the street. Not everyone is a criminal!

************************************************************************** New Members

We extend a very warm welcome to four new members this month - Diana and Keith Cleeve, Terri Ellis and Keith Garriford. We hope you enjoy your time with us and find us a friendly, active and informative group.

************************************************************************** Welfare Officer

Marilyn Dawson Marilyn prefers to be contacted by email. If you know of anyone who is ill or has been admitted to hospital, or anyone who has a special anniversary to celebrate, please email Marilyn with details and she will send a card on our behalf. We will also add an item to the monthly committee agenda so that Marilyn can let the committee know via the secretary if she

has sent anyone a card. It would also be helpful if group leaders could keep Marilyn informed of anyone in their group who they think should receive such a card.

************************************************************************** Newsletter

Please email reports for the next Newsletter to Lynne by 9am Friday October 15th. Thank you!

************************************************************************** Anyone for Skittles?

The Thursday Boules group will be closing for the winter on Thursday 30 September. However, during the winter months we will be playing skittles each Thursday morning from the beginning of October, from 10 am to 12 at the Tiverton Town Football Club. The cost is £3 and we can either purchase tea or coffee or bring our own. If anyone is interested in joining us please contact Joan Kelly.

************************************************************************** News from the Interest Groups

Arts Appreciation Gina Brown, Keith Bush, Catherine Makepeace, John Massey There was no lack of engagement and enthusiasm on the part of members for what should be our last ‘remote’ participation at the Zoom monthly meeting, the art appreciation activity, the quiz, and sharing a picture on a particular theme. Grateful thanks to those who have made all this possible and kept the group alive over the past 18 months, in particular Keith, Gina and John.

We now look forward to our September get together at 2 pm Thursday 16 September in the Britton Centre of the Old Heathcoat School Community Centre in West Exe. John will give a presentation on Nina Hamnett, the 20th Century British artist known as ‘Queen of Bohemia’; come along to find out why, and to talk about her painting of ‘The Landlady’.

Tea will be available in the Café during the break and will provide a chance to catch up.

There will also be the opportunity for members to say what they would like the group to do over the next months, including perhaps a local trip to view art works; and offers to give a presentation will certainly be welcomed. We would love to include new members, or just those who come along to see what the group gets up to.

Board Game Group Marilyn Dawson The Board Game Group is still not planning to meet at present. We are short of members so if you would like to spend a fun afternoon playing board games old and new, please get in touch.

Boules Tuesday Boules Janet Phythian

We meet each Tuesday morning, weather permitting and play from 11 o’clock until one at the Waldrons in Cullompton. So far the clerk of the weather has been very kind to us.

Thursday Boules Joan Kelly The Thursday Boules group will be finishing on Thursday 30 September but during the winter months quite a few of us will be meeting on Thursday mornings at the Tiverton Town Football Club between 10 and 12 for a game of skittles. If anyone would like to join us you would be very welcome and please contact Joan. Boules will of course resume in the spring.

Craft Elaine Wright August is always a difficult month to get together as so many people are on holiday or have friends and family staying with them, so it was really lovely that after such a long gap so many of us managed meet up. We met in the Westexe Recreation Ground and luckily the weather was kind.

As well as catching up there were discussions about the way forward and things we’d like to do. There were lots of ideas for future sessions, many new but some we’d like to revisit, and we managed to sort out a programme for the coming year.

There will be no meeting in September because so many of us are planning to get away or do things when the busiest holiday period is over but we’ll be raring to go when we meet in October.

Discussion Irene Oakley Eight of us met for a discussion on Risk, how we assess it and how it affects our lives. There are three types of risk - personal, business and societal. We mostly talked about personal risk. Was it inborn or dependent on our upbringing? We have to weigh up the risk and possible consequences but uncertainties always have consequences! The main risks undertaken were moving jobs, houses and perhaps the biggest of all getting married!! As children we had more freedom, than nowadays, to be outside playing without parent supervision and one four-year-old wandered off to the woods, confident on being able to find the way home. Travelling abroad alone and undertaking a parachute jump were risks well taken. Not taking a risk can be inhibiting. An example of a business risk was discovering being underpaid and taking it to management, with success. The only certainties in life are death and taxes.

Our second topic was on the subject of writing phonetically. There have been various schemes in the past to teach this and one member had the experience of teaching the Initial Teaching Alphabet scheme. This had extra symbols and was taught to age 6/7 and children learnt to read easily. The problem was that as it wasn’t universal, after age 7 the normal system had then to be learnt and it proved very difficult for some children and was dropped. Our language isn’t easy, perhaps because it originates from so many different countries, but we value hearing it spoken and written correctly.

Our next meeting is on the 8th October at the earlier time of 10am, at Wendy’s home.

Folk Dancing Pat Robertson, Tiverton u3a While the numbers of Covid cases is still high in Devon, Pat has decided to delay dancing again until October. We will meet in Halberton Village Hall on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month 2.30pm - 4.30pm (parking at rear and bus stop outside). New members are always welcome….no partner or previous experience is required….just come along. Looking forward to seeing some of you there. Anne Eveleigh - Exe Valley u3a contact.

Gardening Joan Kelly, Jo Jeffrey, Carol Powney September is the start of the autumn and we can see the garden slowing down. Some annuals and perennials have finished but others such as sweet peas and roses may keep on flowering. It all depends on what spring and summer weather we have had but there is still colour in the garden.

As we are now tentatively starting to meet again face to face, we have planned this month to visit Pounds at Hemyock EX15 3QS. The garden is open under the NGS scheme and is described as a garden of lawns, colourful borders and roses set within low flint walls with distant views. Meeting there Monday 13th September 2pm.

In October we will meet up in the car park in Newton St Cyres EX5 5BN to visit the arboretum. This is a great place for a walk and to see the amazing collection of trees and shrubs. The arboretum is accessed through the churchyard. Then with a change of plan, we will go on to the Exe Valley Farm Shop and Cafe near Thorverton EX5 5LZ for refreshments. Monday 11th October 1.30pm.

Local History David Meredith Heavy rain and mist scuppered our September meeting for a picnic lunch at Haddon Hill above Wimbleball Dam, hear a talk by the Exmoor National Park Conservation Officer and take a stroll to enjoy the local fauna and flora and wonderful views. Cancelling the event in the morning proved a good decision as it was a truly miserable weather day. We hope to re-arrange next summer.

On Thursday October 14th we intend returning to The Cherith Hall at 2pm for an illustrated talk on the ‘Great Western Canal’ by the Chairman of their Friends group. The venue has space, ventilation and good parking. Full details will be sent out to members of the group.

MOTO (Members On Their Own) Wendy Cook The Lowman is proving to be a popular venue for our Saturday coffee mornings, we had an even bigger turnout for August and two new members joined us, even the weather was reasonable. The chat was the usual mixture and two of our members had realised they worked in the same hotel in Cornwall many moons ago and had photos to prove it.

The Lowman has good coffee and the sparkliest toilets in Tiverton. We have had a few more members signing up for the Sunday lunch at the Golf Club, we are up to about 13 now, just hoping the Blundells Road is open by then. Our next coffee morning will be on Saturday 25th September at 10.30, if you are on your own, you will be very welcome to join us.

Musical Discoveries Jean Fogg, Patricia Sansom Last month's meeting was so entertaining, even by our standards! Technological gremlins made their presence felt from the start, producing distorted sounds, mcrackling, buzzing and interference. We blamed Chris's new electric car charger, he denied

any responsibility, we weren't convinced. We also wondered if David was making his own unique contribution, we're sure it's happened before.

Chris "left the room", we all followed him with varying degrees of success. Nigel let him in again, we muted and unmuted ourselves. ......such fun. Chris had a brainwave, namely to use his Ipad and hooray, the gremlins vanished.

Jean has recently suggested different themes for our meetings and chose unusual versions of a well-known piece of music this time. The word "unusual" naturally inspired our members to outdo each other, the more bizarre the better!

Nigel chose a heavy metal version of "The Sound of Silence" performed by Disturbed, this reinforces the above comment!

Mike chose Peter Sellers voicing a wonderful rendition of "A Hard day's Night" in the style of Laurence Olivier's Richard 3rd. This made me laugh so much that everyone heard me as I'd forgotten to mute myself.

We heard Chris's choice of Flanders and Swann's version of Mozart's horn concerto which brought back happy childhood memories for her.

John chose Valse Triste, a parody of Walt Disney's Fantasia, spookily enacted by a ghostly cat.

A theme of sorts evolved, with my own choice of an aria from The Magic Flute performed by songbirds and Jean's choice of Lullaby of Birdland performed by 12 cellists from the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra.

Yvonne chose Johnny Cash's last recording of "Hurt", so powerful and moving to hear. Kathy's choice of "You don't bring me Flowers" performed by members of a ukulele orchestra just proved that Neil Diamond could have had a bigger hit if he'd only used his imagination!

We recently held a meeting to discuss returning to live meetings later this year and have decided to begin again in October at the Old Heathcoat School Community Centre, Friday 15th at 2pm as usual. The room hire for 2 hours will be £16.50 which we'll share between us. It would be helpful if everyone could have cash, just as we used to when we contributed to refreshments in our own homes.

September's meeting will be via Zoom, at 2pm on Friday 17th, possibly the last "virtual" meeting.

Poetry Margaret Wallwork With so many away or visiting family, our August meeting was cancelled, and we look forward to gathering on 23rd September to try out our Dorset accents with William Barnes.

Please contact Tim if you would like to join, while Margaret is in the antipodes.

Rambling Ray Rice Twelve members and two guests were led on a walk around Sampford Peverell by Chris Tully on Thursday September 3rd. The walk was mainly across fields, down country roads and along the canal towpath. After a slight detour where Chris determinedly led the group towards the wrong set of farm buildings and had to be called back by Dave Regester (thanks Dave), she took the group across farmland to the top of Connigar Hill where we heard about the nearby Norman castle and the Roman remains discovered recently near the canal. Although the weather was rather grey, there were beautiful views toward Sidmouth Gap and the countryside

mainly to the east. The walk proceeded along Higher Town to the canal, admiring the wildflowers on the banks, and then across the fields to the Village Hall, and back to The Globe Inn where a good lunch was enjoyed. The fish and chips was particularly praised and several couldn’t finish their meals as the portions were gigantic!

Keith Dawson has kindly volunteered to lead the October walk, which will take place on Thursday October 7th. He reports that the walk will start at Shobrooke from the Red Lion car park. The walk is about 4.3 miles with no stiles, crossing fields/water meadows/working farms and quiet lanes. It is not too strenuous but there are a few steep climbs and descents. The route has elements of previous walks so might be familiar in parts to some, the last time over there was autumn 2018. It will take about 20 minutes at most to get there, so 09.30 at Homebase should enable a 10.00 start to get back for a 12.30 /12.45 lunch. As before, I will send a reminder nearer the date.

Thanks to Chris Tully, (so ably assisted by Dave!) for volunteering to lead the September walk. We have two walks “in the bank” for the rest of the year, but further offers for next year would enable some advanced planning.

Reading Reading Group 1 Alison Rice

Michael Ondaatje's novel Warlight provided plenty of lively discussion at the first meeting we'd had in person for many months.

Warlight was the official name given to lights allowed on for emergency traffic during the blackout in London but the title also describes the secrecy, deception and uncertainty of the times and the lives of 14 year old Nathaniel and his sister Rachel. Left in the care of an enigmatic friend, The Moth, when their parents go off to 'work in Singapore', they become increasingly involved with a circle of his misfit colleagues. These men and women flit in and out of the children's lives: all seem to have some role to protect the children and all have knowledge of their mother. The first part of the book ends dramatically and the second follows Nathaniel's journey a dozen years later to try to discover the truth about his mother and her role in the war. Nathaniel uses the war archives, his memories and his imagination to construct her story.

Almost all members of the group felt Ondaatje's writing was excellent: - his descriptions were evocative and sensitive, his weaving in threads of different lives and experiences masterly. Only one or two found the story difficult to follow and his use of language obscure. Metaphor is a word that is often bandied about in the group but the title of this book is surely one.

We meet again at 2 pm on Monday 27 September at Alison's house to talk about Alexander McCall Smith's retelling of Emma.

Reading Group 2 Chris Redhead We met in bright sunshine around Wendy’s spacious garden table to discuss Grandmothers by Salley Vickers. The verdict of the group on this book was two-thirds thumbs down and one-third thumbs up. It was an attractive hard-back book and its first pages introduced three women, two of them grandmothers and one who had befriended a girl who attended her after-school book club. It went on to explore the characters of the women and those of the children for whom they had an affection. The children’s parents were shown to be in several ways inadequate and all three women also had their foibles. In the course of the story the three women and their charges crossed paths. For some members of the group the plot was thin and had an Enid Blyton air. For others it was a pleasure to read a simple and satisfying book which took them to a more palatable place than our current world circumstances present to us in terms of climate change, species extinction, Afghanistan, Covid 19, gaps in the supply-chain and a general feeling that the world our grandchildren will inhabit will challenge them with more than the smaller dramas depicted in this book. Other novels by the same author were judged to be far more skilfully written.

Our next book is recommended by three members of the group who have read it. It is Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and I suspect it will provide us with an interesting discussion. We will meet at Wendy’s house again on Monday 4 October at 2pm.

Old Road Reading Group Sally Butler Our first book for over a year was “The Chalk Man” by C. J. Tudor. The book is her first novel. It is half horror and half crime, a creepy compulsive novel. There was strong characterisation, plenty of plot twists and an evocative portrait of small town life in the 1980s. It all added up to a riveting read for some of us. The gang of five children (four boys and one girl) who by the end of the book were all adults, was easily visualised plus their parents. However, not everyone had managed to read the book or finish it. One of us was put off by the body found among fallen leaves in a wood in the opening paragraph and could read no more! One member found the graphic account of the rape of the young boy in the playground very off-putting but managed to continue to read the rest of the book. Those of us that did read it all, found it easy to read and on the whole enjoyed it.

An interesting and animated conversation arose about autism and dyslexia and a few of us had family members who were either autistic or dyslexic.

Next month we will be reading “Outline” by Rachel Cusk. Our next meeting will be Thursday 23 September at 11am at 33 Old Road.

World History Chris Hammett There was no meeting in August but will return on Monday September 20th at 2pm with a Zoom talk by Alan Ball from West Lakes u3a in Cumbria, entitled “The rise and fall of maritime West Cumbria”.

************************************************************************** A reminder of Zoom log in details.

You can join any of our groups by clicking on the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2772605615?pwd=WW9MbVc1Y1piOUdVMHAyWkpQMS9Rdz09 or join Zoom and click Join Meeting: ID: 277 260 5615 Password 471390

************************************************************************** DIARY

SEPTEMBER Sunday 12th

MOTO lunch Tiverton Golf Club.

Monday 13th 2pm Gardening Group Pounds, Hemyock EX15 3QS

Tuesday 14th 11am - Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 15th 2pm Monthly meeting - Roger Browne - The Great American Songbook Rugby Club and Zoom

Join as usual: Click or Ctrl + click: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2772605615?pwd=WW9MbVc1Y1piOUdVMHAyWkpQMS9Rdz09 Meeting ID 277 260 5615, password 471390. (OR PHONE 0131 460 1196 or 0203 051 2874. A voice will ask you to enter the meeting ID (as above), followed by #. When asked if you are a participant, press #. It then asks for the password, followed by #. Then you'll be in, by audio only.)

Thursday 16th 10am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 2pm Art Appreciation Britton Centre Old Heathcoat School Community Centre

Friday 17th 2pm Musical Discoveries Zoom

Monday 20th 2pm World History Zoom

Tuesday 21st 11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 22nd Thursday 23rd

10am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 11am Old Road Reading Group 2pm Poetry Group Tim’s

Friday 24th Saturday 25th

10.30am MOTO coffee The Lowman, Lowman Green, Tiverton

Monday 27th 2pm Reading Group 1 Alison’s House

Tuesday 28th

11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 29th Thursday 30th

10am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton OCTOBER Friday 1st

Monday 4th 2pm Reading Group 2 Wendy’s house

Tuesday 5th 11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 6th 10am Committee meeting OHSCC

Thursday 7th 9.30am Rambling Group Homebase Car Park 10am Skittles Tiverton Town Football Club

Friday 8th 10am Discussion Group Wendy’s home.

Monday 11th 1.30pm Gardening Group Newton St Cyres EX5 5BN

Tuesday 12th 11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 13th 2.30pm Folk Dancing Halberton Village Hall

Thursday 14th 10am Skittles Tiverton Town Football Club 2pm Local History The Cherith Hall

Friday 15th 9am Newsletter contributions to Lynne please. 2pm Musical Discoveries Old Heathcoat School Community Centre

Monday 18th Tuesday 19th

11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 20th 2pm Monthly meeting - Dr Francis Burroughs - Illegal Immigrants Rugby Club and Zoom

Join as usual: Click or Ctrl + click: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2772605615?pwd=WW9MbVc1Y1piOUdVMHAyWkpQMS9Rdz09 Meeting ID 277 260 5615, password 471390.

(OR PHONE 0131 460 1196 or 0203 051 2874. A voice will ask you to enter the meeting ID (as above), followed by #. When asked if you are a participant, press #. It then asks for the password, followed by #. Then you'll be in, by audio only.)

Thursday 21st 10am Skittles Tiverton Town Football Club

Friday 22nd

Monday 25th Tuesday 26th

11am Boules The Walronds, Cullompton 7.30pm Bridge Bridge Base Online

Wednesday 27th 2.30pm Folk Dancing Halberton Village Hall

Thursday 28th 10am Skittles Tiverton Town Football Club

Friday 29th

**************************************************************************

COMMITTEE MEMBERS Chair / Technician Tim Dyke 07925 543333 Vice-Chair Deborah Lal Secretary Marian Luck Treasurer Eric Oakley Programme Organiser Joan Kelly Meeting and Social Organiser Jo Jeffrey Beacon Administrator Sue Phillips Membership Secretary Jill Riddiford 01884 258091 Groups Co-ordinator Nickie Haynes Minutes Secretary Joan Kelly Publicity Alan Phillips NON-COMMITTEE Website Manager Wendy Cook Welfare Marilyn Dawson Newsletter Editor Lynne Lyddon

**************************************************************************