NEWSLETTER 5th FEBRUARY 2019
REMINDER: the yearly subscription (£10) is due, please come prepared.
The forthcoming K&DLHG meeting is on 15th February when our member Ilona Sekacz will give us a talk entitled The Pit and the Metronome: writing music for Shakespeare. Ilona will draw on over 35 years of experience writing music for the theatre, TV, public events and films, concentrating on her long association with the RSC and the changes she has seen (and heard), caused in part by technological advances. She will describe her experience of working with innovative directors and actors, and the role of music and sound in shaping their visions of Shakespeare’s dramas. Ilona has seen many changes, from composing with pencil on manuscript paper and cutting and splicing magnetic tape, to computers which access virtually endless resources and manipulations. We look forward to hearing, literally, how our local national theatre company has approached the use of music in Shakespeare productions.
Report on our January 2019 evening talk by David Beaumont. David detailed the extraordinary life of Kineton resident Admiral Sir Walter “Tich” Cowan. Right from his induction into the Royal Navy as a Cadet at the age of 13 in 1884 he seems to have been a committed military man. His uncompromising and courageous attitude took him into many risky situations that earned him the KCB, DSO and bar, MVO, and even the Estonian Cross of Liberty for his efforts in the Baltic in the 1920s. An Estonian warship is named The Admiral Cowan in his honour. After a distinguished naval career in WWI and its aftermath he pestered the War office for an active role in WWII, despite being in his 70s. He was appointed to the commandos! He seemed to have had a charmed life, surviving fierce firefights; his men sometimes thought he had a death wish. He was captured in Italy, but was treated as a VIP before being repatriated in a prisoner exchange. After the war he retired to the cottage in Bridge Street now known as Admiral’s House. He is remembered by some in the village as a sometimes uncompromising figure, who would walk up the centre of a road ignoring the traffic. David showed photos of his funeral with full military honours in 1956, the procession with his coffin on a gun carriage winding up Southam Street to the extension cemetery. David Gill gave our thanks to David B for illuminating the life a truly remarkable man, who left his mark on history as well as the village itself.
Other Societies’ events
19 February. Warwickshire Local History Society: “The Catholic Experience, and Aspects of Childhood” by Dr Lucy Underwood, The Friends Meeting House Warwick
21 February. Warmington Heritage Group: Understanding Joan of 
Arc by Dr Rowena Archer. 7.30 Warmington Village Hall
27 February. Aynho History Society: The History of the Privy by Chris Bazeley. 7.30pm Aynho Village Hall.
19 March. Warwickshire Local History: AGM followed by “George Eliot and Warwickshire” by David Paterson
21 March Warmington Heritage Group: Tooley’s Boatyard and the Oxford Canal by Matt Armitage, 7.30 Warmington Village Hall.
Portcullis History, Friday 11th 2019 Hatton Village Hall, 10.00am – 2.30pm Dr John Hunt Edward I and his Welsh Castles
Local History Book
Kineton resident Arno Christiansen has just produced the book of his memoirs based on his experiences in WWII and afterwards. The book is The Barbed Wire Fence and can be ordered from Amazon. The Group heard from Arno in 2007, when he showed his drawings of his life as a PoW and later in the 1940s, including sketches of Ettington Camp. Members will recollect George Lokuciejewski’s descriptions of the same camp when it was the Ettington Polish Resettlement Camp 31, which we heard at our Christmas Treats meeting last year. Arno married a local girl and settled in the village after the war.
KDLHG Committee Matters. There has been no committee meeting since the last newsletter.
The next committee meeting is at 7.30pm on February 11th 2019, in the Library at the Village Hall.
Our treasurer Richard Hurley has moved away from the village, so we have an urgent requirement to find a new treasurer. Please seriously consider this if you or someone you know would be able to take this on.
DF 05.02. 2019