'VOICE of ARBURY': In 1980, there was concern at Manor over class sizes at the Arbury schools, cutbacks, etc. In 1978, there was concern at Manor over possibly unlevel ears... In the early months of 1978, cousin Sharon and her friend, Sharon, dropped David Soul and Paul Michael Glazer as their 'dishy' idols. They were gone forever - totally swept out by one John Travolta, who took the country by storm when Saturday Night Fever , a film released in the USA in late 1977, arrived here. I quite liked the soundtrack, but cousin Sharon was staying with us a lot and, having heard it about seven hundred times in one day (or so it seemed), I vehemently disliked it. Started climbing the wall every time she got her LP out.  Mind you, it was better than David Soul's Black Bean Soup . The Manor had ceased to seem massive and now seemed like quite a dinky school. Familiarity!  1978 was a year of huge change for the school, as the headmaster, Mr Lewin, retired. He had been the or...

So, having missed out on the archaeological digs at Arbury Camp, we're busy digging up artefacts from the Arbury Estate and the three Arbury farms of yore  - Arbury Camp, Hall, and Manor. For our new selection, we begin with the religious text above, which used to hang in Mrs Amelia Brett's bedroom at the Manor Farm on Arbury 'Meadow' Road. The text was apparently obtained from a seed catalogue, about 120 years ago and framed between glass and board with a paper tape called 'passe partout'. If you applied water to this, it stuck like crazy, and came in a range of colours and finishes to give an attractive framed effect in the days before easily affordable mass-produced frames. Amelia's place of religious worship was the Wesley Chapel, in High Street, Chesterton, and she was also a member of the Mothers' Union at the village's St Andrew's Church, where she was laid to rest in 1924. We have several pages of complete transcripts of conversations of ...

The first edition of the VOICE of Arbury newsletter from November, 1979, gave us an idea. In that first edition, they presented a profile of the then Arbury Community Midwife, Sister Cummings, who arrived in North Arbury in 1966 - and by the late 1970s was also helping to run relaxation sessions for expectant mothers and parenthood classes for expectant Mums and Dads at the Kingsway Clinic in South Arbury.  Inspired by this, we've decided to present some profiles of notable and ordinary Arbury people from across the years, going back to the days of the Manor, Hall and Arbury Camp Farms. We begin with VOICE 's profile of Sister Cummings, Arbury Community Midwife, who had an absolutely essential and highly interesting job. 'I deliver anyone, anywhere!' she said. Her observations about the original Arbury Estate are heartening.