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May 1956 Pit Baths On Saturday April 28th, the new pit baths at Mapperley were opened by the Deputy Chairman of East Midlands Div. of the National Coal Board. They will serve 860 workmen providing clean clothes, lockers and a drying cupboard for working clothes for each man. There is also a Medical Centre fully equipped and containing facilities for Radiant Heat, Infra Red and Ultra Violet treatment. A canteen is also provided. On the first working day about 85 per cent of the men used the new baths.
Church Restoration Fund Tenders had been received for this work, one for £472. 10s. 8d was accepted. The amount of the fund is now £320. Mrs J Simpson and Mrs R Martin knitted a man’s pullover and raffled it making a total of £3. 4s.0d The Institute After several years of hard work during which they have provided crockery, installed electric light and curtains and re-decorated the interior of the Institute, the Committee find themselves unable to carry on the good work because of lack of general support. It requires about £1 per week to keep the Institute open and available for village use: this is an expensive luxury if the room is only hired on one or two occasions annually. The matter has been discussed by the Church Council and has now been referred to the Administrative Trustees who will issue a statement when they have gone thoroughly into the matter. August/September 1956 The Vicar Rev G C Spencer reports that Mapperley Institute is to be sold due to lack of use Mrs Boam (The first part of this report is missing) One of her earliest memories is a fall she sustained from a wall by the old Malt Houses on the Lammas Ground; she hurt her head in the fall which resulted in some kind of fit, but she can still remember the visit of the Vicar. “He bought me a small bottle of comfits” she said. We would not like to decide whether Malt or Lammas conjures up more memories of the past, but Lammas is an ancient word with strong religious associations. From the old Vicarage house Mrs Boam moved to the shop at the cross roads, and from there to her present home. She was baptised at the Parish Church and married there, and is one of the decreasing number who remain among us as a reminder of the old Village and its associations. HARVEST THANKSGIVING The Harvest services are to be on Sunday, October 7th this year, and the times are as follows :
HARVEST THANKSGIVING With two parishes to consider, and a Patronal Festival falling on October 12th, it is peculiarly difficult to fit our Harvest Thanksgivings in with the vagaries of the English climate. This year West Hallam’s Harvest Services are on Sunday, September 23rd, and are as follows :
The preacher at the evening service will be the Revd. D. Gardner, Vicar of Chaddesden. Once again we invite parishioners to send fruit and vegetables, and helpers to come along and make the church look as fine as it has done in previous years. The produce will, as usual, be given to the Church of England Children’s Home, Little Eaton. The parish church at Mapperley is now undergoing its extensive repairs and I hope it will be the beginning of a “new look” which will be improved upon from year to year. Now that the work is actually in hand the Treasurer will be glad to receive donations to add to the Restoration Fund, particularly from anyone who was waiting until ‘something was done’ before their assistance was to be forthcoming. The parish church at West Hallam has had a general overhaul and has been repainted outside and re-decorated within. The money for this work has been raised by direct giving and I hope you all feel, as I do, that your money has been well spent. Mapperley Church Institute is being sold. It was the opinion of all those best qualified to judge the, issue clearly that the labour and expense involved in retaining it in good repair were not justified. The Institute has had a chequered history and, latterly, has been closed and unused for periods in order to avoid the payment of rates on an unused building. During the last few years a committee has done wonders with small resources, but lettings have been negligible and village support uninterested, so that the committee felt obliged to offer their resignation to the Administrative Trustees. After discussion with the Church Council, the Trustees obtained the full consent of the Diocesan Authorities to the sale. To some Mapperley parishioners this will be the disappearance of another landmark deeply to be regretted. With all of them I sympathize and likewise regret. But feelings and words do not maintain buildings. I have to face the facts and the figures, and I have to decide how great a strain on their voluntary services people may be expected to bear. # # #
EVENING INSTITUTE CLASSES Those who are interested in Evening Institute Classes will have noticed in the press some remarks about the increase in fees. The fees are to be increased for those over 21 years of age by 7s. 6d. for one class, and by 10s. for two or more classes in non-vocational subjects. At first sight this seems to be a very serious matter as far as our own Institute is concerned because not only are all our classes non-vocational, but in some cases one or two members from a family attend a class together. MAPPERLEY NOTES The work on the Parish Church will be completed—for the present—by the time this magazine is in print. As I said when we were discussing the need to make urgent repairs to our church, there is not much to see for all the money we have spent. What there is to see is not very edifying because the removal of the turret not only takes away •an offence to the eyes, but also reveals the need for some sort of “finish” to the west end of the roof. This is not the only thing which remains to be done. There is both external and internal painting to consider. But the truth is that we have taken quite a long time to raise even £500 although we decided to go for £1,000. It has been necessary, therefore, to do the most urgent repairs now and, if we can collect the money, to continue the work later on. It is a hard lesson to learn that we must pay for what we want: it is sometimes even harder to learn that we must maintain what we have. Personally I am most grateful for what has been done by the few, if not by the many, and I think we shall win through in the end if we do not faint or fail. I thought it would be a good thing to publish the financial state of the Restoration Fund so that we can all see at a glance what the position is. Mr. G. Pearson has kindly given me the figures set out below.
Church Restorations The Vicar states that the achievement at Mapperley during the past year has been remarkable. Work on the church fabric which, it seemed, would never be done, and never paid for, has in fact, been done in 1956 and all the money is in hand to pay the bills. March 1957 Institute The Mapperley Church Institute was erected in 1904. It was to serve the dual purpose at the time of a Cricket Pavilion and a home of recreation and entertainment for the inhabitants of the Village. It cost about £200 and was built by Mr. J. Duro of Marlpool. It was opened during the incumbency of the Revd. C. Lane, who had been in the parish about a year. It is recorded that he thanked “the Church wardens, Sidesmen, Sunday School Teachers and other Church helpers for their work during the past year (1904), especially in connection with the erection of the Church Institute, completed in Nov., 1904, and furnished at a cost of over £200”. It was opened with a gold key by Mrs. E. Miller Mundy. At the opening—which was on a day of very bad weather—Mr. Miller Mundy made a speech in which he is reported by a local newspaper of the time to have said: "When I was first approached in regard to the Institute, I, agreeing with the remark just made by the Vicar that it was always well to help those who showed an inclination to help themselves, promised a certain donation on the condition that the Committee would collect a certain sum". The sums in question were a £100 in each case. Since those days the Institute has had a varied career. Originally it fulfilled its purpose admirably, but the war of 1914-1918 saw a change and, since then, other factors have altered beyond recognition the general, social background against which the Institute first came into being. The last fifteen years have seen individuals and committees struggling to keep in repair and use a building which was to be a blessing to the village. Sometimes it was closed in order to save paying rates upon it. The use made of it dwindled as more money was earned locally and new interests and inventions (Radio and Television) became available to the parishioners. Instead of being a blessing, the Institute became a burden upon those who were public spirited enough to try to do something to maintain it; people who had decreasing support from the village generally, and who found that it was hired less and less. A final attempt was made during the last five years to revive it. The committee, however, found in the end that it was asking too much of a few church and chapel people to keep such an expensive monument which nobody seemed to want to use. It had become a white elephant. So it was that in 1956 the Trustees decided to sell it, after ascertaining that they could legally do so. As soon as the knowledge that the Institute was up for sale became known, people who had shown no particular interest in its upkeep or use before, suddenly decided that the Trustees were removing from their Village a boon and a blessing. It is always easy to say why 'nothing' should be done, and to blame those who try to do something constructive. Despite all the observations that have been made certain facts are clear. One is that the building was not being used. The second is that nobody came forward with any concrete proposal backed with enough funds to ensure that it would be used and maintained in the future : no definite financial offer was received by the Trustees or their agent for the Institute by anybody wishing to continue running it as a Village Hall. In the third place, there is a school to meet in, and the letting charges for the school are now low. They are much lower than any hall could possibly be let to-day bearing in mind the cost of upkeep and price of fuel. Nowadays it should be perfectly clear that the old order has changed. It is no longer possible to rely on a few rich benefactors to supply our social wants, we must pay for them ourselves if we want them. If we don't pay for them then we cannot have them. Moreover it is well to bear in mind that it is not only a question of money; it is also a question of leaders. Not only do we have to pay for what we want, but we ourselves have got to organise our own affairs— there are now no people with spare time on their hands waiting to run our Whist Drives and Dances for us; those people and those times have gone. We have been through a Social Revolution and we have come to what is sometimes called 'the Day of the common man'. If this is so then the sooner the common man realises that everything is up to him, the better for him. There no longer exists the mysterious body of people once referred to as THEY. We can no longer leave it to THEM, or ask why THEY are not doing something about it. It is US now every time. Social Welfare does not mean everyone has got to help me and my Village: if it means anything at all it must mean among other things that everyone has got to be helpful. There is now no Squire and his wife with a golden key. The Trustees do not like selling the Institute. But they cannot afford to maintain out of their own pocket something which the Village has not been able to maintain either as a monument or as a working proposition. And, finally, we repeat there is the school in which to meet or to dance. The crockery and furniture at present in the Institute will be kept and made available for the use of parishioners. Applications for its use should be made to the Trustees, who are the Vicar and Church Wardens of the Parish Church. Obituaries The death of Wesley Derbyshire at such an early age is one of those bereavements which come upon all families from time to time, and are never without their added share of regret and sadness. We extend to Mrs Derbyshire our deepest sympathy in her loss and assure her and her family of our prayers. Charles Richard Francis Spooner was not a native of these parts, but had resided in the village for some years and was known to many parishioners. He was a man of great patience and reticence, and suffered a long and demoralising illness with the utmost fortitude and courage. We hear he had been a schoolmaster of some distinction and if his example in death was comparable with his example in life, then he must have been an excellent example to his boys. May 1957 Garden Fete Mr and Mrs R Lodge kindly consented to let us use their garden (Brackenhurst) for The garden fete to be held on July 24th from 6pm. We need offers of help and suggestions for stalls, sideshows and events. (The event raised £106 17s 4d for church decoration. July 1957 “Never in the same place twice” There is a saying that lightening never strikes in the same place twice. But this is just what it did at Mapperley on the afternoon of Whitsunday. Not that it struck twice in the same afternoon, but that it struck in the same place as it did in July 1955. The result was a little worse than last time, but although the Sunday School was assembling at the time nobody was hurt. We are grateful to Mr G Pearson and Ann Whittle for helping the children to get over the fright of the noise and dust. Brownies It was hoped a Brownie Pack would be formed in the autumn and Miss M Lodge had agreed to act as leader December 1957 The Parish Magazine It was pointed out that the price of the magazine had remained at 3d since 1950 while costs of printing had continued to rise. It now costs £12 8s 0d to print 440 copies of one month’s issue. Therefore from January 1958 the cost will be 4d. There is a note in January that a way had been found to restrict the cost of the magazine for subscribers to the monthly sum of 3d
August 1958 Subsidence and Holy Trinity Church Mapperley There have been some developments in the arrangements with the N.C.B over the results on mining coal under the Parish Church. It has been decided bu the Board to accept the suggestion put to them by the Vicar and the architect. That it will in the end, be a saving of public money and expense if, instead of continually repairing the present fabric of the church and keeping it usable for public worship, a temporary wooden building were erected nearby. This will serve until a further seam is extracted and the results of the consequent subsidence are known. The N.C.B are pressing on with the necessary formalities and intend to erect the building at the earliest possible time.  Disclaimer - Copyright - Is this page correct? Something wrong or missing? Please let me know. Also contributions very welcome |
MAPPERLEY NOTES 
I hope everyone will be satisfied with the new arrangement on the cover of this issue of the magazine.