Nothing can be more delightful than to report that we have two new baby girls, in the Shipperley
family at Home Farm and the Garrad family at the White House.
Lucia reports from the WhiteHouse:
Friday 21st March my little sister arrived. My mummy and daddy picked her name and decided to call her Mila Sienna Garrad. I wanted her to be called Rosie! She drinks lots of milk (no sweeties) and she is very small! One day she will be big like me and we can play. I love having her as a little sister, she makes me happy! My mummy and daddy are disappointed because she doesn’t sleep all night and they don’t get enough sleep! I luckily don’t wake up though when she cries. Chuck and Rolly dogs like Mila too but they sometimes bark too much and wake her up. We all love her lots and lots and lots.
Words from Lucia Garrad (big sister!) White House
Good news too from Home Farm. Janet reports:
"Janet and Stephen are proud to announce the arrival of their first grandchild! A beautiful girl, Cora
Sienna Miles, born to Nicole and Craig on 16th March 2025, weighing 7lb1oz. She is flourishing and Nicole is doing well. Hopefully you will get to meet Cora soon, when they are out walking in the village on their regular visits."
This is the start of the month of May. May seems to have entered the English language about a thousand
years ago in the 1050s when Waterstock was already a flourishing community. Shortly afterwards Saewald was the “lord of the Manor” with five hides (around 250 hectares, not far off the size of the present parish) and Waterstock Mill was operating, although it was not then in the relatively modern five hundred year old form we see today.
May itself was named after the Greek goddess Maius, a nurturer and earth goddess which is surely
appropriate as May is the month in which nature is finally recovering from its winter slumbers.
As Cicely Osmond Smith – who lived at Orchard End and many will remember – wrote twenty five years ago for the May 2000 edition of this magazine: “some of us have heard our first cuckoo and seen our first swallow of the season. Tree-wise some of the horse chestnuts already show their candles”. Compared to Cicely writing 25 years ago, we have not heard a cuckoo yet at Camilla Cottage, but we saw our first swallow a week ago; the horse chestnuts have yet to start displaying their white candles,
despite all the glorious blue skies and wall to wall sunshine during the first two weeks of April.
In 1985, fifteen years before Cicely wrote, the May Parish Magazine reflected on the recent loss of the abundant elms which had characterised the landscape of Waterstock, until the beetles carrying Dutch Elm Disease destroyed them all. Some saplings still try to grow but are fatally infected as soon as they reach the height at which the beetles fly.
The loss of our canopy of magnificent elms left the Parish bare.
Thus, the Magazine reported how“very grateful we all were to Mike Haffey who has worked so hard to order and see to the planting of trees in and around the village from Waterstock Turn to the Ickford end of the lane. When a few more planes have been delivered there will be 135 more trees for us and future generations to enjoy. They are mostly limes and horse chestnuts and I expect the birds will enjoy them too”.
Mike Haffey’s present day reflections follow this article.
Finally with May comes Oxfordshire Artweeks. Helen MacRitchie tells me that she and Jane Hanson will
be opening their studios in Waterstock each day except Monday from Sat 10th to Sunday 18th (between 10 and 5 for Helen and 11- 6 for Jane) for anyone who'd like to visit. They have Artweeks catalogues with maps and full listings of all the artists taking part, if you need to pick one up.
Look out for the bunting and signs!
Happy May to you all.
Michael Tyce
Forty Years On, Mike Haffey’s Personal Thoughts and Reflections on Tree Planting
Michael Tyce has very kindly reminded me that 40 years ago to the month, a short piece in the parish magazine thanked me for my efforts to organise a tree planting scheme in the hedgerows and roadsides of Waterstock. It was a village effort and we planted 135 trees, with the aid of a council grant and the generous cooperation of the late John Bull our local farmer.
In 1985, I had only just moved to the village and for me, a ‘townie’, it was extraordinary to be in such a rural place, with history close to hand. No motorway, no services, not even the golf course. Inconceivable that we might have an industrial estate as a neighbour.
It was very much as shown on the 1880s 6 inch OS map. An exception: the map showed hedgerow trees in very large numbers. A friend recalled that, before Dutch Elm Disease, the lane from Waterstock Turn was a tunnel between huge elms . Those too young to remember the ‘60s would not believe what a dominant feature of the Oxfordshire countryside the elms were. Anyway, I wanted to try and help restore something of what was lost. Not elms of course, but planes, limes, horse chestnuts, a few oaks and maples.
Some, particularly along the lane and in the meadows near the river, did well. Others not so well - especially on Stockwell Lane.
Did I think, then, I would still be in the village forty years later? I don’t think so. The young don’t think that way. However, I did imagine the trees, big and beautiful. Not just big, but fully mature, and, in
my mind, I was there to see them. A fantasy. Even in another forty years they will have a long way to go.
To see these trees gives me, and I believe others, pleasure and a sense of satisfaction both for the result and the joy of neighbours working together.
