Bolney

Bolney’s Got talent Saturday 7pm: Adults £6.00, children £4.00. Tickets available [email protected] or [email protected]. or telephone 01444 881783.

Bread making workshop: to be held in the Rawson Hall on Saturday March 25. This will include making a variety of breads including hot cross buns. Numbers are limited, if you are interested please contact 01444 881783 or email [email protected].

NOTE CHANGE OF DATE FOR SEWING WORKSHOP: this is to be held in the Rawson Hall on Saturday April 29 not as advertised earlier. More details nearer the time.

At our February meeting: we were fortunate to have Tony Turner to tell us of the exploits of one Dolly Shepherd. This replaced our intended speaker who had taken off for India.

Mr Turner got his information from a biography of Dolly which he found in a charity shop and it made incredible reading.

Born in Southgate in 1886, Dolly was a typical Edwardian young lady except that she had ambitions beyond her lowly position in society and her sex.

In 1903 Dolly realised that the only way she would ever hear her beloved Sousa ( the renowned American bandleader) was by going to his concert at Alexandra Palace. Undaunted by the fact that tickets were sold out, she applied for and got a job as a waitress in the restaurant where she could hear the music ‘for free’.

Her opportunity came in the shape of Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) who had brought his Wild West show to England. His assistant in the ‘Shoot the apple off the lady’s head’ could not appear and Dolly stepped in.

This whetted her appetite for risk and when she met Sam Cody, the kite specialist, she knew what she wanted to do. For some years, dressed in her very daring knickerbockers and peaked cap, she jumped from balloons and kites with many exciting near misses.

She ‘recovered’ from an incredible fall when she was clinging to another young woman,but her back was severely damaged. However, undaunted, as soon as she could stand she returned to the life she loved. Dolly worked as a driver in WW1 and died in Eastbourne in 1983 aged 97.

What a remarkable woman!

Our speaker next month is another remarkable lady (with both feet on the ground) who has built a straw house in Bolney.

Come and hear her at the Rawson Hall on Thursday, March 9th at 2.30pm.Tea included: £2.50

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