Friends of Bidston Hill

The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, scheduled for Friday 14th August, has been cancelled due to severe weather warnings and near certainty of heavy rain. Sorry for the inconvenience.

We will try again on Friday 28th August, weather permitting. Keep an eye on our events page for more information.

It’s only a few days to our Midsummer Family Picnic.

It’s all happening on Saturday 20th June, from 12 noon onwards. We’ll meet at Tam O’Shanter Urban Farm.

Bring your own picnic. There will be a Nature Treasure Hunt for the little ones, and a Spiral Dance for all ages.

Do wear sensible shoes as the ground is uneven and the grass is long.

If the weather is bad, we’ll have to cancel, as picnicking and dancing in the rain is no fun. If in doubt, check on this website.

Here’s an updated poster to share with your friends.

On Saturday, we had our first trees and rhododendrons walk of the year which was guided by our good and knowledgeable friend Stephen Lyus.

I found the walk most interesting, as did all who attended; it is amazing to see the huge number of trees and rhododendrons we have on the Hill.

Trees

Stephen showed us a variety of trees in Park Wood, including beech, oak, holly, laurel, silver birch and sycamore, describing the different leaf formations. He explained that when identifying trees it is necessary to note the leaf shape, texture and colour, as well as colour and texture of the bark and flower/seed type or shape. Some are extremely old with interesting shapes with twisted and gnarled branches.

Rhododendrons

Stephen informed us that rhododendrons were planted in Park Wood between 1897 and 1933 and many are over a hundred years old! They are not all the common purple colour with many hybrids showing shades of pink, red and white, some with attractive markings on the flowers. Rhododendrons flower between March and June, starting with pale pink and Cunningham’s White, May being the best for viewing when the common purple R. Ponticum hybrids also flower.

As you can imagine, much was learned by all and if you did miss this walk I would strongly recommend coming along to one of the other two scheduled for Saturday, 16^th May and Saturday, 30^th May at 2:00pm. Meet at the Windmill.

I would like to thank Stephen for an interesting and enjoyable afternoon.

Hope to see you soon.

Roy Caligari

Chair  

Although you may have noted our AGM in the recent newsletter, and in my spring report, I thought I would put a reminder on the website. This will take place at the Tam O’Shanter Farm on Tuesday, 12th May at 7.00pm.

This is a public meeting and all are welcome, it is a good opportunity to find out what is happening on the Hill and to ‘have your say’, as well as getting involved with the election of the committee members for the next year. If there are any Friends that would like to consider joining the committee, please let me know in good time before the meeting.

We will also have a guest speaker so you will be entertained as well!

Hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there.

Roy Caligari
Chair

We held our first committee meeting of the year recently when we put our heads together to discuss ideas for the spring/summer months on the Hill. You can imagine it can be quite challenging to continually come up with new concepts that will retain the interest of our members, so we try to slot in new initiatives with some of our popular recurring themes and events.

As a way of promoting awareness of the Friends Group and creating new members, we have recently joined the Wirral History & Heritage Association which many of you will be familiar with. As a result, we will be attending their next event on Saturday, 7^th March and will have a table presence on the day at Birkenhead Town Hall. All are welcome so please try to join us.

We have 3 ‘Tree & Rhododendron Walks’ planned for 25^th April, 16^th May & 30^th May (All Saturdays) meet at the Windmill at 2:00pm. We are hoping to be able to cultivate the many varieties of Rhododendrons on the Hill at some stage, in order to take full advantage of the beautiful splendour they have to offer in full bloom.

As usual, the Windmill will be open on the first Saturday of the month between 10:00am & 12 noon starting in April and running through to September inclusive however, due to the National Mills Weekend in May, it will be open additionally on Saturday, 9^th May from 2:00 – 4:00pm.

If you have not been on our Heritage Trail you are really missing something! There are ancient rock carvings, some of which are thought to have pagan origins, Flag Poles & Semaphore Station history, sandstone deposits dating back some 200 million years and much more. Why not follow the trail and be amazed by what you find? Information of the trail can be seen on our website or, you can pick up a pamphlet from the Ranger’s office at the Tam O’Shanter Farm. You will not be disappointed.

Our AGM takes place on Tuesday, 12^th May at 7:00pm, when we will have a review of the year and appoint the new committee members for the next year. We will have a guest speaker, details of which will be placed in our events calendar on our website in due course, so please come along if you can and ‘have your say’ as well as being entertained!

Well, that’s all for now, hope to see you out and about soon. If you have any comments or ideas for future events on the Hill or, would be interested in getting involved, just drop a note through our website or use my e-mail address below.

Roy Caligari

Chair

roycaligari@hotmail.com

Where does all the time go?

It seems like a couple of weeks since we opened up the Windmill for the spring/summer and now I am writing my autumn report!

Overall, I don’t think we can complain about our summer this year, we have had some periods of good weather and sunshine. This has enabled us to fulfil our planned events on the Hill with great success. From the marking of the centenary opening of King George’s Way by the Mayor of Wirral in March, we have had Windmill openings, tree/rhododendron walks, Morris Dancers on May Day, teddy bears’ picnics, a spiral dance to mark the summer solstice, fungal foray trails, forest schools, Bidston Bounty and Back to the Woods, so there has been something for all! In addition, on the mornings of Windmill openings, our friends and owners of Bidston Lighthouse are kindly providing tours which are free to Friends of Bidston Hill, Friends of Leasowe Lighthouse, Friends of Hilbre Island, Bidston Community Archaeology Group and International Lighthouse passport holders.

Late August we had our panto play ‘Robin Hood’ presented by Off-Book Theatre. This was well attended and a great success with lots of cheering and booing from the audience, especially the kids, who took great joy in showing their distaste for the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham, played very well by our good friend Nic Harding.

On October 31st we will be having our popular Halloween Ghost Walk, so if you don’t mind a bit of a ‘spine chilling’ experience be sure to come along. Keep visiting our website for information on how to book for the event.

Each week we have a Friday Group that do various tasks on the Hill, this is organised by our local Ranger, so if you have some time to spare and don’t mind getting ‘stuck in’ why not come along at around 10.00am on a Friday morning? We meet at the Tam O’Shanter Farm and have a cup of tea and a friendly chat before starting work. Tasks include; litter picking, pruning of trees, shrubs and gorse, path maintenance and a whole lot more. We are a friendly lot and you will be providing a very useful contribution to the work done by our volunteers.

So, as you can see, there is a lot happening on Bidston Hill. We will continue to plan events for the future, details of which can all be found on the ‘events calendar’ on the site.

Ending on a sad note, on Sunday 18th May, Bidston Hill lost one of its longest residents when Mary Connell of No1 Lighthouse Cottages died suddenly at Arrowe Park Hospital aged 79. Her neighbours, Mandy and Stephen Pickles, got to know her very well so I asked if they would let me have something fitting to put in our newsletter.

This is what they said:

Mary came to live in Lighthouse Cottages with her family at the age of 3. She described her childhood on the Hill with her younger sister Pat as idyllic and came to know every nook and cranny. As an adult she would walk her dogs before going to work as a Funeral Director and then again in the evening, making some good friends in the process. Mary walked the Hill until she was 74 when her health broke down and she couldn’t get about any more but she still took a great interest in what was going on.

Mary was a real character – a strong, feisty woman with a fabulous sense of humour and a heart of gold. Wary at first of her new neighbours in the Lighthouse, we all soon became firm friends and she was a great source of knowledge of all things pertaining to the Hill, Lighthouse and cottages and the Observatory. Mary loved the Hill with a passion and never wanted to live anywhere else which, happily, she was able to do until the end.

Our note on her funeral flowers :

“We will cherish ‘God’s little acre’ with you in our hearts for as long as we live but it won’t be the same without you.”

Thanks Mandy and Stephen.

That’s all for now, hope to see you out and about over the coming months. If you have something you would like to say or comment on regarding the Friends Group, you can do it either through our website or use my email address below.

Roy Caligari
Chair
roycaligari@hotmail.com

We had our first Teddy Bears’ Picnic of the year this afternoon and it was a big success!

There was a good attendance and the children brought their favourite teddy along to be weighed and measured so they could be given their official birth certificate (some teddies didn’t know when they were born so it was a good job the children could remember!) After that we all went on a teddy bear hunt in the woods as it was very important for us to find out just where all those cheeky teddies had hidden, they were having so much fun that they did not want to be found! The children that did find a teddy (all of them, what a surprise!) were very pleased to find that they could adopt the bear if they liked him or her enough and take teddy home with another official certificate of adoption to show that they were the new parents of their cuddly new friend. They all had fun filling in their certificates and colouring them with lovely designs and glitter.

It was then time to have our home prepared picnics with scrumptious sandwiches, cakes, sweets and pop. It was so yummy and everyone was having such a great time that nobody wanted to go home! From what we could see, all of the little ones had a fantastic afternoon (I think the grown-ups did too!)

A big thank you to all those that attended and for the kind donations; we raised a total of £33.50 for Claire House from the adoption of the teddies that were kindly donated by Eileen Wilshaw for which we are extremely grateful. Also, a big thank you to all of the Friends and volunteers that worked to make the event such a success. We are having another Teddy Bears’ Picnic on Friday, 29th August, so we look forward to seeing you all again then – don’t forget to tell your friends and family. Also, keep checking the events calendar on our website so you don’t miss what is happening on the Hill.

These photos are posted with the kind permission of the parents/guardians of the children.

Roy Caligari

Chair

Peter Vincent and the Mayor of Wirral

On the centenary anniversary of the opening of King George’s Way on Bidston Hill by King George V, the Friends Group were delighted to welcome the Mayor and Mayoress of Wirral to perform the unveiling of the refurbished footpath sign originally placed there on 25th March 1914.

The original sign was lost many years ago due to old age and adverse weather effects however, in 1989 Mr Cassidy, a local locksmith, had a replica made incorporating the original metal plate. Some years later the sign was damaged by vandals and was sent back to Mr Cassidy for repair but he sadly died before completion of the work. Last autumn, John Jakeman traced Mr Cassidy’s son who still had the replacement sign and metal plate, this was handed to Russ Cottrell, a local wood carver who did a fantastic job of making a new sign to house the original plate out of reclaimed mahogany.

Both Peter Vincent, our Treasurer, and Russ have put in a great deal of time and effort in creating the refurbished signpost and I would like to extend my thanks for all their hard work.

After the ceremony, and on such a special occasion, we invited the Mayor and Mayoress to visit the Windmill, which they gladly accepted as they had previously expressed an interest in viewing the interior of the building. They were both much impressed by the preserved condition of the Mill and the intact workings still in place after all these years.

All considered, we had a great afternoon and I would like to thank the Mayor and Mayoress for their kind attendance and for making this historic event so successful. I would also like to thank everyone that attended for their support and hope you enjoyed the experience as much as I did.

Roy Caligari
Chair

Centenary of King George’s Way