Salisbury U3A Press Report
October 2004

At the October meeting of the Salisbury and District U3A, the chairman John Illston announced that Jack Leeming had been co-opted on to the committee as vice-chairman, to become chairman in March. There are vacancies in several groups – Birding, Gardening, Bridge, and others. The October outing is a tour of Sussex Coastal Curiosities. The November outing is to the British Museum and Monet exhibition, in December there is a day in Bath, in January a visit to the Watermill in Newbury to see A Winter's Tale, and in February a visit to the Mayflower in Southampton to see Rebecca. The Anniversary Lunch is on 3rd November. Rex Sawyer, ex-headmaster and local historian, author of several books on the Wiltshire area, gave a most eloquent and fascinating talk with slides on Imber, the deserted village. He traced the village's growth through sheep farming to the time before the First World War when the Army bought land to the east of Imber. The training of troops brought noise and disruption; and a dreadful tragedy in 1942, when Winston Churchill was being shown the power of fighter planes, resulted in 25 dead and 71 injured. In 1943 the War Office gave the villages 47 days to get out of Imber and find other homes. In 1961, Austin Underwood led a crowd of 2000 people and 700 vehicles into Imber. A board of Inquiry was held in January 1961 to decide whether the villages would be allowed to return to Imber, but the Army won the right to keep it as part of the Salisbury Plain military area. Two concessions were granted – on 50 days of the year the roads to Imber would be open, and on the first Saturday in September each year the church would be open.