Twenty members plus three guests attended and proceedings commenced, as usual, when grace was said.

After lunch we all drank a bumper toast to HM The Queen (little knowing that it was to be the last time).

Barry Shears then read a humorous and apt quotation that was well received by all present.

The President reported the result of a survey of members’ views on the future location of meetings of the Club and advised that the Committee would be meeting to discuss the views and suggestions raised during the survey.  He said that all members would be given an opportunity to comment on any changes recommended by the Committee.

Birthday greetings were offered to those members who would be celebrating before the forthcoming meeting.

The raffle was drawn and Don Nicholson was declared the winner.

Arthur Arscott introduced Bill Murray as our speaker for a talk that he had entitled “Growing up with Sir Winston Churchill“.

Bill explained that his father was a policeman who had been appointed to ensure the security of Sir Winston Churchill.  The appointment started when Bill was a young boy and continued for many years and included the period after Sir Winston’s retirement.  We were told the implications that the appointment had on Bill and his family and heard snippets of encounters between Bill and Sir Winston or of visits to Sir Winston’s home in Kent.  The fascinating talk was illustrated with many pictures taken by Bill’s father, some of which showed Sir Winston following his passion for painting and which had more recently been used to authenticate the attribution of Sir Winston to certain paintings that had been included in a book about Sir Winston’s paintings.

Bill invited and answered a number of questions arising from his talk.

On behalf of the Club’s members Don Nicholson proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker and the proposal was adopted unanimously.

The meeting was closed following a traditional  toast to “ The next time“

The Club usually meets on the first Tuesday in the month although currently we meet on a Wednesday. Any one interested in attending the meetings or joining the club is invited to contact the Secretary, Barry Shears, at ‘barryglge@gmail.com‘ “.

Members of Crediton Probus Club met at The Red Lion PH at Shobrooke For their regular November meeting with an item on the agenda indicating that Mr David Walter was going to give a talk entitled The history of Ernest Jackson. Such a simple title might have been a reminder that the title page of a book does not always give a true impression of the quality of the following pages: so it proved at our meeting.  The title of the talk proved to be a perfect disguise for a very welcome good-news story as David revealed the truth behind one of the best kept secrets of Crediton.

Most of us had seen the company´s name plate halfway along the High Street but few knew that it related to a successful local business that had been based in the town for 200 years.

David, who is the Chief Executive of the company, explained that it manufactures a wide variety of ´medicated sweets such as throat lozenges and cough pastilles.  He said that the manufacture is highly regulated for health safety reasons but the company had developed products that met changing requirements and tastes of the public and had been prepared to accept the obligations imposed by the statutory regulations; the result being that the company had become a big player in what he described as a niche national market.

We were told that the development, manufacture and packaging of the company’s products continues to take place in Crediton but its success is putting pressure on its ability to find suitable local accommodation for expansion.

The interest of our members in the talk was marked by the wide variety of questions that they asked of our speaker.

After a vote of thanks to David, the meeting closed after a toast To the next time.December’s meeting of the Club is due to take place on the 7th at the same venue.