Knighton

SPRING SALE - Norton Street Baptist Church, Knighton, will be holding its spring sale at the church schoolroom on Saturday, starting at 2.30pm. There will be a good selection of plants, cakes and bric-a-brac for sale and refreshments will be available.

TABLE SALE - On Saturday, May 31, there will be a table sale in the church hall, Knighton, to raise money for the St Edward’s Church restoration fund. There are still a few tables available at £5 each. The event will take place from 10am to noon. To book a table, call 01547 528260.

FELINDRE WI - Rhona Barnett welcomed 14 members to the May meeting of Felindre WI. The roll call was ideas for fundraising events for the year. The speaker for the evening was a local lady, Mrs Tessa Gavin from Felindre, her subject being ‘My Fledgling Design Career’. Members swept the board at the county show recently winning the Mrs JAP Thomas rose bowl and the county shield. Members who competed will now represent the county at the Royal Welsh Show in July.

DAVID’S PROMISE - David Vaughan from Knighton bought a 1957 Morris 1000 two-door car 23 years ago to do up so that his daughter, Sally, could learn to drive in it. Sally is still waiting to drive the car although she passed her test 21 years ago. David has now promised Sally that she will be able to drive the car in the procession at Knighton Show and Carnival on August 30 this year. David will be busy as the car doesn’t even have an engine that works. David, who owns a garage in Knighton, is a member of the Knighton Historic Vehicles Club.

STOBART BOSS COMES TO KNIGHTON - It isn’t very often that an executive helicopter lands in Knighton, but last Friday, William Stobart, chief operating officer of the Stobart Group, arrived in one. William had come to Knighton to meet lorry driver, David Edwards, who is the owner of the last Atkinson Borderer lorry made at Preston in 1975. William had placed an advert in a magazine to try and find one of these lorries, and the advert was spotted by Roy Edwards, David’s dad, who then got in touch with the group. David’s lorry is very rare and even rarer still is the original Gardener 240 eight-cylinder engine which the lorry has. Nearly all the original Gardener 240 engines were exported to China. David bought the lorry in crates three years ago from Aylesbury and has been busy rebuilding it with his friend Mick Harris since then. David and his dad run the MA Evans transport company which in the early days had a similar lorry. William Stobart is having the lorry on loan for 18 months to go in a Stobart exhibition to be held at Crick, Northamptonshire.

FUNDRAISING EVENTS AT NORTON - Members and friends of St Andrew’s Church, Norton, have been busy in the last few weeks raising money to help run and repair the church. There has been two very successful events. First, there was the four-mile sponsored walk which took 20 walkers and one dog on a route through some of the most scenic parts of the parish. Between them, the walkers raised £600. The next event was their spring musical evening which raised over £250. Joyce Lewis, the church’s peoples warden, said: “We would like to thank everyone who took part in the walk and all those who sponsored them. The concerts saw some outstanding musical talent which was enjoyed by all, thank you to all the performers and those who supported us on the evening.” PICTURE AUCTION FOR HOPE HOUSE - Baptist artist, Helen Hopkins, donated 20 of her paintings to be auctioned in the church hall, Knighton, to raise money for Hope House. A few other artists also donated pieces of their work to help the charity. Auctioneer for the evening was John Roberts from the Tower House Gallery who worked hard to make sure paintings didn’t sell for too little. Helen was at the event and talked about her work with anyone interested in her paintings. The auction raised £400 for Hope House. NEW PETS IN SCHOOL - Nursery and Key Stage 1 pupils in Knighton Primary School have three new additions to their classrooms. Tom and Jerry, the guinea pigs, have moved in and Fluffy, the one-week old duck who was born in the school after his egg was kept in the school incubator, will be visiting the children on a regular basis. The guinea pigs will spend time in each of the infants classes and also go outside to munch the grass in the school quad area. Fluffy is able to run quite fast so will have to wait a bit until he can waddle around the school. LOTTERY GRANT FOR ST EDWARD’S CHURCH - The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded stage 1 pass* with development funding of £7,900 in addition to the £3,000 raised by the congregation and other generous supporters. This means that HLF will earmark a larger sum of money whilst more detailed plans are put together using the development grant before work starts on urgent repairs at St Edward’s Church in Knighton to restore the church to its former splendour.