We have been lucky with our noggin pubs over the years: with the colourful Greek Chef from the Hampden Arms; the puppet television show Thunderbirds loving Landlord from the Poacher; and to the glamorous, sophisticated lady owner of the Bird In Hand. Well, we now have a new Land Lord and Lady for our newest noggin pub the Cross: Mark and Tanya are quite cultured with their love of music and the arts in general. Within days of being installed at the Cross, they had a full octave piano/electric organ in place. They also want to encourage classic cars and they also welcome dogs. At our first noggin under the new management, Bert Oslar ended up entertaining the whole pub on the piano. When Bert plays "Maybe it's because Iï'm a Londoner", it brings tears to your eyes. Paul and Tanya want to turn the Cross into a traditional pub, since there are not many around these days, this must be a good thing. A great noggin venue has just got a whole load better. I hope to see you there, with Bert on the piano, of course.
I was sorry to learn about Peter Forrest's recent accident. On behalf of the Centre I would like to wish Peter a speedy and full recovery. Also, I would like to send our best wishes and thanks to Doreen, Peter's wife for keeping in touch with us. We look forward to seeing you both again soon.
In fact, don't forget we have now started the Charity Challenge for the Richard Thorne Charity Trophy for 2008 and we will be visiting Oxmog's June noggin, en masse. This will take place on Tuesday evening, 3rd June, at The Star in Stanton St John. It is about two miles from the Headington roundabout. The pub is located in a pretty village; it is a nice inn, with good food and a big car park. Please contact Glenn and Jane Davies for further details, please see below. Let's hope we will be able to see Peter and Doreen during our visit.
This month we have MOG 2008 and our short break in Sennen Cove; I hope the weather will be nice. For those of you not going to Cornwall, please note the Hampden Arms noggin will still be going ahead even though it clashes with MOG 2008. Since numbers will be down so our room booking has been cancelled but the normal bar area and garden of course will be freely available. Also, please note in July the Hampden Arms noggin clashes with the Uxbridge car show, so for this month only we shall move the noggin to Sunday 27th July.
Please also note that we have been invited by the Poacher Pub, to display our cars at the South Warnborough summer fair. The last time we were there we had a great day out. Andy Low is coordinating this event, so please contact Andy if you would like to take part. Obviously, numbers will depend on how early people going to Cornwall arrive back. Andy is hoping to get some interesting cars from Richard Thorne's stable, to make an interesting display for the members of the public. Thanks Andy for organizing this one; it was great fun last time.
Our next walk will also be in the beautiful Berkshire countryside, from material furnished by Gill Smith; thank you Gill. As June is a busy month, with many of us being away for MOG 2008, our next walk will be held over the first weekend in July, on a Saturday, this is also due to the busy summer period. We will be close to home, this time in Finchampstead. We shall be going to the Queen's Oak pub: to get there head for Finchampstead village and take the road signposted "to the church". The pub is on the right close to Finchamptead Church.