The Man Who Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo

Charles Wells was a very dubious inventor. 

Wells born sometime around 1860 duped people into investing in far-fetched inventions, among them a musical skipping rope. He was successful enough to buy a yacht equipped with a ballroom and church organ. In 1892, he sailed in it to Monte Carlo, where he had a spectacular win of 16,000 pounds at the casino and was later dubbed ‘the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.’ The attendant notoriety alerted disgruntled former investors to his whereabouts and he was sentenced to 8 years hard labour. On his release, he invented a lifebelt, which was demonstrated by a defrocked clergyman,

The Waggonette

Mr Hamblin was born in Chedzoy, Somerset in 1891, he recalls life growing up: -

Most people had to rely on the carrier’s van to take them to Bridgewater to shop. This was a horse-drawn covered wooden waggonette with facing side seats and was not very comfy with hard benches and the dust from untarred roads. The driver used to pick up passengers at Cross Tree Corner.

Mother and Father went to Bridgewater to shop most Saturday’s. They would tour the shops ordering  goods which were delivered by errand boys to the Admiral Blake Hotel. The carrier’s van left for the return from here to Chedzoy and it was often a pretty tight fit for the passengers and their purchases.

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

Mrs Hillman of Lyng in Somerset remembered celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 when she was nine years old.

She went to tea in the schoolroom at Lyng where the children were presented with celebration mugs and then went on a ride in a horse-drawn farm wagon to Burrowbridge. Everyone climbed to the top of Burrow Pump where a bonfire was lit.

Morning Cloud III

On 28 August 1974, ex-Prime Minister Edward Heath helped to publicize a novel by John Dyson called The Prime Minister's Boat is Missing. Five days later, Heath's yacht, Morning Cloud III, was lost.

Armistice Day - November by Irene Snatt

In Preston Park there is a tank.

Relic of the Battle of Cambrai.

Its rusty treads loom over,

Threatening.

I play with Army buttons,

Unwind some tattered puttees.

On corners of the shopping streets

The blind and maimed

Are selling matches.

Some veterans march.

A brass band plays

Sussex by the sea,

And Mother sighs and says

Before the Marne,

Before the Somme,

She watched the boys in khaki

March away.

By Irene Snatt.

Beware of The Goodies

Alexander Mitchell, 50, a bricklayer from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, died laughing in March 1975, while watching the TV comedy, ‘The Goodies’. He had recently eaten, and after 25 minutes of laughing on a full stomach his heart failed while he was watching a fight between a set of bagpipes and a black pudding.

Francis Waring the Vicar in a Hurry.

In the early 18^th century Francis Waring was vicar of Heybridge in Essex. He liked to get through a service as quickly as possible. Having set up a small clock on a ledge, he sped through the lessons, delivered a quick fire sermon consisting of two aphorisms and a proverb, ran down the aisle, jumped onto his horse and galloped off to repeat the performance at two neighboring churches.

He was noted, too, for an idiosyncratic dress sense, appearing in church in hats of his own devising, and on one occasion being loudly rebuked by his bishop for wearing purple at important ecclesiastical functions. The bishop was handed a card – kept in readiness for just such a purpose- on which was written, “How very good of you to notice. Do let me recommend my tailor.”