Tower and Town, February 2019 (view the full edition)EditorialAudrey Peck has compiled Family News for us since August 2012. The detailed knowledge of Marlborough families that has come her way and that she has shared with us has given every issue a feel of the town as a community. Huge thanks! She is followed by Jessy Pomfret, who will be assisted by Jenny Noble and no doubt other helpers, too. Concern for the place and for the people in it inspires volunteers. In this issue, Andrew Ross shares the archive that he has created of the Marlborough men who fell in the last year of the First World War; Mary Spender’s research into the war memorials erected in local villages is displayed on the Marlborough History Society’s website; Bruce Hayllar and his colleagues do valuable work in Savernake Forest; Caro Strover gives young people in her project, Thriving Through Venture, a life-enhancing experience, by pairing them each with an adult working either here or in Gunjur. Debbie Guest contributes a book review and Karen Osborne a recipe. Barney Rosedale and Bill Yates write on the world-wide problem of illegal drugs, which has been recently pinpointed as a matter of local concern, too. Heather Cooper writes her last clergy letter for us and we wish her well when she moves on in the coming summer. Above all, we salute the late Michael Gray, who set up the Civic Society and was the inspiration behind the creation of the Merchant’s House. Knowledgeable, opinionated, challenging, irascible and charming, he insisted that Marlborough recognized its own architectural history and applied the best standards in conserving it. John Sykes makes clear the huge debt that we all owe Michael. John Osborne |