Kington

FESTIVAL -- This year, on Kington Past day (June 8) and Carnival and Gala day (June 22), for the first time, performances will be given by the T J country Connection line dance team. The dancers, two of whom are Kington girls, have enjoyed their most successful year, winning the UK and Universal supreme championship, and not only have they succeeded as a team but they have also scooped top honours in junior trios and duos. The team dances to a wide range of music, which embraces country and western as well as popular and chart-topping favourites, catering for the broad age range of its audiences. To fill the gap left in the festival programme by the loss of the Offa's Dyke 15 race, Kington Tennis Club, the Lady Hawkins School Association and the organisers of the antiques fair are marshalling their forces. Their events are all based around the Lady Hawkins School/Leisure Centre/Youth Centre area, all are 'new' this year, and all three will be held on Sunday, June 16, along with the exemption dog show which takes place on the recreation ground. The tennis club's event is a family tennis day, and the school association's contribution is its family fun day, with such attractions as a golf competition and face painting, to say nothing of the school's headmaster, Jon Barry, along with other members of the staff and pupils, in the stocks, as a way of fund-raising. This year will also see the first Kington Festival Antiques and Collectors Fair at the Leisure Centre, and new stall-holders should contact Val on 01544 231191.

BADGER - Representing Herefordshire in St John Ambulance regional competitions at Smethwick, these Offa's dyke Badgers from Kington did very well to take third place, says supervisor Maureen McQueen. David Smith, Leah Eggerton (reserve) and Matthew Scott were in competition with teams from Shropshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Staffordshire and Worcestershire.

MERIT -- Kington's premier tourist attraction, Hergest Croft Gardens, won two prestigious awards of merit at last week's Chelsea Flower Show for two plants from the gardens. One of the two awards, which are among the royal Horticultural Society's premier honours for plants, went to the azara microphylla 'variegata' from Chile and Argentina, a slightly tender large shrub with cream coloured variegation on its small leaves, which grows on the terrace in front of the house (Hergest Croft). The second award went to a vigorous climber called schizandra, the species is as yet unidentified, and reaching 15 feet high has pink and red flowers. recent collections of similar plants have been made on the Tibetan border. the azalea garden at Hergest Croft will be at its peak over the Bank holiday weekend, with masses of soft coloured, sweet scented flowers, says a spokesman, adding that the collections of Ghent and Knaphill azaleas have recently been visited by two parties of experts to check on the varieties that were planted from 1900 onwards. 'Two Belgian experts have been able to name most of the plants in the garden and say that the collection is of great historic importance. 'Ghent azaleas, of which there are many in the garden, get their name from Ghent in Belgium, where they were raised from the early 19th century onwards, they were made by crossing North American species with the sweet scented rhododendron (azalea) luteum from Asia Minor, and are generally of pastel shades.' The spokesman adds: 'Experts from the rhododendron group of the Royal Horticultural Society examined the more recent Knaphill azaleas that were created by Waterers' Nursery at Knaphill near Woking in Surrey. ' These varieties are much brighter coloured but less scented, and once again the gardens have an extensive collections of varieties planted by William Hartland Banks, father of the late Dick Banks, in the 1920s. 'The combination of both groups produces a spectacular display.'

VANDAL -- So concerned are Kington Town Council members about the amount of wanton vandalism and damage that is occurring in the town, that they have decided to offer a reward of up to £150 for information leading to successful conviction. Ina press statement, town clerk Esther Rolls adds: 'If you have any information which will help the police and will result in a conviction, then please do not hesitate to contact me at the Council Offices, 2 Mill Street' (phone/fax 01544 239098). The offer follows a number of instances of mindless vandalism perpetrated in the town during recent years, allegedly by young, and sometimes very young members of the community, who appear to be beyond parental control. The last serious instance was as recently as mid-March of this year, when considerable damage was done to the Victorian shelter in the town's riverside Recreation Ground, one of its very attractive landmarks.

PARRY -- Just 18 years ago Kington History Society published the first edition of a book to which editor John Southwood gave the title of 'The Further Recording of Richard Parry, the Kington Historian.' By popular demand, a second edition has now been made available by the society, priced at £2.50, so that others will be able to discover for themselves the breadth of the interests of Parry, whose monumental history of Kington appeared in 1845. It was printed and published by the proprietor of the towns first newspaper, The Kington Gazette, one Charles Humphreys, whose wife and daughters continued to print the paper for some years after he died. Parry's further recordings are an engaging pot-pourri of mainlymid-19th century life in a small rural town, involving people and events thought by the author to be of interest, and to some extent reflecting interests which were peculiarly his own. If it deserved publication in 1984, it certainly does now, 18 years later, in the light of the changes which have come to Kington during that period, and those who do not know the book are in for a treat when they first read it.