Parish Registers of ten Cornish parishes adjacent to the Devon boundary (plus two that are now in Devon) have been received by Holsworthy Museum courtesy of the Devon and Cornwall Record Offices.

The microfiche will be available for inspection, by appointment only, from 3rd March 2008.

The Museum is very grateful to the Devon Record Office for obtaining these for us, and we know how much they will enhance our Service Point resources.

We always look forward to welcoming many friends and visitors to the Museum on late night shopping evening.

Just outside the museum Holsworthy Army cadets had a climbing wall where anyone could pay to attempt the climb - or you could sponsor one of the cadets to do the climbing for you!  The cadets raised over £500 which will be shared between the RNLI and the new integrated imaging suite at Barnstaple hospital.

In the Square were craft and charity stalls, the Lions with burgers and soup, fair ground rides, Big Top mania & Boo Boo the clown.  Holsworthy Town band played carols and the Samba band will gave the eveing an exotic air.  Father Christmas made a special early visit to the grotto in the NatWest bank.

July 11th dawned bright and clear in Holsworthy.  The day started off at 8.00am with the reading of the Fair proclamation by the Town Crier on the site of Holsworthy's Great Tree.

Crowds waited outside the church's Belfry Door to await the presentation at 12 noon of the 'Pretty Maid' Gemma Isaac from Hollacombe.

The week saw music in the Square on each weekday evening, Rowlands Fun Fair in the Maonor car park, and interesting displays in both the church of St Peter & St Paul, and in the Methodist church in Bodmin Street.  Various other activities took place some, unfortunately, somewhat hampered by the heavy rain.

As part of the celebrations, the Museum displayed photographs of some of Holsworthy's buildings, now no longer there, and asked visitors to help mark shops they remembered on a town plan.

 

A steady stream of visitors called to meet the four members of the Devon Family History Society who had come to help anyone interested in researching their family history.  Not only did they bring the Devon FHS resources but helped intoduce people to the internet (internet access being provided at at Holsworthy Library).

Volunteers at the Museum, and staff at the Library, were on hand to explain what resources and facilites were available locally.  The Museum acts as a Service Point for Devon Record Office and manages the Local History Unit on behalf of Holsworthy Town Council.

A grant from Awards for All has enabled Holsworthy Museum to set up a dedicated website for the Second World War Hunt class destroyer HMS Tetcott.

The grant covered not only the website but a reunion of veterans and families  in October 2006, and the publication of a book "Tetcott - the Thrill of the Chase".

For more information visit www.hmstetcott.com or contact Holsworthy Museum via the Devon Museums site.

The 7th October was a big day for veterans of HMS Tetcott - it saw the largest gathering of the crew since the end of the war.

HMS Tetcott was a Hunt Class destroyer - these ships were to epitomize the tradition of the Royal Navy’s daring.  Manned mostly by reservists and ‘hostilities only’ ratings, and commanded on the whole by young officers, they played a truly magnificent role in the war at sea.  The war was to take a heavy toll on these vessels however – 24 of the 86 built became permanent casualties.   

On 7th October we celebrated the achievements of one of those vessels, named after one of the oldest hunts in the county of Devon - HMS Tetcott. 

Commissioned in the closing days of 1941, HMS Tetcott was to have an extremely active but very fortunate career - suffering no casualties throughout her wartime service. HMS Tetcott arrived in the Mediterranean at a time when little was going the way of the Allies.  The previous twelve months had proved to be amongst the Royal Navy's darkest hours. 

By the end of 1941 the serviceable ships of the Mediterranean Fleet had been reduced to just three cruisers and a handful of destroyers.   For almost the next three years Tetcott and her crew were to become involved in almost every major action in the Mediterranean theatre - Sicily, Anzio, Salerno, the Dodecanese…. 

Ten of the twenty veterans contacted arrived in Holsworthy on the day from all over the country. For most this was the first time they had met any of their shipmates since the end of the war.  There were plenty of memories to share and years to catch up on.  

Wreaths were laid on Holsworthy's War Memorial and the salute taken by Admiral Sir Nigel Essenhigh GBE DL as the parade of well over a hundred marched past.

It was a day to remember!

New book published

"Tetcott - the Thrill of the Chase" is a new book published by Holsworthy Museum.  It chronicles the full operational history of this World War II Hunt Class destroyer from its inception in 1951 to its end in 1957.

The book is lavishly illustrated with over 200 photographs and the story is brought to life with the memories and anecdotes of some of the crew.

The book was part funded by a grant from Awards for All, and is available from Holsworthy Museum Society at a cost of £20 plus p+p.











This  photograph of the ship's company was taken in Gibraltar in September 1944.

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