“Rivers, canals and lakes” was the fitting theme for the June meeting, taking place as it did in Tintern on the river Wye in full flow after the huge amount of rain that had fallen in the previous week. Nearby landslides and road closures necessitated a rather circuitous route in for many and some members, very sadly, failed to make it at all! Those that did, enjoyed a very pleasant day’s puzzling with a lovely view of Tintern Abbey, located just a few hundred yards away, and the sun even came out later in the day.
Almost a dozen members contributed to the Show & Tell session sharing a wide range of beautiful and interesting puzzles. Among these were a high quality Liberty puzzle “On the Ngare Ndare River’, a melee of African animals, by artist Alex Beard Ngare Ndare and a rare early C20th Peacock Great Society Craze Puzzla 400 piece puzzle of “Bolton Abbey and River Wharfe” by R.F.McIntyre with cattle enjoying themselves in the river in the foreground, both part of Jackie’s collection. Phil followed Jackie with a Chad Valley puzzle from their Dunlop series. Titled “Barge Scene” it is one of the rarest in the thirteen puzzle series they produced in 1937-38. Martin had just one puzzle to share, a 750 piece Raphael Tuck of the little known “Loch Whin” in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, painted by Walter Severn. The puzzle was initialled “JVB Dec 25-27th, 1915” with further notes on the underside of the box, dated June 1917, “1 piece missing” and “Considerable amount of sky”!
Sue, at her first BCD meeting, shared one of the 35 puzzles she owns cut by Chris Carrick. Branded “Almost Abstract”, “Waterfalls” is a 317 piece 5 ply puzzle with amazing cuts, full of whimsies and lovely tactile pieces. Lynne showed a challenging looking 300 piece Martin Noorgate puzzle of Stanley Spencer’s beach scene “Southwold” and “Waiting for The Ferry” from an unknown manufacturer’s “Wessex Series” of puzzles.
Other puzzle manufacturers on show included Salmon, Vera, Marvel and F.Green. The puzzle made by the latter being a C19th “The Lord Mayor’s Show By The Water” depicting the grand barge spectacular that ran from its inception in the C15th up to 1856 when the barges used were sold off to Oxford colleges, but whose design was the inspiration for the Royal Barge commissioned for the Queen’s 2012 Diamond Jubilee.
See Gallery page for more photos of the puzzles shared at this meeting.
Thanks to Sally who hosted the meeting and also provided a much-appreciated early-evening meal for those members who wanted to prolong the day’s enjoyment.