NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS
These notes have to be in on 27th August due to Bank Holiday as quite naturally those at ‘Our Dogs’ would like to have the Bank Holiday as a holiday . So, anything you do over the Bank holiday weekend will be in next week’s notes. Please remember that these are your notes and I cannot write about what you do unless you tell me!
You know I like to write about anything you do with your Buhunds, but this time it is a rather loose connection with Buhunds, although it is always great to know the varied things you partake in. One of my better subjects at school was History and I was born during the war so the following interested me on both counts.
Back on 15th August Jacqui Walmsley posted on her FB page “Wonderful non doggy day out with the dogging crew of myself, Anne-marie Taylor and Julie Rivers we took the Imber Bus into the ghost village of Imber, on Salisbury Plain, then onto Gore Cross, Market Lavinton and Chitterne. There were 40 buses, some vintage, some brand new with approx 4,000 people, but it never felt crowded. We drank lots of tea and dunked biscuits. Our final bus was driven by the MD of Stagecoach himself. Well, done Imber, so well organized had an amazing day.” I had heard of Imber so I thought I would research it a bit more. The annual Imberbus event sees classic London Transport Routemasters alongside a handful of newer buses, travel along roads through the Ministry of Defence training area that are normally off limits to the public. The service runs on just one day each year, taking passengers from Warminister railway station through the restricted landscape to Imber and other rarely visited parts of Salisbury plain. Imber has been largely deserted since its residents were ordered to leave during the second World War so the village could be used for military training. Access to the area remains heavily restricted with the road through the village opened to the public on only a handful of days each year. Imberbus began in 2009 when a group of bus industry professionals fulfilled a long-standing ambition to run a vintage bus service from Warminster to the abandoned settlement. The annual event also raises money for good causes, including the Friends of St Giles Church in Imber, the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal; as well as other charities supported by organisations involved with Imberbus. History fans can explore a perfect time capsule in Imber, which was evacuated and turned into a military training area in 1943, helping to prepare soldiers to turn the tide of the war. Some 150 residents were forced out of their homes and given 47 days to evacuate under the promise that they would be able to retune when the war ended. But now over 80 years later the village is still occupied by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), with the public only allowed in for 12 days each year granted by the MOD from 11am to 4pm to visit the Grade1 listed St Giles Church, the custodian of the church Neil Skelton says there is always a huge number of visitors to the Church each year. Many of the original cottages have been destroyed by time but as well as the Church the old pub still remains .The village and its surrounding countryside still plays a vital role in the military, it is now being used to help train Ukrainian soldiers in their fight against Russia following Putin’s invasion. Other building that stood in the 1940s were demolished after being badly damaged during training exercises, but despite this the public can still soak up the history of the site on the allocated occasions, surrounded by rubble and signs warning of unexploded ordnance and other relics of past training exercises.
Commenting on Jacqui’s FB post Carolyn Soloman said ‘I visited in the 1970s when I was living on the edge of Salisbury Plain at Easterton near Devizes. I think then they opened it up for just one day a year. It was well worth visiting but so sad that the villagers had to leave their homes forever’.
One piece of Buhund news Marie Corin and Adam Camm’s Mazads Nom De Plume (Dexter), by Ch Kligenthal Almuric (SHCEX) x Gladidegelli Arvejente For Rikarlo (A.I) has had a clear eye test.
Next week normal service will be resumed with some show reports.
Margaret Deuchar margaretdeuchar@gmail.com
Any views expressed in Margaret’s Breed Notes are hers and hers alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Buhund Club of the UK