Wootton bassett why

Welcome to the Itinerary Planner. Use this tool to build your own journey or choose from an exciting range of specially selected tours. To build your own Itinerary, click to add an item to your Itinerary basket. Follow Us Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram. Royal Wootton Bassett. Wiltshire SN4 8EU. Open in Maps. On the counter beside the cooker, he lays out a plate of lopsided coconut pyramids and another of rock buns that he has made himself.

Then the former sergeant puts on his army hat, which saw him safely through north Africa, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany in the second world war, and closes the door. He sits himself down on his burgundy mobility scooter — number plate KEN S1 — and heads up the hill towards the war memorial. Wootton Bassett population 12, at the census lies five miles west of Swindon. The first recording of its existence under its early name of Wodeton was in a charter dated In around , its striking half-timbered town hall was built atop 15 pillars, so a market could be held underneath.

The last monthly cattle market took place in — the same year the town's Crimean war gun was carted off to make munitions. These days the stalls on the Wednesday market sell dog chews, budgie seed, bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables. The town has long had military associations. At the end of the century when the last Crimean veteran was laid to rest, the whole town turned out to pay their tribute. The relief of Ladysmith was celebrated with grand torchlight processions, and the news of peace with even greater rejoicings.

In the realities of war came closer. Houses were requisitioned, troops billeted on families, the high street lined with horses and vehicles, and camps were everywhere.

Nearly a century later, support for the troops is almost an obsession. Union flags are prominent, along with collecting tins for the Help4Heroes charity, and shop windows display books such as Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers and Warriors. Wootton Bassett's high street is still very old fashioned.

Stepping into Trow and Sons is like walking into a time warp. The elderly Miss Mary Trow refuses to divulge her age, though she will tell you the business has been in her family for seven generations. I stay inside the shop because I can see from in here very well.

It is a wonderful thing that the people stand out there. It's dreadful though. On a repatriation day, the numbers are swelled by high-alert police officers and sniffer dogs, soldiers in combat fatigues and caps, coiffed television people busying themselves on mobile phones, and technicians in satellite vans. There are the regulars from other branches of the British Legion, the ones who wear the medals and headgear and bring their standards or flags.

There are visiting mayors and town criers. And there are those wearing black: the friends and families of the dead soldiers. The locals, the ones to whom the place is simply known as Bassett, stand further back from the kerbside, as if to acknowledge that, today, their town is given over to something else.

Ken Scott and his scooter are up by the war memorial — a bronze-cast sculpture of a globe held aloft by four hands. He takes his place beside other members of the Bassett Legion: Tony Perkins, 77, a former petty officer in the navy who looks, his friends josh, "like Captain Birdseye", and Danny Kaye, 77, a former chief technician in the RAF.

The chairman of the branch, Tom Blundell, 30 years in the air force, says: "I have stood here on a few occasions and asked myself, 'Why do I keep coming here and upsetting myself? I saw one aged 10 who just put his hands over his eyes in tears. That's what gets you. Further down the street, Roger Haydock, a bellringer at St Bartholomew's and All Saints parish church, is waiting to hear over a police radio that the cortege has left Lyneham.

As soon as it is on his way, Haydock nips up the wooden stairs to the bell tower, and waits for a call on his mobile to signal that the cortege has stopped outside the church. Then he pulls on the thick green and gold chord and the tenor bell rings its lament. Haydock says: "I am told it changes the mood on the street as soon as the bells start ringing.

Their origins were contested but the loss and pain these events captured is indisputable. It is the case that over this twenty year period, and in the last decade in particular, much effort has put into training the Afghan army and rebuilding Afghan society, including extending the educational and other opportunities for women and children. At the same time of course, the presence of the Taliban has been felt increasingly. Staff and students invited to The Great Read discussion events.

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