Our congratulations to Primrose Everitt and Michael Thorne, winners of the competitions which have run throughout summer 2019 at our 'Crediton Station: A Brief Encounter' exhibition.
9 year old Haywards School pupil Primrose from Crediton won the “Write a Letter Home” Competition. Primrose (shown right) was delighted with her prizes, a book token and some chocolates, which were presented to her by committee member Cheryl Lewis. In the competition, children were invited to imagine life as a wartime evacuee, and think about what they would write home to their parents if they were sent away to live in a strange place that they had never been to before to live with people they had never met.
Primrose's winning entry was:
Dear Mother.
Elsie and I were both scared when we arrived at Crediton Station, but then we saw two old people walking up to us with smiles on their faces I felt a lot better. We walked a little way out of Crediton to a farm which was called Hill Farm. The farm has lots of animals including horses, cows, dogs, cats, sheep, pigs, ducks and chickens. My daily jobs are to collect the eggs and bring in the horses and feed the pigs. Elsie's jobs are to feed the chickens, lay the table and collect the vegetables. When I am not working on the farm, I am at school. The school is very nice and it is now quite full because of all the other evacuees. I have made a lot of friends who are also evacuees. I miss you loads. I hope we will be together soon. Stay safe.
Love from Primrose.
Our thanks to everyone who wrote such lovely, heartwarming letters.
In the Mystery Item Competition, visitors were invited to identify the item in the photograph below. Michael was selected at random from the 6 correct entrants.
In case you haven't recognised it already, it is a device for polishing the inside of petrol or diesel engine cylinder bores to remove the 'glaze' caused by long use, or to finish a re-bore done to recut a worn bore to a larger size. An electric drill is attached to the top of the spindle and is set to run at very low speed. The arms spread out inside the bore by spring pressure. The pads on the ends are carborundum stones, or similar, and the whole is worked up and down in the bore as well as rotated. Paraffin, or a similar substance, is used to lubricate and wash away the dross. If rebored cylinders are being finished, several sets of stones of different 'grits' would be used.