Sticks R Us

Sometimes the magical things that happen around the museum surprise even us. Graham has recently been researching stangs for a new display. The dictionary tells us that in non witchy circles, a stang is simply a stick.
I have always said that Graham has the ability to simply think about something and it will appear and sure enough Steve Patterson soon appeared with two lovely stangs for the new display. This was the first of an extraordinary sequence of stick donations.
The next stick to appear was Cecil Williamson’s old stick ‘Sticky’ which was bequeathed to us after the passing of Brownie. Cecil took his magic stick with him everywhere and Brownie inherited it after Cecil's death. Sticky is now on display near the shrine and above the obituaries of both Brownie and Cecil.
Shortly after that a chap walked into the museum with a present for Graham – you guessed it, yet another stick. This time a beautifully hand carved flying witch headed stick. Graham had told the man how much he admired his hand crafted stick last year when he visited the museum. He went away, made Graham a ‘witch stick’ and delivered it a couple of weeks ago. What a lovely thing to do.

Last week yet another donation arrived. By now we should have known it would be another stick but we never guessed that it would be such a special one. This was one of the rare glass sticks that were made C1800 in Nailsea. They were often placed near a bed as it was said that they attracted the evil spirits that caused illness. It was of course vital that they were cleaned every day to remove the ‘evil.’ Oh, and then Carole fell down the steps, injuring her foot & was on sticks for a week. But she's ok now.
What could all these sticks mean? Maybe the spirits are demonstrating how much support we have?

I have put photos of the witch headed stick, the glass stick & one of Steve Patterson's stangs.

Gerald's Typewriter

When Brownie Pate sadly died recently, she bequeathed some of her favorite magical items to the museum. One of these treasured artefacts is Gerald Gardner's typewriter. We are pretty sure it is is genuine. It's an Imperial 65 which dates to between 1952 & 1955 (approximately) & it has an Isle of Man plate on the back. We are having a further verification done by our "Gerald expert" Philip Hesselton. Joyce has been remembering her long lost secretarial skills & has typed a letter to Philip so he can compare the typeface with some of his old Gerald correspondence. Here is Joyce at her task.

Calling Accountants!

The Friends of the Museum of Witchcraft are considering applying for charitable status and may require the services of an accountant to act as one of the trustees.
We are currently asking for people with appropriate accounting qualifications and skills to put their names forward for the voluntary unpaid position. If you are interested in putting your name forward for consideration please email your details to museumwitchcraft@aol.com or write to the museum at Museum of Witchcraft, The Harbour, Boscastle, PL35 0HD.

Aussie Connections

Last weekend we were visited by Darren & Tammy, two South Africans now living in Australia. I think it's safe to say they were impressed by the library. They are involved with the recently launched Australian pagan magazine "The Crossroads" which is mainly available in Canberra bookstores or by mailorder. I believe Lilitu's Books & Music Store in Canberra is a good place to look if you'd like to check out a copy. We're hoping to receive some copies for our archives. They took a few photos so you may see our lovely faces in one of their magazines in the future. Here we are checking out the first issue of Marian Green's Quest magazine which has been running for 30 years.

Thanks to Jenny Layton in Sydney for sending us a copy of the article about the museum which appeared in the last issue of the Australian "Witchcraft" magazine. Much appreciated!

Farewell Peter Hill

Our friend, Peter Hill, passed over to the Summerlands on 22nd May 2006. Peter was an experienced witch and freemason and a great friend and supporter of the Museum. He lived in Boscastle for many years but the hilly landscape proved too difficult for his ailing hip so he moved to the less hilly Sussex coast. PeterÂ’s family have kindly donated many of his working tools to the museum for which we are very grateful.

We have fond memories of you Peter.

Graham and the Museum gang.

A Table At Last

Library visitors will be pleased to hear that we have finally purchased a table for the library. We have been wanting to get one for some time but were waiting for the right one to come along. This one has an old world feel, but is not too big that it overpowers the room. We think it's just right. What do you think?

Graham has also put in some new lighting. He'll have to expand the shelving shortly as many more books are being donated. We are up to about 4,300 books already.

Mary Ellen gets a face lift

Graham's beloved Landrover is looking extremely attractive at the moment. Mike, the local National Trust Warden is a fantastic signwriter & he's done a lovely job on Mary Ellen. Note the cute broomstick over her rear bumper. She's getting a lot of attention today. The weather has been gorgeous so she's been parked, topless, outside the museum. She has one of the newspaper stories attached to the windscreen for all to read about how she came to replace Graham's old Landrover Sally which was destroyed by the flood.