The second speaker, Christine Adams, gave a talk about her amazing aunt May Savidge. Even before making newspaper and television headlines May had led an extraordinary life, which the speaker outlined. Never throwing anything away, May was a hoarder of everything from bus and train tickets to soap powder packets and newspapers. Tickets, letters and other ephemeral items were filed in copious copies of the Radio Times - and she compiled over 400 diaries! During the war she became the first engineering draughtswoman working on Mosquito aircraft at De Havilland, while a Thames river bus became her home. Then in 1947 she bought a Medieval house dating from 1450 in Ware, Hertfordshire, which would ultimately bring her fame. It was in 1953 that the local council told her the historic house was to be compulsorily purchased and demolished to make way for a roundabout. For 15 years she fought the council, though in the end without success. But the plucky lady was still not beaten and in 1969 she decided to move the whole house to a plot of land she had purchased at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. She even approached the R.A.F. and the United States Air Force to see if they could transport the house by helicopter, but neither could help. So with a little assistance from a contractor she herself dismantled the heavy oak timbers, the tiles and the rest of the building and had all the pieces, which she had painstakingly numbered, taken by a lorry, which made 11 round trips, to Norfolk. Four years later and working each day to a target she saw the framework fixed to the foundations by a local carpenter, but it would be another 8 years before the roof was on. All this time she lived a Spartan existence in a caravan on the site. On her death in 1992 at the age of 82 May had still not finished her work and she bequeathed the house to Christine, who was able to sell some of her aunt’s hoarded treasures to finance the job’s completion.

In 1986 the Queen had recognized the plucky lady by inviting her to a Buckingham Palace garden party and her story has been immortalized in a best seller, written by Christine, who now runs a B&B at the iconic house.

Tony Wright, the chairman, thanked both speakers.