Georgette portrays a number of characters from Queen Victoria to Edith Cavell. On this occasion she appeared as Wymondham woman Ethel Gooch who was the wife of MP Edwin "Ted" Gooch.
Gooch was a Labour Party politician and trade union leader who spent his entire life in Wymondham, having been born there. He was a journalist by trade and became chair of the Norwich branch of the National Union of Journalists - an organisation I was once a member of before leaving to join the much more moderate Institute of Journalists.
In 1935, Gooch became chairman of the new Wymondham Urban District Council. Ethel became the council's first lady member in 1935 and its first lady chairman in 1951.
Ted Gooch was elected to the executive committee of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers in 1926 and was their president from 1928 until his death in 1964. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the South Norfolk Constituency in the 1931 general election. He was eventually elected MP for North Norfolk in 1945 and held the seat for the rest of his life.
He was chairman of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1955 to 1956. Ethel was also closely involved in Norfolk politics and in supporting her husband.
Hearing the talk made me think about how close the current situation in our country is to that of the General Strike of 1926 which started on 3rd May and lasted for nine days and that's frightening because it shows that in some ways we just haven't moved forward as a nation. The phrase same old same old springs to mind.
I did learn a new word during the presentation - Wayzgoose - which is something I should have been aware of as a journalist who formerly worked with printers.
A Wayzgoose or wayz-goose, waygoose or wayzegoose was at one time an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about 24th August. It marked the traditional end of summer and the start of the season of working by candlelight. Later, the word came to refer to an annual outing and dinner for the staff of a printing works or the printers on a newspaper.
Apparently Ted Gooch worked for a time on the Norwich Mercury, a newspaper I also worked on as a sub editor as well as being sports editor for quite a few years. I don't think many people today remember the Norwich Mercury, although there is a blue plaque to it in Norwich which reads as follows:
"The Norwich Post, England's First Provincial Newspaper, was first printed on this site in 1701 by Francis Burges. The city also claims the record for the longest continuously printed local newspaper, the Norwich Mercury, founded in 1714."
For anyone interested, the plaque is close to London Street in the city centre. Incidentally London Street doesn't lead to London in any way shape or form but it does have the distinction of being the first pedestrianised street in England in 1967.
But going back to the Norwich Mercury, just thinking about it makes me sad. I hate it when hundreds of years of history is destroyed overnight and this seems to happen all too often with newspapers. It was only a few years ago that publishers Archant decided to wipe out almost 300 years of publishing by killing off the Norwich Mercury. That to me is a form of sacrilege. Thankfully thousands of pages of the Mercury are now available on the British Newspaper Archive.
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A lovely piece on television yesterday and today. Former international footballer Lou Macari has set up a number of pods in Stoke for homeless people. He is supporting young people to help them find a better life. Lou realises that he is facing the stiffest opponents of his entire life though in the shape of drugs, which many of those he is trying to help are using.
I was also moved by the work being undertaken by Search and Rescue staff in helping with the survivors of the Turkish earthquake. Their humbleness and bravery is an object lesson to us all. One guy was asked if he didn't fear for his own safety and said something along the lines of "you don't think about that when there are lives to be saved."