It was called part two not surprisingly because I previously gave them part one and it must have gone down well because they asked me back (either that or they have run out of speakers).
Over the past year or so I have been collecting details of people who either lived in Hethersett or were born here. I came up with many interesting characters and have put details of many of them on my village website.
I have divided these up into three individual talks that I hope people will find interesting. Have you for example heard of Ran Laurie. No I thought not. You will have heard of his son Hugh Laurie.
Well Ran Laurie or to give him his full name William George Ronald Munell Laurie was born in 1915 and died in 1998. Ran Ran Laurie was a physician, Olympic rowing champion and gold medallist who was born in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, in 1915 of Scottish descent.
Laurie rowed for Cambridge in the 1934, 1935 and 1936 boat races, all of which were won by Cambridge. At the 1936 Olympics, he rowed as stroke in Great Britain's eight, the team eventually finishing in fourth place. Together, Laurie and Jack Wilson, rowing for the Leander Club, won the Silver Goblets ay Henley Royal Regatta in 1938.
After war interrupted their rowing careers, Laurie and Wilson returned to Henley in 1948, once again winning the Silver Goblets. This was followed a month later by a gold medal in the coxless pairs event at the 1948 London Olympics, rowing on their familiar Henley course.
Laurie was elected a steward of Henley Royal Regatta in 1951, and also served as a Henley umpire. He sat on Henley's management committee between 1975 and 1986.
Laurie joined the Sudan Political Service in 1936 and, in 1954, he qualified as a medical doctor, working for 30 years as a GP in Oxford. He also chaired the Oxford Committee f the Duke of Edinburgh's Award between 1959 and 1969, and the Oxford branch of Save the Children from 1986 to 1989.
Laurie was married to Patricia Laidlaw from 1944 until her death in in 1989. They had two daughters and two sons, the youngest of whom is Hugh Laurie, who followed in his father's footsteps, rowing for Selwyn College and Cambridge University.
So where is the Hethersett connection I hear you ask. Well in 1990 he married Mrs Evaline Mary Arbuthnot, née Morgan in Hethersett. Laurie died of Parkinson's Disease in 1998 at the age of 83 whilst living in Hethersett. It is likely therefore that actor and all-round good bloke Hugh Laurie visited his father and stepmother in our village.
Another very interesting former Hethersettian was Matthew Hamont (died 20 May 1579) who was a Hethersett ploughwright, accused of heresy, and who was burnt at the stake in Norwich Castle by the Church of England.
The Bishop of Norwich, Edmund Freke, accused Hamont of denying Christ to be a Saviour. On 19th May, 1579, Hamont's ears were cut off and the following day he was burned to death.
There are a number of alternative spellings of his name which include Hamonte, Hammonte, and Hammante. It is likely that his family were of Dutch Dutch origin.
Early in 1579 he was cited before Edmund Freke on a charge of denying Christ. The articles exhibited against him represented him as "a coarse kind of deist," holding the Gospel to be a fable, Christ a sinner, and the Holy Ghost a nonentity. Theologian William Burton had this to say about Hamont.
"I haue knovven some Arrian heretiques, whose life hath beene most strict amongest men, whose tongues haue beene tyred with scripture upon scripture, their knees euen hardned in prayer, and their faces wedded to sadnesse, and their mouthes full of praises to God, while in the meane time they haue stowtly denied the diuinitie of the Sonne of God, and haue not sticked to teare out of the Bible all such places as made against them; such were Hamond, Lewes, and Cole, heretikes of wretched memorie, lately executed and cut off in Norwich."
Hamont was condemned in the consistory court on 13th April, and handed over to the custody of the sheriff of Norwich. His offences were aggravated by a further charge of 'blasphemous words' against the Queen and council, for which he was sentenced to lose his ears, and for his heresy to be burned alive. On 20th May, 1579, his ears were cut off in the Norwich market-place, and he was burned in the castle moat.
Well enough for today. I'm going to make you wait another day to unveil the celebrity we saw in Wymondham. I can feel the tension building.