Can Mistral AI read a page laid out in multiple columns in the right order?

# The Vellamy Society

*Bulletin*

Founded 1898

Number 212 · March 2026

## Spring lecture programme

Three lectures are arranged for the spring, all at the Assembly Rooms on Vardenne Quay at half past seven. On 11 March Dr Aileen Prosser will speak on the salt industry of the upper estuary; on 8 April Mr Colm Tarbert will describe the 1953 flood as it was recorded at Kellow; and on 13 May the Society's archivist, Miss Ruth Sandiman, will introduce the Harrowby field books, which the Society acquired last autumn.

Members may bring one guest without charge. Tea is served from seven o'clock, and the room is open from half past six for those who wish to look at the exhibits. Anyone needing a lift from the town should telephone the honorary secretary, who keeps a list of members willing to offer one.

## The Harrowby field books

The eleven field books kept by Thomas Harrowby between 1871 and 1904 came to the Society in October, the gift of his great-granddaughter, and are now with the county record office for conservation. They are working notebooks rather than journals: tide times, wind, the state of the banks at Thrimby, the names of the men who worked each reach, and here and there a sketch of a channel that has since moved half a mile. The eighth book, which covers the winter of 1889, is the one most often asked for, because it records the breach at Kellow in some detail and gives the height of the water against the wall of the old lifeboat house.

The Society hopes to publish a transcript of the eighth book, and would welcome help with it. What is wanted is not palaeography - the hand is a clear one - but local knowledge: field names, the older names for the reaches, and the identification of men named only by a surname and an initial. Members who could give an evening a month to this should write to the archivist.

## The summer excursion

The summer excursion will be to Marnhead on Saturday 20 June, to see the salt pans and what is left of the tramway on the north side of the harbour. Mr Tarbert has agreed to lead the walk, which is about three miles over rough ground and is not suitable for anyone who cannot manage a stile. The coach leaves the Assembly

Rooms at half past nine and is back by six. The cost, including the coach and the entry to the harbour office, is fourteen pounds, and members should book with the excursion secretary before 1 June.

## New members and gifts

The Society welcomes seven new members since the autumn bulletin: three from Vardenne, two from Braithe, one from Kellow and one, to the committee's particular pleasure, from Winnipeg. The library has received the bound volumes of the Braithe Advertiser for 1928 to 1934 from the estate of the late Mr E. Lissamer, and an album of photographs of the 1947 regatta from Mrs Prosser of Thrimby. Both have been accessioned and may be consulted on the usual notice.

## Notes and queries

A member asks whether anyone can identify the building in the postcard reproduced in the autumn bulletin. The committee's view is that it is the old ferry office at Vardenne, pulled down about 1961, but the roof line does not match the photograph in the Society's own collection and the question is left open. Replies to the archivist, please, and not to the editor, who is away until April.

## Subscriptions

Subscriptions for the year beginning 1 April are unchanged: eighteen pounds for a member, twenty-six pounds for two members at one address, and six pounds for members under twenty-five. Those who pay by standing order need do nothing. The Society remains grateful to the twenty-one members who add a donation to their subscription.

## The old lifeboat house