BEAVERS: The 1st Silsden (St James) Beavers now meet on Fridays at 5.15pm to 6.15pm for boys and girls aged between 6 and 8 with spaces now available. Contact 07719 332972.

CAMERA: A meeting of the Camera Club was held in St James’S Church hall when the competition was Frost and Ice for which there was a good selection of photographs. Results were: Colour first D Craven, second N Bland, third A Clough, fourth B Seymour. Black and white: first and second N Bland, third J Barker, fourth A Clough. The next meeting will be held again in St James Church Hall on Wednesday 1st February at 7.30pm when the subs £10 will be payable. Bring a problem photograph and be advised how best it can be improved.

CIRCLE: The speaker at the January meeting of the Ladies Circle was Betty Crabtree. Her talk was about her varied and interesting life based mainly in Silsden. There were amusing anecdotes about her travels with her father in his grocery van round the farms and of the characters she met and came to love and kept as lifelong friends The meeting up with her future husband Bill Crabtree took her from the grocery trade to becoming a butcher’s wife running a shop. After being a parish councillor for three years she became vice-chairman and later chairman. This led to two outstanding moments in her life. She was asked to show the visiting Home Secretary Douglas Hurd around Silsden and she was also in the company of Denis and Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister. Mrs Thatcher was pleased to hear Betty was a grocers daughter. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, February 7, at 7.45pm at Silsden Methodist Church Hall. There will be a brief annual meeting and a quiz.