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Issue 11 August

Issue 12 September

This beautiful manuscript ‘Family Tree’ was produced in 1926 by the Royal College of Heralds!

I was interviewed on Brewery History this morning by Kirsten Walker just after the 10.00 am news. To listen, click HERE and go to 07.30 for the 1st session.

I have just received this lovely post card, printed in Dover. Can anybody please date it or identify any images?

In 1929 Lewis Farrugia & Eric Simonds established Simonds Farsons Ltd to brew & distribute beer in Malta. Click below for the story:

I was honoured to be invited to speak about ‘The Simonds Family of Reading’ and their connections to Basingstoke.  The presentation is below.read more…

My lovely niece has contracted the little known and even less understood Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. If you would like to know more of her or of this cancer, or even to contribute to its cure, please click HERE: 

There were about 65 new pub images loaded in the spring with another 25 in October! Nearly all kindly contributed by John Berry. Some have not been identified – so please do have a look and see if you can help with this?

Our thanks to Karen & Gillian who lent me their grandfather George Bennet’s precious copy of a rare Hop Leaf Gazette dated May 1932.  It is now available to all of you on THIS PAGE  They also contributed some images of his Brewery ‘life’.  If there are any more Gazettes ‘out there’ do please let me borrow them briefly – so they can go up on this site and become more widely available.

On April 18th I was honoured to speak about ‘The Simonds Family of Reading’ with a focus on our geographically diverse origins and the ‘Adventurers and Entrepreneurs’ who helped to set up and lead H&G Simonds Ltd as well as other businesses.  If you face a long boring evening and would like to see the full presentation with speakers notes and including a few slides not shown on the evening through time constraints, then you can load it HERE:   read more…