Camilla invited the trustees of Stroud Preservation Trust to surprise our former colleague Anne M., who retired last year, after nearly forty years of being pivotally involved in the organisation. She was one of the founder members of the trust who'd gathered together to fight to save threatened buildings in the High Street from imminent demolition. From that initial intervention the trust has gone on to rescue many other fine old buildings, the last of which was the Brunel Goods Shed by the current railway station. That was where I came in about fifteen years ago when invited to be a trustee. The history is told on our website here: The Story of Stroud Preservation Trust – Plans, protest and positive action.

Camilla, our current chair, commissioned Fionna Hesketh, a renowned local jeweller and friend of Anne, to create her own design for a commemorative piece of jewellery to mark Anne's vital contribution to the trust. She gave Fionna a single iconic photo image of the roofless Grade 2 Listed Brunel Goods Shed building taken soon after it was leased to the trust by Network Rail in the 1980s.

The shape of the arch reflects the arches fo the goods shed's original design to accommodate Brunel's original wide gauge railway track. Few buildings still exist with such dimensions. When the trust com
pleted its work it handed over a sub-lease to Stroud Valleys Artspace, a vibrant local organisation which is currently using the building for both exhibitions, cinema shows and music events. Without Anne's relentless commitment this would never have happened.

Today we finally managed to give Anne her present to mark her fellow trustees thanks and appreciation. Anne is hard to pin down, and has only recently returned from a journey to Nepal, so today was the first real chance of meeting up with her. I took some pictures for our archive and thought I should blip the actual present, with the hand-made commemorative booklet which Fionna had produced showing some of her drawings she had produced during from her design process. Unfortunately it doesn't show the beautiful ceramic back of the brooch.