A presentation entitled “Reepham Caring for the Wounded in WWI” will be held on Friday 22 November at 7 pm in the Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham.

The Bircham Centre and the Town Hall played a key role during the First World War, together forming a Red Cross Hospital caring for wounded soldiers.

The presentation will look at the care Reepham provided and some of the key people who helped deliver that care.

The evening will start with wine and cheese, before telling some of the stories and showing some of the documents and records held by the Reepham Archive.

Tickets are £5 (cash only), including wine and cheese, and can be bought from the Bircham Centre office, Monday to Friday mornings, or on the door on the evening.

The post The story of Reepham’s First World War hospital appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Featuring 13 photographs capturing the town’s history over the past century, the calendar also includes modern-day images of each scene, mostly taken by local photographer John Tym.

The calendar can be purchased (price £8) from Johnson’s of Reepham, Robertson’s Family Butchers, the Bircham Centre Charity Shop, Reepham Archive and St Mary’s Reepham.

To order by post, please send a cheque for £9.50 (UK only, includes postage and packaging) made out to “Reepham Community Press”, Homerton House, 74 Cawston Road, Reepham, Norfolk NR10 4LT. Please include your full address and a telephone number.

To pay by bank transfer, please contact us for our account details.

Please also contact us for further details of airmailed copies to Europe and elsewhere.

Further information HERE

The post Reepham Life 2025 Calendar now on sale appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

By our technology correspondent

If you’ve been on planet Earth for the past couple of months you’ve probably heard of the computer program known as ChatGPT.

Widely hailed as the first artificial intelligence (AI) app to generate realistic text on any topic that’s thrown at it, ChatGPT is easily mistaken for a human at the keyboard.

But the “chatbot” launched by US company OpenAI is also well known for sometimes saying things that aren’t true.

The problem is that it’s hard to spot these lapses unless you know the topic well, because ChatGPT is so convincing.

So at Reepham Life we thought we’d check how well the bot knows our town.

ChatGPT, can you tell me a few facts about Reepham in Norfolk?

Yes, of course! Here are a few facts about Reepham in Norfolk:

1. Reepham is a small market town located in the county of Norfolk in the east of England. It has a population of around 2,500 people.
2. The town dates back to the 11th century, and was an important market town during the Middle Ages.
3. Reepham is home to a number of historic buildings and landmarks, including the 14th-century St Mary’s church, which has a distinctive tower known as the “Reepham Rocket”.
4. Another notable building in Reepham is the former railway station, which has been converted into a community hub known as The Station.
5. The town is surrounded by beautiful countryside, including the Norfolk Broads and the North Norfolk coast, both of which are popular destinations for visitors.
6. Reepham is also known for its annual summer festival, which features a range of events and activities for all ages.
7. In recent years, the town has become a hub for cycling and outdoor activities, with a number of cycling routes passing through the area.
8. Reepham has been used as a filming location for a number of TV shows and films, including the BBC drama “Love on a Branch Line” and the 2008 movie “The Duchess”.

Not bad! ChatGPT might be confusing Reepham’s two stations, and it doesn’t seem to know what the summer festival is for exactly, but most of the text is correct, if a bit dull.

Until we get to point number 3: “St Mary’s church… has a distinctive tower known as the ‘Reepham Rocket’.”

ChatGPT, what planet are you on? No-one we asked had ever heard of this name for the church tower.

“It hasn’t even got a pointy bit!”, said local historian Janet Archer of Reepham Archive. “This is a wind-up,” agreed fellow archivist Ann Middlemas.

Still, you have to admit it’s a clever idea. So we turned to ChatGPT’s sister AI app DALL·E 2, which generates artwork from simple written descriptions.

“DALL·E 2, give me a cubist painting of an English parish church whose tower is a Saturn V rocket.” The result is shown above, and we think it’s rather cool.

So do we have any installation artists willing to create a real Reepham Rocket?

The post What planet are you on, ChatGPT? appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Featuring 13 nostalgic photographs capturing the town’s history over the past century, the calendar also includes modern-day images of each scene, mostly taken by local photographer John Tym.

The calendar can be purchased (price £8) from Johnson’s of Reepham, Robertson’s Family Butchers, Bircham Centre Charity Shop, Reepham Archive and St Mary’s Reepham.

To order by post, please send a cheque for £9.50 (UK only, includes postage and packaging) made out to “Reepham Community Press”, Homerton House, 74 Cawston Road, Reepham, Norfolk NR10 4LT.

To pay by bank transfer, please contact us for our account details.

Please also contact us for further details of airmailed copies to Europe and elsewhere.

Further information HERE

The post Reepham Life 2023 Calendar now on sale appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Published by Reepham Community Press in association with the Reepham Archive, calendars can be purchased for just £8 each at selected retail outlets in the town.

Calendars can also be ordered in advance of publication.

To order by post, please send a cheque for £9.50 per copy (UK only, includes postage and packaging) made out to “Reepham Community Press”, Homerton House, 74 Cawston Road, Reepham, Norfolk NR10 4LT.

To pay by bank transfer, please contact us for our account details.

Please also contact us for further details of airmailed copies to Europe and elsewhere.

The post Reepham Life 2023 Calendar coming soon appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reminds us painfully of the Second World War and the Cold War that followed.

Reepham Archive’s records show how local people did their bit when enemy aircraft were last seen in Norfolk’s skies, and how the town came to have its own nuclear bunker.

Travelling to Reepham from Norwich on the A1067, you might have noticed a little brick-and-concrete building in the hedgerow at Sparhamhill, just before the turning to Nowhere Lane. It looks like a water tower.

In fact, this was an observation platform for civil defence volunteers to track Soviet aircraft on their way to bomb Britain’s airfields and cities.

Close by is the entrance to an underground bunker from where they would have phoned in reports of nuclear explosions.

The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) post at Sparhamhill operated from 1953 to 1968, at the height of the Cold War. But Reepham’s connection to the ROC goes back to 1934, as war with Germany loomed.

The original Reepham post was much closer to the town: on Norwich Road, on the high ground near the junction with Furze Lane.

Hazel Dove of Reepham remembers counting hundreds of Allied aircraft on their outward and return journeys, the American airmen who would stop by to chat, and night shifts with “three girls and a rifle”.

The end of the war brought little respite as the Soviet Union became the next military threat. In 1953 the ROC post moved to the Sparhamhill site, keeping the Reepham name even though it was no longer close to the town.

By the mid-1950s jet aircraft were flying too fast and high for ground-based observers, and in any case a roofless hut was no place to be during a nuclear war.

The ROC’s role changed to observing where the bombs were falling, and in September 1962 a small concrete bunker was built at the Reepham post.

Sitting in this damp windowless box, counting the fireballs and wondering what would happen to your family on the surface, must have needed a great deal of courage.

Today, our thoughts are with the citizens of Ukraine, and we hope that any talk of nuclear weapons is just sabre-rattling.

Read the full story of the ROC in Reepham HERE.

• The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. For more information about opening times and current services, contact the Archive by email.

The post Three decades of vigilance ‘ Reepham’s own nuclear bunker appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Ann has been the archive administrator for more than six years and in that time the Reepham Archive has expanded its activities significantly.

She has been the mainstay of many of the initiatives developed for the archive, including streamlining cataloguing and storing of donations, installing new archive-quality shelving, supplying photographs and copy for the Reepham Life Calendar, organising the ever popular “archive teas” and recently co-ordinating and contributing to meetings and courses with the Norfolk Record Office.

Even the pandemic could not stop Ann’s tireless efforts in keeping the archive’s “show on the road”.

Fortunately, she is not disappearing completely and will remain an important part of the archive’s volunteer team, where she will be involved in developing her own projects.

During her term in office Ann has established a close and successful working relationship with the Bircham Centre.

The Reepham Archive, which is based in the Bircham Centre, is an important and integral part of the centre’s activities and the trustees would like to thank Ann for her commitment in making the archive the success it is today.

Stuart Lane

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. For more information about opening times, current services and volunteering opportunities, please email

The post Long-standing archive administrator steps down appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Featuring 13 nostalgic photographs capturing the town’s history over the past century, the calendar also includes modern-day images of each scene, mostly taken by local photographer John Tym.

The calendar can be purchased (price £8) from Johnson’s of Reepham, Robertson’s Family Butchers, Bircham Centre Charity Shop, Reepham Archive and St Mary’s Reepham.

To order by post, please send a cheque for £9.50 (UK only, includes postage and packaging) made out to “Reepham Community Press”, Homerton House, 74 Cawston Road, Reepham, Norfolk NR10 4LT.

To pay by bank transfer, please contact us for our account details.

Please also contact us for further details of airmailed copies to Europe and elsewhere.

Further information HERE

The post Reepham Life 2022 Calendar now on sale appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

Featuring 13 nostalgic photographs capturing the town’s history over the past century, the calendar also includes modern-day images of each scene, mostly taken by local photographer John Tym.

The calendar can be purchased (price £8) from Johnson’s of Reepham, Robertson’s Family Butchers, Very Nice Things, Norfolk Farm Shop & Deli, Bircham Centre Charity Shop, Reepham Archive and St Mary’s Reepham.

To order by post, please send a cheque for £9.50 (UK only, includes postage and packaging) made out to “Reepham Community Press”, Homerton House, 74 Cawston Road, Reepham, Norfolk NR10 4LT.

Please contact us for further details of airmailed copies to Europe and elsewhere.

Further information HERE

The post Reepham Life 2021 Calendar now available appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.

However, the Archive is still available to make the information it holds accessible to all and will do its best to answer any queries that are sent via the website, by email or by telephone (01603 879242).

With help from the Bircham Centre and Reepham Town Council, we now have new shelves to house our collections. This means we have space to grow, and we are always pleased to receive information and donations about Reepham people, places and events.

Meanwhile, the Norfolk Record Office has gained lottery funding to help local archives function well.

Several volunteers attended their first online meeting with community archivists Robin Sampson and Laura McCourt at the end of September. They have written guides for local archives, have digitalisation equipment to loan and will be helping the Reepham Archive over the next two years.

If you are interested in local history and local archives, do contact us and become a volunteer while we have this fantastic support.

It will be an opportunity to learn from experts and to put all we learn into practice immediately for the benefit of the local community.

Ann Middlemas

See our earlier stories:

• Community archivists to start training
• Reepham Archive to receive training with lottery heritage fund support

The post Archive seeks more volunteers to record local history appeared first on REEPHAM LIFE.