Charities and Good Causes

Congratulations to businesses and all involved in the Christmas Fayre, a splendid occasion that raised over £2500 for the Guide Hut. Kind donors and the Guides' own efforts have already raised several thousand more since this local Appeal was launched in September: they are half way there. Other charities such as Cancer Research, Mind, the British Heart Foundation, Street Child Africa and the Princess Alice Hospice also benefited from activities during the Fayre.

The next Cancer Research Good as New Sale at Esher College will be on 3 May. Meanwhile Thames Ditton resident Shaun Wolfe is running back-to-back marathons in London and Paris this April in aid of Christies Cancer Hospital and Get Kids Going. You can sponsor him online at www.justgiving.com/shaunwolfe. And please sponsor Dr. David Matthews of Giggs Hill Surgery for his eighth cycle race from London to Brighton for the British Heart Foundation on 15 June.

 

The Tortoise and the Fox

 

Now the natives East of the turnpike to Portsmouth are always grumbling that the village pays scant attention to them. We do have correspondents there, but they write that Nothing Ever Happens. All the more exciting, then, to get word of a scoop just before Christmas. Packing supplies and pulling on stout hiking boots, our reporting staff trekked to the hinterland of Thorkhill Road to discover streets of peaceful suburban dwellings much like our own, built in the main of brick. Despite the remoteness of the area it turns out that the inhabitants speak a form of English and are recognisably similar and familiar to other villagers. As are their problems in parking. 

The mission: to document wild animal depredations. For in late November urban foxes brutally and without provocation attacked a garden tortoise. Margie, a testudo marginata, was looking forward to a peaceful hibernation when the foxes struck, savaging one and a half limbs and leaving the poor tortoise on its back in a pool of blood. Margie is now contemplating a long lifespan of disability, possibly with a wooden leg. Earlier these foxes, presumed to be a local gang, had snatched an innocent rabbit from her hutch and vilely slaughtered her. They continue to terrorise the community, sneering through kitchen doors and latterly biting a harmless dog on its nose in a further episode of wanton aggression.

Owner Fiona and her husband rushed Margie to the vets whence the poor tortoise was referred to a consultant herpetologist in Sheen, of great renown. He warmed Margie up from pre-hibernation state and then amputated the remains, applying a dressing, drip and antibiotics. In the process - one of considerable expense - it was discovered that Margie is in fact a male tortoise. He is recovering steadily in his terrarium and when warmer weather arrives will be given field trials in the garden to establish whether he can still walk. If not, he will be fitted with an artificial prosthesis so that he can continue to get about and to play with the family children Antonia and Lottie. Margie, an active and out-going tortoise until the incident, enjoys going down the children's slide and comes back for more, likes a cuddle, and seeks out Poppy the family dog as a playmate (Margie's defensive instincts being thus allayed may have contributed to his misplaced trust in foxes).

The vets treating Margie report that fox attacks are on the increase. We have corroboration for this, including the dastardly vulpine murder last Autumn of the fat koi Goldfinger, a placid and trusting resident of Thames Ditton, worth a bob or two to boot, whose giant golden scales were strewn all over the lawn. When one was a boy, one hardly ever saw a fox. They were shy if not deferential, knew their place in the countryside, and kept to it. These days, urban foxes are everywhere in numbers, strolling around with insouciance even in broad daylight. More than one in seven English foxes are townies, indeed chavs. They dig up your bulbs, defaecate on your doorstep and your lawn and along the pavement, eat garden birds and voles, bury surplus corpses in your flowerbeds to disinter later, and engage in much unpleasant mischief. 

There are far too many urban foxes now, and as their numbers have grown so the numbers of other suburban mammals such as hedgehogs seem to have declined. Their sex life, somewhat raucous, will raise an eyebrow. They breed promiscuously. Lamentable to relate, an average urban vixen's litter will be sired by four different fathers, three of whom are outside her own social group. Foxes spread various diseases to which dogs are also vulnerable, including fatal mange - we had a dreadful mangy fox visiting the garden last year.

Some residents, however, like to see foxes around and will feed them, contributing to a population explosion that could scarcely be supported by natural diet, and encourage them to be tame, thereby emboldening Reynard to take further liberties. The Wildlife Trust and the Mammal Society do not discourage this. Some decades ago the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (as it was then) started to kill foxes in urban boroughs. But control has since been mostly abandoned as impractical and expensive. Even where they are reported as a pest, Elmbridge Borough Council will take no action to control foxes. Alas, if you don't want them around, once they have marked your grounds with their urine and faeces (the foxes, that is - not the Council) it is very hard to outfox them.

our reporting staff

References:

Urban Fox FAQS 

Vulpine Sex Life 

Elmbridge policy of inaction

 

Ten Thousand at a Glance

Come Autumn you may see a distinguished silver-haired fellow on his knees by the roadside. Do not call Social Services. It is John Lyon, who each year for sixteen years has quietly planted several hundred daffodils and crocuses in our green spaces, with fibre and fertiliser to get them off to a good start. The bulbs are funded by the Residents Association - you. The labour is John's. Over the years they have naturalised and multiplied, like these daffodils by Milbourne Pond. In all John's Spring flowers must number over ten thousand now. And so, a little work for the community here, a little there, turns into a major achievement to delight us all.

 

 

 

eens in the Pub

Bob Fisk returns to his boyhood haunts

What's it like to be brought up in a pub? It was 1969 just after the floods when my parents, Ron and Pat Fisk, took over the Lamb and Star on Hampton Court Way after running an off-licence in Alexandra Road, and pubs elsewhere in the South-East. My dad used to be a professional boxer after he left the army, which is useful to make known in a business where customers can get rowdy. As a labourer he'd helped build All Saints Church. At that time, he wouldn't have dreamed he'd one day run the pub just around the corner.

When we first arrived the Lamb seemed tiny. It hadn't had a facelift for many years and was very dark and dismal inside. It didn't have many customers either! But we managed to rebuild the bars without closing them, and they were named the Weston Bar and the Ditton Bar. I was 15, and went to Waynefleet School as it was then known, where I met my wife too - now there's a fairytale romance! To explain what it was like growing up in a pub is difficult: you don't know any different and it just seemed 'normal'. Looking back, though, it was anything but normal: lack of privacy, noise and not seeing much of your parents despite their being only yards away downstairs in the bar. It was very much a family pub and Grandma Muriel, my mother's mother, would cycle over to help out in the kitchen. Life as a publican is extremely hard and I only realised that in later life. Having friends round in ones or twos wasn't a problem but parties weren't really possible, although I did celebrate my 21st with a party in the bar after closing time!

I can remember my mum and dad regularly used to lock up forgetting that one of us kids, then in our late teens, was still out on the town. We'd arrive back in the early hours with no keys. We didn't want to wake up mum and dad - they didn't get much sleep as it was, so we used to get out the ladder, climb up on the flat roof and knock on the girls' bedroom window. Luckily there was always one sister in. Our poor guard dog didn't have clue what was going on. But the local police often kept an eye on the place. I remember when my Dad had a problem with his car radio. I went outside to have a look at it, and I'd only been in the car for about 5 minutes fiddling under the dash when a loud voice shouted out 'what do you think you're up to?' It was Jack Underwood the local bobby on his trusty bicycle, thinking I was up to no good. It's funny; Jack always appeared when there was something going on, he must have had second sight. I remember he caught me riding a moped behind the telephone exchange a few years earlier when I was only 15. Now I wish there were more like him!

Good times in the Ditton Bar in the 1970s.   From left: Ron Fisk, Bert the barman, Pat Fisk, Muriel

We got to know many of the local characters who used to frequent the bars. Bert the barman ran the Ditton Bar from the 70's until he died prematurely in 1980. He made the Bar his own empire and you could have been mistaken that he was the owner. New Year's Eve was always a special event there, and fancy dress was the order of the day. Ron, Pat and Bert always used to join in the fun along with the customers. Frequent local visitors included Ralph the postman who always used to call everyone 'old chappie' in a strange elongated manner, becoming louder and more elongated after every pint; Cyril the butcher, whose premises were opposite the pub which is now a private residence; Ted the grocer, whose little shop was opposite All Saints church - also now a private residence; Eddie Parrot, whose mother ran the greengrocers in Alma Road, another casualty of development. Kate Marney was another habitué, whose wood yard used to be in the beer garden of The Alma, now Marney's Village Inn. The Marneys also used to keep a cow behind the rear of Thames Ditton Telephone exchange!

Some other famous visitors to the pub included Pattie Boyd (Beatle George Harrison's wife at the time), Linda Lewis, who was a top ten singing artist in the 70's, Blakey from 'On the Buses', and Annie from Emmerdale. One visitor came all the way from Texas, USA as a previous client from the pub my parents ran earlier in Ashford. Bill was an oil geologist who worked for Red Adair. There used to be an old concrete WWII air raid shelter in the back garden, which I'd commandeered for myself as a workshop. Bill wanted to see it: 'Hot Dawg!' he exclaimed… I suppose you don't see many air raid shelters in Texas back gardens.

My parents ran the Lamb and Star until they retired in 1982. Since then the premises have seen a number of different guises, almost turning into an Indian takeaway at one point, and having its car park given over to a car wash more recently. Latterly the name has been changed to the Ewe, marking the end of a piece of pub history. One strange fact was the position of the old pub sign, which used to be on the opposite side of the Hampton Court Way. Why? - because before Hampton Court Way was built, the pub used to be positioned near the sign but was demolished to make way for the new road. Now the sign itself has been removed, and another part of our quirky local history has been lost.

And me? Well, I was never called to the Bar and I wouldn't be a publican for the world! I became a network engineer…

Bob Fisk

The Lamb and Star was named from the insignia of the West and East Surrey Regiments in which men of Weston Green served and died. Newly refurbished and somewhat bafflingly renamed The Ewe, it has a pleasant atmosphere, a competitive menu, and hosts good salsa on Monday nights.

 

Identity Theft - Beware of Passing Lamas

One man's journey to spiritual awareness began when he fell out of a tree in Weston Green Road

It all started in Thames Ditton on 13 June 1949, when misunderstood mystic Cyril Hoskins fell out of a tree in the garden of Rosecroft House in Weston Green Road and, if the words of productive author T. Lobsang Rampa are to be believed, went via the astral plane to Tibet and became a Tibetan lama. 

Hoskins, a Devonian by birth, was a struggling writer and plumber with a compulsion to adopt Oriental ways who had previously changed his name to Carl KuonSuo. He had climbed the tree to photograph an owl when, according to William Scanlon Murphy in a 1995 BBC Radio 4 broadcast:

"Unfortunately his weight proved too much for one of the branches and he came down, head first, sending his terrified cat for cover.

"Meanwhile lama T. Lobsang Rampa was cruising by on the astral plane. Rampa had hit a bad patch in Tibet, his body was coming to bits after a hard life of man-carrying kites, Japanese torturers and assorted metaphysical fender-benders. He was in the market for a new model. Hoskins was sick of his meaningless, materialistic Western existence. The two fell into conversation. They both nipped across to Tibet, via the astral plane, of course, so that Lobsang's Abbot and the ever-present Lama Mingyar Dondup could act as brokers. Before long a deal had been struck. Rampa negotiated a large karmic discount for Hoskins, for which Hoskins would trade in his body shell, Rampa would get Hoskins' body, not to mention his wife, cat and colossal overdraft, while Hoskins would simply drift off into nirvana."

And so began the erstwhile Hoskins' incredible career as author T. Lobsang Rampa, who wrote more than 20 spiritual knowledge books - starting in 1956 with The Third Eye and finishing with I Believe, which was published in April 1977. The Third Eye became a bestseller: the Times Literary Supplement described it as "near to being a work of art. " Rampa maintained that one of his books, Living With The Lama, was dictated to him telepathically by his pet Siamese cat, Mrs. Fifi Greywhiskers.

 

From the very first book Rampa claimed that every word he wrote was true. But it caused a furore in London, when some Tibetan scholars challenged the authenticity of Rampa and averred he was not a Tibetan and had never been to Tibet! Rampa rebutted that with the statement: "All that I write in that book is fact. I, a Tibetan lama, now occupy what was originally the body of a Western man, and I occupy it to the permanent and total exclusion of the former occupant. He gave his willing consent - being glad to escape from life on this earth in view of my urgent need."

One of his devotees, Gray Barker, a Buddist from America, said: "His narrative is full of life, colour and exciting adventure. As Rampa could travel in the astral plane at will, you can glean a great deal of metaphysical insights by reading his books."

Whether or not the story is true, hundreds and thousand thousands of his readers believed it and the more Rampa was criticised as a fraud by the media, the more they believed him. In fact he alleged that he had had to escape to live in Ireland, and later Canada, because of the hounding of the tabloids. He had a cult following in Canada, but most of all in California - the home of the New Age industry - where thousands of his books are still printed every month. Unfortunately he didn't live to see how huge he became. 

Rampa died in Alberta in 1981, a Canadian citizen, after 10 years in a wheelchair. Strangely enough he died on the same day as the Dalai Lama's mother. Her real name, according to her obituary, was Lamu Donup. The Dalai Lama's eldest brother was called Lobsang, so maybe Hoskins was reading one of his Oriental books at the time his amazing metamorphosis took place in Weston Green Road.

According to the current owner of Rosecroft House, Mrs Irene Taylor, colourful parakeets now inhabit the tree. There is no owl and, although she has a lovely black and white cat, she has never seen any Lamas strolling in the garden!

Carolyn Howie

The author is a former journalist for various publications and for the BBC.

Footnote: Our membership secretary has no record that Cyril Hoskins, Carl KuonSuo or T. Lobsang Rampa ever paid their subscriptions to the Residents' Association. Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers may still have a book loan outstanding at the Library.

 

Identity Theft - Beware of Passing Lamas

One man's journey to spiritual awareness began when he fell out of a tree in Weston Green Road

It all started in Thames Ditton on 13 June 1949, when misunderstood mystic Cyril Hoskins fell out of a tree in the garden of Rosecroft House in Weston Green Road and, if the words of productive author T. Lobsang Rampa are to be believed, went via the astral plane to Tibet and became a Tibetan lama. 

Hoskins, a Devonian by birth, was a struggling writer and plumber with a compulsion to adopt Oriental ways who had previously changed his name to Carl KuonSuo. He had climbed the tree to photograph an owl when, according to William Scanlon Murphy in a 1995 BBC Radio 4 broadcast:

"Unfortunately his weight proved too much for one of the branches and he came down, head first, sending his terrified cat for cover.

"Meanwhile lama T. Lobsang Rampa was cruising by on the astral plane. Rampa had hit a bad patch in Tibet, his body was coming to bits after a hard life of man-carrying kites, Japanese torturers and assorted metaphysical fender-benders. He was in the market for a new model. Hoskins was sick of his meaningless, materialistic Western existence. The two fell into conversation. They both nipped across to Tibet, via the astral plane, of course, so that Lobsang's Abbot and the ever-present Lama Mingyar Dondup could act as brokers. Before long a deal had been struck. Rampa negotiated a large karmic discount for Hoskins, for which Hoskins would trade in his body shell, Rampa would get Hoskins' body, not to mention his wife, cat and colossal overdraft, while Hoskins would simply drift off into nirvana."

And so began the erstwhile Hoskins' incredible career as author T. Lobsang Rampa, who wrote more than 20 spiritual knowledge books - starting in 1956 with The Third Eye and finishing with I Believe, which was published in April 1977. The Third Eye became a bestseller: the Times Literary Supplement described it as "near to being a work of art. " Rampa maintained that one of his books, Living With The Lama, was dictated to him telepathically by his pet Siamese cat, Mrs. Fifi Greywhiskers.

 

From the very first book Rampa claimed that every word he wrote was true. But it caused a furore in London, when some Tibetan scholars challenged the authenticity of Rampa and averred he was not a Tibetan and had never been to Tibet! Rampa rebutted that with the statement: "All that I write in that book is fact. I, a Tibetan lama, now occupy what was originally the body of a Western man, and I occupy it to the permanent and total exclusion of the former occupant. He gave his willing consent - being glad to escape from life on this earth in view of my urgent need."

One of his devotees, Gray Barker, a Buddist from America, said: "His narrative is full of life, colour and exciting adventure. As Rampa could travel in the astral plane at will, you can glean a great deal of metaphysical insights by reading his books."

Whether or not the story is true, hundreds and thousand thousands of his readers believed it and the more Rampa was criticised as a fraud by the media, the more they believed him. In fact he alleged that he had had to escape to live in Ireland, and later Canada, because of the hounding of the tabloids. He had a cult following in Canada, but most of all in California - the home of the New Age industry - where thousands of his books are still printed every month. Unfortunately he didn't live to see how huge he became. 

Rampa died in Alberta in 1981, a Canadian citizen, after 10 years in a wheelchair. Strangely enough he died on the same day as the Dalai Lama's mother. Her real name, according to her obituary, was Lamu Donup. The Dalai Lama's eldest brother was called Lobsang, so maybe Hoskins was reading one of his Oriental books at the time his amazing metamorphosis took place in Weston Green Road.

According to the current owner of Rosecroft House, Mrs Irene Taylor, colourful parakeets now inhabit the tree. There is no owl and, although she has a lovely black and white cat, she has never seen any Lamas strolling in the garden!

Carolyn Howie

The author is a former journalist for various publications and for the BBC.

Footnote: Our membership secretary has no record that Cyril Hoskins, Carl KuonSuo or T. Lobsang Rampa ever paid their subscriptions to the Residents' Association. Mrs Fifi Greywhiskers may still have a book loan outstanding at the Library.

 

Music for Spring at the Vera Fletcher Hall

 

Newcomers to Thames Ditton and Weston Green are amazed to discover the "Theatre in Thames Ditton" at the Vera Fletcher Hall in Embercourt Road where the old Victorian Village Hall built in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee has been restored into an intimate 126 seater theatre/concert hall/pocket opera house. The Hall has notably introduced many to opera, on a small scale but of high quality at affordable prices and, above all, accessible.

Not many such venues can boast of having international opera star Donald Maxwell as a regular visitor. Tiramisu Opera, who brought you 'Pirates of Penzance' and 'Trial by Jury,' returns on Sunday March 16 with Gilbert and Sullivan's 'H.M.S.Pinafore'. Donald invites us to a life on the ocean wave, to see love triumphant and civil servants wrong- footed, with old favourites 'For He is an Englishman', 'Dear Little Buttercup' and the 'Ruler of the Queen's Navee', reminding us of the time when we had a real navy! Donald Maxwell has sung major roles at opera houses such as La Scala and Welsh National Opera, including the title role of Falstaff at the Royal Opera House. The week after his appearance at the Vera Fletcher Hall he flies to New York to star in 'La Fille du Regiment' at the Metropolitan Opera House. We also welcome back Rebecca Rudge, soprano, who sings at the Buxton Festival and other major festivals.

Intrigue of a different sort is also the theme of Mozart's 'Cosi fan Tutte' (photo above right), on Friday April 18 brought to us by Charles Court Opera, whose 'Mikado' and 'Cinderella' pantomime gave so much pleasure. Lorenzo da Ponte's gloriously immoral tale of subterfuge and infidelity is brought to life with some of Mozart's most sublime music, to the accompaniment of the brilliant Eaton-Young piano duo.We have a treat on Friday 23rd May when Commedia Productions present Puccini's 'La Boheme', the story of the seamstress Mimi and her four friends living in poverty in a bohemian Parisian garret - her lover the poet Rodolpho, Marcello the painter, Schaunard the musician and Colline the philosopher. Singers from the major opera companies will be accompanied by Commedia's pioneering 'virtual orchestra'. Arias such as 'Your tiny hand is frozen' and 'O gentle maiden' make this one of the most performed of all operas around the world. The first performance in 1896 was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. All three opera productions are supported by R.C Sherriff Trust.

 

The Hall has gained a reputation for high quality chamber music and we welcome the Rivoli String Quartet on Friday 11 April. This group of talented young players were winners of the Prix Ravel at the Academie Internationale de Musique Maurice Ravel and have given concerts across Britain and in Australia and France. They will play works by Haydn, Debussy, Schubert and Bridge. They will be followed on Friday June 27 by a concert by Amy Tress and Friends, prizewinning young musicians from the Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music.

'The Boy Friend' has been a favourite of audiences for over 50 years with Sandy Wilson's evergreen hits 'It's Never Too Late To Fall In Love', 'Won't you Charleston With Me,' 'I Could be Happy With You' and 'Nicer in Nice'. It is set in the carefree world of the French Riviera in the era of the flappers in the 1920s when the girls in Madame Dubonnet's School for Young Ladies find love amid confusion and heartbreaks in this glorious pastiche of romantic musicals. Among its other claims to fame, this was the musical in which Julie Andrews was discovered. Molesey Musical Theatre brings 'The Boy Friend' to us on Wednesday to Saturday June 4th-7th.

For details of prices, times, and bookings, visit www.verafletcherhall.co.uk

 

By Hook or Crook

 

It's that season when the first cuckoos call. And sweet-talking people one hasn't seen for a year appear on the doorstep, smile charmingly, decry their rivals and promise the Earth. These are candidates of the political parties seeking a leg up the Greasy Pole of Politics. Then they disappear for another year, or more. I've become cynical about their adversarial approach, which divides the community rather than uniting it. 

I am not alone.

I moved to this area years ago to find that here was another group, civic and not party-political in nature, that not only vests effort in the interests of the community as a whole, but actually consults us many times throughout the year to see what we want, and acts in our support. It has a long record of very substantial achievement for the locality. Successful conservation against adverse - often major - development interests such as links to Heathrow across the commons of Weston Green or monster supermarkets on Giggs Hill Green. Securing positive evolution of the former industrial sites of AC Cars and the MMB. Campaigning to retain our small shops. The Residents' Association also shows commendable energy in nurturing a spirit of community in these villages. 

Unlike some such associations in more distant parts, this one has teeth. Over decades it has found the politicians to be unreliable in defence of local amenities and pursuit of civic concerns. So it puts to you candidates for the Councils, and gets your adopted candidates elected: seasoned people, chosen on merit not party, with a record of real service to our community, able to devote time to representing us properly. What's more, they have to be persuaded to stand. They don't thrust themselves forward egoistically. I think that's a good sign. The Residents' Association has no national structure, nor wants one, so there's no question of political careerism. It adheres strongly to a non-party-political ethos although recent legal requirements mean it must register with the Electoral Commission to continue to back your candidates. 

The Association is for everyone. It doesn't ask what political party you favour. It doesn't carry ideological baggage. It is inclusive. It doesn't promote one narrow set of interests, and devil take the others. It's staffed voluntarily by people like you and transparently funded by you, and retains the wherewithal for the next time you want to fight off some new unwelcome threat to the amenities of Weston Green or Thames Ditton from an unheeding developer or the Government. Its growing membership of more than a thousand households, its active volunteers numbering well over a hundred, its magazine and website, are the envy of the politicians who therefore try to do it down. 

The local Councils don't always decide things as you or I want, but we have a real voice. The Association keeps you informed, and offers you full, frequent consultation in working hard for love of these villages. It's democratic. Open. Treats you with respect. That's why I set aside cynicism and am happy to help.

Keith Evetts

 

By Margaret Briggs

	Residents of Thames Ditton and Weston Green are eligible for prizes. A £5 Voucher for spending in any Thames Ditton or Weston Green shop will be awarded to each of the first three correct entries opened after the closing date of 7 May 2008. The completed puzzle (or photocopy) with your name and address, clearly marking the envelope 'Crossword Competition', should be sent to: Thames Ditton Today Crossword Competition 6 Church Walk Thames Ditton KT7 0NW
Across 1. Foot found on a Railway line is a story oft repeated (9) 8. Roe high and far from usable but advice falling on deaf ears (4,2,4) 11. Require necessity (4) 12. Quiet transport. Of wild animals? (5) 13. Opening list changed (4) 16. Attribute to a religious scholar (7) 17. Attire the editor suitably for formal occasions (7)18. Ship that supplied ale long ago (7) 20. Quietly thrust myself forward and dived into the pool (7) 21. Ridge that contains pure effluence (4) 22. Alarm less car escapes interior examination (5) 23. Rest formerly for once (4) 26. Catch repeat on Broadcast or agree an alternative (6,7) 27. Shoot tape holder; he is a manipulator (9)	Down 2. Finish in seven days (3) 3. Compel change of Ref once more (7) 4. Greatly feared those dead are in the red (7) 5. Hard to find way to cook some meat (4) 6. Expel Clarence? No! He is far better than any others (3,10) 7. National place to put beds (7,6) 9. Live in peace, the alternative's perilous (9) 10. Place to work on facts (5,4) 14. The more mature tripe remains inside (5) 15. Beautiful French lover (4) 19. A formality to keep under your collar (4,3) 20. Dig deep to find an equal bargain (7) 24. Send out for private rooms (4) 25. Leave test as it was (4)
Solution to the Winter 2007 Crossword:
	Congratulations to our two winners this season. It wasn't an easy one.