THE president, Margaret Ward, welcomed five new members to the October meeting.

The institute has grown considerably in recent times. However, she said the small committee is in desperate need of new people, and members old and new were urged to consider seriously putting their names forward for election at next month's annual meeting, even those who felt they had already done their stint.

Otherwise the now flourishing institute would be in grave danger of folding, and everyone enjoyed it too much for this to happen.

A total of £200 had been raised, mostly from the strawberry tea which was held in August, towards a sound system for the village hall. It was voted that this sum would be handed over to the village hall committee for their use in this respect.

Congratulations were offered to Rosemary and Frank Grave on the occasion of their recent golden wedding.

Judith Cussen reported that the book group had had a useful meeting to discuss Cold Mountain by Charles Frazer.

The group was able to borrow 10 copies from the library under their book group scheme. So many copies will unfortunately not be available for next month's book - Lucy Galt by Willian Trevor.

Anne Bradford then told stories in a talk accompanied by slides, entitled Ghosts, Murders and Scandals.

I think none of us imagined there could be so many of these so close to home, including most haunted pub, Trotter Hall, as it was then, and Hanbury Church, where the ghost of the wife of an 18th century owner of Hanbury Hall, Emma Vernon, was said to haunt the churchyard.

She had had a scandalous extramarital affair and had requested for this reason to be buried outside the consecrated ground.

Mrs Bradford was thanked by Jane Fletcher, who had experienced in a school where she had worked the presence of the ghost of a woman mopping floors.

The competition for Halloween biscuits was won by Janet Simmonds, and the raffle by June Jenkins.

Kathleen Brightwell led a walk the following day round Hanbury Park, which had unexpected added interest.

We went up to Hanbury Church but did not encounter the infamous Emma Vernon, although we located her grave.

A short while later we encountered a local artist at work, he informed us of an exhibition of his work he was shortly to put on.

But the focal point of the walk was the hunt for fungi - a member arrived at the start bearing a wide basket.

It emerged that Pamela Griffin was a keen mycologist and though few that were gathered were edible they promised to make beautiful studies for the artists among us.