THE chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting on March 7 before introducing the speaker, Councillor David Busby. He began by talking about his holiday in India and showed a map of the country, pointing out where he began his journey and the routes taken by car and train to the various places.

He said his first impression of the country itself was the living conditions between the poor and rich. There were beautiful buildings, palaces, forts and mosques but the Taj Mahal was the most impressive with marble frontage encrusted with ivory and semi-precious stones.

He visited a tiger preservation reserve where it is hoped Indian tigers can be saved from extinction. As his tour of the area was in a large, noisy vehicle, he was not surprised when no tigers were spotted although he did have lovely pictures of the tigers living and, hopefully, breeding in the comparatively safe environment.

After sharing his experiences of the journey, which included cleaning the outside of his carriage window on a train, he mentioned his forthcoming marriage and the necessary paperwork for this taking much longer than he expected with pen and paper still ruling, despite modern up-to-date technology.

The chairman thanked Mr Busby for sharing his holiday and wished him well with his marriage.

A letter read from St Margaret's Hospice was thanking members for their generous donation. Next week will be the Easter service in church with a reminder that it starts at 2.30pm.

As well as the usual raffle there was a mini one, with Easter goodies being given by members. Programmes for March to July were available so with no further business, the meeting closed.