FOLKLORE OF WARMINSTER Victor Strode Manley's booklet Folklore Of Warminster, has just been republished by John Weallans in association with Danny Howell and Michael Coultas.
First published by Coates & Parker of Warminster, back in 1924, this collection of "strange tales and beliefs" includes place legends, ghost lore, calendar festivals, some miscellaneous notes and a brief conclusion.
In his Introduction, Victor Manley wrote: "The object of this booklet is to put into permanent form those fragments of our unwritten history, or legends, which have been cherished by our illiterate neighbours, the bulk of whose lore has been uncollected, or laid aside and forgotten owing to modern text-book education. It is also intended to guide and prompt others in the collection of much that even now must be deposited in the memories of our oldest inhabitants who are slowly vanishing from our midst taking their lore with them beyond recovery."
Danny Howell, the Editor of the Wiltshire Folklife Journal, in the Preface to this new edition, gives a biography of Victor Manley. The son of a Warminster postmaster, Victor Manley was a schoolteacher at Sambourne School, Warminster, and a keen historian and avid palaeontologist. He is remembered for the school trips he organised, collecting fossils and recording much of the area's geology. During the 1920s and 1930s he compiled a multi-volume Regional Survey Of The Warminster District and also wrote the town guides for 1924 and 1928.
Danny Howell says: "The new publishers of this booklet have reset the original edition into a larger and more attractive format, with a very few minor amendments to the text. Since the 1924 edition has been unavailable for many years, I hope that this enterprising re-publication will be welcomed by the people of Warminster."
Folklore Of Warminster, by Victor Strode Manley, is published by John Weallans in association with Danny Howell and Michael Coultas.
Soft cover, 40 pages, 1 black and white photograph.
ISBN 1870475003.
