“Holding on to the past”                  

At the Voices of Hickling project meeting on June 30^th 2015 we visited “the dipping place” 

courtesy of John and Viv Tallowin.  It was midsummer and we talked of Ursula as we 

meandered along and wondered why she had been so keen to collect the voices of the 

people she knew in her late summer days.

We naturally turned to Hilary [Beynon],  and we wanted to share her memories with you.

What first inspired Ursula may have been hearing an interview with Billy Nudd on 

Radio Norfolk. 

Ursula was an only child. She and her mother were both devoted to her father, a vicar 

devoted to his flock. The little family moved often: Bury St Edmunds Cathedral,  Litchfield,  

St Albans,  Bishops Stortford.   

Ursula found some stability by attending a church school, the Eothen School at Caterham,  

but had a sense that “she didn’t know where she was from”. 

When Ursula came to Hickling she found the roots that she had lacked.   

She was able to pursue her love of the Natural world,  regularly taking wildlife walks 

and serving on the Council of the Wildlife Trust for almost a decade and playing an active part on the Trust’s Local Groups Committee.

 Ursula page 2