2009+The+White+Company

The Junior Minstead Pantomime for 2009 was adapted from //The White Company//, a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Here are 2 photos (also found on the programme back cover): Back row left to right: Tom Hill, David Guy, Harriet Olorenshaw, Becky Dolan, Ruari Chisholm, Madeleine Banks, Jo Clarke. Front row left to right: Freddy Briggs, Ralph Mansfield, Herbie Willis, Oliver Elms, Gregor Scott-Duncan, Will Bruce.

First row from left to right: Élodie Roger, Celia Banks, Estelle Roger, Amelie Batty, Mollie Mansfield, Summer-Rose Willis, Freya Briggs. Second row: Ruari Chisholm, Ralph Mansfield, Freddy Briggs, Blythe Towers, Esmé Briggs, Oliver Elms, Herbie Willis, Tom Guy. Third row: Tom Hill, Macey Towers, Philippa Vardy, Eléa Bruce, Léna Roger, Gregor Scott-Duncan (hidden), Christy Towers, Will Bruce. Fourth row: Phoebe McCulloch, Harriet Olorenshaw, Maddie Bruce, Becky Dolan, Jo Clarke, Alexander Scott-Duncan, Madeleine Banks, Eleanor Banks, Mary Paganga. Fifth row: Laurence Platt, David Guy, Jeremy Soteriou.

For more photos, also have a look at the Daily Echo site [|here]. Enter **Minstead** in the search box and press the **Search** button to get to the photos.

Great start for a new team
This was a great start to a new writing team Eric and Karen Roger, with Eric doing the directing. Conan Doyle (150th anniversary of his birth this year by the way) wrote two books about these characters. The first "Sir Nigel" was about the crusades, the second "The White Company" happens mostly around the forest. Conan Doyle had a house over the other side of the A31 and is buried in our churchyard, somewhat, grudgingly by all accounts as he was a prominent spiritualist. Anyway Doyle thought very highly of these two books and was constantly depreciating about Sherlock Holmes. In fact the Sir Nigel books are high old rot but great fun to read.

A prominent character is the "Socman of Minstead". "Socman" means free man, if I remember right and there is probably some historical something in all this. The current Socman is, I suppose, whoever is Lord of the Manor now - presumably Peter Green's son. Nick Mellersh

//(Eric Roger)// Wikipedia has a page on [|socage], where the word //socman// comes from.