Bringing people together

Lee, Sandra and Louise used to come to the Hub when it was located in the old butchers shop in Burton Street. They sat in the corner doing a jigsaw. Things were a bit cramped for space there, but it was possible to leave the jigsaw out for the next visit. When the Hub moved to the Village Hall, there were concerns that the close, friendly atmosphere of the old location would be lost in the large space of the hall. Bob Bullen made six screens to position around groups of tables to try and preserve a more intimate atmosphere, but it was an absolute pain to drag them out and put them back in store again, so this idea was quickly abandoned. However, undeterred, the ‘Marnhull Puzzzlers’ (Lee, Sandra and Louise) found their corner to sit in to look out on the Rec, and also watch the comings and goings of the Hub and Repair Café whilst doing their puzzles Robert Hurlow found a jigsaw organiser, which the Hub purchased so that they could do a jigsaw and safely put it away in one of the under-stage cupboards at the end of the morning. This turned out to be a good purchase. It is interesting that far from being a large unfriendly space the Hub and Repair Cafe at the Village Hall has turned into a busy, thriving enterprise and increasing numbers are coming in for a coffee and cake, along with bringing in assorted repair projects. Lee, Sandra and Louise are a focus for visitors, many of whom go and chat to them, and help or ‘interfere’ with the jigsaw, and I think they enjoy being part of the set-up. The jigsaws come from a number of sources. Some, Robert buys from The Emporium in Stur for about a £1, and others are donated by visitors. It has become a custom that Robert takes a photo of the puzzlers with a completed jigsaw and some of those have been put in photo frames for them. As a Xmas present last year, the Hub thought it would be a good idea to amalgamate a number of the pictures to make a composite, which could then be made into another jigsaw, and an online company did that. When they finished that in about six weeks, Robert decided to mount the completed jigsaw as a picture. He was fortunate to pick up a frame from the “tip” in Shaftesbury. The framed puzzle now sits proudly on the wall in the Village Hall and the Marnhull Puzzlers continue to enjoy a sense of accomplishment, skill, and fun that goes along with doing jigsaw puzzles. The official term for people who put together jigsaw puzzles are called Dissectologists, although nowadays they are more commonly called ‘puzzlers’