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Lucy’s column for March 25
Parklo..1
There has been a petition bearing over 2,000 signatures against it. The Lib-Dem trio who represent the suburb on the City Council have been vociferous in their fight against it. Letters, decrying the idea and asking for answers, have poured into this very double-page platform for readers’ views. And every shop, business, Tom, Dick and Harriet has taken up the cudgels against the unfairness of it all.
So how come Derby City Council has ignored everybody’s views, and decided that Littleover is going to be awash with parking meters?
I don’t often get political in this column, preferring to leave that sort of thing to those with a greater knowledge of the inner workings of the local authority – in our case, the council that listens! But, I have to ask why , in heaven’s name, do we need parking meters in the village? What jobsworth dreamed up this ludicrous scheme.
Everybody in the village I have spoken to has agreed that we just don’t need them, so how does Councillor Ranjit Banwait justify his remarks that there have been requests from the locals for such a scheme? He says that congestion will get worse. Of course it will get worse because of his council’s policy of approving ever more indiscriminate housing development which produces more traffic. Come of it, councillor.
OK, they say they will review it after six months - a totally disingenuous statement. Are we really to believe that after paying ten of thousands of pounds to install the meters, hiring traffic wardens to "police" them and needing more staff to empty them, that the council are going to drop the idea?
The arrogance of some of these elected "servants" is sometimes breathtaking to behold. Perhaps a few shocks in the local elections might not come amiss
Derby City Council says it consults with the people. Consults, perhaps, then rides roughshod over the very people who vote them in and steams ahead with unpopular plans anyway.
A letter in Opinion last week summed up the ludicrousness of the parking meter system generally. Janet Tristram has received three parking tickets in Derby in the space of six months because on each occasion she was stuck in meetings – meetings with the Derby City Partnership which were a vital part of her job as a charity worker in the voluntary sector.
Janet came up with the five-point "charter" citing longer parking times, reduced "fines", and a bit of leeway if the car owner is perhaps a few minutes late. None of her ideas are beyond the wit of man, and as she points out, would make Derby a nicer place to live.
Back in Littleover, currently thriving small businesses will suffer, residents unfortunate enough to have a meter stuck outside their homes will have to curb visits from friends and family, and if there is any humour to be found in the whole sad and sorry situation, it’s the vision of any number of clients in this hairdressing haven, running around in perm curlers and highlights foil, feeding the machines as their curls and colour take hold.
But I have a cunning plan. If everybody could see a way to boycott the dratted devices, even if it means walking a few hundred extra yards, then let’s join forces and beat the powers-that-be at their insidious, spiteful, revenue-inducing game.
End
Brenlo…1
The popularity of feisty Derby daughter Brenda Grogan will never diminish – not while her family and friends, led by daughters Wendy Shipp and Karen Gittins, son John, sister Joyce, and friends Lil Bancroft and June Newton are around to keep her memory alive.
Brenlo..2
A year on from her untimely death, age just 60, they organised a night of fun and frolics at Mr Grundy’s, Ashbourne Road, Derby, which raised nearly £900 for Cancer Research, a charity close to Brenda’s big-as-a-bucket heart, and an amount well beyond their expectations. But, they insist, it wasn’t just down to them.
Thanks go to Carl Haspel, who owns the Georgian Hotel which houses the venue, gave them the run of the place out of the goodness of his own heart, and paid the special fee for Derbyshire’s favourite Elvis tribute act Aaron Badwal and his "roadie", Gurd , who provided their superb brand of entertainment; To the Costco Girls, who contributed in excess of £150; and to Chris Thorewill and Andy Lee, who have just taken over the Duke of York, Burton Road, and sandwich-maker supreme Spencer Phillips, who provided the refreshments, and assisted with a table-groaning raffle, with prizes coming in from all and sundry.
For the past two years, Wendy and Karen have taken part in the Run for Life cancer charity on Darley Park, and this year, May 11, will be no exception. The first year, their precious mum was on hand to cheer them on. Come May, she will still be there in spirit.
end
Tuesday 25 March 2008
Tuesday 18 March 2008
"Eye" can see clearly
Lucy’s column for March 18
Eyelo…1
It’s been a traumatic few weeks, a time to dwell on and worry about the real possibility of losing my sight. And, dear reader, you’re going to share the drama whether you want to or not!
For a couple of months now, there has been impaired vision in my right eye, like the eyeball had been smeared with Vaseline, blobbed with make-up remover which was taking its time to shift, or I’d had too many late nights, even a surfeit of the grape or juniper juice – as if. A 40-minute visit to the optician at least put a name to it – macular degeneration – and a follow-up trip to the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary eye clinic confirmed that. And it was progressing in my left eye, too.
Naturally, the scary stories ensued, not only from people who were sufferers, but from that chamber of medical and surgical horrors – the Internet, which has been my live-in silver-surfer’s daily port of call ever since those initial diagnoses. Almost hourly, he came up with definition, description, causes, risk factors, treatment. What treatment? The dry type which they suspected I had, as opposed to the wet type, was untreatable, apart from, wait for it, some Italian-initiated operation, still in its infancy, and still not generally available in this country. So what was the worst case scenario? Gradual loss of vision.
Now, my eyes have long been the glory of a lifetime’s profession of writing, of reading, and doing four crosswords a day. The prognosis conjured up visions – pardon the pun – of an end to writing and reading, the two joys of my existence. But in such times of trials and tribulations, a sense of humour, somewhat warped in accordance with my family and circle of friends, kicks in. Himself, not noted for his lavish spending, offered to paint the current walking stick white, with friends Andy and Jane Pallett claiming they’d write rude stuff on it like folk do on a leg plaster – as the equivalent of a nursing sister, midwife Jane should know better.
The intervention of my birthday led son Simon to suggest a crystal-encrusted eye patch, for the mother who has everything (except her eye-sight). And grandchildren Jacob and Grace were overjoyed at the prospect of a guide-puppy in the family – a fat Labrador, could they name it and take it for walks? And as a bonus, did you know you don’t have to pick up guide-dog poo? Talking newspapers, tape-recorded books, the idea of having to learn Braille at my ripe old age, being let loose in a frock shop without the ability to decipher the pattern or the price, have all added to the mayhem and mystery of living with impaired vision.
This jesting is in no way intended as disrespect for those out there who do suffer from macular degeneration, wet or dry. We, in Derbyshire, can be secure in the knowledge that our NHS eye clinic at the DRI is rated as one of the finest in the country. I was treated with such respect and reassurance all the way, and guess what? The over-riding problem isn’t MD at all – although there are signs of it in both eyes.
No, the major problem is cataracts – straightforward, treatable, and with the prospect of improved eyesight once the deed is done, on D-day, courtesy of top consultant Mr. P. Puri, who many local eye problem sufferers know and love.
Dear readers, over the past few years, you’ve supported and seen me through me the death of my son, a near-fatal car crash in Mallorca, and breast cancer. The gory details of having needles in my eyeballs, lenses inserted, eye drops four times daily for a month, and dicky vision for a few weeks, will be the doddle you’ll be sharing when the time comes.
And there is an up-side. No gardening, housework or decorating, for at least eight weeks in case little "foreign bodies" get into my eyes. Why, I console myself, spoil the habit of a lifetime?
***
Limblo…1
One such reader of this column is George Wride, of Hollies Road, Allestree, who writes in response to my recent article on a one-armed window-cleaner in Matlock. He has two tales to tell, one involving a one-legged high-jumper, who he saw, as a child around 1933, at the annual Tone Vale Hunt point-to-point. "He dressed in sports gear, set up a pair of poles with a bar on pegs, and would throw his crutch to one side, hop forward, and make a perfect clearance, raising the bar, and repeating his spectacular performance." He had an assistant passing through the crowd with a collection box , and George reckons he made a bob or two out of it.
Another one-limbed chap was the caretaker of a billiard hall, with three tables and a table tennis table. He had only one arm, but kept the place immaculate, brushing the tables, putting new tips on the cues – and was no mean table-tennis player. This, says George, was 1936 – 38. He believes both men were survivors from the First World War. And George? He signs himself : "1921 – and still coming back from the Crem!" What a character.
end
Eyelo…1
It’s been a traumatic few weeks, a time to dwell on and worry about the real possibility of losing my sight. And, dear reader, you’re going to share the drama whether you want to or not!
For a couple of months now, there has been impaired vision in my right eye, like the eyeball had been smeared with Vaseline, blobbed with make-up remover which was taking its time to shift, or I’d had too many late nights, even a surfeit of the grape or juniper juice – as if. A 40-minute visit to the optician at least put a name to it – macular degeneration – and a follow-up trip to the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary eye clinic confirmed that. And it was progressing in my left eye, too.
Naturally, the scary stories ensued, not only from people who were sufferers, but from that chamber of medical and surgical horrors – the Internet, which has been my live-in silver-surfer’s daily port of call ever since those initial diagnoses. Almost hourly, he came up with definition, description, causes, risk factors, treatment. What treatment? The dry type which they suspected I had, as opposed to the wet type, was untreatable, apart from, wait for it, some Italian-initiated operation, still in its infancy, and still not generally available in this country. So what was the worst case scenario? Gradual loss of vision.
Now, my eyes have long been the glory of a lifetime’s profession of writing, of reading, and doing four crosswords a day. The prognosis conjured up visions – pardon the pun – of an end to writing and reading, the two joys of my existence. But in such times of trials and tribulations, a sense of humour, somewhat warped in accordance with my family and circle of friends, kicks in. Himself, not noted for his lavish spending, offered to paint the current walking stick white, with friends Andy and Jane Pallett claiming they’d write rude stuff on it like folk do on a leg plaster – as the equivalent of a nursing sister, midwife Jane should know better.
The intervention of my birthday led son Simon to suggest a crystal-encrusted eye patch, for the mother who has everything (except her eye-sight). And grandchildren Jacob and Grace were overjoyed at the prospect of a guide-puppy in the family – a fat Labrador, could they name it and take it for walks? And as a bonus, did you know you don’t have to pick up guide-dog poo? Talking newspapers, tape-recorded books, the idea of having to learn Braille at my ripe old age, being let loose in a frock shop without the ability to decipher the pattern or the price, have all added to the mayhem and mystery of living with impaired vision.
This jesting is in no way intended as disrespect for those out there who do suffer from macular degeneration, wet or dry. We, in Derbyshire, can be secure in the knowledge that our NHS eye clinic at the DRI is rated as one of the finest in the country. I was treated with such respect and reassurance all the way, and guess what? The over-riding problem isn’t MD at all – although there are signs of it in both eyes.
No, the major problem is cataracts – straightforward, treatable, and with the prospect of improved eyesight once the deed is done, on D-day, courtesy of top consultant Mr. P. Puri, who many local eye problem sufferers know and love.
Dear readers, over the past few years, you’ve supported and seen me through me the death of my son, a near-fatal car crash in Mallorca, and breast cancer. The gory details of having needles in my eyeballs, lenses inserted, eye drops four times daily for a month, and dicky vision for a few weeks, will be the doddle you’ll be sharing when the time comes.
And there is an up-side. No gardening, housework or decorating, for at least eight weeks in case little "foreign bodies" get into my eyes. Why, I console myself, spoil the habit of a lifetime?
***
Limblo…1
One such reader of this column is George Wride, of Hollies Road, Allestree, who writes in response to my recent article on a one-armed window-cleaner in Matlock. He has two tales to tell, one involving a one-legged high-jumper, who he saw, as a child around 1933, at the annual Tone Vale Hunt point-to-point. "He dressed in sports gear, set up a pair of poles with a bar on pegs, and would throw his crutch to one side, hop forward, and make a perfect clearance, raising the bar, and repeating his spectacular performance." He had an assistant passing through the crowd with a collection box , and George reckons he made a bob or two out of it.
Another one-limbed chap was the caretaker of a billiard hall, with three tables and a table tennis table. He had only one arm, but kept the place immaculate, brushing the tables, putting new tips on the cues – and was no mean table-tennis player. This, says George, was 1936 – 38. He believes both men were survivors from the First World War. And George? He signs himself : "1921 – and still coming back from the Crem!" What a character.
end
Tuesday 4 March 2008
Sunday School days
For the life of me I can’t remember when I last went to church when it wasn’t an occasion – christenings, weddings, and all too often in recent years, funerals. But I recall my Sunday School days as if they were yesterday.
As one who was educated in primary and secondary schools with strong religious ethics, with morning assemblies, going-home prayers, pre-meals Grace, encouragement to be confirmed, boarding school ritual of stomach-rumbling, pre-breakfast Holy Communion, little wonder it crossed my adolescent mind that it might be fun to be a nun. At the last school I attended, which started out as an educational establishment for daughters of the clergy, we even had our own chapel, to which we trooped every morning.
I grew up with Catechisms and Creeds coming out of my ears, word-perfect in every popular hymn and psalm in Hymns Ancient and Modern, and the fact that our school chaplain was the late, former canon of Derby Cathedral, the very dishy Paul Miller, only added to our schoolgirl religious fervour. But I digress.
For at least six years of my childhood, I found joy at Sunday School. From singing Sunshine Corner, oh it’s jolly fine, it’s for children under ninety-nine, at Tansley C of E when I was staying with my cousins in that village, to Hear the Pennies Dropping as they took the collection at Two Dales Chapel, I was in heaven.
I actually wasn’t very faithful to just one place of worship, and would often attend two in a day. The local Methodists had super Whitsun anniversaries, also known as the "sittings-up", where we’d dress up in, in my case, home-made finery, and each do a "turn", in front of proud parents. It was certainly worth the morning attendance to qualify. Who could forget my Stir Up the Pudding oh Diddle-Diddle Dough? Certainly not my mum.
But then, at St Helen’s Parish Church, down the road, Sunday afternoon sessions lured us with little booklets, and colourful, iconic stamps to stick in. A full booklet at the end of the term was the stuff today’s university –ology degrees are made of.
It’s so sad that today’s children are no longer encouraged to go along to these gentle little sessions, a fact brought to light recently with Derby City Council’s rejection of would-be foster parents Eunice and Owen Johns, because of their religious views. Sunday School teacher Mrs Johns wanted the children in their care to go to church on Sundays. As the Johns, from Oakwood, explain quite clearly, it’s not as if they’re going to cart off kids, kicking and screaming, to a church service if they don’t want to go, but they would like the option for the youngsters in their care to choose.
Even more worrying is the same Council’s issue on homosexuality. Mr and Mrs Johns, parents of four, and with 20 successful fosterings under their belts, also had their good intentions banned because, through their Christian beliefs, they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. Like Derby Mayor, Pauline Latham, who has taken up their case, I’m appalled. So, too, are friends in the gay community in Derby, who have discussed this with me.
Blow quoting the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) which makes it illegal for any business or organisation providing a public service to discriminate against anybody because of their sexuality. And spare a common-sense thought for the chronic shortage of foster-parents nation-wide – 8,000 needed right now.
Back to those halcyon Darley Dale days, there was a chap who knitted the most intricate Fair-Isle, made all his own shirts, and iced totally exquisite wedding cakes. And a woman who dressed in dungarees, worked in a local factory, and drank pints of beer. And guess what? Nobody questioned their sexuality, and I didn’t know what a homosexual was until I was in my 20s.
It’s political correctness gone mad. And as my mother would have said, we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart.
**
My friend Rose Kennedy was awoken from a deep sleep, fearing a plane had crashed on Shardlow Road, Alvaston, and found the cat, Smokey, clawing his way under the duvet on the spare bed. Another pal, Lil Bancroft of Chaddesden, was roused from her slumber by the clanking of the beads on her bedroom curtains, and a Victorian jug-and-bowl rattling on her chest-of-drawers. Elsewhere, in Ferrers Way, Allestree, niece Cindy Alcock and husband Steve joined their neighbours in the street, all donned in night attire, all wondering what an earth had happened.
Was I, who screeches "insomnia" at the sound of our milkman chinking his bottles, Ower Annie de-fleaing herself on the bed, or himself sneaking downstairs for a pre-dawn cuppa, and can time the mail plane on its way to East Midlands Airport to the very second, the only one for whom the earth didn’t move at around 1 am on February 27 when the quake struck?
***
As one who was educated in primary and secondary schools with strong religious ethics, with morning assemblies, going-home prayers, pre-meals Grace, encouragement to be confirmed, boarding school ritual of stomach-rumbling, pre-breakfast Holy Communion, little wonder it crossed my adolescent mind that it might be fun to be a nun. At the last school I attended, which started out as an educational establishment for daughters of the clergy, we even had our own chapel, to which we trooped every morning.
I grew up with Catechisms and Creeds coming out of my ears, word-perfect in every popular hymn and psalm in Hymns Ancient and Modern, and the fact that our school chaplain was the late, former canon of Derby Cathedral, the very dishy Paul Miller, only added to our schoolgirl religious fervour. But I digress.
For at least six years of my childhood, I found joy at Sunday School. From singing Sunshine Corner, oh it’s jolly fine, it’s for children under ninety-nine, at Tansley C of E when I was staying with my cousins in that village, to Hear the Pennies Dropping as they took the collection at Two Dales Chapel, I was in heaven.
I actually wasn’t very faithful to just one place of worship, and would often attend two in a day. The local Methodists had super Whitsun anniversaries, also known as the "sittings-up", where we’d dress up in, in my case, home-made finery, and each do a "turn", in front of proud parents. It was certainly worth the morning attendance to qualify. Who could forget my Stir Up the Pudding oh Diddle-Diddle Dough? Certainly not my mum.
But then, at St Helen’s Parish Church, down the road, Sunday afternoon sessions lured us with little booklets, and colourful, iconic stamps to stick in. A full booklet at the end of the term was the stuff today’s university –ology degrees are made of.
It’s so sad that today’s children are no longer encouraged to go along to these gentle little sessions, a fact brought to light recently with Derby City Council’s rejection of would-be foster parents Eunice and Owen Johns, because of their religious views. Sunday School teacher Mrs Johns wanted the children in their care to go to church on Sundays. As the Johns, from Oakwood, explain quite clearly, it’s not as if they’re going to cart off kids, kicking and screaming, to a church service if they don’t want to go, but they would like the option for the youngsters in their care to choose.
Even more worrying is the same Council’s issue on homosexuality. Mr and Mrs Johns, parents of four, and with 20 successful fosterings under their belts, also had their good intentions banned because, through their Christian beliefs, they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. Like Derby Mayor, Pauline Latham, who has taken up their case, I’m appalled. So, too, are friends in the gay community in Derby, who have discussed this with me.
Blow quoting the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) which makes it illegal for any business or organisation providing a public service to discriminate against anybody because of their sexuality. And spare a common-sense thought for the chronic shortage of foster-parents nation-wide – 8,000 needed right now.
Back to those halcyon Darley Dale days, there was a chap who knitted the most intricate Fair-Isle, made all his own shirts, and iced totally exquisite wedding cakes. And a woman who dressed in dungarees, worked in a local factory, and drank pints of beer. And guess what? Nobody questioned their sexuality, and I didn’t know what a homosexual was until I was in my 20s.
It’s political correctness gone mad. And as my mother would have said, we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart.
**
My friend Rose Kennedy was awoken from a deep sleep, fearing a plane had crashed on Shardlow Road, Alvaston, and found the cat, Smokey, clawing his way under the duvet on the spare bed. Another pal, Lil Bancroft of Chaddesden, was roused from her slumber by the clanking of the beads on her bedroom curtains, and a Victorian jug-and-bowl rattling on her chest-of-drawers. Elsewhere, in Ferrers Way, Allestree, niece Cindy Alcock and husband Steve joined their neighbours in the street, all donned in night attire, all wondering what an earth had happened.
Was I, who screeches "insomnia" at the sound of our milkman chinking his bottles, Ower Annie de-fleaing herself on the bed, or himself sneaking downstairs for a pre-dawn cuppa, and can time the mail plane on its way to East Midlands Airport to the very second, the only one for whom the earth didn’t move at around 1 am on February 27 when the quake struck?
***
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