Voice Magazines - Clay Cross & Surrounding Villages - January 2023

Shouting about businesses in the heart of your community www.VOICEMAGAZINES.co.uk

Shouting about businesses in the heart of your community www.VOICEMAGAZINES.co.uk

CLAY CROSS, DANESMOOR, LOWER PILSLEY, OLD TUPTON, PILSLEY

Dear Readers,

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne?”

If you didn’t sing this whilst smashing a prosecco with Jools Holland on the tellybox – how do you even know it is New Year!?

• These seasonal record temps are attributed to global warming and, after the success of the covid rules, the govt panic and introduce a national mandate for ‘us’ (not ‘them’) to stop travelling, stop eating Beef specifically and trying to only breathe outwards on every other breath.

• Kanye West moves to Qatar to “become at one with his personal values”

I’m embracing the year of the Rabbit and going for a year of hope! With that in mind, I’d thought I’d have a bit of fun and make some predictions for 2023 –channelling my inner Nostradamus.

• We will have fewer Prime Ministers than in 2022

• Everyone will own an Oodie as a replacement for our central heating

• Elon Musk will propose a duel to Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook & the whole of the Metaverse

• David Beckham (the National Labrador) will join another queue and he will finally be granted his longsolicited Knighthood

• Donald Trump has a DNA test and it is discovered that whilst he is a descendent of an actual orange from Spain his hair is in fact actually one of those really furry caterpillars. And yet he is still on the Republican ballot for POTUS nominees

• Having had the coldest winter in record, we follow the summer with the hottest year on record again and Britain went into meltdown – literally.

Just a few of my thoughts for this coming year. If you have a mind to, send me over some of your predictions for next year. Only tongue in cheeks ones though –our inbox now has a filter that removes emails that sound too grumpy!!!!

Anyhoo, I’m off to drown my sorrows as 2023 brings a most unwelcome birthday – no dry January for me!! Raising a glass to you all for a most wonderful 2023,

Happy Reading,

I am, of course, referring to Chinese Zodiac signs and their twelve-year cycle.

This year the Chinese New Year is 22 January, and we are moving into the “year of the rabbit” … actually, the full title is Year of the Water Rabbit, as Chinese astrology is based on five elements - Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth - as well as the twelve animal signs.

The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture and 2023 is predicted to be a year of hope (not before time!).

Yours truly was born in the Year of the Water Rabbit several decades ago, so I was hoping that the predictions would say 2023 is going to be a banger of a year for me.

Sadly, even though “people born in the year of the Water Rabbit year are predicted to enjoy good fortune and have a peaceful mind throughout their lives”, I also spotted a warning, “you are predicted many challenges with frequent life changes. You’re advised to be more careful about all aspects of your lives in 2023.”

Ho hum…another year of upheaval on the cards then?!

The web page with that slightly confusing information for us rabbits, did suggest a way to mitigate the less pleasant possibilities of 2023 - namely, to “wear red underwear and carry or wear lucky dog trinkets”!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

That’s me off to M&S for some sale price red undies then, although I’m not sure they stock “lucky dog trinkets” …I’m not even sure what they are.

Some other things said to bring good luck to us rabbits are…

• Lucky numbers: 3, 4, 6, and numbers containing them (like 34 and 46)

• Lucky colours: red, pink, purple, blue

• Lucky flowers: plantain lily, jasmine

• Lucky directions: east, south and northwest

• Of course, there are also some unlucky things (everything in balance, eh?)

• Unlucky numbers: 1, 7, and 8

• Unlucky colours: dark brown, dark yellow, white

• Unlucky directions: north, west, and southwest

I have to admit to being more than a little confused by some of this “advice”, particularly the directions. If northwest is lucky…how can north and west be unlucky?

Fortunately, I like lilies and jasmine and can deal with red, purple and blue (though not fond of pink) so maybe I’ll have to surround myself with flowers and start dressing in more flamboyant colours to keep my luck alive in 2023.

These articles are researched and written by Laura Billingham, a local content writer and author. Laura moved to the Peak District several years ago to pursue her passion for writing. To find out more visit www.landgassociates.co.uk or contact Laura on 07736 351 341

Are you a rat, ox, monkey, goat, or pig…? Do you even know what I’m talking about?

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

Residents of the Parish came together to remember those who lost their lives serving our country. During the Act of Remembrance, which was led by the Rev Richard Clark, wreaths were laid including one by Cllr Gerry Morley on behalf of the Parish Council.

PRESENTATION EVENING

We held this annual event at the Social Centre in November. The Parish Council donated a total of £3,100 to 24 local groups/organisations, of which 15 were in attendance on the night to receive their donation from the Chair of the Council, Cllr Gerry Morley.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

In December, we hosted our Parish Senior Citizens Party which included entertainment from Big Dave Bopper. The event was well attended, and we would like to thank all our staff and volunteers who helped to make it such a success. ALWAYS4

You can become a manager or a coach. New Tupton Ivanhoe F.C. will support you through your Introduction to Coaching Certificate and everything you need to know to get involved. Seeing young people develop and their friendships grow is really rewarding.

If coaching is not for you, the club needs a wide range of skills behind the scenes to make sure that it operates effectively for the 200+ players registered in the club.

If you have financial, fundraising, legal, marketing, event management expertise or are just good with

people and making things happen, then we could use your support.

There is plenty to get involved with and many new exciting projects the club are working on and need support to bring them to fruition.

If you can only give a few hours a year to the local community, why not volunteer at our Summer Festival of Football. We need people who can help us run stalls, steward the event and manage the car parks. All of these things are vital in making sure this is one of the largest and most successful events in the region.

Slimming World Recipe

Smoky pork and pepper

casserole

with carrot and parsnip mash

Method

1. Start by making the mash. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil over a high heat and cook the carrots and parsnips for 20 minutes or until tender.

2. Meanwhile, spray a large nonstick casserole pan or frying pan with low-calorie cooking spray and place over a high heat. Add the pork, peppers and onion and season lightly. Cook for 5 minutes or until the meat begins to brown, then cover, turn the heat down a little and cook for a further 10 minutes.

3. At the same time, cook the barbecue sauce according to the pack instructions.

For more information visit www.slimmingworld.co.uk

This recipe will have you licking your lips and probably the plate afterwards! Warming, filling and really tasty. Yes please!

Ingredients:

4. Add the barbecue sauce to the pork along with 300ml boiling water, cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes or until the meat is cooked and tender.

5. Drain the carrot and parsnips, reserving 6 tbsp cooking water, and return to the pan. Mash the carrots and parsnips with the reserved cooking water and season with plenty of freshly ground black pepper and a little salt.

6. Divide the mash between plates or bowls and top with the pork casserole. Scatter over the parsley and serve hot with Speed vegetables.

Serves: 4 Ready in: 35 mins

Low-calorie cooking spray

600g lean pork tenderloin, visible fat removed, cut into chunks

2 large red peppers, deseeded and cut into chunks

1 large red onion, cut into chunks

350g pot Slimming World Barbecue Sauce

Chopped fresh parsley, to serve

For the mash: 400g carrots, roughly chopped 750g parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped

Syns per serving: FREE

Vintage Rambles with rafaand Flake

It has been over 3 years since we first did this walk. It is well suited to this time of year as it makes use of some good tracks and trails. This walk also boasts some great views and varied terrain. For these reasons we have been back along this route a few times, making sure we stop at a nice pub nearby for a well earned warm and some refreshments.

5-MILE CIRCULAR WALK FROM WATCHWOOD VIA CALVERTON COLLIERY AND SANSOM WOOD

A mid-length walk which should take you and your dog around 2½ hours to complete. There are a couple of roads to walk alongside and cross so please take care, especially crossing the A614. Most of the walk is on paths and trails, so it may be muddy and will require appropriate footwear. And, as always, please follow the countryside code.

1. Exit the car park onto the road and turn left along the road. After a short distance turn left to pass through a gap and then, ignoring a marked footpath on your right, continue with woodland on your left and open views on your right.

2. After a short distance you will begin to climb gently uphill. Keep ahead with woodland to your left and open views to your right and then at the top of the hill continue straight ahead on the same level for a short distance. After the footpath begins to descend you will reach a

T junction of paths. At this point turn right and now continue downhill with a few trees and open views on your right and woodland on your left.

3. Continue for some distance, then follow the footpath around to the left, staying on the edge of the woodland with a fence on your right. Upon reaching a T junction of footpaths ignore the footpath diagonal right, and turn sharp right to pass a telegraph pole on your left. Continue ahead, away from the woodland and keeping a fence on your right.

4. When the fence ends cross straight over a tarmac lane and continue along a footpath around to the left passing through some bushes. After you clear the bushes continue straight ahead to cross a wide-open space. Eventually you will reach a tarmac lane. Cross the lane diagonal right and then continue straight ahead with a fence over to your left.

5. After a short distance turn left onto a footpath, just prior to reaching a signboard on your left that reads ‘Calverton Colliery Tip’. Pass the ‘Calverton’ signboard on your right to continue along the footpath going uphill. After a short distance the footpath widens to a track then, near the top of the hill, pass through a open wooden gate. At the top of the hill you will reach a T junction of tracks. Turn right along the track going gently downhill, with views to your right.

6. Pass by a large wooden gate and then continue straight ahead for some distance until passing by a 2nd large wooden gate. Continue straight ahead for a long distance staying on the track to pass 3 more large wooden gates. After the 5th of these gates after some distance and when the track begins to curl to the left, turn right along a track going downhill.

7. At the bottom of the hill pass a sign board on your left and by a large metal gate. After a short distance, upon reaching a T junction of tracks with woodland directly ahead of you turn right to walk along a well laid track. After a short distance the track curls around to the right. Ignore two footpaths to your left to continue along the track going downhill. At the bottom of the hill and just before the track begins to climb again, turn left onto a footpath going downhill.

8. Continue walking along this path until you pass by a metal gate and to a road. Cross straight over the road and then turn left. Walk along the road for a short distance and then turn right onto a footpath marked for ‘Papplewick’. Continue ahead with a hedge on your right and a fence and open views on your left. When the fence ends continue ahead with a hedge on your right.

9. Walk ahead until reaching some woodland. Now continue along the edge of the

woodland, keeping a fence on your left. Continue until you can go no further and follow the footpath to the right, away from the fence and towards the trees. Immediately you will come to a T junction of paths. Turn left and now continue straight ahead along a footpath through woodland. Ignore a fork to the left and keep ahead to pass under some power lines.

10. Continue until reaching a track. Ignore the path to the left and continue ahead along the track going downhill. After some distance pass by a metal gate and to a road. Turn left along the road for a very short distance and then turn left again to continue along a track going through woodland. Continue along the track as it turns into a tarmac lane until reaching a road.

11. Turn left along the road and after a short distance cross over the road to continue on the footpath on the opposite side. Continue until reaching a T junction with a main road. Cross straight over the main road to pass through a gap in a fence and make your way around to the left to a tarmac road. Walk along the tarmac road until reaching the car park on your left.

This walk is for illustrative purposes only. Voice Magazines Ltd takes no responsibility for anyone who chooses to follow this route and encourages all walkers to obey all byelaws and signs and to respect the area they are walking in, ensuring they pick up all dog mess and obey the countryside code at all times.

Calverton Colliery

Gravely Hollow

Oxton Watch wood Samsom Wood

WW1 WOMEN’S LAND ARMY

Everyone may recall a previous article I wrote about the WLA. Many assume that it started in WW2 but indeed has roots in WW1 and even earlier. Most people associate Lady Denman with the Women’s Institute and later the WLA. However, Louisa “Lill” Jebb Wilkins (August 8, 1873 - 1929) was the first woman Univ. of Cambridge Agriculture Graduate in 1897, to actually hold the helm of the WW1 WLA.

She was an agricultural administrator and was born on 8 August 1873 at The Lythe, Ellesmere, Shropshire. The daughter of Arthur Trevor Jebb (1839–1894), barrister, and Eglantyne Louisa Jebb (1845–1925). She was one of six children, four girls and two boys and hers was a traditional land-owning family. A family with a devout Christian belief and sense of public duty, their father believed that ‘of those to whom much is given, much is expected’, and was strongly of the opinion that his four daughters should be educated at home to a certain level. However, Arthur’s sister, Louisa, (known as ‘Aunt Bun’, whilst her niece Louisa was known as ‘Lill’ within the family to distinguish them from each other) thought otherwise, and paid for all four girls to receive further education, as she had done, being one of the first women to attend the newly-founded Newnham College at Cambridge University. Lill also went to Newnham and became the first woman to read for the Agriculture Diploma at Cambridge, which inspired her interest in agriculture and eventually led to her founding the Women’s Land Army during the First World War and also helping to develop the Women’s Institute movement. She was founder member of the Women’s Farm and Garden Union in 1899. For three years up to 1907 she was retained by the Cooperative Small Holdings Association. 1907 saw her publish ‘The Small Holdings of England’ which was an attempt to provide a survey of the small holdings of England.

In February 1916, the Women’s Farm and Garden Union sent a deputation to meet Lord Selbourne to establish a group in response to the war effort. Under the Ministry of

Agriculture, the Women’s National Land Service Corps was born with a pot of funding of £150! Wilkins was to lead the new voluntary organisation that was to focus on recruiting women for emergency agricultural war work. She chaired the executive committee, offices were established in Upper Baker Street and the 9th Duke of Marlborough agreed to be president.

The new organisation was tasked with improving recruitment and providing propaganda about the benefits of women of all classes undertaking agricultural work. The new members of her organisation were not to become agricultural workers but to organise others (e.g., in villages) to do this work. By the end of 1916 they had recruited 2,000 volunteers, but they estimated that 40,000 were required.

At the Women’s National Land Service Corp’s suggestion a Land Army was formed. The WNLSC continued to deal with recruitment and the network supported the launch of a “Land Army”. By April 1917 they had over 500 replies and 88 joined the new Land Army where they became group leaders and supervisors. As more men were required at the front, so too were more women to replace those gone off to war. The organisation grew to 23,000 women earning about a pound a week. This was a sizeable contribution but it is estimated that the number of women working on the land during the war eventually reached around 300,000. Lill’s sisters, Eglantyne and Dorothy Jebb, went to Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and at the end of the First World War in 1919 co-founded the Save the Children Fund.

Photo’s courtesy of Nicky Reynolds

Winter birds in the gardens

Colder weather has brought lots of small birds into wildlife garden across the region. From a period of marked quiet in October and November, December saw a big increase with blue tits, great tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits in abundance. The robins and dunnocks remained throughout, and they are territorial in winter as well as summer, they even manage to sing a little too. Blackbirds have also returned to the garden with local birds back from foraging in hedgerows and woodlands across the area joined by migrants from Europe. The local birds are quite aggressively territorial and object strongly to intruders, the continental birds perhaps having travelled together for hundreds of miles, seem happy to flock. The locals take a dim view!

Finches have also arrived in good numbers with chaffinches, greenfinches (now seemingly recovering from the devastating ‘fat finch disease’), goldfinches, and bullfinches. The smaller siskin and redpoll are also in flocks across the Peak District and nearby areas and will come to gardens as the winter draws on. Feeders of peanuts, fat-balls, and sunflower seeds provide a mix of food sources to suit all tastes, but interestingly, whereas at one time niger seed were guaranteed tract goldfinches, they are now totally ignored. Instead, the goldfinches only take sunflower hearts, which a of course are the most expensive too! Dried mealworms are good for the robins although, being short-lived, my favourite birds which used to come down and ‘talk’ to me, I think has passed on. I am now trying to gain the trust of a new bird.

Along with the smaller birds, my great spotted woodpeckers, male and female, are now regular visitors. I have heard nuthatches calling nearby but not seen them in the garden so far. Overhead, small groups of black-headed gulls and lesser black-backed gulls are now regular as are flocks of woodpigeons moving through. There don’t yet seem to be any big flocks of the corvids (crows) heading to afternoon roosts, but perhaps that will come with colder conditions. Several big flocks of pink-footed geese passed over and were heading south-east in late November. By February and March, these birds will be on their return migration heading north-west across the Peak and back to the Arctic via Britain’s west coast. Nature’s annual cycle goes around again and the birds reflect this with some staying put, others moving locally, and then many more covering hundreds if not thousands of miles.

Watching and recording birds in, over, and around the garden provides a remarkable insight into the bigger patterns throughout the seasons. You can also witness how bird behaviour gradually changes and evolves as well. So, the goldfinches abandon one seed to feed preferentially on a different one. Robins and chaffinches for example, have taken to feeding on hanging foods such as seed holders and fat-balls, which they never did before. Even magpies now try to feed on peanut holders, and magpies, carrion crows and jackdaws all feast on the fat-balls. The magpies also chase my robin off the mealworms.

Professor Ian D. Rotherham is a researcher, writer and broadcaster on wildlife and environmental issues. He is contactable on info@hallamec.plus.com and you can follow his website and blog: www.ukeconet.org & https://ianswalkonthewildside.wordpress.com/ and he can be followed on Twitter @IanThewildside

Don’t forget to mention Voice Magazines when responding to the Ads

a kind of fungal infection which weakens the plant and at this time of year hellebores – a winter favourite - are particularly vulnerable to it. As with roses the only answer is to remove any leaves which have black blotches and bin them. (Don’t compost as this will only spread the rot).

can prune roses now while they are still dormant. Cut back branches to just above a bud, cutting on a slope to avoid wet lying on the surface.

old sedums back now but watch out for new growth which may be starting to push through.