Voice Magazines - Sutton-in-Ashfield and Huthwaite Edition - January 2023

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

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

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 long-solicited 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 on record, we follow the summer with the hottest year on record again and Britain went into meltdown – literally.

• 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”

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, Emily

And all the VOICE MAGAZINES TEAM

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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

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Are you a rat, ox, monkey, goat, or pig…?

Do you even know what I’m talking about?

Festive Fun at John Eastwood Hospice

We started the month with successful Christmas market stalls at Moor Indoor Market and The Red. Next followed our ‘Tree of Light’ event, where families could sponsor a light on our special tree in memory of their loved one. We then hosted our much-anticipated Christmas Fair, with donated goods for sale such as fashion, toys and more. Festive food and beverages were enjoyed by all, and the children could experience a visit with Santa in his grotto! Dalestorth Primary school choir joined us for some carols and spreading Christmas cheer! Games were played such as our tombola and the popular ‘win the wine’. We also sold a fantastic number of tickets for our raffle, with the star prize of £200 Love2Shop vouchers. Total raised from the day was an amazing £15,330.62.

Throughout December, children were also invited to the hospice to take part in breakfast or afternoon tea with Santa, and festive pooches could have a photo with Santa Paws! Each week our volunteers helped visitors to our Sunflower Café on Thursday mornings by wrapping their Christmas gifts in return for a small donation. Tracey Joyce, Hospice Trust Manager says, ‘We’ve had such a wonderful festive season! Thank you to everyone who has helped with or attended one of our Christmas events, the money you have helped to raise is really appreciated by the hospice and will be used to continue providing our patients with specialist care ’ Keep an eye out on our social media for any events coming in the new year, we would love to see you in 2023.

John Eastwood Hospice Trust, Mansfield Road, Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, NG17 4HJ Web: www.johneastwoodhospice.org.uk email: contact@johneastwoodhospice.org.uk tel: 01623 622626

Sweet Treat Outing

Voice Magazine were

lucky enough to be invited to ‘The Little Dessert Shop’ in Sutton in Ashfield this month, on a cold Monday lunchtime, which was a lovely way to start our week.

As you might already know, our team here at Voice Magazines are a little partial to a sweet treat or two. So, as you can imagine, with an offer like this, our team jumped with joy!!

Upon arrival we were greeted by the wonderfully friendly staff Steve and Joanne inside a beautiful Christmasified restaurant, but despite the warm welcome and the gorgeous surroundings, our eyes were drawn to a myriad of amazing desserts on display in the fridge counter!

We all embraced the festive spirit with the Christmas music playing softly in the background, creating a delightful atmosphere. We were offered hot drinks to warm us up on arrival, which was not an easy choice when there were so many to choose from. There were festive hot chocolates, Christmassy coffees, different flavoured coffees, regular coffees & teas and even delicious milk shakes and iced drinks were available, we were absolutely spoilt for choice!

Next, we had the mammoth task of looking at the menu and making a selection from the plethora of choices; cheesecakes, pancakes, waffles, cakes, ice cream sundaes, crepes, cookie dough, verrines, patisseries, brownies, bakes, gelato. With

every item coming in numerous flavours, we really didn’t know what to choose, so we just asked for a recommended selection from the attentive Steve.

The thing is, Danielle, Sarah & Liam all claim not to have a ‘sweet tooth’ unlike Emily, Michelle & Lisa, but in all honesty, this shop could convert even the most ardent ‘savoury only’ person!! It was an absolute taste sensation. Mentioning no names, and whilst we had a situation where our eyes were bigger than our bellies, Michelle and Emily definitely took one for the team to make sure that there were very few leftovers!!!

The presentation of every dessert was outstanding, garnished with fruit (which surely counts as 1 of your 5 a day?!), a real feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds and the tummy. We all had our own favourites from the visit and we will all, most certainly, be going back for extra trips with our own families over the festive period, as everyone thoroughly enjoyed every single last mouthful.

The pictures we have taken don’t quite capture just how luxurious, decadent & delicious these desserts truly are but don’t take our words for it – get yourselves down to Sutton!

And just in case you were in any doubt, Voice Magazines would very highly recommend a sweet treat from the Little Dessert Shop Sutton in Ashfield!!

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

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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

Bunk,

Book Review

The Dressmaker’s Gift by Fiona Valpy is a potent and absorbing tale to counter these cold and dark winter days.

It’s set in France, mostly Paris, during the Second World War and focusses on three young women who produce dresses for the high end of the haute couture market. - It may have been the middle of a war but there was still a market for posh frocks, not least among the wives and mistresses of the Nazi occupiers.

And while, with hindsight, we understand what was happening during that period, it may not always have been so obvious to impressionable young people at the time and one of the girls becomes involved with a German officer.

At the same time the resistance is growing and inevitably the girls become caught up in that – and suffer the consequences in the worst ways. Interwoven with this is the story of a young woman in our present day who is trying to uncover her family’s history.

It’s well researched historically and is interesting on the complexities of living in historic times. But it’s also full of heart and the strong relationships of these women in the face of almost daily terror makes it an uplifting story.

SOCIETY THE GRUESOME MURDER OF BESSIE SHEPPARD!

My story is a tragic one, in an area which is now part of Ashfield. It is the story of Bessie Sheppard. Bessie, who was 17 years old, was the victim of a murderous attack as she walked along the Mansfield to Nottingham Road –what is now the A60 – near Harlow Wood.

Bessie left her home in Papplewick one morning in early July 1817 to look for work as a domestic servant. The journey was approximately 6 miles. Bessie arrived safely in Mansfield and was successful in her search for work. She started on her return journey alone in the evening.

She had the misfortune to pass on the road a man named Charles Rotherham. Rotherham had been a soldier and earlier he had been apprenticed to a scissor grinder. He was 33 years old and a citizen of Sheffield who had only recently been discharged from the army. Without money or employment after the Napoleonic wars ended, he seems to have drifted aimlessly from village to village, looking for money to feed himself and to fuel his drinking habit. In a report of the murder in the “Hull Packet”, a newspaper of the time, the suggestion is that he made an attempt upon her chastity and when she resisted him, he flew into a rage, picked up a hedge stake and beat her so severely that she was unrecognisable. She was identified by her clothing and possessions.

I think that this is more believable than Rotherham claiming he “didn’t know what possessed him”. I think he was probably the sort of man who is never entirely sober and a young girl on her own was a temptation to him and he couldn’t take rejection. Rotherham took the only items of value on her body, her shoes and her umbrella. He also cut open her stays to look for money but was unsuccessful.

Bessie’s body was found the next morning by some quarry men on their way to work. They were horrified by the sight. She had suffered a savage attack; one eye had been completely knocked out and lay on her cheek and her brain matter protruded through her skull. The workmen stopped some people in a gig. From their higher vantage point, they could see her body and set off for Mansfield to inform the police.

After she was identified, and it was discovered Bessie’s shoes and umbrella were missing there was a lead to follow. Rotherham had been seen drinking in the Hutt Inn on the day of the crime only a mile from the murder sight. Later that night he turned up at the Three Crowns Inn at Redhill 6.5 miles from the murder scene. He tried to sell the shoes and umbrella taken from the victim. No one took up the offer. He spent the night at Redhill. When he left the next morning, he left the shoes in his bedroom but he still had the umbrella. He sold it in the village of Bunny. Mr B. Barnes of Nottingham, an officer of the law, pursued him and arrested him in Loughborough, 25 miles from the scene of the murder. His clothes were examined and found to be blood-stained. He made a full confession. The only reason he gave for the murder was his need for money for drink. He was taken “heavily ironed” to the Blue Bell in Sutton in Ashfield for the inquest.

He paid in full for his crime on Gallows Hill at Nottingham on 28 July 1817 just 3 weeks after the murder and in front of a large crowd who cheered as he dropped to his death. One sad postscript to the case was Bessie’s mother had fits when told what happened to her daughter and the “Hull Packet” said that she had since continued in a state of frenzy. There is a stone memorial dedicated to Bessie at the east side of the A60 at the bottom of Harlow Wood hill. It is visible from the road

Angela Morris

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

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It’s 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).

Keep deadheading winter pansies to encourage more flowers. You 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.

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

You can push bare-root fruit canes into rich soil now, so long as the ground is not frozen.