Denham March 2020 by In and Around Publishing

Dear Readers Welcome to the March issue of

Inside this month’s issue

In and Around Denham And, as I say every year, one of my most favourite months! March always feels like turning a corner and heading towards better weather, longer days and of course my much loved barbeques. It’s also birthday month for both myself and the magazines, and whilst I’m not so keen on divulging my own age, I’m happy to share that In and Around Publishing is celebrating it’s 14th year of posting our local magazines through residents’ letterboxes. What’s even more amazing is that when I checked back on our records, we actually still have some advertisers who have been with us from that very first year back in 2006. Over the years, my daughter has grown from a small child to a fully grown woman, indeed, I now have a beautiful grandchild too. I’ve moved house three times, gained a dog and sadly lost a dog, carried out distribution in just about every possible weather element and overcome all kinds of technical and logistical glitches. One of the most wonderful aspects of these magazines has been the number of people, both advertisers and residents that I’ve not only spoken with or met, but with whom I’ve become good friends over the years. So I’d like to thank you, the entire community for supporting myself and my venture and ensuring its success. Until next month .Angela & Sammy

You can advertise in this magazine from as little as £22.00 per month “Ask us about our affordable advertising rates or visit our website for more information” Tel: 0800 038 5001 Mob: 07759 536494 In and Around Magazines cover: Iver: Thorney, Richings Park, Village, Iver Heath Denham: New Denham, Village, Denham Green, Tatling End, Bakers Wood, South Harefield

Publisher: Angela Fisher Phone: 0800 038 5001 / 07759 536494 Email: info@inandaroundpublishing.co.uk Information and Details of Rates at

www.inandaroundpublishing.co.uk 4

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Britain’s Strangest Museums 6 Top tips for verruca treatment 8 Interiors: Quick, Inexpensive Improvements 10 Denham Parish Council 12 Tech: Hair we go 14 Denham Against HS2 16 Travel: Fire Blessing - Bhutan 20 Careers 24 Beauty: March into Spring 26 3 essentials for dog proofing your home 28 Eco Friendly Snippet 28 Recipe: Spinach & Ricotta Dumplings 30 Gardening: Easy veg growing 34 History: How the computer began 36 30 years on: Poll Tax riots revisited 38 7 cars you can finance for less than a week shop 40 Books to get you talking 42 Puzzle Solutions 43 Citizens Advice Bureau 44 Useful Telephone Numbers 44 Short story: The Runaround 46 Baking: Cheats’ apple strudel 48 Stepping stone investing 50 Parenting: Introducing a new baby to the family 52 It’s time to give your home a spring clean 54 Clubs, Groups & Classes 56, 58 & 60 Driving Tips 57 Puzzles 59 Wordsearch 62

APRIL COPY DEADLINE 17TH MARCH We are grateful for the support of local businesses whose adverts appear in this publication and whilst every care is taken to ensure accuracy, the publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors, omissions, claims made by advertisers or endorse companies, products or services. This publication, its contents and advert designs are © of In and Around Publishing. Any copying or reproduction in part or fully, is strictly forbidden without our prior consent.

Dear Resident

March 2020

It’s mid-February and whilst the wind and rain is causing havoc across the country, we appear to be less affected in Denham than many places where homes and retail outlets are currently under water. It’s no wonder that there are flash floods on many of our roads, as despite our drains being cleared late last year, the sheer volume of rain that has fallen needs time to run away. The bad weather has also affected work we scheduled to have been carried out during February. If it doesn’t let up, we will be entering the bird nesting season which will mean that trees and hedges that have not yet been cut back will have to wait until later in the year. If you have trees that are classified as ‘boundary’ trees i.e. are growing just outside your fence, then they are your responsibility to maintain and ensure that branches do not hang down lower than 2.5mtrs. You also need to be aware that we have been advised by Transport for Bucks that they need to be checked every 3 years for safety, which is a timely reminder for us with these high winds we are experiencing. Another timely reminder is that hedges that are within your property must not overhang the highway and you need to cut them back perpendicular to your boundary so that they do not impede pedestrians. If you find that you are being forced to step into the road to avoid a hedge, then please advise us of the address. Unfortunately, we are still short staffed which has had an impact on the work we have been able to complete this financial year. We are hoping that we can go to consultation with you on our Neighbourhood Plan at our Annual Parish Meeting on Thursday 19 March. However, this may depend on us finding some help to prepare the material to inform and display. We will also need to prepare a questionnaire for you to be able to respond. Our events committee have arranged another ‘Sunday Tea Dance Social’ with Bingo and Dancing at 3pm on Sunday 5 April 2020 at our usual venue of the New Denham Community Hall, Oxford Road, further dates are being arranged along with a special tea dance on Sunday 10 May 2020 for VE day. Two additional defibrillators have been pur12

chased and will soon be installed in Denham Green and Tatling End. We will be arranging an official opening of the new outdoor gym installed in Knighton Way Lane Recreation Field. This field now caters for a very wide variety of activity including junior football, basketball and other children’s play equipment. We have also recently replaced and installed some new benches making it a pleasant place for residents to sit and enjoy the area. We are hoping that the new Unitary Buckinghamshire Council will be able to provide us with some new community facilities we can use as a Community Centre to support our volunteers and work we do for our Good Neighbours Scheme, allow provision for a Youth Club and a base for other initiatives we wish to run for the benefit of the community. We are seeking a couple of volunteers from each area to promote ‘litter picking days’. Please contact us if you would help us arrange this. Save the Date! Forthcoming Events: Annual Parish Meeting - 7pm Thursday 19 March 2020, Denham Village Hall Special VE Social Tea Dance - 3pm Sunday 10 May 2020 New Denham Community VE Day Children’s Tea Party - Friday 8 May 2020, Denham Village Hall Beating the Bounds - Sunday 17 May 2020, led by Paul Graham Music on the Green: Every 3rd Sunday from May to September Sunday 17 May – A local band ‘The Styles’ will be playing on the Village Green. Elections will be held on Thursday 7 May 2020 for County Councillors, Parish Councillors and the Police Crime Commissioner. If you live in Denham and you are interested in issues that affect the area why not stand for election? For more information visit www.denhambucks-pc.gov.uk. Nominations close on Wednesday 8 April 2020. Marilyn Heath Chairman, Denham Parish Council Our thanks to In and Around for hosting this page

Reflections on a long campaign … By Frank Partridge, Denham Against HS2

Tuesday 11th February was a dark day the gravy train, but Oakervee did express for the STOP HS2 campaign, almost ten years to the day since it came into being. Boris Johnson breezed into the House of Commons and after softening up the sceptics on both sides with some amusing but rambling rhetoric involving electric buses, cycle lanes, tulips, obscure marine creatures and a future of “treedappled sunlight” for all of us, he eventually got round to announcing that HS2 will not be stopped, despite the raft of powerful arguments against it.

concern about the ballooning cost (£106 billion and counting), HS2 Ltd’s hapless management and its lamentable treatment of local communities. Mercifully the Prime Minister has taken some of these criticisms on board. A few HS2 backroom staff will be paid off, and the government will take more control of the northern (Phase 2) section of the line, with a pledge to bear down on costs, which might mean that north of Birmingham the trains won’t run at anything like the 225mph planned for the southern section. Freeing up capacity on the rail network has long since overtaken timesaving for inter-city travellers as the main justification for HS2.

Boris’s devastating piece of vaudeville followed hard on the heels of the review he commissioned last autumn in a clever ploy to shunt the HS2 conundrum into the sidings for a few months to avoid distracting voters from the “get Brexit done” The new management team might begin mantra that helped win him a decisive by investigating why more than 300 of majority in the general election. the company’s staff receive salaries in excess of £100,000, and why the barely The review, led and written by Doug Oak- visible chief executive, Mark Thornton, is ervee, a former chairman of HS2 Ltd, was paid four or five times more than the never going to trash his former friends on Prime Minister himself. 16

Cont. over page …...

… and an even longer one to come? But there seems little chance of stopping the London-Birmingham juggernaut – unless work has to be halted because of an engineering setback. Parts of the route have not been properly surveyed, and noone really knows what effect all the piledrilling and tunnelling will have on the chalk streams that run through the Chilterns and provide some of London’s drinking water.

security personnel and squads of workmen have sprung up all over the place. One fence went up near Old Shire Lane, trapping two unsuspecting deer inside. Nobody from the fencing company had bothered to check for stray wildlife before erecting the fence.

Heavy good vehicles hired by HS2 Ltd have been parking where they shouldn’t, using and damaging A-roads and verges, Time to throw in the towel? and failing to clean the mud of their tyres In the days immediately after the an- despite repeated assurances that they nouncement, some long-standing anti- would do so. If you think our local traffic HS2 campaigners decided there was no is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. point in continuing, but judging from the daily email traffic between the various So this is no time to bow to the inevitable action groups, the vast majority are going and reluctantly accept that we’re going to to fight on - as determined as ever to find live alongside a giant, polluting, noisy ways of mitigating the construction dam- series of construction sites for the rest of age, challenging HS2 in the courts, and the 2020s. Judging by many of their actividemanding a more rigorous inquiry by the ties so far, HS2 Ltd need to be watched Serious Fraud Office into how construc- every step of the way, and we can ensure tion contracts were awarded, and they adhere to the rulebook by being vigiwhether some home and land-owners lant and reporting anything untoward have had their properties and land un- and insisting that something is done to correct it. fairly undervalued. There’s talk of an all-party parliamentary group being set up to reflect the misgivings of MPs, including our own Joy Morrissey, one of a group of Conservative dissenters who believe that Denham’s plight has been unfairly overlooked for a decade.

Blackspots And local grievances will mount when serious construction works starts in the spring. In and around Denham and Harefield, even at the ‘preparatory’ stage of construction, the numerous blackspots are all too plain to see. High fencing, cranes and earth-movers, temporary road closures, yellow-jacketed 18

HS2 have set up a Freephone number for complaints: 08081 434 434. Alternatively, email Emma Gaydon, the local community engagement officer (EmmaGaydon@hs2.org.uk) – and/or joy.morrissey.mp@parliament.uk.

We will only have ourselves to blame if we do nothing. The fight goes on.

Overcoming Doglessness and Helping to Ease Social Isolation…. Barking Mad Alternative to Dog Ownership Celebrates 20 Years It has been scientifically proven that patting and walking dogs can help people to feel more relaxed and less anxious. This makes a huge difference to emotional and physical well-being. Those caring for a dog are also less likely to be socially isolated, research suggests. ‘The Pet Factor – Companion Animals as a Conduit for Getting to Know People, Friendship Formation and Social Support‘, states that, ‘Companion animals can be a catalyst for several dimensions of human social relationships in neighbourhood settings, ranging from incidental social interaction and getting to know people, through to formation of The Gerrards Cross & Ruislip branch of a canine friendships.’ company founded in 2000, to provide home from home dog care instead of kenneling, is helping to Owner-operator of Barking Mad Gerrards Cross & celebrate 20 years of people experiencing health Ruislip, Emmath Gordon, said: “As Barking Mad celeand well-being benefits due to an alternative to brates its 20 anniversary, our proudest achievement is the happiness which holidaying dogs have dog ownership. brought to the lives of our host families. We match Jennifer Davies has been a ‘host’ dog sitter for Bark- friendly dogs to hosts’ preferences and lifestyle, for ing Mad for nearly fourteen years and believes that their holidays and short breaks. It’s ideal for retirher hobby has changed her life. She said, “The best ees, home-based workers and teachers in school thing about hosting is – UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! I holidays. always get a lovely good morning greeting with lots of tail wagging and I am much fitter. I have lost five We take care of everything, including chauffeuring stone in weight. Having a dog is much the same as dogs to our hosts’ homes with all their essentials having a baby – people talk to you and make a fuss and providing 24/7 support. Hosts experience all of the dogs. I have met so many new people with the benefits of dog companionship without any of the emotional or financial responsibilities of fulldogs and without. time pet ownership.” My first doggy visitors were Todd and Jazz, two salukis. In the evenings, Jazz would curl up by my feet and Todd would be beside me with his head on my shoulder, gazing into my eyes. I was totally hooked – who wouldn’t be? I have a son who lives in Guernsey who I visit regularly, and I like going on holidays with my friends. If I had my own dog, this would make things more complicated. With Barking Mad, I always say I have all of the pleasure and none of the expense or worry about what would happen if I became unwell.” 22

To find out more about becoming a Barking Mad host, you can call Emma on 01494 362141 or email emma.gordon@barkingmad.uk.com or visit www.barkingmad.uk.com/local/ buckinghamshire/gerrards-cross-ruislip/