Your Guide to Pet-nups

From left to right: Lauren Townson, Lyndsey Kiley & Amanda Long.

Marsden Rawsthorn Solicitors have decades of experience and historic roots within the local community. We have a wellestablished team of highly qualified and skilled solicitors with a first-class reputation.

The Family Team in particular are sensitive to the difficult situations you may face. We recognise your needs and circumstances are unique and our aim is to achieve the very best outcome for you.

Our focus is on finding the best situation to help you move forward.

PETNUPS

The breakdown of any relationship is an upsetting time for all concerned, especially when family pets are involved. Pets are often seen as an important and integral part of the family.

There have been many cases in the spotlight which evidence just how attached to our pets we become, for example, the alleged dispute between Ant McPartlin and Lisa Armstrong over their beloved dog, Hurley.

Petnups have become a key consideration as a result of COVID 19.

It is estimated that around 3.2 million households in the UK have acquired a pet since the start of the pandemic. The country now has 17 million pet-owning homes amounting to 34 million pets in the UK (source Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association).

It is becoming increasingly desired by couples to have certainty as to what should happen to their beloved pet following the breakdown of a relationship, and how to make an already upsetting time a little easier.

HOW ARE PETS VIEWED IN THE EYES OF THE LAW?

A pet is classed as a chattel in the same way as an item of personal property, for example, an item of furniture.

WHAT IS A PETNUP?

A petnup is a document, similar to a prenuptial agreement or separation agreement, which deals with your pet and who should take ownership of your pet in the event of a dispute following relationship breakdown.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF A PETNUP?

Having a petnup in place is a preemptive step. It enables parties to agree, in the event of an unfortunate relationship breakdown, as to what should happen to the pet and other important decisions. of having to address the matter at the end of the relationship, and it potentially avoids the parties having to spend significant amounts of money in legal fees to determine the issue.

What the petnup should include will often be determined on a case-by-case basis. However, it would be useful for the petnup to address the following matters: -

• Who the pet is to live with;

• Who is responsible for the insurance;

• Who is responsible for the vet bills; and

• What should happen in the event the pet becomes ill.

The petnup could also include provision for the other party to continue spending time the pet. If the parties are amicable, it may be that provision could be made for there to be ‘shared care’ of the pet, and for the one party to care for the pet whilst the other is on holiday.

A petnup can be tailored to meet the wishes of the parties involved.

ARE PETNUPS LEGALLY BINDING?

Like prenuptial agreements and separation agreements, petnups are not legally binding. However, the Court is likely to uphold the terms of the petnup if:-

• the petnup has been drafted correctly;

• it has been freely entered into by both parties;

• there is a mutual intention for the petnup to be binding;

• there has been no undue pressure; and

I DO NOT HAVE A PETNUP AND THERE IS A DISPUTE OVER OWNERSHIP, WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?

If in the event of a relationship breakdown and you and your partner are unable to reach an agreement in respect of your pet, you could consider attending at mediation.

Both you and your partner would be able to sit down and try and resolve the issue with the assistance of a trained and impartial mediator, with a view to arriving at an agreement everyone is happy with.

In the event mediation is not successful, you may have little option other than to seek Court intervention to resolve the dispute. However, it would be necessary to weigh up the potential costs involved in respect of any litigation and it may that Court Proceedings are simply not cost-effective.

Of course, for many of us, pets are priceless and therefore, it would be in your interest to have a petnup to avoid having to make such a difficult decision.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Family Team at Marsden Rawsthorn for a bespoke quotation. If you would like to arrange an appointment, call 0800 294 4410 or alternatively email on info@ marsdenrawsthorn.com

Marsden Rawsthorn Solicitors Ltd Faraday Court Faraday Drive Fulwood Preston - PR2 9NB Westmarch House 42 Eaton Avenue Buckshaw Village Chorley - PR7 7NA

From Burnley to the Black Sea

By local author Stewart Binns

Ifirst went to Russia, the Soviet Union as it then was, in the summer of 1969. I was at university at Lancaster, but as my car was at my East Lancs home in Burnley, the little cotton town where I had grown up was my point of departure. My pride and joy was a Mini, but we were a party of four, so what little luggage we had had to be stuffed onto a roof rack.

Fortunately, one of our quartet was studying Eastern European history and was a fluent Russian speaker. Without her, we may never have returned. The visit, with its many escapades and dramas, gave me a host of vivid memories that have stayed with me for over fifty years. Not only that, although it never occurred to me at the time, the journey has come back into prominence more than once in my life.

Our 1969 visit was a six-week summer adventure that began on a ferry from Newcastle to Norway, continued across Scandinavia and onto the Finnish-Soviet border, at Vyborg. It ended on the Romanian border, across the Danube on the Black Sea, before a long return leg across Western Europe. We covered over 4,500 miles and took in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Novgorod, Moscow, Orel, Kiev and Odessa.

The arrival in Vyborg was a real eye-opener. With nobody else on the unmade road, we crossed into a no-man’s-land of tank traps and watchtowers. The Soviet border guards we soon encountered were grim-faced, clearly not enamoured by the arrival of four hippies who had interrupted their midday slumbers.

When we arrived in the centre of Vyborg in the gloom of dusk, it looked almost medieval. Peasants in smocks and shawls trudged along the dusty, unpaved roads. Street lighting was sporadic and dim, the buildings spartan and crumbling. The police station, where we had to report upon arrival, was full of stony-faced soldiers and even more sternfeatured security men.

But it got better. The days were warm and sunny, and people strolled in the evenings and at weekends in their Sunday best. We experienced the Soviet Union enjoying a brief period of stability and modest prosperity.

However, ‘prosperity’ did not add up to much. The few cafes that existed stocked little except black bread, dry cakes and pickled gherkins. Vodka and beer were plentiful and abject drunkenness commonplace; vodka for the men, beer for the women. The alcohol clearly went a long way to ameliorate the sheer drabness of people, places and life in general.

Although there was a mild aura of oppression, there seemed to be no violence or disruption, save for the many drunks to be found prostrate in the parks, on the streets and in the Metro carriages.

Not everything about Soviet life was negative. Education and medical care were free and of an excellent standard; rents were low, and public transport almost free. Everyone had a job, even if just a token one, like the countless war widows who sat all day at the bottom of the escalators on Moscow’s Metro, its stations a stunning Stalinist architectural achievement designed to embody svet (‘radiance and brilliance’). We found a few remarkable comforts, even to relatively affluent Western students.

Small ice-cream carts could be found on many street corners. The Russians love ice cream. In Soviet days it was said there were only three reasons to travel to the Soviet Union: the ballet, the state circus and ice cream. In the 1930s, the state had decreed that only natural ingredients could be used in the making of ice cream, and the result was a very milky, very delicious treat, served between biscuits and beautifully wrapped in silver foil. The price: three kopeks. Thruppence!

By the 1980s, the cracks in the edifice of Soviet communism were as wide as Red Square, and its satellite states were in a sorry state of downtrodden resentment. Russia and Eastern Europe are quite different places now – and, sadly, in Russia, they eat the same ice cream as the rest of the world.

Although much of the Soviet Empire was lost in the wake of its collapse in 1991, the new Russian Federation is still a vast state, much of it remote and still beset by rural poverty.

Even in the cities, massive swathes of poorly built residential tower blocks are the norm, where modest lives are lived in stark contrast with the enormous wealth of the few who have benefitted from the country’s vast reserves of oil and gas.

But through all the changes in modern Russian history – from medieval tsars to communist dictators; from Gorbachev to Yeltsin to Putin; through revolutions, wars and purges; in suffering and in death – the Russian people have remained the same.

The harsh climate and environment in which they live, and the many adversities they have faced over the centuries, have made the Russian people resolute and, at times, taciturn.

But beneath the rugged facade, which visitors may see as cheerless, even rude, there is genuine warmth, a generosity, and a strong belief in the common good. It is not a communist vision of the ‘common good’ – although it formed part of the people’s ready acceptance of socialism – but more a collective willpower, a belief in the strength of the culture and traditions of Mother Russia.

Such generalisations veer towards stereotypes, but they are more revealing than the harsh perceptions frequently held in the West, which derive from the Cold War and the autocracy of Vladimir Putin. Overall, regardless of what their leaders have desired, the Russian mentality has shown itself not to be aggressive. It is passive, even fatalistic. The Russian people are stoics, not warmongers.

Over the many years since 1969, and through many visits, I have grown fond of the Russians, which is why, when I realised that the eightieth anniversary of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, would happen in June 2021, I decided I would like to write about it and the terrible war that followed. The Russians call it the Great Patriotic War – the Eastern Front – which did not end until Berlin fell in May 1945.

Except for the epic battle for Stalingrad and perhaps the horrors of the Siege of Leningrad, little is known about the Eastern Front among those of us who live west of Poland, except of course among the Germans, who prefer to forget about it.

More importantly for me, the histories of the Eastern Front that have been written rarely look at the war from the east looking west. They are mainly written the other way round, ‘How Hitler lost the War’. I wanted to correct that, so, in Barbarossa, my account of the war, the story is told exclusively from the perspective of the Soviet Union and the other East Europeans who stood in the way of the greatest and most brutal invasion in history.

Thankfully, when threatened, the collective will of the Russian people grants them great strength; it allows them to endure and to resist. It is the intangible quality they were able to bring to bear in their enormous struggle against Hitler’s terrors, empowering them to survive and, ultimately, to win the bloodiest war in history.

Their story also tells us something else. Although it might stick in the craw a little, we in the West would do well to remember that, despite our own heroics in the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, El Alamein and D-Day and so on, the Second World War was won on the Eastern Front, where, over four-years of death and destruction, the Red Army bled to death Hitler’s Nazi horde.

Barbarossa by Stewart Binns (Wildfire, £20)

Nantwich

By Sarah Ridgway

Situated on the River Weaver, the charming market town of Nantwich is bursting with history alongside a contemporary ambience. The town is famous for having the largest collection of listed buildings in England, more than 100 in total. Their black and white timbered exteriors are an attractive draw for visitors all year round. For a small town, it has an interesting history, from the Great Fire in 1583 where only a handful of buildings survived, the Battle of Nantwich during the Civil War to a top-secret government nuclear bunker that remained hidden for over 50 years. Today Nantwich is a busy and vibrant town full of independent shops and boutiques, and home to a traditional market that has been trading since 1500. There are plenty of cosy cafes, restaurants, and pubs to whet your appetite and the surrounding countryside is perfect for a walk and spotting the local wildlife. HISTORY OF NANTWICH

The origins of Nantwich go back to its original Roman settlement, a leader in salt production at that time its name is derived from the Welsh name “Nant yr Heledd Wen” meaning the steam of the white pit salt. Salt was known to have been made in the area as far back as the second and third centuries and was used by the Roman soldiers as a Source: Lachlan1 / Shutterstock.com

preservative and a condiment. In the Domesday book, 8 salt houses were recorded, and production would continue for the next 1600 years, by the end of Tudor times this number would grow to 216. The salt was also used to make Cheshire Cheese which is one of the oldest recorded named cheeses in the country going back to Roman times. This is a town that takes its cheese seriously with a long history of cheese farms around the area. Since 1897 the town has hosted The International Cheese Awards where the region’s best cheeses go head-to-head against competition from more than 50 countries. The show is the largest cheese show in the world but unfortunately will leave Nantwich this year to move to a more weatherproof venue in Staffordshire. Besides salt, the town was also an important manufacturer of leather and home to many tanneries. The term “Dabber” which is the nickname given to someone born and bred in Nantwich is thought to originate from these local industries, as “dabbing” is part of the curing leather process and the dabbing of glue during shoemaking. However, the nickname derived, it has stuck, and the town’s football club is known as the Dabber Dome. Despite its small size Nantwich is one of the few places in Cheshire marked on the Gough Map, which was a late Medieval map and renowned as one of the earliest maps to show Britain in a geographically recognisable form.

Many people may not be aware that Nantwich had a Castle as today no trace of the Norman building remains above ground. Originally constructed before 1180 it was built to guard a ford across the River Weaver and as a defense against Welsh attack. It was not one of Cheshire’s important castles and when the Welsh were conquered it was vacated and by 1485 it lay in ruins. Stones from the castle are believed to have been salvaged and reused in St Mary’s Church. Another historical building no longer standing is Nantwich Mill, which originally started life as a corn mill around 1228. In 1788 it was converted into a cotton spinning mill only to revert to a corn mill in 1874. In the 20th century, it would manufacture agricultural equipment such as cheese presses. In the 1950s it became Boughey’s Mill also housing a gymnasium and a billiards club; it was destroyed by a fire in the 1970s and demolished.

THE GREAT FIRE

On 10th December 1583, a local man who was brewing ale in his kitchen accidentally started the Great Fire of Nantwich that raged through the town for 20 days. Due to the houses being thatched it spread quickly destroying 150 buildings. Despite making half the population homeless which was around 900 people, there were only two fatalities. While the town sought to recover from the fire it put a grinding halt to its salt production and other forms of trade. This was a concerning subject for Queen Elizabeth I and she personally contributed £1000 towards the towns rebuild. This act was marked on a plaque in Nantwich square and as a result, the building is now called “Queen’s Aid House” The inscription reads:

God grant our Royal Queen,

In England long to reign,

For she has put her helping hand,

To build this town again.

Along with other funds raised the town was rebuilt the following year and local painter Herbert St John Jones captured the scene on canvas. The artist, a celebrated animal painter, moved to Nantwich as a young boy and lived there until he died in 1939. He was exceedingly popular and often commissioned by the wealthy and elite to paint their dogs and horses including the Duke and Duchess of Westminster. He was a regular face on the streets of Nantwich and is said to have painted pictures to pay his bills to the local shopkeepers. The artist also painted other everyday scenes around Nantwich and many of those paintings are on public display at the Nantwich Museum.

During the English Civil War, Nantwich was the only town in Cheshire in support of Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. Therefore, the Royalist besieged the town for weeks to gain the second most important town in the county. On 25th January 1644 led Sir Thomas Fairfax the Parliamentarians arrived to win back control. The battle was fought to the east of Acton in enclosed fields and lanes which was unsuitable terrain for cavalry but the Parliamentarian’s victory put an end to the Royalist’s stronghold of the town. It would later become known as the Battle of Nantwich. The people of the town celebrated by placing sprigs of holly in their hats and the day is known still to this day as “Holly Holy Day” For the past 40 years to commemorate the day the historic battle is reenacted on the streets of Nantwich by the Sealed Knot who are the oldest historical reenactment society in Europe. Every year in late January the town comes alive as hundreds of troops besiege the town attracting thousands of spectators. Before the reenactment, the Holly Holy Day society holds a wreathlaying ceremony at the war memorial to commemorate all those who died there and throughout the civil war.

In September 1832, a small outbreak of cholera occurred in the town and 14 people died. Unfortunately, in 1849, the disease returned with a much worse outbreak resulting in 181 deaths. Due to overcrowding, poor sanitation including the River Weaver being used for drinking water and sewage disposal the disease spread rapidly. In three months, 1000 cases were reported which was about one-sixth of the population at that time. With daily funerals, outsiders were afraid to visit, the markets stopped, and the place became a ghost town. The Rector of Nantwich, Andrew Fuller Chater made a huge contribution in getting the crisis under control. At that time little was known about cholera, but he was amongst many who narrowed the cause down to bad drainage and poor hygiene. Drainage from the graves was seeping

Above: Holly Holy Day Source: david muscroft / Shutterstock.com

into the water supply which was further helping the spread of disease. Due to his findings, a new graveyard was built, and the town got a new cleaner supply from Baddiley Mere. Chater died in 1872 and is buried at Barony All Saints Cemetery, the graveyard that he created. During Medieval times, the town’s prominent position on the London to Chester road ensured lots of passing trade, by the mid-19th Century the thriving salt industry had declined, and the last salt houses shut their doors. This was due to the opening of Telford’s road from London to Holyhead which offered a faster route to Wales therefore passing trade dwindled, the opening of the Grand Junction Railway was the final nail as the town was bypassed completely. WHAT TO DO IN NANTWICH

St Mary’s Church

St Mary’s church is one of the finest Medieval churches in the country and is called the “Cathedral of South Cheshire’’ as it contains all the features of a cathedral. The Grade I listed building dates to the 14th century and was built around 1340. The church took over a century to complete with the older parts of the church in Decorated Gothic Style and the later sections in Perpendicular Gothic Style. During the Civil War in the 1640s, the church was used as a jail for Royalist’s prisoners and Cromwell stabled his horses there.

Between 1855-1861 St Mary’s underwent an extensive restoration managed by Sir George Gilbert, while still preserving the original interior stonework from the 14th Century. A standout feature is the exquisite 14th-century choir stalls, the wood carvings and decorative pinnacles are in perfect condition made from oak from Vale Royal. The Jubilee Curtain which hangs proudly in the church was made by a local tapestry group to mark the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Today the beautiful sandstone building is run by volunteers who are happy to provide visitors with further insight into St Mary’s past.

Nantwich is famed for having the most listed and historic buildings in the country closely followed by neighboring Chester. Most are in the town centre within the old boundaries of the town and St Mary’s church is the oldest. Churche’s Mansion is a notable example dating back to 1577 and is one of the very few buildings to survive the great fire. In its time the Grade I mansion has been a family home, a ladies boarding school, an antique shop and is currently a restaurant. Located on the same street as Churche’s Mansion, Sweetbriar Hall is an attractive halftimbered black and white building and also predates the great fire. The town is packed with lots of excellent examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture with many dating from the 16th to the 19th century and perfect to wander through.

Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker

The Hack Green Secret Bunker is a former nuclear underground facility that lay hidden in Cheshire for over 50 years. It was rebuilt in the 1980s at a cost of over £32 million and opened to the public as a museum enabling visitors to get a closer look at its secret past. The public is invited to wander through the bunker’s eerie corridors and be transported back to the times of the Cold War. If the nuclear war had come to reality in

the UK, then the 35,000 sq ft bunker would have been at the centre of the regional government. Today, you can read through previously classified government documents and learn about the people that worked there and also observe its large collection of military and memorabilia. Visitors can watch the original broadcasts that would have gone out across all TV channels just before a nuclear attack and brave an interactive simulator to replicate what a nuclear attack would have been like.

Due to Brine naturally occurring in springs in the area, Nantwich was a fashionable place to take saltwater treatment during the Victorian times for their healing qualities. The Brines Baths Hotel opened in 1893 attracting visitors from across the world. The hotel was demolished in the 50s, but the town’s outdoor brine pool which opened in 1935 is the perfect alternative to enjoy a swim in its warming temperatures of 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Nantwich Museum housed in the old Victorian library opened in 1980 and provides a wealth of knowledge. The museum brings the town’s fascinating history to life telling its story through the ages, from salt making, the Great Fire and an exhibition on how the famous Cheshire cheese is made. The museum’s popular permanent exhibitions include the Cheshire Civil War Centre, Roman artefacts, and a gallery of paintings depicting scenes of Nantwich life throughout the years.