The Lancashire & North West Magazine | September 2023 by The Lancashire & North West Magazine

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September 2023 September 2023

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Grand Theatre

Discover The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man.

Myton Fold

Confetti Rain

Fine Art Restoration Company

Barrumba

Discover the perfect wedding venue offering attention to detail, and amazing quality of service to ensure your dreams come to life.

The nation’s most beloved artworks being protected and preserved at UK’s leading conservation studio, working f rom a state-of-the-art facility in Carlisle.

Find inspiration and discover your perfect dress and wedding accessories at this luxury store based in the heart of Bispham, Blackpool

Lytham St. Annes’ new, hot venue to visit for the f inest cocktails, wine, spirits and fantastic live music and entertainment.

Celebrating 16 years of beautiful living at Pad

L I V I N G • S L E E P I N G • D I N I N G • L I G H T I N G PAD showroom exhibits the best in quality furniture at Affordable Prices. Showcasing beautiful Italian leather sofa’s supplied by Nicoletti and fabric designs by Calia Italia which show a collection of pure design classics. We offer Bedroom furniture from German manufacturer Nolte, with measurements to suit all customer needs. Beds can be supplied to any specifications, colour and design with mattresses to suit. Pad offer a free design service and TV wall system’s can be installed to customer’s specifications.

“At PAD we don’t sell, we offer a stress free and friendly environment to find what you are looking for”

Poulton Business Park | 4 Millennium Court | Furness Drive | Poulton-Le-Flyde, FY6 8JS

n 01253 893334 d PADCL.CO.UK f facebook.com/PadPoulton

CONTENTS...

Features G

130 Withington Baths: Last Remaining Working

Grand Theatre

Wedding Planning Tips

Bridesmaid Dresses

132 Porsche 75th Anniversary

Bridal Hairstyles

136 Warrington Animal Rescue Set For Winter

Confetti Rain

Support Friend Of The Earth® To Reforest Maromizaha

May Sinclair

Last Of The Classic British Motorbikes Arrives At Museum

144 Knutsford Based Site Manager Celebrates

Olive Oil

152 Winners Of The Lakeland Book Of The Year

Red Devils Join Spectacular Line-Up For Blackpool Air Show

158 Aswad Announce Liverpool - Furnace Show

Rowing The Atlantic Solo At 59

Stonyhurst College

Eliza Morton The Orphans From Liverpool Lane

Strictly Star Pasha Kovalev Takes The Lead In Explosive New Musical La Bamba!

184 Dukes Sunset Screenings Return

Harold Cunliffe - Holy City & Our Edna

186 Nearly Half Of The Uk Rabbit Population Lives

Elgra Furniture Commits To Supporting Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone

Fine Art Restoration

How Today’s Treatments Are Beating Cancer

Manchester Edwardian Pool

Thanks To Funding 138 Bolton School 140 Don Clapham

Scooping Top Industry Award

On Sunday 17th December 2023! 162 Dead Dog In Suitcase Review 172 Eddi Reader 174 Active Burnley Awards Winners Announced

102 Harold Elletson Memorial 104 Muncaster’s Custodians Are Tourism Personalities Of The Year

Alone 188 Barrumba 192 Retracing The Steps Of Morecambe’s Miss Great Britain Pageant 196 Are Bulrushes The Answer To Sustainable Clothing And Farming

106 The Recipes From Cooking With The Stars

198

Settle Flowerpot Festival Celebrates 10th Year

110 Sporting Event For Young People With Special Educational Needs And Disabilities (Send)

200 Glenda Jackson 202 Big Country

112 Mytton Fold 122 Wigan Greenheart Landscape Recovery

206 Pdsa Out And About With Your Pet

126 Open Golf History At Hoylake

208 Cumbria Tourism Awards - Lindeth Howe

132

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LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

...CONTENTS

Regulars

September 2023 • Volume 46 Number 9

118

182

170 Aiming Higher 118 Colour Me Beautiful - Sarah Harris 178 Denise Mullen 142 David Hatton 182 Dr Mani HayMax Column - Max Wiseberg

60 La Locanda 68

Life of Di - Diane Wade

164 New Light Art 54

Rozanne Kay

146 Totally Local Lancaster 14

Zodiac Predictions by Manish

114 Plumbs

164

146

142

September 2023 September 2023

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Managing Director: Natalie Christopher natalie@lancashiremagazine.co.uk

Writers: • David Hatton

• Manish Kumar Arora

• Denise Mullen

• Margaret Brecknell

Editorial: 01253 336580 • Ellie Eastwood editorial@lancashiremagazine.co.uk • Harold Cunliffe Design Manager: • Heather Holt Stephen Mellows-Facer Sales Enquiries: 07918 685673

Grand Theatre

Accounts: 01253 336588

Discover The Real & Imagined History of the Elephant Man.

Myton Fold

Confetti Rain

Fine Art Restoration Company

Barrumba

Discover the perfect wedding venue offering attention to detail, and amazing quality of service to ensure your dreams come to life.

The nation’s most beloved artworks being protected and preserved at UK’s leading conservation studio, working f rom a state-of-the-art facility in Carlisle.

Find inspiration and discover your perfect dress and wedding accessories at this luxury store based in the heart of Bispham, Blackpool

Lytham St. Annes’ new, hot venue to visit for the f inest cocktails, wine, spirits and fantastic live music and entertainment.

COVER: GRAND THEATRE BLACKPOOL

General Enquiries/Subscriptions: Tel • 01253 336588 accounts@lancashiremagazine.co.uk The Lancashire & North West Magazine Ltd, Seasiders Way Blackpool, Lancashire FY1 6NZ

LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

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• Max Wiseberg • Paul Cusimano • Sarah Harris

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Note to contributors:- While every care is taken with manuscripts, drawings, photographs and transparencies, no responsibility is accepted during transmission or while in the Editor’s hands. The contents of this magazine are fully protected and nothing may be used or reproduced without permission.

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New homes across Lancashire How very Redrow We pride ourselves in building quality homes throughout Lancashire

Images typical of Redrow homes. Details correct at time of going to press.

Discover more about the new homes in Lancashire

Visit: redrow.co.uk/lancashire

Redrow strive to create environments that will stand the test of time, where people can appreciate and enjoy their surroundings. We create homes that are designed for the way we live today, yet are rooted in the time-honoured traditions of craftsmanship and care.

IN THIS ISSUE...

e start this month with our wedding edit and fabulous features from Jodie Brotherton and Ellie Eastwood on choosing the perfect bridesmaid dresses and trending bridal hairstyles. Confetti Rain showcase timeless dresses for every style of wedding and we share some tips for planning your perfect wedding day. As The Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake on the Wirral stages the world-renowned British Open Golf Championship for the 13th time. We take a look back at the History of this prestigious course going back to the first winner in 1897. Withington Baths show us around the last remaining working Edwardian pool in Manchester, which celebrates 8 years since becoming community owned.

Sarah Harris of Colour Me Beautiful asks us to take some time to look at your wardrobe, where you probably have some of the seasons trends hiding at the back as we begin to look towards the autumn. Lakeland Motor Museum welcomes the last of the classic British motorbikes as the 1967 Velocette goes on display at the popular Cumbrian attraction. Harold Cunliffe shares some more stories of the people, places and notable events in and around Middleton. We have a trio of Stories from Stonyhurst college plus a look back at the career of the wonderful Councillor Don Clapham, who retired from public service after 31 years dedicated to the community of Blackpool.

LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

Just north of the Lake District, you will find Fine Art Restoration Company. The UK’s leading conservation studio, working from a state-of-the-art facility in Carlisle, dedicated to protecting and preserving some of the nation’s best loved artwork. We visit the Porsche Centre Preston, Where new bespoke artwork by Local Artist is revealed, as more than 350 Porsche owners and Lancastrian motoring enthusiasts celebrated Porsche’s 75th Anniversary. And of course, as always, we have features on homes, health, delicious recipes, fascinating history, a bit of wildlife and more - all in our September issue.

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HAY FEVER SYMPTOMS IN LATE SUMMER? By Airborne Allergens Expert, Max Wiseberg

www.haymax.biz to fungal spores. And if you’re allergic to fungal spores as well as grass pollen, this could be why you’re suffering longer than most other people. As well as outdoor allergens, there are indoor airborne allergens that you could be allergic to – dust and pet allergens are the most common. So if you’ve recently acquired a new pet, particularly a cat or dog, then this could be the reason you’ve suddenly started sneezing. And even if you’ve already got a pet, then the new arrival could still have triggered symptoms, as your body will have more allergen to deal with, so will start to react against the pet ‘dander’.

a n d spores b e i n g caught in your hair. Use an allergen barrier balm around the rim o f your nostrils and bones of your eyes to help stop allergens getting in your body – less allergen, less reaction. HayMax organic drug-free allergen barrier balms have been proven to trap all types of grass and tree pollen [1] and over 1/3 of pollen grains, as well as dust and pet allergens, before they enter the body [2].

Or it could be something as simple as spending more time indoors and being exposed to more dust allergens.

If you have pets ensure that they are well groomed and shampooed regularly – it’s probably best if someone else does this for you. And keep them out of the room in which you sleep.

There are many ways you can overcome these allergies, whether through medication or trying to avoid the allergen in the first place.

Vacuum your home regularly and damp dust surfaces – damp dusting ensures that allergens are not dispersed back into the air.

When you’re outdoors, try wearing wraparound sunglasses to stop airborne allergens getting in contact with your eyes. If you have long hair, tie it up, and wear a cap, hat or other head cover to stop pollen

Are you still suffering with hay fever symptoms when everyone else’s hay fever seems to have long gone? Or have you just started to get symptoms such as sneezing, a runny nose, itchy and watery or streaming eyes, nasal congestion and a general stuffed up feeling, when you’ve been fine all spring and summer?

ell there are a number of reasons you can be suffering hay fever symptoms at this time of year.

Firstly, it could be the remnants of the grass pollen season. Although the peaks of June and July are now past, grass pollen can last until early September. As I wrote last month, weed pollen generally peaks in August, but it can also last into September, particularly if we experience poor weather in August, which delays the weed pollen season. A third type of allergen, fungal spores, peaks in September. So if you’re not allergic to either grass or tree pollen and you’ve had a sneeze free summer up until now, but have started to develop hay feverlike symptoms, then you could be allergic References: [1] Prof Jean Emberlin, Independent Research on HayMax Pollen Barrier Balm, The National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit (NPARU) University of Worcester WR2 6 AJ, July 20th 2009. [2] Chief Investigator: Professor Roy Kennedy, Principal Investigator: Louise Robertson, Researcher: Dr Mary Lewis, National Pollen & Aerobiology Research Unit, 1st February 2012.

WHAT’S ON

MON 17 TO SAT 21 OCT 8

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BOLD RE-IMAGINING OF THE

AT BLACKPOOL GRAND THIS OCTOBER The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man is a compelling new drama that’s not to be missed this October starring Zak Ford-Williams (BBC1’s Better) as Joseph Merrick.

owerful, angry and surprising – Tom Wright’s The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man is unmissable live theatre at Blackpool Grand from Tuesday 17 to Saturday 21 October.

'Tom Wright’s The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man' Cast Members

If you think you know the story of The Elephant Man – think again. The European premiere of Australian playwright Tom Wright’s acclaimed play imagines an alternative... This is the fascinating story of a man fighting for his right to be and to belong. Arriving from his East Midlands beginnings and thrust into a London thick with the grime of industrialisation, Joseph Merrick is an anomaly in a harsh and unforgiving world. In a city of factories that churn out uniformity, there is no place for a unique being like him. But Merrick and the city are evolving into something new. Follow him through the workhouse, the freakshow and the hospital as he searches for acceptance in a society that just wants to stare at him. This radical re-imagining, described as a ‘theatre-poem’, will be directed by Stephen Bailey, winner of the Royal Theatrical Support Trust (RTST) Sir Peter Hall Directing Award 2022, and features a talented cast composed entirely of disabled, deaf and/or neurodivergent actors, led by the renowned Zak Ford-Williams (BBC1’s Better, A Christmas Carol, Wolfe) as Joseph Merrick. Zak will be joined by Annabelle Davis (Hollyoaks, The Dumping Ground), Daneka Etchells (Titus Andronicus,

Zak Ford-Williams

Annabelle Davis

Daneka Etchells

Killian Thomas Lefevre

Nadia Nadarajah

Tim Pritchett

Much Ado About Nothing), Killian Thomas Lefevre (Bat Out of Hell, Thomas and the Magic Railway 20th Anniversary), Nadia Nadarajah (Maryland, Hamlet & As You Like It – Shakespeare’s Globe), and Tim Pritchett (Missing Julie, Our Country’s Good). Director Stephen Bailey said: “Tom Wright has written a bold, inspired restyling of Joseph's unique life that sees him not as a medical specimen but a man. The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man uses beautiful, poetic text to ask probing questions about work, industrialisation and the value of life.

“It's not about inspiration or pity: it's about the reality of how we look at those who are the other. In the current cost of living crisis, it asks if seeing humans solely as workers is compatible with transformed bodies and long-term health conditions. I'm thrilled to be given the platform to tell this story featuring some of the UK's finest disabled talent. With pulsating live music and stunning visuals, we’re staging this epic fable centering Joseph in his own story for the first time.” Zak Ford-Williams said: “I cannot wait to allow audiences into the incredible, haunting world of the play. I was transfixed by The Real and Imagined History of The Elephant Man from the moment I read it. Then as soon as I experienced Stephen’s vision, precision and warmth for the play I was desperate to be on board. It’s a challenge and a gift of a role.” Joseph Merrick was born in Leicestershire in 1862 and at the age of five began to show signs of a strange disorder that caused abnormal growths of much of the skin and bone across his body, including the size of his head increasing to 3 feet (almost 1 metre) in circumference. Merrick was confined to a workhouse at age 17 before escaping four years later to join a freak show and displays of the ‘The Elephant Man’ were part of the ‘human curiosities’ movement of the 19th century that saw rise of showman P.T. Barnum and carnival freak shows across the UK and abroad.

Tom Wright’s The Real and Imagined History of The Elephant Man starring Zak Ford-Williams (BBC1’s Better, A Christmas Carol, Wolfe) as Joseph Merrick is not to be missed and is EXCLUSIVE to Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 17 to Saturday 21 October with evening and matinee performances. Age Guidance 12yrs+.

Tickets from £14.50 with some concessions available. Captioning available for every show. A Visual Story will also be available for any audience members that would like to familiarise themselves with the show/theatre before their visit. Visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk for full show listings and bookings or call the box office on 01253 290 190 for bookings and further information.

Whilst on exhibition, Joseph was discovered by a London physician, Frederick Treves, and admitted to London Hospital in 1886. A letter that was published in an (unsuccessful) effort to find Merrick a hospital for chronic medical cases drew the attention of London society, which earned him a measure of fame and led to Merrick receiving visits from a number of prominent individuals, including HM Alexandra, Princess of Wales. He remained at the London Hospital until he died in his sleep of accidental suffocation aged just 27 years of age. The incredible new stage production finally puts Joseph at the centre of his own story, rejecting the myth of his powerlessness as he was often portrayed in previous interpretations and transforming him into an agent of his own worth. Don’t miss this bold re-telling of the Elephant Man story that questions industrialisation, capitalism, disability and difference and finally shows the man, not the specimen…

LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

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EXPLOSIVE NEW MUSICAL STRICTLY STAR PASHA KOVALEV TAKES THE LEAD IN

Strictly Come Dancing champ Pasha Kovalev joins The Wanted’s Siva Kanesraran in the sizzling new musical La Bamba! at Blackpool Grand Theatre this November.

the role of Mateo alongside rising star Inês Fernandez in the lead role of Sofia. La Bamba! will also feature breath-taking choreography from Strictly Come Dancing favourite and Italian Latin champion Graziano Di Prima.

"I'm gonna LIVE, I'm gonna LAUGH... I'm gonna DANCE!"

La Bamba! tells the sensational story of how the power of music can transform a generation and celebrate a community. This brand-new musical will feature an electrifying soundtrack from across the Latin genre from traditional folk songs to recent chart-topping hits, all expertly arranged by award-winning musical maestro, Alfonso Casado-Trigo.

La Bamba! is a jaw-dropping modern new musical that combines the infectious rhythms of Latin, R&B and hip hop with timeless rock and pop to tell the ultimate feelgood story of a young girl with a big voice, big dreams, and an even bigger heart. Sofia, a wildly talented 17-year-old from Los Angeles, California, has music in her blood. From the moment her father handed her a guitar, her dream was to become a superstar. As she mixes the music from her roots with the music in her heart, Sofia also dreams of bringing together a community that has never felt more divided. Inspired by her musical heroes and with the help of her family, Sofia discovers that even the longest journey begins with a single step and how just one decision can alter her story forever… La Bamba! is a vibrant new musical about the power of connection to the world and the ones we love about passion and pride. Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev will set hearts racing and temperatures rising as the red hot Ricardo in this fast-moving and heartfelt story of how the power of music can transform a generation and celebrate a community. Book your seats now to see Pasha’s famous glitterballwinning dance moves on the Grand Theatre stage this November! Singer, songwriter and pop heartthrob Siva Kaneswaran is best known for being one fifth of smash-hit boyband The Wanted and most recently appeared in ITV’s Dancing On Ice where he wowed audiences and slid into the semi-final. Siva will play

La Bamba! starring Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev, Siva Kanesraran from top boyband The Wanted and introducing rising star Inês Fernandez is at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 21 to Saturday 25 November with evening and matinee performances. Tickets from £17.50 with concessions and group rates available. This production is recommended for ages 7 +. Visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk for full show listings and bookings or call the box office on 01253 290 190 for bookings and further information.

DREAM DOUBLE ACT FOR GRAND PANTO! TV’S TOM LISTER TO JOIN STEVE ROYLE IN ALADDIN!

Aladdin the Pantomime is presented by Martin Dodd for UK Productions in association with Blackpool Grand Theatre

he boys are back in town! Don’t miss TV soap sensation Tom Lister (Emmerdale’s Carl King) teaming up with his best mate Steve Royle for this year’s fabulous family pantomime Aladdin at Blackpool Grand Theatre this Christmas. It’s a dream of a double act that’s not to be missed! Tickets are already flying out! with some performances from Friday 01 December to Monday 01 January already offering limited availability… Tom will star as the wonderfully wicked magician Abanazar in this year’s enchanting tale of magic, mayhem and misunderstandings and he is thrilled to be joining Britain’s Got Talent finalist and family favourite Steve Royle live on the Grand Theatre’s famous stage once again. Tom said of his welcome return: “I cannot wait to be back at The Grand for Panto this year! It really is like home to me and to be able to perform alongside one of your best mates feels like a real festive treat. I must be asked ‘when are you and Steve doing Panto together again’ at least once a month! Well, now you know! It’s this Christmas. Bring on the chaos!” Steve added: "Tom is one of my best buddies and so you can imagine how thrilled we are to be back in Pantomime together again. When we get together anything can happen and no two shows are the same, which is the perfect excuse to book twice this year! Expect bedlam and shenanigans a plenty!"

Tom Lister is probably best known for causing absolute carnage over the nine years he played love rat Carl King in ITV’s Emmerdale, until he was dramatically killed off in the live 40th anniversary episode in 2012 – thank goodness there will be no such calamities befalling him in this show! Tom has also starred in countless top musicals across the UK and abroad, most notably playing the lead role of Julian Marsh in the critically acclaimed production of 42nd Street, at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which ran for two years before being shown in cinemas across the country due to popular demand. Other hit musical appearances include starring as Wild Bill in Calamity Jane, Callaghan in Legally Blonde and Grimes/Eel in Water Babies, while other top TV credits include Heartbeat, Doctors and The Bill.Tom said of his latest role: “I love all the wonderful fun and chaos that pantomime brings, and I am really looking forward to playing a baddie again. What makes it even more special is I get to spend this panto season with Steve. It’s going to be a blast!” The fantastic family pantomime at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre is always a laugh-a-minute extravaganza with stunning sets, top musical hits, amazing costumes and exciting special effects to keep audiences both young and old entertained! This year’s Aladdin is truly a magical treat for all the family you won’t want to miss!

Join our hero Aladdin, his mother Widow Twankey and his madcap brother Wishee Washee as they embark on a magical adventure and try to defeat the evil Abanazar and his plan to become master of the world. With help from the Genie of The Lamp and the Spirit Of The Ring. Will Aladdin save the day, will he marry the beautiful Princess Jasmine? Will the Genie be freed? There’s only one way to find out… hitch a ride on a magic carpet and come to see Aladdin, Blackpool’s No.1 Pantomime! Join us for the greatest magical pantomime ever told starring TV’s Tom Lister and Steve Royle! It’s never to early to book your seats! More star casting to be announced… Aladdin is at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Friday 01 December 2023 to Monday 01 January 2024 with matinee and evening performances starring Tom Lister (Emmerdale) as Abanazar and Steve Royle (Britain’s Got Talent) as Wishee Washee. • Accessible performances will also be available, with an extra special relaxed pantomime performance on Thu 28 Dec at 5pm. Tickets are already selling fast with some performances already offering limited availability. Please call the Box Office on 01253 290190 or visit www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk for bookings and further information. Tickets from £15. Family tickets, group and school rates available.

WHAT’S ON

DIRECT FROM THE WEST END!

TUE 03 TO SAT 07 OCT

TUE 23 TO SAT 27 APR '24

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MANISH’S ZODIAC PREDICTIONS

Manish Kumar Arora is a renowned KP Astrologer, Numerologist, Tarot Reader & Vastu Consultant. He has been rendering professional advice to clients with a reasonable degree of success. He has been conferred with the title of ‘Jyotish Varahamihir’ and ‘Jyotish Aryabhatt.’ He has been writing monthly astrological columns for many international magazines. ARIES 21 Mar - 19 Apr

LEO 23 Jul - 22 Aug

This month is perfect for opening up. Fresh starts begin when you are willing to share your heart to the joys of love. Perhaps it is a long time since you were able to really relax into a loving relationship but that it could be something that your really need right now. You need to allow your emotions to really surface, and that you have to take the chance of opening up emotionally, in order for your relationships to flourish. This could be a spectacular month for all sorts of romantic adventures.

Domestic and family matters continue to take centre stage for you this month. The month may not seem to be as productive as most, but in fact you are building your nest, gathering your resources and preparing for busier months ahead. This would be giving you an extradose of charm – use that to your advantage in work and love. Your glib tongue could get you in some pretty interesting places. You also need to be more confident in your emotions, because that is really what will help you overcome any last hurdles or obstacles.

Favourable Dates: Sep 4, 5, 13, 14, 22, 23 Favourable Colours: Green & Red

Favourable Dates: Sep 2, 8, 11, 17, 20, 26 Favourable Colours: White & Red

TAURUS 20 Apr - 20 May Your core need this month is to celebrate the relationships in your life, to appreciate all the joy and happiness your loved ones bring to your door, and to just enjoy all the interactions with the people in your life. A new career opportunity is illuminated which lights up your honours and reputation sector. This could be your chance to grab that spotlight. You need to keep on the road you started on and recognise that the end is almost in sight. It is important for you to have a clear vision of where you want to get to. Favourable Dates: Sep 2, 3, 11, 12, 22, 23 Favourable Colours: Green & Yellow GEMINI 21 May - 20 Jun You have the charisma now to get your way in pretty much anything. Use that power with wisdom. You may be presented with some wonderful opportunities that are yours for the taking. The next four weeks are perfect for adding some spice to your love life. You may meet an intriguing new paramour who speaks the same love language – or you may be able to finally have that needed heart-to-heart with a current partner. Keep a clear head with respect to your relationships and the people around you. Favourable Dates: Sep 3, 9, 12, 18, 21, 27 Favourable Colours: Grey & White

VIRGO 23 Aug - 22 Sept You are willingly taking the lead and others have your best interests at heart. This is a new aspect of your life opening up for you or the beginning of a new phase The period should help reignite your excitement and optimism. It gives you a sweet opportunity for big time romance – mark that day on your calendar. If you’re single, it’s a perfect time to update your dating profile. If in a relationship, get out the candles, turn out the lights and make your move. A lover or partner is paying a lot of attention to you, and it feels fabulous. Favourable Dates: Sep 4, 8, 13, 17, 22, 26 Favourable Colours: Yellow & Green LIBRA 23 Sept - 22 Oct You are likely to discover how much more you are able to understand about managing the stresses in life, and dealing with the issues at hand on a much more intellectual, rather than a physical level. It is likely that you will hear something that will herald some changes at last. By allowing yourself to be serene, and hopeful, you will be opening yourself and making yourself ready, for things to start moving. If you embrace what makes you feel good, you will be able to finish the journey. Favourable Dates: Sep 1, 3, 10, 12, 19, 21 Favourable Colours: Yellow & White

CANCER 21 Jun - 22 Jul This month will give you loads of opportunity to up your creative or romantic game. Finances, taxes, and intimacy are main themes this month. You are also very busy with research and investigations of all kinds. You are easily engrossed by special subjects and projects this month, and eagerly throw yourself into learning and producing. A love relationship reaches new depths of understanding. Bold and dramatic moves might get you more action, whether you’re single or partnered. It’s time to get on your charger and start your quest for a new beginning as soon as possible. Favourable Dates: Sep 4, 7, 13, 16, 22, 25 Favourable Colours: Red & Yellow

SCORPIO 23 Oct - 21 Nov This period is prompting you to make efforts to stop focusing purely on the negatives, and the hurt, but to make a real effort to focus your thoughts on the positives, to start healing the hurts of the past and proactively work to bringing your relationships into a more loving and happy place. An opportunity may pay off or you may come into some unexpected good luck. This is also a good time for you to reach out to someone you find intriguing – a simple hello could turn into a valuable alliance that may bring lots of good fortune your way. Favourable Dates: Sep 4, 5, 13, 14, 22, 23 Favourable Colours: Red & Green

SAGITTARIUS 22 Nov - 21 Dec This period indicates a new and exciting adventure, or a new way of approaching things that could make your life much easier to manage, as well as enabling you to have fun doing them. It is important to balance your decision-making with kindness, consideration and love for all concerned, and not just logical thinking. So allow yourself to go with your gut instinct a little more this month. Something will be coming to light very soon, some enlightenment for you on a personal level. Favourable Dates: Sep 3, 5, 12, 14, 21, 23 Favourable Colours: White & Green

CAPRICORN 22 Dec - 19 Jan This period represents getting to where you are and the feeling of running out of steam as you are approaching the finishing line. It is important for you to keep going as you are nearly at the point of success. You need to be in full throttle this month, full of passion and enthusiasm and creativity will be pouring out of you, so make the most of this very productive time. You need to be able to recognise when other people are trying to make you feel inadequate by some of their behaviours. Favourable Dates: Sep 2, 5, 11, 14, 20, 23 Favourable Colours: White & Red

AQUARIUS 20 Jan - 18 Feb You will see a real manifestation of all your hard work and efforts this month by something occurring which will indicate success in any project or work you have undertaken. Romantic relationships get a huge opportunity to shift gears towards awesome. You have the power in your hands to improve any relationship. If you put your attention towards others and let go of your own ego, you may find yourself with stronger alliances or, at the very least, a chance to reboot things. Favourable Dates: Sep 1, 3, 10, 12, 19, 21 Favourable Colours: Grey & Red

PISCES 19 Feb - 20 Mar This could be a turning point in your financial outlook, signalling a chance for big improvements and more spending power. The secret to getting wealthy is saving that bounty – if you are practicing good money management habits, you might be on your way to rise in status. If projects were stuck on idle, your light is now green. Go forth and conquer. You have all the necessary skills to take this new road, and now is the time. Your work and behaviour will stand you in good stead, and speak on your behalf. Favourable Dates: Sep 2, 3, 11, 12, 20, 24 Favourable Colours: White & Red

Manish Kumar Arora, 91-9871062000 | K.P. Astrologer, Numerologist, Tarot Card Reader & Vastu Consultant F www.facebook.com/manishastroconsultant | E manish@manishastrologer.com 14

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Wedding Venues with a difference...

Whether it’s the history, art deco style and stunning views at Marine Hall or the Mount Pavilion in Fleetwood, the theatrical atmosphere of Thornton Little Theatre or the grand elegance of Wyre’s Civic Centre in Poulton - we are certain our Wyre Wedding venues will provide an exceptional backdrop to your perfect day.

The Mount Pavilion

Wedding Venue of the Year 2022 Finalist!

The Mount Pavilion in Fleetwood is an exquisite Grade-II Listed Edwardian building situated atop splendid gardens with glorious panoramic views across Morecambe Bay to the fells of the Lake District. A truly unique and unforgettable setting for wedding ceremonies. Glide down the aisle to the bells of the clock chiming at midday, enjoy a celebratory toast on the balconies, then capture the most stunning wedding photos among the grounds, gardens and across the bay. Recently undergoing an extensive £3million restoration The Mount Pavilion is perfect for intimate, sophisticated wedding ceremonies for up to 50 guests and has been shortlisted as a finalist for Wedding Venue of the Year at the Lancashire Tourism Awards 2022. As one bride observed, ‘The Pavilion was like a fairy-tale, magical,’ this venue delivers weddings that dreams are made of.

To find out more visit: www.wyreweddings.co.uk | email: weddings@wyre.gov.uk call 01253 887693 | Follow Wyre Weddings on social media @WyreWeddings

Making the Most Out of Your Wedding: A Guide to Seamless Planning and Unforgettable Celebrations

our wedding day is a momentous occasion that marks the beginning of a beautiful journey with your partner. It’s a day filled with love, joy, and cherished memories. Planning a wedding can be overwhelming, but with the right approach and a few essential tips, you can ensure that your special day is everything you’ve ever dreamed of and more. In this article, we’ll guide you through the process of making the most out of your wedding, offering valuable insights and practical advice to help you plan a seamless and unforgettable celebration.

Start with a Vision: Before diving into the logistics of planning your wedding, take some time to envision your dream day. Consider your personal style, preferences, and the atmosphere you

want to create. Visualize the colors, theme, and overall ambiance that will reflect your unique love story. Creating a mood board or Pinterest board can be immensely helpful in capturing and communicating your vision to vendors and suppliers.

Set a Realistic Budget: Establishing a budget is a crucial step in the wedding planning process. Discuss finances openly with your partner and any contributing parties. Determine how much you can comfortably spend on various elements of the wedding, including venue, catering, attire, and decorations. Remember to allocate a portion of the budget for unexpected expenses and prioritize what matters most to you to make informed decisions throughout the planning journey.

Plan Ahead and Stay Organized: Wedding planning involves numerous details, timelines, and deadlines. Utilize a wedding planner or create a comprehensive checklist to stay

organized. Break down the tasks into manageable steps, setting deadlines for each milestone. Maintain a wedding binder or digital folder to store all essential documents, including contracts, vendor contact

information, and receipts. Utilizing wedding planning apps and online tools can also help streamline the process. girls book your treatments and choose wisely, there is something out there now to really help with most

person to get a sense of the space and how it aligns with your vision. Ask about package deals, catering options, and any restrictions or guidelines. Remember to book the venue well in advance to secure your preferred date.

Curate a Dream Team of Vendors:

of the issues women face so do your homework as most of these treatments are not an overnight fix. You will have to visit a clinic or salon many times to get a result so get organised and start working on anything you would like to improve. Your husband might want a piece of this action as well but then do we want him looking nearly as good as you ?

Select the Perfect Venue: Choosing the right venue sets the tone for your entire wedding experience. Consider your budget, guest count, and desired ambiance when selecting a venue. Visit potential locations in 18

Finding reliable and talented vendors is key to a successful wedding. Seek recommendations from friends, family, and trusted wedding websites. Research potential vendors thoroughly, reviewing their portfolios, reading reviews, and conducting interviews. Prioritize communication and rapport when selecting vendors to ensure a smooth working relationship. Key vendors include photographers, caterers, florists, and musicians. Be sure to sign contracts with all vendors and maintain regular contact leading up to the wedding.

Personalize Your Ceremony and Reception: Infuse your wedding with personal

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touches to make it truly unique. Write your own vows or customize traditional ones to reflect your relationship. Consider incorporating meaningful rituals, such as a unity ceremony or cultural traditions. Pay attention to the details by adding personalized wedding favors, table settings, and signage. Personalization creates an intimate and memorable experience for both you and your guests.

Focus on Guest Experience: Your guests’ enjoyment is an integral part of making the most out of your wedding day. Ensure clear communication regarding the venue location, transportation, and accommodation options. Create a wedding website or informational pamphlets to provide guests with all necessary details. Consider thoughtful gestures, such as welcome bags, a photo booth, or a lounge area, to enhance their experience and foster a sense of connection. Iron out any issues or awkwardness with family or friends before the wedding. Sounds obvious but often gets missed, have www.lancmag.com

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that dinner or that chat and make sure everyone is as happy as possible so less potential for them to create drama that effects you on your day.

Capture Moments that Last a Lifetime: Photography and videography are investments that capture the memories of your special day. Hire professionals who align with your style and vision. Schedule engagement photoshoots to establish a rapport with your photographers and get comfortable in front of the camera. Create a shot list to ensure that all essential moments are captured. Additionally, encourage guests to share their photos and experiences through personalized wedding hashtags and photo-sharing apps.

Incorporate technology by creating a custom wedding hashtag, providing charging stations for guests’ devices, or livestreaming the ceremony for loved ones who couldn’t attend in person. Planning your wedding should be an exciting and rewarding experience. By envisioning your dream day, setting a realistic budget, and staying organized, you can create a seamless planning process. Choose the perfect venue, curate a dream team

of vendors, and personalize your ceremony and reception to reflect your unique love story. Focus on creating a memorable experience for your guests, capture the moments that matter, and embrace new wedding trends to make your celebration unforgettable. Remember, this is your day, and with careful planning, it will be a cherished memory that lasts a lifetime.

Embrace Wedding Trends and Innovations: Stay updated with the latest wedding trends to infuse your celebration with a contemporary touch. Explore innovative ideas such as interactive food stations, live entertainment, or experiential elements like a signature cocktail bar or a DIY station. www.lancmag.com

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Trending Bridesmaid Dresses that are Perfect for Any Wedding By Jodie Brotherton Bridesmaids play an integral part to any bride’s dream wedding, and therefore so do their dresses! In 2023, we have seen a stylish shift towards dresses that reflect the unique personalities of each bridesmaid, whilst also fitting in with the wedding theme.

here has also been a sustainable shift – prioritising dresses that can be worn again and again even after the wedding. Long gone are the days of traditional, matching bridesmaid dresses!

Mix & Match Bridesmaid Dresses The tradition of matching bridesmaid dresses can be dated back to Ancient Rome, where coordinated dresses were thought to confuse evil spirits and jealous suitors by keeping the bride indistinguishable from the bridesmaids. Whilst these superstitions faded, the traditional stuck. Now many brides dress each of their bridesmaids in dresses of different colours, styles and lengths but they carry one major feature: only choosing a dress which is perfect

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addition, bridesmaids wearing white is growing in popularity, influenced from the royal wedding tradition of having bridesmaids wear white. Dressing a bridal party in white is a great way to distinguish them from the other guests, and with the addition of some eye-catching jewellery and flowers there can still be a pop of colour to the wedding day.

for each bridesmaid. This creates a unique, mismatched aesthetic for the wedding that is personal and flattering on each bridesmaid. Many brides allow their bridesmaids to choose the aesthetic, colour, style and budget of their own dress to let their individuality and happiness to shine through on the celebratory day. Often, brides give their bridesmaids guidance on what dress to pick to create cohesion, suggesting certain colours, hues or styles but then giving 24

the bridesmaid the freedom to pick their own. Then, pairing matching jewellery and accessories can be used to create the best look. Fashionable Bridesmaid Dress Colours Neutral bridesmaid dresses are in – ivory, cream, grey – and they add a fresh touch of femininity to any bridal party! These nude colours are great in complimenting the bride but still ensures she has the spotlight. In

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Alternatively, many brides are opting for dark and dramatic dresses for their bridesmaids. Colours such as navy blue, emerald green and black have proved to be very popular. And for good reason – they suit all hair colours and skin tones whilst looking great in any time of year. These dark dresses are a classic, leaving bridesmaids looking elegant and sophisticated. Celebrate In Style Sleek and smooth satin dresses give an effortless classy look that will give a glamorous, modern touch to a wedding. These dresses are affordable for bridesmaids but still look luxurious and stylish. And fitting in with the theme of sustainability, they can be worn to any event even with simple accessories. The silky satin silhouette www.lancmag.com

will let a bridesmaid’s beauty shine through on the special day. Floaty, floral bridesmaid dresses have blossomed in popularity, partly due to the Netflix show Bridgerton which showcased feminine floral dresses that would make any bridesmaid look like a princess. Soft pastels, scattered flowers and dainty tulle provide an extra air of romance to a wedding ceremony. They look beautiful in spring and summer but can also be adapted to the colder months by changing the colour palette, for example

using hues of orange and yellow to create that autumn floral look. These airy, botanic dresses also work great with the upcoming trend of ruffles in bridesmaid dresses. Ruffles add texture and movement to bridesmaid’s dresses, light and cascading tiers adding an ethereal charm. These trending bridesmaid dresses are flexible and perfect for any wedding; allowing bridesmaids to feel beautiful without distracting from the bride.

This Season’s Bridal Hair Trends: Find Your Perfect Finish! By Ellie Eastwood

The venue has been chosen, the dress has been bought, all invitations have been sent out. What’s to come next? From head to toe, every bride should feel like the most beautiful version of themselves for their big day, and the hairstyle can not be forgotten!

ith so many intricate and vast choices, the right style should complement everything else in place, suiting your chosen gown, venue and personality. Whether that be romantic, natural, glamorous or elegant, your hair should seamlessly complete the bridal look. We understand that researching all these choices and trends can very quickly become overwhelming, and so to save you the time and energy… we have compiled this season’s most popular bridal hair trends (thank us later)! 26

Let it Flow: Natural Style Reigning queen of recent bridal fashion, this natural movement is dominating current hair trends like a storm; reinstating the bride’s genuine beauty with confidence and a carefree attitude. Stick to your bountiful curls or your sleek straight locks, and embrace that natural beauty of yours!

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Traditional Romantic with Modern Twist: Low Bun Classic to its core, low buns have always represented the traditional romantic aesthetic. Adaptations to this style are ever-changing, and this new season popularises the framed-face look, complete with curtain bangs, more than ever. A flattering finish to an already classic look! www.lancmag.com

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Boho Waves with Elegance Whilst this hair is perfect to combat the humidity of a beach wedding, the popularity of this relaxed, whimsical style appears to transcend all seasons. Complete with more minimal accessories, such as hair vines or floral headpieces, they add the finishing touch to an elegant yet relaxed bridal aesthetic. Sophisticated Modern Ponytail A classic go-to everyday, the ponytail has now evolved into wedding vogue; varying in levels of height and ranging from sleek to tousled, this style is universally sophisticated and versatile, with no bride left disappointed. Whimsical Half-Ups Radiant and fairy-tale inspired, the half-up combines the elegance and intricate nature of pinned styles and the romantic flow of hair-down; the most dreamy combination. The added dimension, volume and whimsy is what makes this style a bridal showstopper. Catered towards every bride’s aesthetic and personality, there will always be a hairstyle that suits you to perfection. Ensuring your heightened beauty, confidence and happiness, each one of these styles adds the finishing touch to your idyllic ceremony.

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Here Comes the Bride

TIMELESS

DRESSES for Every Style of Wedding By www.confettirainbridal.co.uk

A contemporary, luxurious bridal store located in the heart of Bispham, Blackpool. ConfettiRain Bridal ensures to deliver expert, personable service in a unique setting. Store owner Michlle Sirotko prides herself on twenty years of experience in the wedding industry and her keen eye for detail.

Wedding season is among us and it is no secret that one of the most exciting parts of the big day for all involved is the reveal of… ‘the’ dress. However with just under 4000 bridal outlets in the UK and over 65 in the North West alone, it can be a minefield for future brides to know where to start with finding their perfect gown. Luckily, Michelle and her team at ConfettiRain Bridal are on hand to help future brides navigate through the maze of all things lace, silk and tulle! ConfettiRain Bridal is an opulent, spacious designer store offering a vast array of bridal wear. The store boasts a selection of over 200 wedding dresses, catering to a range of sizes and budgets, along with a selection of bridesmaids and flower girl dresses and a plethora of headwear and accessories. The store also is a main stockist of the sought after ‘Rainbow Club’ shoes so that brides can be sure to walk down the aisle in style. The store is located in the centre of Bispham, on the Fylde Coast and offers a unique experience with the building being a refurbished old fashioned bank. The detached building with floor to ceiling windows creates an airy, open atmosphere and offers the perfect lighting. Adorned with beautiful floral displays, along with pale pink and silver accents the store exudes elegance and sophistication. The building itself also maintains many of its original features,

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including a large vault in which brides-to-be can store their specially selected gowns. There are three spacious fitting rooms along with a plush seating area for any additional entourage who may be assisting. The private showcasing area offers the perfect setting for customers to showcase their dresses to friends and family

IN SAFE HANDS ConfettiRain was established in 2017 by store owner Michelle Sirotko. Michelle prides herself on her eye for design and her well established career. Michelle first entered the realm of fashion and design as a children’s clothes designer, in which she designed unique clothing for ten years. Michelle then proceeded to pass on her design expertise and went to teach media, design and photography at The Blackpool Sixth Form College. Whilst doing this she also paved out a career in wedding photography, a career that she successfully and passionately undertook www.lancmag.com

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for over twenty years. With Michelle’s breadth of artistic experience and her photography skills enabling her to visualise concepts beautifully, she felt she couldn’t possibly say no when the opportunity arose to open up her own bridal wear shop. “When the store came up for sale, I couldn’t resist. It’s a career that combines all of my areas of expertise and I absolutely love it”. Michelle has now been helping brides-to-be find the perfect gown for the past 6 years and offers a personable, easygoing approach and gently guides customers to find the perfect dress.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE ConfettiRain boasts a wide selection of bridal gowns, flower girl dresses and bridesmaids dresses. With over 150 custom fit designer dresses and a range of sample dresses there is a dress to suit all sizes, styles and budgets. The store stocks designer gowns from the likes of ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ designer, Randy Fenoli, Ronald Joyce, as seen on ‘Married at First Sight UK’ and Martin Thornburg. “We ensure to stay up to date with the latest trends and styles” said Michelle in a recent interview. “We source dresses from all over Europe, including Amsterdam, London and Barcelona”. Michelle personally selects styles during buying season so that customers can be assured they are experiencing the best of the bunch. Sample dresses are available from £400 and designer dresses are available from £1000-£4000. ConfettiRain also offers a selection of plus size dresses so that all future brides are catered for. www.lancmag.com

A vast selection of accessories are also available in store including headwear by ‘Arianna’ and ‘Ivory and Co’. A number of the exquisite veils are also on offer along with an array of ‘Rainbow Club’ shoes and accessories.

A KNOWLEDGEABLE YET RELAXED EXPERIENCE When booking an appointment at ConfettiRain, customers will receive a one to one bridal consultation for 90 minutes in which they can choose a selection of dresses to try. If it is a customer’s first time trying dresses, Michelle or her experienced consultant of 12 years, Jessica will select a variety of silhouettes to try. “We can often tell from looking at a bride-to-be what style and silhouette will suit her, so we can offer our expertise and gently guide customers should they want a helping hand! We offer a knowledgeable appointment”. Michelle and Jessica pride themselves on their personable, easygoing approach and aim to ensure that customers feel comfortable and at ease during their experience. “We don’t want customers to feel any pressure. We just want to advise them as best we can using our expertise and experience in the industry”.

Tracy. “She made us feel very welcome with no pressure to hurry or hard sales tactics. We had such a relaxed and chilled experience with her and Jessica and such a fabulous selection of all kinds of wedding dresses and I would without a doubt recommend them to all”.

HOW TO BOOK Future brides are encouraged to book an initial appointment 12 18 months before their wedding date to ensure that there is enough time to order in dresses and make any alterations. There is an easy to use booking tool on the ConfettiRain website and Facebook page in which customers can book a variety of different appointments ranging from ‘new bride’ to ‘bridesmaids’ without any upfront payment required. For those wanting to get a taste for the store before visiting, there is also a virtual tour available online, showcasing just how beautiful the store is. For those wanting a relaxed, elegant and knowledgeable dress shopping experience, please visit: confettirainbridal.co.uk or call 01253 357 08 Alternatively visit ConfettiRain Bridal’s Facebook page:

During their appointment, customers and their entourage F @ConfettiRainBridal will be offered a variety of Michelle and her team look speciality hot drinks including forward to meeting you! tea, coffee and hot chocolate. They can then use the spacious private area to let the fun begin and showcase their selection of gowns to friends and family. “Michelle is one of the nicest people you could wish to meet when choosing your bridal gown” said recent customer

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M 62 Red Bank Road, Bispham, Blackpool FY2 9NW | N 01253 357083

D www.confettirainbridal.co.uk | F @confettirainbridal | I @confettirainbridal

M 62 Red Bank Road, Bispham, Blackpool FY2 9NW | N 01253 357083

D www.confettirainbridal.co.uk | F @confettirainbridal | I @confettirainbridal

M 62 Red Bank Road, Bispham, Blackpool FY2 9NW | N 01253 357083

D www.confettirainbridal.co.uk | F @confettirainbridal | I @confettirainbridal

M 62 Red Bank Road, Bispham, Blackpool FY2 9NW | N 01253 357083

D www.confettirainbridal.co.uk | F @confettirainbridal | I @confettirainbridal

Scan to view the Collection

A collection of five Dream Venues across the Ribble Valley & Yorkshire Dales. W W W. D R E A M V E N U E S . C O . U K

Say I do...

TO YOUR DREAM VENUE From a classic country inn and a simply astounding contemporary mill conversion to a gorgeous stately home and a romantic manor house, we have the perfect wedding venue to make your dream wedding day come to life.

Wedding Showcases Please see the website for dates and details on all our upcoming events.

D R E A M V E N U E S. C O. U K PHOTOGRAPHERS: Emily Robsinson, Annabeth Photos, Emilie May, Bowness Film & Nick English

Just Us Wedding Package

Did you know we do elopements and small weddings? Package To include: •

2 nights accommodation in a Tweed Suite

•

Afternoon Tea on arrival

•

Welcome Hamper to include Champagne and Gin & Tonics

•

Pre-wedding dinner

•

Breakfast

•

Room hire for your ceremony and two witnesses

•

Post ceremony Champagne

•

3 course wedding breakfast to include a bottle of wine

•

Room service breakfast and late checkout the following day

From £995.00

Find Out More at: www.tweediesgrasmere.com

Support Friend of the Earth to Reforest Maromizaha

Ravina, is a lemur from the Maromizaha forest in Madagascar which serves as the home of the singing lemur. Ravina has been chosen as the mascot for the new fundraising project spearheaded by the World Sustainability Foundation (WSF) and Friend of the Earth®, in collaboration with the University of Turin.

n Malagasy, Ravina means leaf symbolising the initiative’s efforts and commitment towards restoring the vegetation cover in Maromizaha. The noteworthy fundraising project makes use of crowdfunding platform - ideaginger.it, of the Ginger Association.

Ravina is a singing lemur, known scientifically as Indri Indri. It is one of thirteen lemur families living in Maromizaha. Regrettably, these fascinating animals are among the most endangered lemurs in the world, they are at critical risk of extinction due to the destruction of their habitat. This unfortunate development informed Friend of the Earth® to launch a fundraising campaign to reforest Maromizaha, with the aim of restoring the singing lemurs’ habitat. The project seeks to raise 2,500 euros, to facilitate the planting of about ten thousand trees on five hectares of forest land; expanding the home of Ravina and the other lemurs of Maromizaha. Additionally, through the World Sustainability Foundation’s initiative, ten women from the local

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community will be involved in seed collection activities within the forest, and remunerated. Technicians, villagers and students neighboring Moromizaha, will also be engaged in activities to support the reforestation process. The initiative will be implemented in three phases: firstly, collection of seeds to be planted and the establishment of five nurseries. Secondly, nursery technicians will be engaged for planting, and finally, the growth of the trees planted will be monitored. The project is expected to be carried out within eight to ten months, and a maximum duration of one year.

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Help the singing lemurs, donate now: Let’s protect the singing lemur and its home. Friend of the Earth® is a project of the World Sustainability Organization (WSO), founded to conserve the planet’s resources, restore critical habitats, and protect endangered species by means of certification, outreach, and sustainability centered projects globally. World Sustainability Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the World Sustainability Organization, was instituted in 2022 and is committed to ensuring environmental protection by promoting a culture of sustainable development. The launch of this fundraiser towards the Reforestation of Maromizaha, enables the World Sustainability Foundation and Friend of the Earth® continue with its laudable initiatives, to preserve the Indri indri lemurs of Madagascar. In 2022, Friend of the Earth® participated in the Maromizaha Project of the University of Turin (Turin’s U ONLUS and Madagascar’s GERP - Grouèe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates). For one year, Friend of the Earth® has contributed to extensive research and study activities in the Maromizaha forest to conserve singing lemurs. Donations of any amount can be made to the ideaginger.it platform fundraiser. Prizes such as illustrations, to calendars can be won by donors, additionally donors get the chance to win the World Sustainability Foundation’s ‘Sustainable Friends’ Fidelity Card, and the opportunity to adopt one of the six lemur babies that will be born during the summer. The most generous benefactors can choose a name for the cub and receive photos as it grows.

D f riendoftheearth.org www.lancmag.com

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MAY SINCLAIR

- Novelist, Innovator And Campaigner By Margaret Brecknell

Mary Amelia St Clair, better known by her pen name of May Sinclair, was born 160 years ago this month in Rock Ferry on the Wirral. She was one of the early 20th -century’s most popular authors and well known for her support of the woman’s suffrage movement, but, like so many celebrities of that era, has now been largely forgotten. 48

orn on 24th August 1863, May was the youngest of six children. Her father, William, worked in shipping and the Sinclair household appears to have been quite affluent until his business failed in the late 1860s. Thereafter, the younger siblings, including May, moved south with their mother to live in Ilford. The young May received little in the way of formal education and largely studied at home until her late teens when she was sent to study for a year at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Here she showed sufficient early promise

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to be invited to write for the College magazine. She would ultimately become famous for her fiction, but in her early work for this publication she focused on poetry and essays on philosophy. In 1886, she published her first volume of poetry, using the pen name of Julian Sinclair. By the time that May switched her focus to novel writing, she was already in her early thirties and appears to have at least partly been motivated to make the career move as a result of financial worries. www.lancmag.com

Her first novel, Audrey Craven, was published in 1897. The title character is pursued romantically by three men, one of whom, Langley Wyndham, is an author. Audrey is portrayed as a social chameleon, who changes her behaviour and opinions to please others. Wyndham is interested in discovering “to find out what lay at the bottom of this shifting personality, what elemental thoughts and feelings, if any, the real Audrey Craven was composed of, to see for himself the play of circumstances on her plastic nature, and know what reaction it was capable of”. Such an intense, psychologically led, approach to character study in novels was highly unusual for the time, but it became a key element of May’s fiction. The inclusion of the fictional author, Langley Wyndham, in this first novel is also indicative of her later work, as in her fiction May often chose to focus on the lives of writers and artists. Inevitably this new style of writing did not go down well with all her contemporaries. Some critics were even more scandalised by the content of her second novel, Mr and Mrs Nevill Tyson. May’s exploration of the Tyson marriage, complete with adulterous affairs along the way, was considered by some to be a little too intimate in its detail and the fact that it was written by a woman only added to its shock value. May was beginning to make waves in the literary world, but her first major success did not come until the publication of The Divine Fire in 1904. By this time May was living in Hampstead and her reallife experience of London literary life is reflected in the book’s plot and characters. The novel sold particularly well in the United States and so, as a result, May embarked on a tour of the US East Coast. The Americans loved her. One reporter described her as “typically English, the Englishwoman of vicarage gardens, who keeps her lavenderscented shyness amidst all her struggles with the world”. May met some of the most influential North American literary figures of the day during her time in the States including Mark Twain. When the pair were seated next to each other at a literary www.lancmag.com

Women’s Freedom League 1909 leaflet. Credit: “LSE Library”

lunch, each waited for the other to start the conversation. The silence continued for several minutes, until Twain, known for his wit, remarked to her, “Child, child, do not be so boisterous!”. Others saw beyond May’s reserved exterior, recognising her keen powers of observation and her quiet determination to fight social injustice. “May Sinclair is very well worth knowing”, wrote her friend and fellow author, Constance Smedley. The two writers bonded over a shared cause, namely the women’s suffrage movement. May is known to have taken part in the famous “Mud March” of 1907, in which over three thousand women marched in protest through the streets of London. She also wrote for suffragette publications

such as Votes for Women, famously beginning one letter to the newspaper with the assertion that, “If I were not a mere novelist, I would be a Suffragette”. Following a split in the women’s movement in early 1908, May did join a breakaway group called the Women’s Freedom League (WFL). The WFL was formed by suffragettes who were tired of the undemocratic way in which the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was run, allied with concerns regarding the increasingly violent nature of their tactics including arson and bombing campaigns. WFL members, like May, favoured more peaceful forms of protest such as the non-payment of taxes and non-violent demonstrations.

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May Sinclair entering Kensington Women’s Social & Political Union Shop. Credit: “LSE Library”

Despite her self-deprecating comment in her letter to Votes for Women, May successfully used her fiction writing as a way of highlighting women’s causes from early on in her career as a “mere novelist”. Following the success of The Divine Fire, she wrote a string of further bestselling novels. Her 1914 novel, The Three Sisters, is typical of her work during this period, dealing with the frustration of the three daughters of an impoverished vicar who are compelled to lead a lonely, unfulfilled life in a remote parsonage on the Yorkshire moors. With such limited options, their only apparent means of escape is through marriage. If the setting for this novel sounds strangely familiar, then that is because it bears more than a passing resemblance to the real-life Bronte sisters. There is no doubt that May was inspired to write this novel by their 50

story. However, The Three Sisters was not meant to be a biography of the Brontes. May had already published an acclaimed biography of the famous siblings two years previously. The Three Sisters is also the first of her books to reflect May’s newfound interest in the work of Sigmund Freud, particularly psychoanalysis. In her subsequent novels she would frequently explore Freudian concepts such as the impact of unconscious motivation on the behaviour of her characters. Following the outbreak of World War I in the autumn of 1914, May was typically proactive and volunteered for the Munro Ambulance Corps, a charity set up to transport wounded soldiers from the Western Front in Belgium. She travelled with the unit to Belgium, but, in the end, stayed less than three weeks before she was sent home to England. From her own

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version of events, May appears to have been unclear as to what her role was supposed to be, writing that, “There was no earthly reason why I should have come and none whatever why I should remain…eating Belgian food and quartered in a Belgian military hospital, and doing nothing for the Belgians. We are not justifying our existence. We are frauds.” Back home, she published an interesting record of her experiences under the title of A Journal of Impressions in Belgium. May’s time in Belgium may only have been brief, but the events she experienced there and the feelings they evoked had a deep impact on her future work, providing the inspiration for several of her later novels. This work only served to cement her reputation further as one of the leading novelists of her era. In 1916, one of America’s most respected literary www.lancmag.com

1905 Photographic Portrait of May Sinclair by E Huggins

published work. The collection brings together a series of eight short stories, each with a supernatural theme. May’s interest in this genre is said to have stemmed, at least in part, from her fascination with the Bronte sisters who shared her interest in the unusual and macabre. However, May ‘s tales of the supernatural offered much more than a mere reworking of the traditional Victorian gothic ghost story, with its blood and gore and things that go bump in the night. Instead she opted for a more subtle and chilling psychological approach to her subject. By the end of the 1920s, May had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and thereafter she gradually retreated from public life. Her last book, a collection of short stories called The Intercessor and Other Stories, was published in 1932.

critics, Dr Lyon Phelps, described May as “the foremost living writer among English-speaking women”. Closer to home, the Liverpool Echo wrote of May’s fiction that “she has never failed to move with the times. In her later books she combines the freshness of the modern outlook with the wisdom of experience”. She was also acquainted with many of the other leading literary figures of the age and appears to have been well liked. Writing in 1923, fellow www.lancmag.com

author, Rebecca West, called her “a darling”, who was “a gentle, sweettempered, generous-minded woman”. There was a sting in the tail, however, as the notoriously outspoken West then added that she believed May’s latest collection of short stories to be “frightful tosh”. Rebecca West’s critical review is possibly not all that surprising, bearing in mind that the book in question, Uncanny Stories, differed significantly from May’s previous

Towards the end of her life, she lived near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and this is where she eventually died, aged 83, in November 1946. The once famous novelist only received the briefest of obituaries in most newspapers and since then her important contribution to early 20thcentury literature has remained largely unrecognised. Fortunately, the May Sinclair Society, which was founded in July 2013 on the 150th anniversary of her birth, is now working hard to bring her work back into the public consciousness so that this innovative author may be properly appreciated once more.

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Ken Ogilvie with the restored 1967 Velocette MSS 500cc

Last of the Classic British Motorbikes Arrives at Museum They were a classic British motorbike brand known for quality and endurance and now one of the last Velocette bikes ever made has gone on display at the Lakeland Motor Museum.

he 1967 Velocette MSS 500cc has been donated to the popular Cumbrian museum in memory of the owner’s late sister who lived in the Lake District area for 35 years. Ken Ogilvie, from Southwell in Nottinghamshire, bought the motorbike back in 1977 before carefully restoring it and using it for over 30 years. “I was a trainee chartered accountant at that time with very little money,”

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The 1967 Velocette MSS 500cc at the Lakeland Motor Museum

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didn’t fire it first time!” That’s when he and his family decided it should go to a museum rather than being sold with the obvious danger of being stripped down for parts. Over the years he’d made many visits to the Lake District area to see his sister Chrissy who lived in Grange Over Sands. They took trips to the Lakeland Motor Museum and loved its homely, friendly atmosphere. “Chrissy was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died last year,” explains Ken. “My family and I felt it would be a fitting tribute to donate the motorbike to the Lakeland Motor Museum in her memory.”

The Velocette as bought in 1977

The Curator of the Lakeland Motor Museum, Chris Lowe, says: “We really appreciate Ken’s generosity in donating the Velocette motorcycle for the enjoyment of our visitors. It is an excellent example of the Classic British motorbike and shows the fine engineering and craftsmanship the firm was known for. It is a welcome addition to our display of 60 vintage, veteran, classic and modern motorcycles”.

Chrissy Ogilvie pictured in October, 2021 during a visit to Thirsk Bird of Prey Centre

says Ken: “So buying a car was not an option!”. “My first bike was a 1957, 350cc Velocette MAC. It was an absolute rust heap but reliably took me around for a few years! I then went working in South Africa and Botswana for ten years but on one trip home saw the MSS 500 up for sale and thought I’d buy it.” It cost him five hundred pounds. Restoration was put on hold as work commitments, marriage and children pushed it down Ken’s list of priorities. Eventually he found the time and with the help of acknowledged Velocette expert Geoff Dodkin set about restoring it to its former glory. The late Sixties were the last years of production for the classic Velocette motorbikes. They were made by Veloce Ltd, a small family firm in Birmingham, which finally closed in February 1971. www.lancmag.com

“I saw the handwritten manufacturing logbook for this bike and it said it was one of the last 30 machines ever made,” says Ken. A previous owner had altered it to look more like a sportier Velocette Venom. It also had a Venom full width front brake hub which Ken believes was fitted in the factory during assembly. It’s believed the last Velocette machines were assembled using any available parts at the factory.

The Lakeland Motor Museum has a collection of over 140 classic cars and motorbikes at the museum in Backbarrow, Cumbria. It also has thousands more exhibits of automobilia, historical displays and a riverside café. Nestled in the scenic Leven Valley and open seven days a week, the Museum is about more than just cars. The entire collection is presented in a social context, with a host of rarities to awaken some special motoring memories. Find out more by visiting: www.lakelandmotormuseum.co.uk/

“As any Velocette owner will know, it wasn’t easy finding parts,” says Ken. “But over the years we set about bringing it back to its original condition. It was comfortable to ride and always reliable.” As he got older however, it proved harder to manage and even kick start. “My poor old knees are not as strong as they used to be so kick starting the machine became a bit difficult if you LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 53

UNLOCKING CREATIVE INSPIRATION: ASTROLOGY, MYTH, AND THE SEASONS. Have you ever fancied having a go at creative writing? Astrology provides a never ending source of inspiration for our creative endeavours. As the leaves begin their vibrant transformation, casting a tapestry of warm hues across the landscape, and the air becomes crisp and invigorating, autumn announces its arrival. This magical season, with its inherent sense of change and transition, offers a perfect opportunity to delve into the world of astrology and myth, igniting a flame of creativity within the hearts of writers and artists alike. Astrology holds a rich tapestry of symbolism and archetypes that can serve as a wellspring of inspiration. By exploring the zodiac, the planets, and the celestial events that punctuate our lives, one can tap into a well of creativity that flows from the depths of the collective human psyche. One such celestial event that captivates the imagination is the autumnal equinox, marking the moment when day and night share equal time. This cosmic balancing act represents harmony and equilibrium, themes that we can weave into our stories. It is a time when light and dark dance together; when transitions and transformations occur. In the realm of myth, the autumnal equinox is associated with the Greek goddess Persephone who descends into the underworld, ushering in the realm of darkness and introspection. This mythological tale resonates with the changing seasons, as nature transitions from the abundant energy of summer to the quiet introspection of autumn and winter. Drawing inspiration from such myths can imbue our creative expressions with depth and metaphor, inviting us to 54

embark on a profound journey of selfdiscovery and transformation. As the vibrant summer days gradually give way to the mellowness of autumn, nature reminds us of the delicate dance between yin and yang energy, symbolizing the perfect harmony between these opposing forces. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang represent the interconnectedness and

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balance of contrasting energies. Yin, associated with darkness, femininity, and introspection, corresponds to the cooling energies of autumn. It is a time when nature begins its retreat, shedding its vibrant colours and slowing down in preparation for winter’s rest. The rustling leaves and the gentle breeze whisper of the yin’s gentle touch.

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The Hunters Moon inspires us to embrace our instincts, to seek out new stories and ideas, and to honour the cyclical nature of creativity. Just as the moon wanes and waxes, our imaginative energy flows and recedes. Understanding these natural rhythms and harnessing their power can help us to maintain a sustainable and harmonious relationship with our creative crafts. To fully immerse yourself in the enchantment of astrology, myth, and the changing seasons, we invite you to join us at the AstroScribe: Astrology and Creative Writing Day retreat at Brinscall Hall, nestled near Chorley. This idyllic setting provides the perfect backdrop for a transformative experience, where you can connect with like-minded individuals and explore the depths of your creative potential. During the retreat, I will be joining forces with Sarah Hunter of Creative Wellbeing to introduce Astrology while Sarah will be guiding you through the process of creative writing. We will blend astrology, myth, and exercises to unlock your creative muse. You will learn to infuse your creative writing with the wisdom of the stars and archetypal energies. Whether you are a seasoned writer seeking to invigorate your work or someone simply curious about the magical interplay of astrology and creativity, or creative writing is something you’ve always liked to explore - the AstroScribe retreat promises to be an unforgettable experience. Immerse yourself in the beauty of the autumnal equinox, witness the full Hunters Moon in all its splendour, and embark on a journey of self-discovery through the realms of astrology and myth.

On the other hand, yang embodies brightness, masculinity, and extroversion. It is the active energy of summer, characterized by growth and expansion. As the autumnal equinox arrives, yang gradually recedes, making way for the subtle emergence of yin. Just as the seasons change, so do the creative energies within us. The autumn equinox reminds us of the importance of balancing yin and yang in our creative work. It is a time to tap into the introspective yin energy; to explore the depths of emotions, and to infuse our narratives with subtlety and nuance.

Embrace the wisdom of the stars, let the changing seasons guide your pen, and allow the rich tapestry of myth to weave itself into the fabric of your stories, poetry and creative expression. On the day of the retreat we will be exploring the archetype of the Hunters Full Moon in Aries; the sun will be in the Temple of Venus, Goddess of Love, with the Moon in the Temple of Mars, God of war, with us on Gaia standing between them.

The autumn equinox serves as a powerful reminder that within every person’s creative inspiration lies a delicate equilibrium between yin and yang. Embrace the changing seasons, honour the dance of energies, and let the autumnal equinox be a guiding light as you embark on a creative journey. But the enchantment doesn’t end there. On the 29th of September, the full Hunters Moon graces the night sky, casting a radiant glow upon the Earth. Traditionally associated with the abundance of the harvest season, this full moon holds a special significance for our creative endeavours. It is a time to reflect on the fruits of our inspired action, to celebrate our achievements, and to set intentions for the future.

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Unleash your creativity through writing your own cosmic mythology based upon these archetypes. Embrace mindful movement and meditation to nurture your creative soul and connect with that creative spark within. Book your place now at: www.trybooking.co.uk/CMWK

Rozanne Kay is an Astrologer, Tarot Reader and Transformational Life Coach. She helps people to become empowered and to live a more fulfilling life through greater self-knowledge and removing their blocks to their greatest fulfilment. She is trained in Jungian coaching techniques, Hypnosis, NLP and EFT (tapping). You can book a consultation with her or enquire about her work at: rozannekaycoaching.com

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From farms, forests and meadows to rivers and coastlines Traveling by motorbike, cooking outside with local producers, Chef Maurizio will create traditional Italian recipes using foraged ingredients - on location to demonstrate what Lancashire has to offer, whilst respecting the traditions of Italian cuisine, culture and heritage. Working with producers whose ethos aligns with his own - those who produce ingredients using natural farming methods, free from chemicals and pesticides; and the highest standards of animal welfare. These ingredients bring flavour and character that wouldn’t be possible with intensively-farmed produce or mass-produced produce.

A dietary staple Importantly, Maurizio also uses the highest quality extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) from Italy in his cooking. Extra virgin olive oil is integral to Italy’s culture and has been a dietary staple for thousands of years. At La Locanda their extra virgin olive oil is supplied by world acclaimed producers the Gabrielloni family from Recanati, in the Marche region of Italy. This is not just a business partnership but a lifelong friendship.

Maurizio, Agrichef says “I am impassioned to share

my knowledge and develop people’s understanding of the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet; its impact on healthier eating and introducing Extra Virgin Olive Oil as a sixth element of the daily diet.”

Maurizio Bocchi, Agrichef invites food enthusiasts to join him as he travels across Lancashire for a new video series “Agrichef on Wheels.”

ourcing the best quality local produce has always been a priority of Maurizio’s, with more than 80% of his restaurant, La Locanda’s ingredients locally sourced. A chef passionate about creating authentic, handcrafted dishes. But he also has another passion – Italian motorbikes - so why not combine the two!

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To coincide with the week of this year’s Clitheroe Food Festival, Maurizio’s restaurant La Locanda will host an Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) Tasting Event (“Assaggi di Oli”) on Tuesday 8th August. With his vast knowledge, at this unique event diners will: • Learn how to recognise a quality EVOO • Taste a variety of EVOOs with home breads and crudité • Dine at La Locanda and enjoy homemade pastas with a glass of Italian wine (naturally!)

Leading the way In 2022 Maurizio was named Marketing Lancashire’s latest Taste Lancashire Ambassador. Joining a stellar lineup of the county’s most celebrated chefs. Leading the way promoting Lancashire as a must-visit food destination. www.lancmag.com

FOOD WITH PASSION, SEASONALITY AND HERITAGE Maurizio Bocchi, Chef Patron, takes you to the heart of Italian fine-dining in the Ribble Valley serving you the purest Italian cuisine. Creating authentic, seasonal dishes that go back generations using the highest quality local and Italian ingredients.

Main Street, Gisburn, Lancashire BB7 4HH Tel: 01200 445303 | Info@lalocanda.co.uk

F I @LaLocandaGisburn

Extra Virgin Olive Oil for a Healthier Future

Ribble Valley chef, Maurizio Bocchi uses the highest quality, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) from Italy in his cooking.

t’s an integral ingredient to Italy’s culture and has been a dietary staple for some of the world’s healthiest populations for thousands of years. Maurizio says “I am impassioned to share my knowledge and develop people’s understanding of the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet; introducing Extra Virgin Olive Oil as a sixth element of the daily diet.” Did you know? •

Italy is the world’s second highest producer of extra virgin olive oil behind Spain

•

Italy is home to over 540 different varieties of olive, over 40% of the global known varieties

•

To make a litre of EVOO takes approximately 8.5 kg of olives!

Ingredienti Puri In order to create his delicious dishes, Chef Maurizio needs exceptional ingredients. Working

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with local producers and native Italian suppliers whose ethos aligns with his own - those who produce ingredients using natural farming methods, free from chemicals and pesticides; and the highest standards of animal welfare. www.lancmag.com

Health benefits Cooking with and including a quality olive oil in your diet, is incredibly beneficial to one’s health:

These ingredients bring flavour and character that wouldn’t be possible with intensively-farmed produce or mass-produced produce. It not only makes Maurizio’s dishes taste delicious, it’s good for the planet too. A lifelong friendship

•

It is a healthier choice for use in cooking

•

It has antibacterial properties

•

It’s nutrients help fight inflammation and may reduce your risk of chronic diseases

•

It can help reduce joint pain and swelling from rheumatoid arthritis

•

Studies have shown that those who consume olive oil have a much lower risk of stroke, have lower blood pressure and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes

•

Consuming olive oil does not appear to increase the likelihood of weight gain

•

It can help defend your body from premature aging by fighting free radicals; preventing wrinkles and moisturising the skin

Did you know? You can drink a daily spoonful of extra virgin olive oil when you wake up, or at least half an hour before breakfast. The recommended dose is 40g per day; EVOO contains 9 calories per gram.

Agrichef on Wheels

Strong friendships and alliances have developed over the years and Maurizio a regular visitor to world acclaimed extra virgin olive oil producers, the Gabrielloni family.

Chef Maurizio’s passion is to create authentic, handcrafted dishes. But he also has another passion – Italian motorbikes – so why not combine the two!

Residing in their home town of Recanati, in the Marche region of Italy, sisters Elisabetta and Gabriella are wholly passionate about their beautiful olive oil and are the third generation to run Frantoio Gabrielloni, managing both the olive trees and mill, from pruning to pressing.

Maurizio invites you to join him as he travels across Lancashire by motorbike; to cook in the great outdoors on location visiting local suppliers to showcase their wonderful produce; creating traditional Italian recipes using a sustainable source of energy; recreating Lancashire dishes… Using extra virgin olive oil.

This is not just a business partnership but a lifelong friendship.

WATCH

y @mauriziobocchi-agrichef FIND OUT MORE

d www.agrichef.co.uk

Maurizio Bocchi is Chef Patron along with his wife Cinzia at La Locanda - a nationally celebrated Italian restaurant in the heart of Lancashire’s Ribble Valley. Chef Maurizio is respected for his commitment to slow food and sustainability, sourcing the best quality local produce and specialising in pure, authentic Italian cuisine. Back in the summer of 2013, Maurizio hosted the UK’s first Extra Virgin Olive Oil symposium at the magnificent Gorton monastery in Manchester. Attended by Italian award-winning olive oil producers, Italian and English authorities, leading olive oil, food and health sector specialists, Italian and UK Michelin star chefs, press and media; gaining national media coverage.

WWW.LALOCANDA .CO.UK www.lancmag.com

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Red Devils Join Spectacular Line-Up for Blackpool Air Show “We like to make sure people don’t forget about us! It’s also a privilege to show the public what the British Army are capable of and the values and standards we live by.”

One of the world’s most iconic parachute display teams will perform on both days of this summer’s Blackpool Air Show.

isitBlackpool has revealed that The Red Devils, an elite unit of the British Army Parachute Regiment, will put on a breath-taking display over the Blackpool shoreline on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 August. The 15-strong team, whose motto is “Ready For Anything” will join a line-up that already includes the Red Arrows, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and RAF Typhoon across both days. The Red Devils were formed in 1964 to boost public engagement and recruitment for the British Army. After training with the US Armed Forces’ parachute display team, the Golden Knights, the first Red Devils team was formed. They became the official parachute display team of the British Army in 1979. A spokesperson for the team said: “We, the Red Devils Parachute Display Team are honoured to be participating in the Blackpool Air Show. “We cannot wait to captivate the audience, giving them the opportunity to watch us in freefall and then do some exciting stuff on the way down.

The Air Show, which is free to attend, was one of the region’s biggest events in 2022, attracting an estimated 250,000 people to the Promenade over the two days. The Red Arrows, one of the world’s foremost aerial aerobatic display teams will open the Air Show on both days, performing high above the seafront opposite The Blackpool Tower. The RAF Typhoon will provide an extraordinary finale. The weekend show will also feature a whole host of incredible flying machines with an array of civil and military aircraft, including a display by the AeroSuperBatics Wing Walkers. The full list of participating aircraft and display times can be viewed here: www.visitblackpool.com/airshow To complement the aerial programme, there will be plenty to see and do on the ground with a wide range of stalls, attractions and food concessions in the Air Show Village on the Tower Festival Headland. A VisitBlackpool spokesperson said: “The Red Devils add yet another dimension to what is already a stunning programme of aerial entertainment. This promises to be one of the biggest free events of the summer.” For further information and to book accommodation and other entertainment during your stay in Blackpool go to: www.visitblackpool.com

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Rowing the Atlantic Solo at 59 Viv Barclay is defying the menopause in a bid to row 3000 miles by herself across the Atlantic and, at 59, become the oldest women in history to do this. Here’s her story.

n 2015-16, I saw four middleaged women from York take on the challenge of a lifetime. Via BBC Breakfast I avidly watched the Yorkshire Rows as oar stroke by oar stroke they propelled themselves from La Gomera in the Canaries to English Harbour in Antigua and into the record books. When they crossed the finish line more than two months after they’d started, they became the oldest female team of four to ever achieve this.

I had never seen anything like this before as, let’s face it; stories like this about women of this age doing remarkable things are not often covered by the media. These women did not come from an athletic or extreme sports background. They had jobs, families and lived a ‘normal’ life. I identified with them and the thought, ‘If they can do that, so can I,’ imprinted itself on my mind.

the railway bridge and across the road into the village of Langcliffe, past the fountain, the big oak, as it was then, and the flagpole to her back door. She was somewhat surprised to see me looking up at her from the doorstep as although this may sound like a fairly unremarkable journey, it was the summer of 1968 and I had just turned 3 years old.

I come from a very small village near Settle in North Yorkshire and possibly because of its size, I’ve always wondered what was beyond the horizon for me. My independent and adventurous streak manifested early. One day, I decided I would visit my grandma and I walked the mile or so to her house, up the path over

Since then I have travelled as far east as Japan, as far west as California, as far south as the tip of Argentina and as far north as the Arctic Circle. After living and working in London until my late 30s, I moved to Spain for 8 years before returning home in 2010 to help look after my mother before she died from Alzheimer’s in December 2017.

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I confess 2018 was a bit of a blur. Menopause was in full swing and I very much retreated into myself and disengaged from the world. Grief played a part too but, when I wasn’t doing the school run, I mainly sat on the sofa watching Netflix until I reached a point where I was so sick of myself; I had to do something to get out of my head. So, I started crafting. I now run a small business making beeswax wraps and I happily travel around the country selling them at shows, events and craft fairs as well as online. I didn’t know at that time that disengagement was a symptom of menopause and I had become very insular. It took a great deal of effort to go out and sell my products and, initially, a friend came with me. Despite the moral support, I always felt so drained and like I couldn’t think straight. I gave up on conversations as I had difficulty explaining myself and I questioned my intelligence and even whether I’d had any to begin with. I had palpations too, which completely freaked me out and my family will attest to my being moody! I wish I had been more aware of the help there is available for menopausal women and then I might not feel like those years of my life just disappeared into a kind of fog. Despite that, news of the World’s Toughest Row kept popping into my consciousness and the idea of my doing it one day wouldn’t go away. So, shaking, I signed up for it. I’m a novice when it comes to rowing and I entered the Atlantic challenge without having a minute’s www.lancmag.com

experience of pulling an oar. Apart from sporadic periods of aerobics and running to keep myself fit before and after menopause, I have not done anything this physically challenging before. But that’s what is so great about this experience for me. I’m learning everything from scratch and that’s a) do-able and b) okay. I didn’t have experience of marriage before I married; of having children before I gave birth, of running a marathon or a business before I did both. We learn in life and age is no barrier - unless we let it. That said, we don’t just put to sea without any proper training. Obviously, the challenge is not without risk but that is mitigated as much as possible. Safety is paramount and in addition to the physical weight and flexibility training in the gym, there are mandatory courses, which I’ve already completed, in navigation,

sea-survival and first-aid. There is stipulated number of on-water rowing hours to complete and that will start later this year with a trip to Lake Constance in Switzerland when I join one of this year’s competitors to support her with her row. I do count myself very fortunate as my campaign is being supported by the Sports Science Dept of the University of Salford who intend to publish a paper about the effects of the row on me physically, nutritionally and psychologically. After setting off on December 12th 2024, the row will take 60 – 90 days and will be a bit like extreme camping at sea. I will have all my food and a water maker with me, the electrical equipment is solar powered and will be able to stay on course when I’m asleep or in bad weather by means of an auto-helm to keep me headed in the right direction and a para-anchor

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to stop me being pulled too far in the wrong direction by wind and strong currents. The boat is designed to be self-righting in the event of capsize and there’s a life raft should the worst happen. The loo is a very hi-tech bucket! The hardest part of the row, as all the previous participants will tell you, is getting to the start line. After that, it’s a matter of rowing until you reach the other side. As I was so affected by my menopause experience, I’ve chosen to use the row to raise money for The Menopause Charity. Their work is crucial in supporting menopausal women as they provide them with evidence-based information as well as accredited training for medical professionals. I’m actively raising awareness and encouraging donations big and small to my campaign. I’m www.lancmag.com

also looking for corporate sponsors who would like to explore a unique marketing opportunity to help me attain a Guinness World Record and raise money for a cause that will help thousands of women in the UK. A common response when I tell people I’m rowing the Atlantic solo is, ‘Are you mad?’ 5.5 million women are going through menopause in the UK currently but only 14% of them, according to the GenM website, are receiving any sort of support. That means work days are lost, which costs the economy, as well as ‘life’ days, as I experienced myself. If my row means that more women are supported at this stage in our lives, then I don’t think there’s anything mad about that at all. I could have chosen to sit on the sofa with a glass of wine watching

telly. That’s great for some but I wanted something more meaningful for myself – and others – than that. The perception of women when we reach menopause is that we are ‘usedup’ as we’re no longer sexually viable – something that is different for men. I want to challenge that perception and prove that menopause can be about new beginnings, opportunities and adventures. And as my 93 year-old dad says as well as my 3 year-old inner child, ‘You’ve got to have some adventure in your life.’ To donate to Viv’s campaign: www.mumentous.com/ To follow Viv’s journey: www.instagram.com/ mumentous.atlantic.row/

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The life of Di

A monthly column by Di Wade, the author of ‘A Year In Verse’

IT AIN’T ALL BAD

’ve oft heard it contended that we mellow as we get older. My own contention is that if that’s the case then I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury – while he’s the man in a moon made of Garstang Blue. I wasn’t always so sceptical. On the contrary, my first line of thinking was well why not: If age brought wisdom, retirement, and free bus travel, why not mellowness – and I duly looked forward to the day when I’d be as happy as Larry, cool as a cucumber, and my troubles’d be like lemon drops floating over the chimney tops. Unfortunately, time tended to suggest it was the mellow advocates who were somewhere over the rainbow, indeed possibly far enough down the yellow brick road to have got an eyeful of emerald - and that I wasn’t the only one to have reached this conclusion. I’ve the most vivid recollection of a night out kicked off by a friend’s tirade against her mother-in-law’s unreasonableness, the apparent clincher being people’s getting nicer as they got older, “or didn’t they?” Which got a resounding “No” from everyone within a 12-table radius – to my friend’s consternation, and everyone else’s wry amusement. Well why should we get nicer if one thinks about it? In one’s

twenties, one is typically fit, intrepid, and fearless. A mere couple of decades or so later, and it’s a completely different story incorporating one likely thinking at least twice before the old cliff-scaling, hiking to Jon O’Groats, and/or backpacking round Timbuktu with just a toothbrush. Meanwhile, the noises greeting one’s bending down are surpassed only by the positive symphony of unflattering sound effect attending one’s ascent back up again. Mellowing? Like a seaful of sewage. In short, everything is just that bit more difficult, it stands only to get more so, and the things which WERE difficult enough already thank you very much are escalated to insult levels since hasn’t one endured this nonsense long enough, and long since earned a break? Meanwhile, one’s confidence has taken a nosedive, and in the words of the poem, there’s nothing to laugh at at all. What age CAN bring you is a perspective to delight any economist, if not necessarily gladden the hearts of others. I suddenly find for my own part that an acquaintance with whom I seem to be making all the effort is one I can happily cross off my Christmas card list, that a book still boring me rigid at the halfway point is one I’ve no qualms about sending to the nearest jumble, and that an invitation I’d be accepting only out of politeness, flattery or to seem a good sport is to be entertained for all the time it takes me to fart. I’ve much to back me up in the latter, I.E. more dodgy nights out than I can remember, and only marvel at the time it took for the penny to drop. It finally did however, and if I’m now looking at a night of sitting in a corner, struggling to hear a thing, and wondering what the heck use this is to either myself or my host, I swiftly make my excuses. When I admitted as much to a friend however, he said that were nowt, that he and his wife didn’t even bother with explanations, just wished the sender a ball, but said thanks but no thanks as to their showing up for the gig: Well this might have snowflakes melting in appalled shock and horror, but there’s

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no arguing with the unambiguity, or the freedom afforded the hosts to invite someone who might actually want to come. Another friend has ditched the sugarcoating in another respect, I.E. folk now mess with her at their peril, where once she was pure sweetness and light no matter what was thrown at her. Sufficient years definitely give one a greater sense of one’s own worth, the shortness of life, and the wastage of time spent on foolishness, pointlessness, the unproductive, and unenjoyable – along with a cast-iron disinclination to endure any species of nonsense one doesn’t absolutely have to. They also have one cherishing every good thing, whether it’s a visit to Dobby’s, (complete with renewed dreams of that garden boasting hammock, fountains, summerhouse, and orchard), a walk round the Three Lights, or just the glorious sunflowers on one’s kitchen windowsill. In short, anyone actually mellowing with age deserves either a medal or a free course of therapy – but I’ll concede it ain’t all bad.

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All that they can be.

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Open Days in September & October Scholarships available in a range of disciplines Co-ed 3-18 | Boarding & Day Jesuit, Catholic School | www.stonyhurst.ac.uk

Stonyhurst Rated Excellent in All Areas of Latest Inspection Stonyhurst College and its Prep School, Stonyhurst St Mary’s Hall, have been awarded the highest possible rating of ‘Excellent in all areas’ following an inspection by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI).

Stonyhurst College and its Prep School, Stonyhurst St Mary’s Hall, have been awarded the highest possible rating of ‘Excellent in all areas’ following an inspection by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), maintaining its global reputation for outstanding teaching and care in the competitive independent school sector. Stonyhurst underwent a comprehensive inspection of its teaching, pastoral care, facilities and extra-curricular provision in April 2023 as part of the regular inspection procedures for independent schools. The key findings of the report acknowledged the excellence of the school in every area under

inspection. The dedication of the school in fulfilling its aims and the outstanding achievements of the pupils in academic studies and attitudes to learning, in addition to personal development were subjects of particular praise. The report recognised the high standards of academic achievement

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of the pupils, stating that ‘pupils of all ages and abilities display excellent attitudes towards their learning’, and ‘possess strong study skills and take an inquiry-based approach to their studies’ with their academic and other achievements being ‘wide and varied, and highly accomplished’. Pupils were found to be ‘highly

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‘show strong levels of perseverance when faced with challenges’. Pupils were found to ‘demonstrate high levels of self-esteem’.

articulate and speak with eloquence when addressing others’. From a personal development perspective, the report documents that ‘pupils of all ages show excellent levels of self-understanding’ and

On global matters, ‘pupils have a highly developed sense of social awareness; they are passionate about making a difference and fully committed to helping others through service and voluntary work’, ‘pupils have a strong appreciation for the multi-cultural nature and diversity of the school community’, and ‘the overwhelming majority of parents agreed that the school actively promotes values of democracy and, respect and tolerance of other people’, a reflection of Stonyhurst’s aim to develop men and women with a global outlook who can play a positive role in the world as outstanding people of the future.

finding of ‘Excellent’ in both the main inspection headings: for the quality of the pupils’ academic and other achievements, and the quality of the pupils’ personal development. The inspectors saw Stonyhurst in all its glory and celebrated us as a Jesuit community where everyone plays their part for our children and young people.’

Headmaster, John Browne, said: ‘I am thrilled that Stonyhurst has been awarded the highest possible rating by the ISI in all areas of the latest inspection. Stonyhurst not only achieved full regulatory compliance but also secured a www.lancmag.com

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Stonyhurst reaffirms pledge to support the Armed Forces Community

On Armed Forces Day, Saturday 24th June, Stonyhurst announced that it signed the Armed Forces Covenant, a promise that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces of the Crown, and their families, are treated with fairness and respect.

y signing the Covenant, Stonyhurst is reinforcing its commitment to supporting the armed forces community by continuing to welcome forces families, fostering relationships between the school and the Armed Forces, and supporting employment opportunities for veterans, service spouses and partners. In supporting those who serve, have served, and their families, and the value they bring to our community, 72

Stonyhurst will seek to uphold the principles of the Covenant by: • Promoting that it is a military friendly organisation; • Enabling pupil bursaries to qualifying members of the armed forces community subject to standard procedures; supporting armed forces families throughout their time at stonyhurst, particularly before, during and after a parent’s deployment • Supporting the employment of veterans, recognising military skills and qualifications in our recruitment and selection-process; • Striving to support the employment of service spouses and partners; offering a degree of flexibility in granting leave for service spouses and partners before, during and after a partner’s deployment;

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• Supporting our employees who are members of the reserve forces; supporting any mobilisations and deployment; actively encouraging members of staff to become reservists; • Supporting our employees who are volunteer leaders in military cadet organisations, granting additional leave to attend annual training camps and courses; actively encouraging members of staff to become volunteer leaders in cadet organisations; supporting local military cadet units; recognising the benefits of employing cadets/excadets within the workforce • Actively supporting armed forces day, reserves day, the poppy appeal day and Remembrance activities. Stonyhurst has a long and proud history of welcoming Forces Families and it recognises that forces life can www.lancmag.com

disrupt the continuity of education for children and that a long-term, stable environment provides more opportunities to develop all-round potential. The school has one of the most generous fee support packages of any school, with families in receipt of the Continuous Education Allowance (CEA) paying no more than 10% of fees. Stonyhurst’s Chair of Govenors, Anthony Chitnis, said: ‘Stonyhurst proudly supports Forces Families, and all who have served around the world. Signing the Covenant is particularly relevant to Stonyhurst given the school’s community of Armed Forces families, and established Combined Cadet Force which shapes many of our young people. The Armed Forces Covenant is a public pledge of support for those that serve, and I am delighted to be the signatory to Stonyhurst’s new Covenant.’ Stonyhurst supports those who wish to pursue careers in the forces through its Combined Cadet Force (CCF) which was established in 1900 and is led by a team of officers under a Major assigned to the school. It meets weekly and comprises platoons named after Stonyhurst’s seven www.lancmag.com

Victoria Cross winners. Pupils join the CCF in Lower Grammar (Year 9) with opportunities for leadership positions in their senior years. Pupils are taught the core skills that the army provides; integrity, loyalty, leadership, and discipline.

Stonyhurst is proud to sign the Armed Forces Covenant, standing alongside over 10,000 organisations including businesses and charities nationwide who recognise the sacrifices serving personnel make as ‘men and women for others’.

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Stonyhurst Achieves Another Excellent Set of International Baccalaureate Results

Stonyhurst celebrates the class of 2023’s IB results with pride and admiration. The school wish to congratulate its young people for all their efforts and wonderful achievements.

tonyhurst is delighted to see the IB grow in popularity, and it looks set to take on even more pupils next year. Mrs Alice McNeill, Senior Deputy Head, said: “The IB programme at Stonyhurst continues to go from strength to strength with one of our largest cohorts ever this year. These results reflect achievements across a broad spectrum of starting points. We are exceptionally proud of the progress each and every pupil made in each of the IB disciplines at the same time as making the very 74

best of all the wonderful opportunities here at Stonyhurst and making friends for life.”. Mrs Debbie Kirkby, Director of IB said: “The entire IB team is so proud of the results achieved by this year’s Diploma cohort. Their final scores are a testament to the tremendous, combined efforts of the young people and their teachers; they represent a celebration of achievement for each and every pupil in the cohort.” Individual stories give a sense of what these results mean. Caspar achieved an amazing 43/45, which is roughly equal to 5 A*s at A level. He is now looking forward to taking up his place to study medicine in Germany. He says “I enjoyed two amazing years at Stonyhurst and I am

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proud to have achieved such a good IB result. This would not have been possible without the great support of my teachers. Stonyhurst has been the perfect school for me, and I will miss it so much! Quant Je Puis!” His parents added: “Caspar obtained a marvellous IB result after two great years at Stonyhurst. From the very beginning of his time there, we were absolutely convinced that he would receive an excellent education at Stonyhurst.” Our pupils have excelled in so many academic disciplines. Pilar achieved 34/45, including achieving a soughtafter A grade in her 4,000-word Extended Essay in economics. She goes on to take up her unconditional scholarship offer at ESSEC in Paris. Isaac combined his passion for sport, achieving Distinction (DD) in his CTEC Sport Diploma, with IB psychology www.lancmag.com

and business and so receives the IB Career-related Programme certificate. He is now busy planning for his gap year working at the Jesuit St Ignatius’ College Riverview in Sydney, Australia before returning to the UK to study Sports & Exercise science. For the entire cohort, the average IB score this year was 33.4, well above the global average of 30.24. The cohort of 35 pupils was our largest cohort to date and hence this aboveaverage score shows the quality of teaching across a very broad range of starting points and languages. The results in English B were exceptional,

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showing that Stonyhurst continues to be the go-to for exceptional progress in English for non-native speakers. 87% of our pupils achieved the prestigious bilingual diploma. Destinations for our IB pupils include St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Warwick, and Exeter in the UK but also ESADE (Spain), LUISS (Italy), Maastricht (Netherlands), St. Glion & Les Roches (Switzerland), ESCP (Paris). Headmaster of Stonyhurst, John Browne said: ‘We could not be prouder of our IB pupils and cannot wait to see them at their next OS Reunion to hear tales of their amazing achievements all across the globe.

Stonyhurst Clitheroe BB7 9PU 01254 827073 stonyhurst.ac.uk

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The Orphans from Liverpool Lane - Eliza Morton

Writer Eliza Morton, raised in Formby, and married to Doctor Who actor Peter Davison, tells us she discovered she had more in common with her time travelling husband than she thought when she began writing her historical romantic sagas.

ust over a year ago I was finishing an early draft of my new book The Orphans from Liverpool Lane. I had been up all night and I was pretty exhausted, but I always feel elated when I press the send button. The book is about a family whose loving father returns to his wife and daughters after the Second World War to be met with little celebration or fanfare after finding himself stuck in a POW camp months after VE Day. He is a very different person when he comes home and quickly the family

spirals. The younger daughter barely remembers this man and it now feels like there is a stranger in their house. Before long Mum can’t cope. In the forties and fifties families like these who were struggling and began to fall apart, often turned to the church and the children would go into their orphanages. These children were called orphans of the living. The following day after sending off my manuscript I was visiting my uncle who is in his nineties. He had just read one of my earlier books which also featured an orphanage, one where the nuns took in evacuees during the war. He said to me ‘the girls in your book, I remember they were just like that.’ That was strange to me. I asked him what he meant, and he told me that when my grandfather died, my grandmother, widowed and with ten children, had arranged for the younger children, including my uncle and my father, to leave their home in

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Liverpool and go into the care of the nuns. Fortunately, my grandmother then found a job and she was able to take them back to Liverpool. My father had never told me this but when I asked my mother, she said to me that he had spoken to her often about it. I found this quite startling. Mainly because the orphanage I had written about, the ‘girls’ my uncle had mentioned, and the nuns, were all fictional in my mind. I had invented them. And yet my uncle was speaking as though he recognised them and perhaps assumed my father must have shared the story with me. I had just come back from seeing my aunt aged ninety-eight who had just gone into a care home in Huyton. I am from a large Irish Catholic Liverpool family and though I sadly lost my father at quite a young age, because he was from a family of so many siblings, I continued in life surrounded by my aunts and uncles. But I don’t remember any of them mentioning it either. That started me thinking. I began to wonder do we inherit memory? Scraps of information that has been retold over the years in families, maybe overheard as a child, without realising we are carrying our parents’ stories with us and without knowing quite what they are? My imagined www.lancmag.com

Saint Jude’s in the dunes in a fictitious place up the coast of Liverpool, was remarkably like the actual one my uncle described that he and his brothers and sisters were sent to. It was in Freshfield in an isolated house in the pinewoods. And it had a name. St Joseph’s Convalescent Home In the forties and fifties families like these who were struggling and began to fall apart, often turned to the church and the children would go into their orphanages. These children were called orphans of the living. Now I know a bit about time travel as I happen to be married to an actor, Peter Davison, who was the Fifth Doctor, and by the way, my step daughter Georgia is married to David Tennant, so the idea of travelling in our family is a fairly normal concept, even if it happens to be in a Tardis and fighting Daleks along the way. But this felt real. As though I had time travelled backwards. The more I researched, the more I began to understand how difficult it had been for my own family. It’s also interesting that when my father married, he decided to move from Liverpool and raise us in Formby. Was this because of memories he had of the times when he was at St Joseph’s as a boy? It’s comforting to think that for him to have come back as an adult he must have had a happy time there. But finding out about St Joseph’s wasn’t the first time this time travelling happened when writing my books. Another strange example is

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this. My father used to tell me a story about a man drowning in a sugar silo when we would pass under the Tate and Lyle chute driving along the Dock Road in Liverpool. I retell my version of that event in one of my books, Angel of Liverpool, and in the acknowledgements, I wrote that I never knew if the story was true or if my dad made it up. After the book came out a family member sent me an old newspaper article and I learned that it was not only true but it was my aunt’s uncle who had drowned in the sugar. Reading the article, seeing it in black and white, ‘Inquest Story of Sugar Factory Tragedy’ was the past coming to revisit the present in a way that had directly touched my father and now me.

For me that is why sagas are so important. To commit to the page people’s memories, how difficult life so often was for our mothers and grandmothers but how resilient they were. Before writing my books, I had written drama and scripts for tv theatre and film, but writing sagas felt as if I was coming home. Love, loss, family; people all facing unimaginable challenges of war and poverty, and of course humour, and in particular the Liverpool sense of humour. Something was compelling me to write these stories from the past and it felt everything I had done in my writing and acting career was leading to this. I had spent some time on a bursary at ITV sitting in on the story lining conferences at Coronation 

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Pictured: Formby beach, a place to spark the imagination

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 Street, I had written for Radio 4 drama, Channel 4 and BBC Films and television, even CBeebies, and I was an actress before I was a writer but I sometimes wonder whether all those years playing different characters, learning how plots work, how impactful a dramatic story can be, was just preparation for when I began to create my own stories for my sagas. When I started out working in theatre, I played the part of Linda in Blood Brothers in the West End and nearly every night we would receive a standing ovation. That was when I experienced the tremendous power of storytelling. In some ways I try to recreate whatever it was that made the audience each night feel connected to the characters and their struggles and triumphs. I also love to write a big sweeping romantic arc in my books. Romance always gives us hope! Like many people in Liverpool, my family originally came from Ireland. So, stories were passed down to me and I love aural histories. There’s nothing better than sitting down and in true northern tradition sharing a cup of tea and a natter with someone who can remember what happened decades earlier or in the war. A history book might tell you dates and events but to be with a person laughing as they remember how they struggled to draw a line with a sooty twig down the back of their legs because they couldn’t afford seamed nylons, or how their mother used to make them sit under the kitchen table with a saucepan on their head during the blitz, is one of the best parts of the job of being a writer.

was fortunate to work in theatres in the north as well as London. I am also a mother and though I have my two boys now, I have suffered loss like so many mothers have. It was around the time I started a family with Peter that I decided to write prose full time and I was lucky enough to win a few short story writing competitions which introduced me to my agent and started me off with my sagas. But with writing books requiring many hours alone, I have the perfect excuse to head off to my room and escape from all the sci-fi in the house. Just don’t tell my husband, or my sons - also actors now - who are huge Doctor Who fans. You can imagine the conversation often gets a little alien heavy, and that’s just over breakfast. Of course, the other place where I escape to in order to write, is back to Formby. Growing up there, walking along the beach under those big blustery North West skies, is always a place where my imagination sparks. It’s where I still come to whenever I need to find a bit of calm or to think of ideas for another book. I am grateful for the rich tapestry of people I have met and the experiences I have had along the way that I can draw on. And I might not have a Tardis but people sharing their stories has allowed me to enter worlds and relive times in history. I hope my books are a testament to those memories of ordinary people living extraordinary lives and if I can share those stories with my readers, I’ll continue. Doctor Who might have another planet to save, but I’ve got another saga to write! 

And I’m also a big believer in lived experience. I spent my teenage years playing my piano accordion in Liverpool working men’s clubs; British Legion, Ellesmere Port Exservicemen and seamen’s club, RAFA clubs, and various pubs. I’ll never forget aged eighteen singing in a pub in Runcorn where a ship had just docked and my poor dad who was my long-suffering roadie having to fend off exuberant blonde Scandinavian sailors who insisted on joining me on stage to sing In My Liverpool Home. I never would have imagined this experience would make it into my books all these years later. Or the nuns at my convent school who would provide such wonderful characters for me. Of course, the actual nuns who taught me were mostly kind and inspirational but who doesn’t love a nun like Sister Michael in Derry Girls? We were very innocent and the struggle for purity battling against raging hormones turns out to be comedy gold! I come from a religious family and spending many hours in various churches and convents with my uncle who was a priest and aunt who was a nun, but then running from those religious institutions to the Working men’s clubs or my dancing lessons, dreaming of going on the stage as I was sitting at my desk in convent school, also gave me that push and pull that makes great drama. My mother who was a piano teacher and the daughter of a dancer would regularly take me to the ballet at Liverpool Empire or to see the latest play at Liverpool Everyman and Liverpool Playhouse, and I was soon packing my bags and going off to train as an actress at the Guildhall School of Drama. I came to writing books late after spending fifteen happy years as an actress. I was in Jeeves and Wooster playing Madeline Bassett and the Liverpool sitcom Watching and www.lancmag.com

Elizabeth Morton has written five Historical Romantic Sagas set in Liverpool. Her latest, The Orphans from Liverpool Lane is the first in a trilogy writing as Eliza Morton and is out now LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 79

Strictly Star Pasha Kovalev takes the lead in explosive new musical La Bamba! Strictly Come Dancing champ Pasha Kovalev joins The Wanted’s Siva Kanesraran in the sizzling new musical La Bamba! at Blackpool Grand Theatre this November

trictly Come Dancing champion PASHA KOVALEV will partner up with The Wanted’s SIVA KANESRARAN to star in the pulsating dance musical La Bamba! at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 21 to Saturday 25 November. “I’m gonna LIVE, I’m gonna LAUGH... ...I’m gonna DANCE!”. La Bamba! is a jaw-dropping modern new musical that combines the infectious rhythms of Latin, R&B and hip hop with timeless rock and pop to tell the ultimate feel-good story of a young girl with a big voice, big dreams, and an even bigger heart. Sofia, a wildly talented 17-year-old from Los Angeles, California, has music in her blood. From the moment her father handed her a guitar, her dream was to become a superstar. As she mixes the music from her roots with the music in her heart, Sofia also dreams of bringing together a community that has never felt more divided. Inspired by her musical heroes and with the help of her family, Sofia discovers that even the longest journey begins with a single step and how just one decision can alter her story forever… La Bamba! is a vibrant new musical about the power of connection to the world and the ones we love about passion and pride. 80

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Bennett. Their incredible Jive to Elton John’s I’m Still Standing became legendary as one of the best-ever routines performed on Strictly. It was also the first routine to ever win a perfect score of 40, and they went on to win the whole series. 3. Top comedian and unexpected ballroom hero Bill Bailey formed a true friendship with professional partnership Oti Mabuse in 2020 which spilled onto the dance floor. The UK fell in love with the pair as they danced to Rapper’s Delight in week and the glitterball trophy was in the bag! At 55 years old, Bill also became the oldest winner in Strictly history. Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev will set hearts racing and temperatures rising as the red hot Ricardo in this fast-moving and heartfelt story of how the power of music can transform a generation and celebrate a community. Pasha was one of Strictly Come Dancing’s most popular professional dancers after joining the famous BBC TV series in 2011. His top celebrity partners have included Waterloo Road actress Chelsee Healey, pop princess Kimberley Walsh, Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts and his now wife Rachel Riley from ITV’s Countdown whom he met on the show! But it was the much-loved TV presenter Caroline Flack who helped Pasha lift the Strictly glitterball in 2014 with three perfect 40 scores for their incredible dances in the final show that were hailed as ‘absolutely phenomenal.’ But who are the Top Five Best Strictly Come Dancing partnerships? 1. EastEnders actress Rose AylingEllis and partner Giovanni Pernice danced their way to the final in 2021 after continually wowing audiences throughout the series. Their famous contemporary dance in week eight of the show also paid a moving tribute to the deaf community and included a silent segment for the first ever time. Rose is now Strictly’s reigning ballroom queen. 2. Actress Jill Halfpenny became the second ever winner of Strictly in 2004 when partnered with Darren www.lancmag.com

4. They may not have made it to the final, but the unforgettable partnership of politician Ann Widdicombe and professional partner Anton Du Beke has joined the ranks of TV history! From the crazy outfits – banana yellow leggings and marabou trim anyone? to even crazier dance moves, there was clearly a deep affection and the deep desire to have fun, and the audience loved every daft minute of it. 5. Strictly favourite Pasha Kovalev formed a deep and memorable connection with his dance partner Caroline Flack in 2014. The popular pair wowed the judges and the public each week with their spectacular routines and undeniable chemistry, and they were the first couple to achieve perfect scores for all three of their dazzling dances in the final show before scooping the grand prize.

La Bamba! is directed by multiaward-winning American director Ray Roderick and features stunning choreography from Strictly Come Dancing favourite and Italian Latin champion Graziano Di Prima and Erica Da Silva with associate choreography by Giada Lini. La Bamba! tells the sensational story of how the power of music can transform a generation and celebrate a community. This brand-new musical will feature an electrifying soundtrack from across the Latin genre from traditional folk songs to recent chart-topping hits, all expertly arranged by award-winning musical maestro, Alfonso Casado-Trigo. Cha Cha to The Grand now and book your seats now for the fiesta of a lifetime! La Bamba! starring Strictly Come Dancing champion Pasha Kovalev, Siva Kanesraran from top boyband The Wanted and introducing rising star Inês Fernandez is at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 21 to Saturday 25 November with evening and matinee performances. Tickets from £17.50 with concessions and group rates available. This production is recommended for ages 7 +. Visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk for full show listings and bookings or call the box office on 01253 290 190 for bookings and further information.

Book your seats now to see Pasha’s famous glitterball-winning dance moves once more on the Grand Theatre stage this November! Singer, songwriter and pop heartthrob Siva Kaneswaran is best known for being one fifth of smashhit boyband The Wanted and most recently appeared in ITV’s Dancing On Ice where he wowed audiences and slid into the semi-final. Siva will play the role of Mateo alongside rising star Inês Fernandez in the lead role of Sofia. La Bamba! will also feature breath-taking choreography from Strictly Come Dancing favourite and Italian Latin champion Graziano Di Prima. LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 81

Holy City & Our Edna By Harold Cunliffe

Lord Nelson public house, Middleton Junction. Below: How the area looks today.

iddleton Junction or “Jumbo” as it is sometimes called was given the title of ‘Holy City’ by a newspaper reporter during the Second World War when a lone German bomber dropped a string of bombs in this area, in which the area was blessed by not one of the high explosive devices exploded. It is thought that the pilot was looking to bomb the vast A.V.Roe aircraft factory at Chadderton, then spotted the railway line and station so decided to destroy this industrial link. It was when the bombs were recovered and made safe by the Army that it was discovered that no detonators had been fitted to the bombs. It was speculated that the workers, no doubt the Polish, who had been forced into labour was sympathetic and did not want to cause death and destruction to their English allies so at great risk to their life they failed to fit the device which causes the bomb to become destructive, not one of the 12 bombs dropped over Middleton Junction that day contained a detonator. 82

One bomb landed next to an air raid shelter which would have caused considerable loss of life, which is a good job it was inactive because when a warden arrived he spotted a member of the public bashing the steel fin of the bomb with a steel crow-bar. A casualty occurred however when a bomb made a direct hit on an access cover to a sewer, which upon entering caused a rush of air to be expelled from the chamber as the bomb

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descended forcing a male pedestrian to the ground causing minor injuries. Coverage of this incident by the press was prohibited; the censor was keen to ensure that this type of news was not published. We find that the following was allowed, even though everyone in Manchester knew the story of the dropping of the bombs. “A Debt of Gratitude” was the headline following the dropping of the bombs. www.lancmag.com

The Editor of the local newspaper wrote: “We would dearly like to describe something which happened in the borough of Middleton recently, but the regulations forbid, though everybody knows about it. Someday, in happier times, the story will be told. And those who read that story will be prouder than ever that they are British, and that their brothers and sisters in times of emergency and with utter disregard for personal safety, stepped into the breach and offered their all for the public weal. We know of our own knowledge the great wave of gratitude that has spread throughout the community to those brave souls.”

Grimshaw Lane with ‘Tommy Coates’ memorial in the background.

construction was a gents urinal and was erected during the time Tommy Coates was Mayor of Middleton, in which it became known as “Tommy Coates Memorial.” The Junction tram with Peggy Walker’s wartime home in the grounds of the brewery on the far right.

At the time that the bombs were dropped no one realised that they were not dangerous. The towns Borough Architect, John Pollard took charge of the operation along with the police. Householders and shop keepers were moved out of the area of where the bomb holes were, but one shop keeper ignored the barrier and dashed passed the police and wardens to his shop. A few minutes later he was seen to be leaving his premises carrying a brown paper bag. The businessman had recovered £500 in cash which he had hidden in the cellar. John Pollard had bravery medals made from the steel fins and presented them among the heroes. Soon after the opening of the Lancashire Fold public house one of the medals was displayed behind the bar. This example was presented to Mr Jack Forrest, the owner of a garage located on the main road through the Junction. Next to his business was Sandy Lane, which had an interesting monument where it joined Grimshaw Lane. One of our images shows a round brick building complete with gas lamp at the time of the Whit Walks. This www.lancmag.com

I have memories of using this facility in the 1960’s, but in doing so you had to be on your guard. Lorry drivers from the brewery would free-wheel towards the toilet, then accelerate as they were alongside, and with no roof on the building the sound of the roaring engine would make you jump, mainly due to you being stood behind the wall next to the road, thus in relieving oneself the sudden shock caused a certain amount of dampness to your shoes and trousers. Eye Witness It was during the time that I produced a nostalgia column for a local newspaper that one day I received a telephone call from a delightful lady who lived on the main road which passes through Middleton Junction. Peggy Walker was born and grew up in the Middleton Junction area and also lived within the grounds of J.W.Lees brewery during the Second World War and she had vivid memories of the time that a cluster of twelve bombs dropped in the area. Her dad, Robert Stallard was employed by the brewery as a cellar man, and with living in a little house on Grimshaw Lane, inside the brewery complex he was also on hand as a type of caretaker too. Peggy related that as a child growing up at the brewery was fantastic. The

workers treated her very well, they even taught her to ride a bike. She said: “Growing up at the brewery was fascinating. We had a large garden, and in the middle was a large pear tree. We never got any fruit, but the next family to live in our house said that they had beautiful pears from it. Dad had a greenhouse and grew tomatoes and vegetables which he sold to the staff, but they all knew that they gained value for money, dad would give them extra like mint, lettuces and rhubarb.” Next I asked Peggy to relate the time that the bombs fell. She said: “When the bombs fell, they were all over, in people’s gardens and in hen pens. One fell on Grimshaw Lane outside an off-licence and grocers shop. It fell down a grid right outside his shop. My brother Charlie and his friend Freddy Andrews who were both employed at the brewery and was in the Home Guard. They were told to do a search of the area including the allotments and gardens. At the brewery garden they found a hole the size of a dinner plate, it looked suspicious and once dug up it was a bomb.” Peggy also related that once all the bombs had been unearthed they were put on display in the brewery yard for the public to see. Many of those who witnessed the sight of the bombs that could have caused so much loss of life threw coins into the brewery yard for the soldiers who attended to the bombs, but the officer in charge said that the cash had to be donated to the “Soldiers Fund.”

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when they both retired that many people commented how much they missed the services of this married couple.

Taylor St showing Edna’s shop in the distance

Next door to the shop was a fish & chip shop. Should I decide to opt for this form of lunch I found a way of keeping my chips warm. The industrial mowing machine which I operated, a ‘Ransomes Motor Triple’ was fitted with an air cooled engine. The top of this motor was flat and became very hot when in use. In the centre of the metal plate was a spark plug complete with a cap and thick electrical wire. This was ideal for holding my lunch; it was a matter of removing the plug cap, placing the hot food on the engine, and then replacing the cap. Air Raids. During air raids Peggy and her family would seek shelter in the cellar of the brewery to sleep on a large bed with her mother. Children from the Wesleyan school were quickly escorted into the cellars during raids where they entered by the loading bay which was tricky for the little children with the place being dark. Next to the loading bay was a little door which lead to the office. Peggy commented upon an old cure for pimples and spots, she said: “If you were suffering from pimples or boils you could buy a bottle of ‘balm,’ this was yeast. For two pence you could have a wine bottle full. It was like yeast tablets today, but back then it gave you a good complexion and also gave inner cleanliness, it gave a clear road through you, a clear out.”

called Mr Sutcliffe who had a skip making factory brought out a load of old skips and set fire to them. It was midnight and we were all dancing around this bonfire, it was brilliant with people bringing food out of their homes for us to enjoy. Boot Sale Find Goes National. It was when I was given employment for the second time by the Parks Dept in 1972 that one of the places to obtain lunch was at a small shop in a place known as Tonge, located on the Middleton side of Middleton Junction. When you drive agricultural machinery which were limited to 18 miles an hour you soon discover where the nearest and best places are to obtain a bite to eat. The shop at Tonge, just off Grimshaw Lane was owned by a husband and wife. It was

Around 2006 ‘Ex Factor’s’ Simon Cowell was filmed as he watched auditions for the popular television programme ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ with this year’s winner (2023) not being British! During an audition Simon was seen laughing at a female vocalist from Lancashire, Lorraine, who I seem to remember, was a competent member of her church choir back in Royton area of Oldham. In summing up Simon gave his comment, “Terrible.” Cowell however had not bargained on being challenged by Lorraine’s 86 year old mother-in-law, Edna. She was seen on camera to enter the audition area and give Simon a dressing down. Edna said, “Listen Simon, you think you are better than anyone. I think you were very ignorant. Yes, you were ignorant.”

Peggy was full of admiration to the soldiers who dismantled the bombs in the brewery yard and in the garden which had a large greenhouse full of grapes. She commented, “When the bombs went out of the garden, so did the grapes.” It’s Over. The Junction area was full of excitement when the announcement was made that the war was over. Mrs Walker remembers residents shouting the news that the war was over at the top of their voices, “Wake up, wakeup, everybody, the war is over.” We all went into the street, a man 84

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One of the senior reporters telephoned Edna to conduct a formal interview and gain some facts and personal comment, plus obtain her consent to publish. What happened next was amazing. Within hours of the item going live, it was published in the Manchester Evening News, the sister newspaper to the Guardian. This then opened the flood gates, the media fell in love with our straight talking lass from Lancashire with the result that she was featured on many chat shows, news programmes and early morning television; everyone wanted to feature our Edna on their show. It is amazing how the media can create celebrity status overnight, but I feel that she enjoyed the whole experience of being so well treated by the programme makers, staying in London hotels, plus the local newspaper received a pat on the back for finding this item. My association with boot sales came about when stolen council items were being offered for sale at boot sales and flea markets.

Tonge Church painting by Colin Gilbert

Looking a little embarrassed Simon Cowell was seen to retreat having apologised, but Edna had the last word, “He is not even good looking, he hasn’t even got his own teeth.” Edna however was a person I recognised as one of the owners of a shop near the chip shop I once visited. Also I would observe the retired couple on a regular basis when they visited a family friend who happened to be a neighbour who lived opposite my home. It had been a number of weeks since the airing of the Cowell dressing down programme that I happened to be visiting a car boot sale near Oldham one Sunday morning with my brother. Then in the distance I spotted a familiar face, it was Edna’s son. Naturally we had a chat about the Cowell incident, and how his mother had supported his wife. It was due to data protection that while everyone saw the programme content, no one knew who the woman was, only family and friends recognised the person giving Cowell an ear bashing. Being associated with the local rag, the Middleton Guardian since 1974, I thought that it would be an idea to feature our ‘Lancashire Lass’ in the towns newspaper. After all so many people knew and had memories of this couple from when they had their Taylor St business. I left my details with her son and requested that the family give my idea some thought, and if in agreement, telephone. That evening I received a call giving me the ‘heads up.’ I had a feeling that this was an item that would be a predominant feature in the Guardian, which was owned back then by Trinity Mirror, they do change their trade name from time to time. When I mentioned the tale to the editor he immediately took interest, he certainly sat up in his seat when he heard what I had to say that day. www.lancmag.com

As part of my job I was to spend time at these fairs. For those eagle eyed readers you may have noticed the personal radio aerial extending from my coat in the bonfire image featured in the July issue. The Parks dept radios, which were expensive, became a target to thieves even though you could only communicate with council employees. One night a small gang of youngsters broke into the head office of the Recreation and Amenities Dept at Denehurst Park, Rochdale. As part of their haul they removed all the radios from the charging station. My radio with being on call was always live, and also the patrol personnel (Security) would not turn their sets off either. It was during the early hours of the morning when the radio communication became active, a voice announced, “The Parks will be in a mess today once they find that their radio sets have been stolen. They will not be able to communicate with one another because they have no sets at all; I have them here, and then, unbelievably related his home address where the sets could be found. One of the Patrol Inspectors, who was off duty at the time overheard the boys announcement and reported the facts to the police. An hour later the burglar and communication radio sets were at Rochdale Police Station. Bit of Old Lancashire. During the heat wave which took place in early June I was amazed to find that an old friend of my family had braved the heat and paid my home a visit, and on foot. While I do not like to consider myself an old man, Dave Lappin is a few years ahead of me. Dave has always had a keen interest in the town’s history and has been a loyal supporter of what I do. His main reason for his visit was to allow me to copy a collection old black and white photographs he owns which detail a row of cottages which were once on an ancient lane located not that far from my home. The Stocks cottages which were once built on Sunk Lane, this lane was one of the oldest routes into town from Manchester and the cottages were demolished during the 1960’s. Dave however has some interesting photographs of LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 85

the former cottages which have been copied and added to our extensive archive, many thanks to Mr Lappin for taking the time and trouble to brave the heat. The old pictures really give a feeling of how this part of Lancashire was once a rural and peaceful place. Opposite the former shop owned by Edna and her husband is Tonge Church. The late Colin Gilbert who was also a close family friend was an accomplished artist. I have memories of when a star that appeared in the popular police series set in Yorkshire made contact (William Simmons who played Alf Ventress) who purchased one of Colin’s paintings, no doubt a proud moment for Mr Gilbert. One of the projects in which my old mate achieved was the painting of every church in town. Having a medical problem Colin restricting his mobility he was unable to personally visit all of the places of worship so he requested if I would photograph them on his behalf. Naturally I was keen to help him to record part of our heritage on canvass and one of the churches I recorded on film was Tonge Church. His painting which we feature is that of Tonge Church which is that Edna would have witnessed from her shop window. Sadly Colin is no longer with us, but his artwork lives on in his memory. A painting which hangs on my wall by my close friend shows the Middleton Parish Church in moonlight, a process in which Colin perfected and became an expert. Lancashire Fowt. Clearly visible from Tonge Church is the former Lancashire Fowt or Fold. This consisted of a farm and row of old cottages, which is also located on the old pack horse road known as Sunk Lane. Once the farm and cottages were demolished a local brewery, that of John Willie Lees of Middleton Junction acquired the land to build the

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first public house on the ever spreading housing estate, Alkrington Garden Village. The new public house opened in 1961 and was given the name of the ‘Lancashire Fold’, known today as ‘The Fold’ by locals. A feature inside the building was a painting hung on the wall of the lounge depicting a rural scene, but the locals were not very pleased with the subject matter, it gave the view of Yorkshire countryside which seemed strange when the pub was named the “Lancashire Fold.” It was Brian Ambler, a cooper at the brewery who came up with the idea to have the old Lancashire Fold cottages painted and he knew of a local artist who would take on the challenge, it was his uncle Roland Mowbray. The first job was to gather old photographs and memories from friends and family which would enable Mr Mowbray to replicate the old buildings. Roland set to work in creating his artwork in his garage at Archer Park; this was because the 8ft 6ins by 4ft mural was too large to fit in his home. His wife commented that she had had a terrible time with him over a six month period. She complained that she could not entice him to leave the garage to attend the dining table to have his meals. Upon completion the painting was fixed to the wall of the lounge, but today it is located in the passage which links the main building to the dining room extension to the left of the bar. Sadly Mr Mowbray passed away the year after the unveiling ceremony, but his work lives on. A spokesperson for the pub commented, “We have many visitors who ask to see the painting. They saw it years ago and when in the area they decide to pay us a visit to have another look, we are always pleased when someone wants to have a look, we are proud to have this excellent piece of work on the premises.” Below: The painting at the Lancashire Fold public house.

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Left: Lancashire Fold as it once was.

Colin Gilbert was keen to inspect this oil and board painting, and I was interested to hear the comments made by Mr Gilbert so during February 2012 we bath paid a visit to the Lancashire Fold. Colin said; “It is done by an amateur painter, a very good painter who could work on a big scale, it’s a competent piece of work and gives a flavour of the area as it once looked.”

His wife had some news which would give him hope, she said; “Come upstairs while I show you something.”

Next I put it to Colin that if he was to be given the job of reproducing this painting, how long would it take him? he replied, “I would say about three months working non-stop. First of all a small cartoon would have to be drawn to work from. It is an asset and I have enjoyed my visit today.”

“But, how did you pay for them,” the husband enquired.

Fold Folk. Former Mayor of Middleton and owner of shops in town, Mr Albert Wolstencroft of Wolstencroft & Hall, stated that his grandparents once lived in one of the cottages at the ‘Fold’ which ironically was in close proximity from one of Albert’s shops which he opened at Mount Road. Albert could relate many tales from the people who lived in this area. One tale is worthy of publication. A carter who was in advancing years arrived home following a day’s hard graft, entering the cottage he threw two gold sovereigns on the table and turned to his wife and said; “That is it. I am done for. They say that I am too old to take charge of a team of horses and have finished me, what am I going to do, I may as well end it all now.” www.lancmag.com

Looking through the bedroom window she pointed to a row of cottages. “See those cottages, four of them are ours so your worry is over, they are bought and paid for, I own the deeds,” she exclaimed.

“Each time you loved me I put three pennies in a pot, eventually I had enough to buy a cottage, now I own a row of four,” she confirmed. Her husband held his head in his hands and said; “What a fool I have been, if only I had not been unfaithful to thee we would now own the pub at the end of the row too.” It is no wonder he became weak and worn out and had to put his feet up. Chicken Shed.

delivered, he commented in his letter, “The chicken house at the end of the cart shed was an old horse tram that ran between Harpurhey and Manchester. It was brought on a lorry from the tram depot which I believe was afterwards the Harpurhey Baths. Believe me. It was some job unloading it and putting it against the shed. All the neighbours came to give a hand as it was a Saturday afternoon and lots of people who were taking a stroll along the pleasant track over the fields came in to the yard to watch. It looked more like a Whit Monday treat. The lean-to-building at the end of the house used to be a kitchen before an extra kitchen and bedroom was added on at the back of the house. Afterwards the old kitchen was turned into a dairy where you had to go down five steps. It was a very happy and lovely place. The old farm was a meeting place and was an open door to all who came. 

Following the newspaper coverage of the opening of the Lancashire Fold public house and the official unveiling of the painting showing the old cottages Mr Harry Hilton who lived at Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, a four hour drive from Lancashire, wrote a letter to the Middleton Guardian in which he related memories from the time that he lived in one of the cottages. Mr Hilton spotted the old chicken shed in the painting which he remembered the time when it was

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Above: Winners with Judges LR - Winner Jim Watson, Judge Eric Robson, Winner Jonathan Whitelaw, Winner Edita Mujkic, Judge Kathleen Jones, Winner Hannah Hodgson, Judge Michael McGregor, Winner Amy Bateman, Judge Fiona Armstrong and Winner Tom McNally

Winners of the Lakeland Book of the Year 2023 Award-winning photographer Amy Bateman has scooped the 2023 Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year Award for ‘Forty Farms’ - a visual record of farming in Cumbria seen through the eyes of 40 extraordinary farmers.

The Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape & Tradition

The Gilpin Hotel Prize for Fiction

Forty Farms, Amy Bateman

The Bingo Hall Detectives, Jonathan Whitelaw

The Latitude Press Prize for Illustration & Presentation

My Lakeland, Jim Watson The Bookends Prize for People & Business

s well as winning her individual category, Amy beat more than 50 entries to win the overall accolade at yesterday’s charity awards ceremony at The Inn on the Lake in Glenridding, where an audience of more than one hundred people had gathered to hear more about the shortlisted books.

Between Before and After, Edita Mujkic

The full list of category winners for Lakeland Book of the Year 2023 includes:

Extreme Lakeland, Nadir Khan and Tom McNally

The Wordsworth Prize for Literature & Poetry

163 Days, Hannah Hodgson The Eric Robson Striding Edge Productions Prize for Guides & Places

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Amy Bateman, author of Forty Farms and winner of the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year Award comments “Winning this award is just amazing, it’s very overwhelming. It’s for the farmers, couldn’t have done it without them. If they hadn’t welcomed me to their tables and told me their stories and let me photograph them, some of them in some of the darkest times then this book would not have happened. I am very grateful to every single one of those 40 farmers for letting me into their doors.” Head judge Fiona Armstrong adds “This is one of the strongest literary fields we have had. It has been so www.lancmag.com

hard to decide who wins and who is shortlisted. We have worked our way through a treasure trove of beautifully crafted and presented books. Which just shows how much talent there is here in Cumbria, and how much interest there is further afield in writing about the county.” This year’s annual ceremony also raised more than £1200 in support of PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide in the UK), a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people. The Lakeland Book of theYear Awards 2023 was organised by Cumbria Tourism, the official Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for the Lake District, Cumbria. As well as journalist and head judge Fiona Armstrong, the judging panel included the Director of Wordsworth Grasmere Michael McGregor, author Kathleen Jones, and renowned broadcaster and former Cumbria Tourism president Eric Robson.

Right: Amy Bateman, winner of the 2023 Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year Award

Elgra Furniture Commits to Supporting Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone by Becoming Patron

Elgra Furniture has reaffirmed their commitment to the borough’s young people by becoming a Youth Zone Bronze Patron. Alongside a financial donation to Youth Zone, they will continue to support the charity with vital advice and guidance as both centres undergo significant redevelopment and enhancement over the next 2 years.

ark Lomas at Elgra has been providing high-quality office design and fit-out services across the region for more than three decades. During this time they have provided much-needed practical support, advice and guidance for Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone at their centres in Jubilee Street in Blackburn and Croft Street in Darwen.

Mark Lomas, Director at Furniture, said of Youth Zone:

Elgra

“Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone is a fantastic local charity and we are proud to join them as a business Patron. We have been supporting Youth Zone for some years as they upgrade and improve their centres and I have always been impressed with their desire to provide the very best facilities for our young people. The logical next step was to deepen our relationship by doing that little bit more to help them continue their amazing work.” Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zones offer a wide range of activities and exciting opportunities for children and young people aged 8 to 19, (up to 25 for those with disabilities.) With over 4,000 members, their work focusses on supporting young people to ensure they progress to have happy and rewarding lives. Over the past year alone, their 2 centres have been visited by 1,200 young people each and every week. Forty four percent of Youth Zone

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members come from the some of the most deprived areas of the borough, highlighting the crucial role the charity plays in supporting vulnerable young people. Hannah Allen, Chief Executive of Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone said: “Mark Lomas at Elgra Furniture has always been there for us when we plan the design and furnishing of our youth spaces. He has always gone out of his way to support us and I know he really enjoys seeing our centres come to life as a result of his support. It is fantastic that the company has also made this additional financial commitment to local young people and we are delighted to have them on this journey with us.” To discuss becoming a Patron of Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone and joining this incredible business network, please contact Mel Thomas at: melanie.thomas@blackburnyz.org For more information about the charity, please visit our website at: www.blackburnyz.org www.lancmag.com

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Fine Art Restoration Co.

Just north of the Lake District, you will find a workshop full of the nation’s most beloved artworks being protected and preserved. Fine Art Restoration Company is the UK’s leading conservation studio, working from a state-of-the-art facility in Carlisle, Cumbria.

he family run business has been around for almost 40 years, but with the recent popularity of television shows such as The Repair Shop, their experts have seen an ever-growing number of antiques and objects come through their doors, from historically significant paintings to sentimental family heirlooms. The specialist team consists of conservators and experts from a wide variety of disciplines, including paintings, paper, sculpture, framing, furniture, gilding and ceramics. As well as serving many influential private clients from across the country, Fine Art Restoration Company is now the studio of choice for many

Above: Studio Manager, Anna

public institutions, businesses and insurance companies. Previous and ongoing clients include Hiscox, Durham Cathedral, Westminster Council, Mandarin Oriental, the US Ambassador’s Residence, Farnborough Abbey and Powderham Castle.

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Dedicating care and attention to each and every item that enters their studio, an experienced team works alongside trained conservators, a specialist is assigned to oversee every step of the process. The company offers a full service from start to finish, offering a nationwide collection and delivery service with their own art www.lancmag.com

Above: 17th century portrait by Justus van Egmont yellow varnish

handlers. Once the artwork or item enters their studio, clients receive photographs and updates throughout the work, often with astonishing final results. Meet Anna, Studio Manager and Easel Painting Conservator Anna is our studio manager, working alongside and overseeing a team of highly trained easel painting conservators. She came to Fine Art Restoration Company after studying conservation in Lincoln and completing a Masters degree at Northumbria University in Newcastle. Anna’s area of expertise is the restoration and preservation of paintings, from contemporary Banksy murals to 15th century panels. What attracted you to art conservation?

The combination of practical skills and technical knowledge needed to be a conservator seemed like it would make for an interesting and exciting career. This proved correct, as it is endlessly fascinating!

What do you enjoy about living and working in the North West?

It’s a lovely place to live and work, being central to the Lake District and Northumberland means you’re never far away from amazing scenery. What does a typical day look like for you in the studio?

A typical day consists of carrying out treatments on various paintings, assessing new artworks in the studio, writing documentation, and liaising with the wider team to keep clients updated on our progress. Sometimes it might involve a site visit or carrying out research into new conservation methods and scientific developments. What are some highlights from your career so far?

One of the most satisfying paintings to work came to the studio after being in a house fire. At first it was thought unsalvageable, with 75% of the surface appearing blistered and burnt. However after careful testing we determined the varnish layer had taken the brunt of the heat damage. After extensive consolidation of the paint layer and very careful cleaning the original paint layer was revealed, it was a very happy outcome for the owners of the painting. Meet Wiktor, Decorative Objects and Furniture Conservator Wiktor heads up the framing room at Fine Art Restoration Company and

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Above: Wiktor

looks after all of the decorative object conservators, his specialism is in gold leaf and colour-matching an objects historic appearance when recreating missing pieces. He has worked for the company for 5 years, moving to join the team in Carlisle after training in Czechia. What is your favourite part of the restoration process?

It depends on the project, but most of the time I like to see the halfway part of the process. This is where you will reveal the original look of a frame and what it has the potential to become. Likewise, the halfway stage during the re-moulding of lost decoration is great, as it highlights the difference we will achieve. Once you finish a gilt frame, it is always satisfying to look through the old photos and see how it used to look compared with the final result!

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so badly damaged. Well, honestly, you could not even call it a frame. A lot of decoration had broken off or shattered and most of the gilded surface was no longer presentable. This frame was definitely a challenge to work on. After weeks of hard work the final result was heartwarming. It was finally a frame again and a very beautiful one! The client was very happy with the result as he could frame his painting in its original frame and that is something that we all here in the studio strive for - a happy client and well conserved artwork that can endure upcoming decades and hopefully, centuries. If you could work on any artwork in the world, what would it be?

Above: Blue white tray plate smashed What do you enjoy about living and working in the North West?

Which object has been the most challenging to restore, and why?

I have always loved nature and since Carlisle is situated near the land of lakes, it is a perfect place for me and my outdoor activities. On the other hand, Carlisle is only an hour away from big cities such as Newcastle and Glasgow, great for when you miss the metropolitan energy.

Not that long ago I was working on a very large decorative frame that literally came into the studio in four pieces. It had been damaged when the framed painting, which was displayed in the stairwell, fell from quite a height. It was part of an accidental damage insurance claim as both the painting and frame were

It is a very difficult question for me to answer. The thing is, that everybody should treat every piece of artwork as if it is the most valuable piece in the world. Even if the technique of how it was made was very bad, it still might carry a very sentimental value to certain people. So I guess that I will have to give you a political answer - I like to work on any object, as it holds a piece of our history. Conservation in Cumbria

Many of the highly trained professionals that work in the studio have moved to Carlisle to be part of Fine Art Restoration Company’s innovative new studio, which opened in 2021. Students from Northumbria, Lancaster, St Andrews, York and London have also been attracted to the company for valuable work experience. The studio prides itself on allowing students the chance to obtain valuable practical skills in what is often a challenging and competitive industry. They also offer administrative and marketing internships for students studying Fine Art and Art History. Training courses are open to worldwide participants, a workshop in 2022 saw attendees from throughout Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. These educational opportunities promote new scientific developments in art conservation and are taught by leading experts in the field.

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Serving the nation from the North West On a weekly basis, art handlers are deployed from Fine Art Restoration Company’s headquarters in Carlisle to collect paintings, sculptures, ceramics, furniture and specialist pieces from across the United Kingdom. This service makes the project an easy and straight-forward process, offering multiple art handlers if the item is unusually large or difficult to remove. Their team often makes the trip as far south as Cornwall to collect artworks in need of professional care. Conservators have also completed work in-situ for numerous historic buildings, schools and places of worship. Following disasters, Fine Art Restoration Company is on-call for many leading insurance companies to save artwork that has been affected by devastating fires and floods. In the last two years, they have been called out to numerous properties that have suffered from flash flooding - often saving invaluable collections of art and cultural artefacts. Their work also includes educational courses for insurance professionals, aiming to promote the restoration of artworks that might otherwise be written off as lost causes. Some of the studio’s most exciting results have seen severely fire and water damaged oil paintings come back to life, whilst retaining their historic integrity.

Above: Fire/water damage

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Beyond restoration? Many of the clients at Fine Art Restoration Company are faced with devastating events, such as house fires and floods. In recent weeks, the studio has worked on several artworks that were salvaged after a fire. Rather than burns and smoke being an issue, they were severely damaged by the water used to extinguish the flames. The fire service had used water from a swimming pool, causing a chemical reaction that turned much of the painting white. Following an investigation and careful testing of different solutions, the easel painting conservators at Fine Art Restoration Company discovered that the original painting was still intact under the discolouration. Over a course of several hours, the paintings were cleaned with hundreds of tiny cotton swabs. The results were astonishing for the client, who had feared that these artworks would be lost forever. They have now been returned to their original state, allowing their artistic and monetary value to remain intact. An expert service Past and current restoration clients have a lot to say about their experience and the results achieved by the expert team at Fine Art Restoration Company. Here are just a few of the responses: 96

“You don’t really own old family paintings, you are merely a custodian, so having them restored can be a nerve-racking experience. That is why I went with an expert team I could trust to restore a painting that is very dear to my heart. The restoration is superb and my family will continue to enjoy the results for generations to come.” “Thank you so much for cleaning and restoring my painting. Also your assistance in reframing it. The collection and return service was swift and efficient. I found your personal attention to the project most helpful. The painting is now bright and colourful and rehung on the lounge wall. I am pleased to recommend your services.” “The restored map was delivered last evening and we want to let you know what a fine job you have done. A superb outcome. We couldn’t stop admiring it; the colours and pictures fresh and clear and the whole map looking age perfect. Amazing result.” “Frankly I am utterly gobsmacked. It looks amazing. Thank you very much for the updates… when all is completed it will be such a beautiful gem of a painting - the envy of all!! It really has begun to look alive and glorious with all this tender loving care. Thank you.”

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“We’ve finally managed to rehang the painting and it looks magnificent. It is quite amazing what you have achieved, bringing it back from such a terrible state. Not only is your work superb, but to see it cleaned with all its colours and details now so visible, it is a true delight to have it back up on the wall. We are all very grateful and we’re also extremely satisfied with your work in bringing it back to life! The chair looks fabulous too, another amazing piece of work! So please pass on our huge thanks to those who worked so skilfully on its restoration. From our point of view you have all done an incredible job with both pieces and have certainly put a smile back on our faces. So from us all, a very big thank you!” “Disaster when my dog knocked the table over and smashed a family heirloom! Fine Art Restoration Company to the rescue. I could not have asked for a better service.” “We are very pleased with the careful and considered restoration of our wooden sculpture. The repaired sections blend seamlessly and the original colours and styling have been matched. It has all been cleaned and looks a treat! From the initial contact, accurate quote and timescale, regular updates, couriering and the accomplished work itself, it was a professional service from start to finish.” www.lancmag.com

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How Today’s Treatments are Beating Cancer Today, more than 90% of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer will survive the disease for 5 years or more. That’s thanks to research. And to the people who take part.

etween 1993 and 2015, more than half a million women in England were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Not only did they face something life-changing, they also helped change things for the better. Here’s how. Patients can choose to share their NHS health data, which researchers can apply to use to track trends over time. 512,447 women contributed their information to a groundbreaking study we funded into how breast cancer mortality in England has changed since the early 1990s. This is what they showed us: women in England diagnosed with early breast cancer today are 66% less likely to die from the disease within the first 5 years than they were 20 years ago.

Connecting doctors and patients This is the first study of its size to follow up patients for an extended period, and to map out how detailed characteristics of specific patients and their cancers relate to different outcomes. That means it does much more than tell us about the past. “Our study can be used to estimate risk for individual women in the clinic today,” explains Professor Carolyn Taylor, lead author of the study. “It gives doctors the data they need to make predictions, or prognoses, for women diagnosed with early breast cancer. These prognoses can help women understand their situation and plan their futures.”

The power of prognosis Doctors told Mairead Mackenzie she had breast cancer in 2002. Hilary Stobart received the same news in 2009. They’re just two of the women who contributed their data to the study. In the years since, they’ve become passionate patient advocates and leading members of the charity Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice. They didn’t just feature in this research: they helped shape it, making sure the researchers focused on the questions that matter most to people with breast cancer. At the time of their diagnoses, though, neither knew how to react. “Whenever you get a cancer diagnosis, it’s a terrifying moment

“The prognosis for patients with breast cancer has improved,” says oncologist and senior author Dr David Dodwell, from the University of Oxford’s Department of Population Health. “And that improvement is dramatic.” Let’s put it another way. In the late 1990s, the average 5-year risk of dying from breast cancer after being diagnosed with the disease in its early stages was 1 in 7. Now it’s 1 in 20. “Our general feeling that things are getting better has been confirmed,” continues Dodwell. “And not only that: we can probably be more optimistic than we had dared to hope.” We can use that optimism now as much as ever. There’s still much more to do.

As patient representatives, Mairead Mackenzie (left) and Hilary Stobart helped point our researchers towards the most important questions for people with breast cancer.

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in your life,” says Mairead. “Initially, everybody thinks they’re going to die next week, but studies like this one can give reassurance to patients about their life ahead. And now, women with breast cancer have a much better chance of surviving.” Being diagnosed with breast cancer Hilary didn’t have data like this to reassure her. She remembers the “dark night of the soul” she went through after her radiologist told her that it was very likely she had cancer. “That was the appointment where my world fell in... I Ended up sobbing in the car park, ringing my husband. “I spent the next week or so waiting for the results to come back and worrying about whether I’d have to have chemotherapy or not. But, in actual fact, I was never going to have it. “I would have wanted to know the facts earlier. I just think we need more information.”

That’s exactly what this study provides. It can help guide women diagnosed with breast cancer through the darkness Hilary remembers so well.

who has died from it,” explains Hilary. “They could assume that they’re in the same position, but their risk of dying from it within 5 years might be less than 1%.”

“When I was diagnosed 20 years ago, I was not given a prognosis other than the fact that this is serious and we need to treat you quickly,” adds Mairead. “But I think good, clear communication about prognosis can make a vast difference to a patient’s quality of life and how they can cope with things.”

That’s because some breast cancers are easier to treat with new targeted drugs. The size of tumours, and whether they have spread into the lymph nodes, can make a big difference to someone’s prognosis, too. And screening helps find breast cancers at very early stages, making it more likely that treatment will be successful.

Understanding breast cancer It can help doctors do their jobs, too. “In the long term, perhaps the most important thing is that this is much better, more precise new information for clinicians,” says Dodwell. “They can use it to reflect on the discussions that they have with patients.” Hilary and Mairead agree. They both stress that doctors need to help patients understand that breast cancer is “not all one thing”. “People diagnosed with breast cancer may already know somebody

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For example, a patient in her 50s with a small, low-grade, hormone receptor positive breast cancer which hasn’t spread to the lymph nodes can be strongly reassured by the results of the study. They show that she has an excellent prognosis. In fact, 95% of people diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer today will survive the disease for at least 5 years. Overall survival is slightly lower because some people in the study died of other causes within that time.

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Our breast cancer research • Our scientists discovered the BRCA2 gene. BRCA faults increase people’s breast cancer risk. Knowing that helps us lower it. • We developed and tested the first PARP inhibitors, especially effective treatments for cancers caused by BRCA genes. • By uncovering the different types of breast cancer, we’ve worked out how best to treat it with other targeted drugs, like trastuzumab (Herceptin). • We’ve also worked on a host of other new treatments for early breast cancer, including novel hormonal therapies and chemotherapy drugs. • With trials like START, IMPORT and PRIMETIME, we’ve helped improve radiotherapy. We’re still finding quicker and more effective ways to use it.

club. You have a different perspective on what’s important.”

The past and future of breast cancer research

Hilary and Mairead brought that perspective to the study.

That’s not the only area where we need to keep up the pressure on breast cancer. Most people diagnosed recently have a risk of dying from breast cancer within 5 years of 3% or less, but there are still groups of women who face much higher risks.

“I didn’t think what would happen to me in the long term was at all important beforehand,” Hilary continues. “I just wanted to know whether I was going to get treated and be okay and here next year. But 10 to 15 years on, it does matter to me.” “The truth is, in clinical trials, it’s almost impossible to get data beyond 10 years,” explains Dodwell. “With this kind of work, it’s easier. What happened to patients diagnosed 20 years ago isn’t what will be happening now, but these messages are enormously informative. And they might be the only way for us to realistically understand the long-term outcomes after breast cancer.”

Taylor and Dodwell’s study can be used to identify these women and give them the best available treatments as quickly as possible. It can also help focus future research on their specific needs. We’re here to keep driving that research. And we don’t do it alone. We’re beating breast cancer because of the hard work and generosity of people like Hilary and Mairead. “I’m yet to meet a cancer patient who isn’t happy for their data to be

• Focusing on detecting breast cancer early and screening people at risk of it has helped diagnose more cases when treatment is most likely to be effective. Learning over the long term But the experience of having cancer can’t be reduced to a 5-year prognosis. With most people surviving earlystage breast cancer for much longer than 5 years, it’s important to think beyond the length of typical clinical trials. “You don’t have much grasp of having cancer until you’ve had it,” explains Hilary. “You suddenly join a club that you don’t want to be part of, and you find you have an awful lot in common with the other people in the 100

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used for this sort of purpose,” says Mairead. “If there’s a chance of doing something that might make it easier for those coming after, breast cancer patients, like all cancer patients, say yes.” “And,” adds Hilary, “if they hadn’t said yes, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

“I mean, I didn’t have to have chemotherapy. If it was 10 years earlier, I probably would have been given it. “Then I began to realise why. It was due to all the trials, and the thousands of women who were prepared to go into them.”

The people who make this possible

Those women have left an incredible legacy. These results make that clear.

“We know our treatment now is good because of all the work that was done earlier,” Hilary continues. “That was the first thing that got me into patient advocacy.

Now we can see the improvements decades of research have made possible, and we understand how we can keep making them in the years to come.

“I used to work as a hospital physicist, dealing with people with breast cancer. So I knew what it was like in the late 1970s. That was my first thought when I was diagnosed, but I quickly saw how things had changed.

“It’s good news,” concludes Hilary. “It shows what we’ve done, and that we need to go on doing it. More studies like this one will be needed in the future. Breast cancer is still with us. There’s a lot more work ahead.” .

CANCERRESEARCHUK.ORG

IN MEMORIUM

Harold Elletson:

The Tory who Turned Euro Federalist Died In Germany Last Week By Andrew Rosthorn As a teenager at Eton College, Harold Elletson, the Conservative MP for Blackpool North between 1992 and 1997 who has died suddenly in Germany, asked the Labour prime-minister Harold Wilson for advice on how to start a career in politics.

“K

now your subject,” said the state-educated prime minister who had courted his wife Mary in quiet lanes around the small manor house at Preesall owned by Elletson’s father, a Tory barrister and Lancashire county councillor. . The young Elletson claimed to have followed Wilson’s advice by perfecting his fluent Russian in 1980, during a long Soviet winter at the state university of Voronezh, and by plumbing the depths and depravity of Anglo-Irish politics as a parliamentary private secretary in Northern Ireland in post-Thatcher secret peace negotiations, just before Elletson’s own days at Westminster were ended by some drastic map-making at the Boundary Commission before the 1997 Labour landslide.

An early political career marked by service and intrigue After founding the eLearning Africa series of debates and chairing a gathering in Zambia in 2010, Elletson could explain in mechanical and electrical detail how the millions of mobile phones owned by every third person in Africa, often electrically charged by pedal power from a bicycle, would give African children a digital education without the barriers that had impeded universal education in Europe, America and Asia. In the summer of 1998, when the Russian Central Bank defaulted on debt and devalued the rouble, when striking coal miners blocked the Trans-Siberian Railway, Elletson published in London and New York The General Against the Kremlin, a book that revealed the instability of the Yeltsin régime. The book was based on special knowledge of the career of General Alexander Lebed, a gruff Cossack boxer and paratrooper who had been a merciful and intelligent commander in savage wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Lebed, son of a gulag prisoner from Novocherkassk, close to the border with Ukraine, had been sacked as secretary of Yeltsin’s security council in 1996 despite having saved Yeltsin’s life and career by refusing an order to send his 106th Guards Airborne Division to crush democratic resistance at 102 LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

Harold Elletson speaking at the opening plenary of Online Educa Berlin 2007 image by Peter Himsel. CC BY 2.0 de

the Moscow White House during the failed August coup of 1991. Elletson knew that subject better than anyone writing in English. Two days before Christmas 1998, the Observer newspaper accused him of spying for the British foreign intelligence service under parliamentary cover. Three reporters described a “secret life of intrigue” and accused him of helping “Whitehall decision-making by gathering intelligence for MI6, passing on secrets gleaned while travelling under parliamentary cover”. Jonathan Calvert, Michael Gillard and David Leigh had to admit that the prime minister John Major had given Elletson “special permission to continue his under-cover rôle while an MP” although it had been Wilson who had first asked MI6 for an assurance that they would not ask MPs to gather secrets while travelling abroad, a service previously offered to the spooks by both Winston Churchill and Lloyd George. Elletson neither confirmed nor denied the allegation; “When asked by the Observer about his MI6 role, he said, ‘This is something we can’t talk about on the phone. We should have a meeting.’ He then failed to arrange one.” The attack came at Christmas when Elletson was no longer in parliament but working as a professional adviser for BP Exploration in Azerbaijan and for Alstom in Siberia. By following Wilson’s advice to “know your subject” he had, in the admiring words of the Blackpool Gazette, later quoted by the Observer, helped MI6 while “dodging bullets in the Balkans, woken by heavy artillery in Chechnya” and “cheated death in Smolensk after contracting bronchitis as an observer at the Russian elections”. www.lancmag.com

Hindered for adhering to principle

Biography

His attempt to return to parliament as a Lancashire MP in the winnable Labour-held constituency of Lancaster and Wyre was thwarted in 2002 by an astonishing decision to exclude him from the selection process, along with three other well-qualified local Conservatives, in favour of a member of the Scottish parliament and three other men without any local connections.

Harold Daniel Hope Elletson was born on 8 December, 1960, elder son of Daniel Hope Elletson, an Oxfordeducated barrister, Lancashire county councillor and squire of Parrox Hall, the sixteenth-century manor house near Preesall, now preserved by a family trust. Elletsons have lived on the coastal mossland “Over Wyre” since the twelfth century.

The selection committee included Lady Dulcie Atkins and her son James. They were accused of organising the exclusion of Elletson from the final selection as a consequence of his demand for an investigation into the jailing of the Blackpool estate agent and media tycoon Owen Oyston. Oyston had been the Labour Party’s biggest financial contributor in the Kinnock years. Elletson said the Oyston Affair showed “how easily in Britain today, democracy, accountability and good governance can be undermined, how our institutions can be corrupted and, ultimately, how even justice itself can be perverted”.

Elletson loved Lancashire with passion and insight. He was intrigued to discover that another Elletson had been a successful investor in the construction of a small oceangoing ship called The Hope, built around 1850 in the River Wyre marshes at Wardleys Creek where Manx, Irish and Lancashire sailors used to land French brandy, American tobacco and Russian flax, well away from excisemen.

Lady Dulcie’s husband, the cricket-loving Robert Atkins, Tory MP for South Ribble, had resigned as John Major’s countryside minister after being accused in a private legal action of conspiring to defame Oyston. Esquire published transcripts of tape-recorded conversations in which Robert Atkins, as a government minister, appeared to offer to a local activist a Department of Trade and Industry investigation into the Oyston estate agency. Elletson said, “There are lots of reasons why a local candidate might not be chosen to contest the seat. But I have been told that my support for Oyston is the reason”. The local Tories eventually chose Ben Wallace, 32, a former officer in the Scots Guards and the MSP for North East Scotland. He is now MP for Wyre and Preston North and secretary of state for defence since 2019. Victoria Atkins, the daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Atkins, is the Conservative MP for Louth and Horncastle and financial secretary to the treasury in the Rishi Sunak government.

Joining the Liberal Democrats and founding the Northern Party By the end of 2002 Elletson had joined the Liberal Democrats as a foreign affairs spokesman. In 2014 he cofounded the Northern Party to campaign for federal “Home Rule all round”, a slogan coined by Winston Churchill in the days when Churchill was a Liberal MP. Elletson collaborated during the long, losing battle against Brexit with his friends John Stevens, a Tory MEP until 1999, and Dirk Hazell, a former chairman of the London Region Conservatives who had formed the Four Freedoms Party [UK EPP] after David Cameron ordered Tory MEPs at Strasbourg to break their alliance with the centrist European People’s Party [EPP] of Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, for a formal alliance with the right-wing Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) and the occasionally racist Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS). In December 2019, “in Brexit despair and disgust” before “the most important election since the Second World War” the former Tory MP for Blackpool North spoke from Parrox Hall to urge his neighbours in Lancaster and Fleetwood to vote for the Labour candidate, Cat Smith MP. www.lancmag.com

At Eton, the Elletson boys were mocked for talking broad Lancashire but it seems likely that the accent was deliberately deployed by Harold who later spoke five languages and could sustain a conversation in the Ulster dialect of Lowland Scots. Elletson took a BA in Russian with Philosophy at the University of Exeter in 1979, including his British Council scholarship in Voronezh, followed by a postgraduate diploma in East West Studies at the University of Westminster in 1987, the year he stood unsuccessfully as a Tory in the safe Labour seat of Burnley. At Bradford University between 1996 and 1999 he took a certificate in Turkish language studies and a PhD in Modern European Studies. In 2020 he began to read for the bar, gaining a graduate diploma distinction in law at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2021 and expecting to qualify as a practising barrister in 2023. In the aftermath of the Cold War, as a senior fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, with contacts in the Baltic states and financial support from NATO he formed the NATO Forum on Business and Security and the New Security Foundation in a “demonstration of the principle that freedom is irrepressible.” For most of the last 19 years he lived and worked in Berlin with his partner Rebecca Stromeyer, founder in 1995 of Online Educa Berlin, an annual, global cross-sector conference on digital learning with 2500 partcipants from 70 countries. Elletson died suddenly in the mid-morning of 23 June at Rebecca’s country house in the village of Grunow in Märkische Schweiz, the “Switzerland of Brandenburg” north east of Berlin and “a place Harold loved”. He appears to have suffered a fatal lung embolism despite promising treatment in England and Germany for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He leaves two sons by his divorced wife Fiona. Both sons are fluent in Arabic. Alexander, with an MA in Arabic and Persian from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, works for JP Morgan in Frankfurt am Main and married Luisa Rettschlag in Germany on 9 June. George, 25, took a BA in Arabic and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at the University of Edinburgh. After teaching English at Leon in Spain he is expected to start teaching English at an American school in Kuwait in August.. LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 103

Muncaster Castle’s Custodian Couple Named Tourism Personalities of the Year Left: Iona and Peter Frost-Pennington at last night’s Cumbria Tourism Awards ceremony with the Bernard Gooch Award.

Jim Walker, President of Cumbria Tourism, said: “Presenting this award gives me special pleasure! “Peter and Iona are perfect candidates for the award. They have worked tirelessly to make their business successful against a challenging backdrop. Along with that they are always working to promote the wider destination and fly the flag for a key attract and disperse destination in the County. Having worked alongside them I’m keenly aware of all they have done and all they continue to achieve with great success.”

The family duo who’ve spent decades shaping Muncaster Castle into a highly popular visitor attraction have been recognised for their lifelong services to tourism in Cumbria.

ona and Peter Frost-Pennington were jointly presented with the Bernard Gooch Award for ‘Cumbria’s Tourism Personality of the Year’ at the Cumbria Tourism Awards last night (Wed, July 5). It’s the highest award collectively given by the industry for lifelong services to tourism.

Peter Frost-Pennington adds: “We have never been so shocked! The tourism industry in Cumbria is top notch and filled with so many talented people. We feel very lucky and blessed and have had the support of so many amazing people to help us. It’s an award for all the people who work at Muncaster.”

For over 30 years the couple have shown an unwavering commitment to the preservation of Muncaster’s heritage and displayed an innovative spirit which has left an indelible mark on the castle. They have successfully merged the preservation of Muncaster’s history with the introduction of

“We are absolutely thrilled and amazed,” says Iona Frost-Pennington whose family has lived at Muncaster for over 800 years. “It is a wonderful accolade and to follow in the footsteps of so many incredible previous winners is very humbling.” Right: Peter dressed up for this year’s Medieval Muncaster Festival

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Above: Iona, Peter and Ewan FrostPennington on the lawns with the family’s pet dog Mashie. (Credit: Adam Pearson) Right: Iona mucking in to make sure Muncaster looks its best for visitors

contemporary experiences like Muncaster Halloween Festival to make the castle a popular destination for visitors of all ages. It also attracts visitors from across the globe. Jim Walker adds: “Iona and Peter have an immense passion for Cumbria, particularly the Western Lake District and Coast, and have been responsible for delivering many tourism projects domestically and internationally.” Iona was previously the High Sheriff of Cumbria, while Peter is a highprofile representative for the county on many tourism steering groups and boards. Iona, Peter and Ewan FrostPennington on the lawns with the family’s pet dog Mashie. (Credit: Adam Pearson) The Bernard Gooch Award is timely recognition of all their efforts as the couple are in the process of passing the torch to a new custodian – their son Ewan - who has returned from www.lancmag.com

his job as an energy consultant in America to take up the reigns at Muncaster. Their legacy and passion for sustainability and heritage is a key part of Ewan’s plans for Muncaster’s future. Earlier this year Muncaster Castle, Gardens and Hawk & Owl Centre scooped the Silver Award in the Small Visitor Attraction of the Year category at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2023.

You can book tickets for Muncaster by visiting www.muncaster.co.uk

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RECIPES 57

minutes

Butternut Squash Raviolo, Rosemary and Parmesan Cream Sauce This showstopper pasta dish from chef Michael Caines is guaranteed to impress guests at a dinner party. If you don’t have a pasta machine, you can use a rolling pin instead. Just make sure to roll out the dough as thinly as you can.

For the rosemary and parmesan cream sauce

40 g pine nuts 8 slices smoked bacon 250 mL double cream

Ingredients For the raviolo filling

1 butternut squash peeled, deseeded and cut into medium chunks 15 mL extra virgin olive oil 30 g unsalted butter 1 free-range egg - yolk only 75 g parmesan , grated 50 mL double cream

For the pasta

1 clove garlic , crushed

1 pinch saffron threads

2 sprigs thyme

15 mL olive oil

2 sprigs cut rosemary

250 g ‘00’ flour

1 pinch ground nutmeg

1 large free-range egg

50 g parmesan , grated

3 large free-range eggs - yolks only

25 g flat leaf parsley , finely chopped

semolina for sprinkling

1 lemon - zest and juice

1 large free-range egg - yolk only and beaten for brushing

15 mL extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

METHOD Step 1

First make the raviolo filling. Preheat the oven to 210°C/190°C fan. Place the squash (1) on a baking tray and drizzle with the oil (15 mL) . Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 20 minutes until tender and golden brown at the edges. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Step 2

Blend the squash to a purée in a food processor. Add the butter (30 g) , egg yolk (1) , parmesan (75 g) , double cream (50 mL) and blend again. Check the seasoning. Scrape the mixture into a piping bag and chill until needed.

Step 3

Now make the pasta dough. Put 2 tbsp boiling water in a small bowl along with the saffron (1 pinch) and oil (15 mL) . Leave to cool.

Step 4

Step 8

Now make the sauce and finishing touches. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Place the pine nuts (40 g) on a small baking tray and cook for 4-5 minutes until golden. Set aside to cool.

Put the flour (250 g) and 1 tsp salt in a food processor. Mix the whole egg (1) and yolks (3) with the cooled saffron mixture. With the food processor running, slowly add enough of the liquid to the flour until it comes together as a ball – it shouldn’t be too dry or too wet.

Step 9

Step 5

In a large frying pan, heat the cream (250 mL) , garlic (1 clove) , thyme (2 sprigs) and rosemary (2 sprigs) and nutmeg (1 pinch) . Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat. Pass the cream through a sieve, then return to the pan with half of the parmesan (50 g) . Add half the parsley (25 g) , the lemon juice and zest (1) , and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Keep warm (or reheat) while you cook the pasta.

Knead the dough on a work surface for 10 minutes until smooth. Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest for at least 10 minutes, or chill overnight if you like.

Step 6

Divide the pasta dough into 4 pieces. Using the thickest setting on your pasta machine, run through one piece of dough (rewrap the rest of the dough to stop them from drying out). Fold one side over, then the other and run it through the machine again. Repeat three times. Now start to reduce the thickness, by clicking the notches after each single roll. Stop when you are at the second to last notch. Lightly dust the work top with semolina (as needed) and lay out the sheets, covering with clingfilm to keep them from drying out.

Step 7

Take one sheet and pipe 4 x 2 tbsp of filling into domes along the centre about 8cm apart. Brush around the filling with egg yolk (1) lay another sheet on top, carefully sealing around the mixture to ensure there are no air bubbles. Repeat. You should have 8 ravioli in total. Use a 6cm round cutter, press out the raviolos and place on a tray, sprinkled with semolina flour.

Arrange the bacon (8 slices) on a baking tray, cover with another tray so they are pressed down and cook in the oven for 5 minutes until golden and crisp. Set aside.

Step 10

Step 11

When you are ready to eat, bring a very large pan of water to the boil, then add 2 tbsp salt. Add the ravioli. Reduce to a simmer and when they float to the top, give them another 1-2 minutes cooking time. Carefully scoop out with a small sieve or slotted spoon. Add them to the sauce - if the cream sauce has thickened, use a splash of the hot pasta water to thin it out first.

Step 12

Spoon 2 ravioli each among four bowls. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil (15 mL) and sprinkle with the remaining parsley and parmesan. Top with the crispy bacon, toasted pine nuts, and some freshly ground black pepper.

RECIPES 1

Hour

Lamb chops with gremolata, garlic and white bean mash and fried olives Using tinned beans to make a delicious mash is a low-cost and easy way to inject more fibre and protein into your diet.

Ingredients

1 sprig rosemary

For the lamb chop

For the gremolata

3 cloves garlic , finely chopped

2 (330 g) lamb racks

25 gflat leaf parsley

3 tins (400 g) cannellini beans , drained, rinsed

6g salt

2 cloves garlic 1 lemon , zested, juiced 100 mL extra virgin olive oil 2 g peppers For the white bean mash

350 mL vegetable stock 30 mL olive oil

1/2 lemon, zested, juiced For the fried olives

4g peppers 1g rosemary , chopped 2g chilli flakes

100 g white breadcrumbs

30 mL olive oil

1 large free-range egg , beaten

30 g salted butter

15 g plain flour - up to 3 tbsp

2 cloves garlic - finely crushed

160 g pitted black olives 500 mL oil for frying

METHOD Step 1

To make the gremolata, blitz flat leaf parsley (25 g) , garlic (2 cloves) , lemon juice and zest (1) , extra virgin olive oil (100 mL) and black pepper (2 g) together in a food processor. Pour into a saucepan and set aside to warm through later.

Step 2

For the white bean mash: Make the stock by mixing 1 stock pot (350 mL) with boiling water according to the packet instructions.

Step 3

In a medium saucepan, add the oil (30 mL) , rosemary (1 sprig) and garlic (3 cloves) and sauté over a medium heat for 1-2 minutes until golden. Stir in the cannellini beans (3 tins) , lemon juice and zest (1/2) . Add the stock and boil for 3-4 minutes until the beans are soft.

Step 7

Score the fat on the lamb (2) and cut carefully into even sized chops. Season with the salt (6 g) , pepper (4 g) , rosemary (1 g) and chilli flakes (2 g) .

Step 8

Remove the rosemary and blend the bean mixture in a food processor or blender until you have a creamy purée. Scrape the mixture into a small saucepan and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Heat the olive oil (30 mL) and butter (30 g) in a hot pan, then add the lamb chops. Turn down the heat to medium-high and brown the chops about 2-3 minutes each side. Add the garlic (2 cloves) , turn the heat down, and keep spooning the butter/oil over the chops. When the garlic is golden, after 1-2 minutes, remove from the heat. Cover with a lid and rest for 5 minutes.

Step 5

Step 9

Step 4

To make the fried olives: put the flour (15 g) , egg (1) and panko (100 g) into three different bowls. Season all three with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Dip the olives (160 g) in the flour, the egg, then the breadcrumbs.

Step 6

Heat the oil (500 mL) in a small deep pan. When a piece of bread sizzles in the oil immediately, add the olives in batches. Deep fry for about 4-5 minutes until golden brown. Keep warm until the lamb has finished resting.

Serve the lamb with the bean purée, warmed through gremolata sauce and fried olives.

Greater Manchester:

Students star in top regional sporting event for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Alongside promoting and celebrating the sporting skills of the young people involved, key to the ethos of the day was to celebrate other important skills such as confidence, sportsmanship, commitment and teamwork, with awards for the different areas. In the lead up to the event students across the eleven colleges taking part were tasked with preparing banners, flags, team chants and dressing to impress in their country colours (full list of participating colleges in the notes for editors).

140 students from colleges across the North-West gathered in Manchester to participate in one of the region’s leading sports days for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

he event was held in Sportcity and co-hosted by Natspec – the UK’s largest membership organisation for specialist FE colleges – together with local SEND charity Seashell Trust. The day saw students from age 16-25 competing in a wide array of sports including cricket, lusu, fitness, team building, hurdles, rugby and boccia. Each college was limited to seven participants each, with 40 volunteers helping with the running of the event. To make the event as inclusive as possible, all activities were adapted to student ability levels.

The sports day followed a series of ‘virtual Natspec Games’ days held earlier in June in partnership with disability charity Sense Active and the Association of Colleges’ sport division. Activities included daily workouts, netball, boccia, dance, seated volleyball and tennis for the 41 live participants and 3 participating on demand. The Natspec Games have been held since 2016 and were hosted online only during the pandemic before returning to having virtual and inperson versions from this year. Other in-person Natspec Games events this year have taken place with Petty PoolVocational College in Cheshire and Landmarks Specialist College in Sheffield. The final edition will take place at Linkage College in Lincolnshire on 5 July.

Commenting on the success of the day, Clare Howard, CEO of Natspec, said: “It was brilliant to see the latest Natspec Games last Friday. With our partners Seashell Trust, we wanted to give our remarkable young people the chance to show just what they are capable of with the right confidence, commitment and teamwork. “All young people with disabilities and learning difficulties deserve the same opportunities as everyone else: to get involved in sports.”

Commenting on leading the event, Maureen Wilkins from Seashell Trust, said: “It was great to team up with Natspec once again to give young people across the North-West the chance to participate in inclusive sport and to have their value recognised. “I was so impressed with the attitude and achievements of all participants, and to see the joy and pride on their faces made all the preparation worth it.”

Founded and led by Maureen Wilkins, a tutor at one of Seashell Trust’s colleges’, the Royal College Manchester, the event marked the 12th edition of the games.

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2024 REMAINING KEY D AT E S F R O M

£5,970 E N Q U I R E W I T H U S T O D AY

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Join us for a private venue show around, meet with our team, visit our stunning Abbey and Ribble suites,

walk the grounds, and view our hotel and bridal suites too.

Call us: 01254 240 662

Email us: events@myttonfold.co.uk www.myttonfold.co.uk

or visit our

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Colour and Style

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OUR SECTION ON COLOUR AND STYLE WITH S A R A H H A R R I S F R O M ‘ CO LO U R M E B E AU T I F U L’ Hello September

I’m Sarah Harris and I’m a Colour and Style Consultant who trained with Colour Me Beautiful the world’s leading Image consultants. My background is in fashion and after leaving school at 16, I travelled to London to work as a Fashion/Photographic Model, I enjoyed the life and it allowed me to travel the world, during my career I also worked in wholesale/retail within the fashion industry. I learnt all about fabrics, business, international companies and trying all those clothes on – the quality, cut and fabric. I took a break from the business when I married and had our two children. I retrained as an Image Consultant with Colour Me Beautiful who have been changing the lives of women and men for over 35 years. I’d like to inspire you with Colour, Style and Skincare tips every month, I’m hoping to give you an interesting read. If there is something that you would like to know about please email me and I will do my best to help. E sarah@sarahharrisstyle.co.uk D www.sarahharrisstyle.co.uk 118

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Neptune Blue & Gold Petra Jacket over a Moss & cream Daphne Blouse by - www.kettlewellcolours.co.uk

It’s hard to believe that we are in September and the Autumn/ Winter collections are in the shops!! Stop before you rush out to buy, take some time to look at your wardrobe first, you probably have some of the seasons trends hiding at the back, items that can be re-used, a satin skirt that you wore over the summer can be transitioned into Autumn by teaming with a sweater and long boots. I’m not going to rush you into Autumn because for me the beginning of September may be a new month but we are still having milder weather and with any luck an Indian Summer, which will gently lead us to the cooler months!! We can continue wearing our Summer clothes and start layering when we need to. I love the above Image by Kettlewell Colours it shows a great transitional outfit, a Petra Jacket worn over the Daphne blouse, with jeans and trainers, a scarf is also a great addition if needed! If over the summer you purchased a skirt, for example the Vivienne Skirt by Kettlewell Colours (worn here with the Daphne Blouse) These two pieces transition so well as they can be worn in the warmer months together or in the

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cooler weather with either jumpers and boots or mix and match with denim! Although Winter seems a long way off it’s good to prepare yourselves by relooking at your wardrobe. N.B. The Vivienne Skirt & Daphne Blouse by Kettlewell’s are made with Lyocell which is a wonderful fabric that feels like a combination of silk and cotton. The beauty of this fabric is it is breathable and therefore keeps you cooler in the summer months and is also great for all year round for those going though the menopause or preferring cooler/ lighter weight fabrics.

Vivienne Skirt in Moss & Cream with Jacket in Moss

...and beyond A little knowledge of the seasons trends will hold you in good stead and give you chance to re-adjust your wardrobe and keep your look current.

Autumn/Winter 23/24 Trends SKIRTS OVER TROUSERS TIES & NECKTIES ASYMMETRIC SHOULDERS FITTED XXL

WAISTS POWER

POLKA

SHOULDERS

DOTS

FEATHERS

TARTAN

BLACK

LACE

FABRICS WITH SCENIC LANDSCAPES DOUBLE DENIM NEO BOUQUETS APRICOT

CRUSH

CHOCOLATE

BEIGE

RED

AUBERGINE

POWDER

PINK

SKY

BLUE

GREY

ORANGE

KHAKI

Above are some of this seasons ‘Trends’ your personality will decide which are for you! This season there is a feeling of freedom, spontaneity and crazy colour pairings alongside timeless pieces. It is all about being true to yourself! Which brings in the importance of knowing your Style Personality. Take from the seasonal trends the styles and colours that you like, whether that is neutrals, bright colours, neckties, feathers or big shoulders or all of them!! Look inside your wardrobe and see if you own something that is current.

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Before you hit the shops, make a list of items that you need to add to your wardrobe, if you need to. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that any new purchases will work with at least three other items in your wardrobe. Make sure you have a good number of neutrals ( or building blocks as I call them). You will be able to make lots of outfits from a relatively small number of clothes.

Neutrals are your wardrobe's building blocks!

From Summer to Autumn...

Daphne Blouse and Vivienne Skirt in Lobelia & White

New Season Essentials

Neutrals are colours that never date and can be combined with many other shades to create endless outfits. In fact, those who embrace neutrals will probably have much smaller wardrobes than those whose wardrobes are full of bright shades. The reason for this is that fashion colours tend to come and go, so the mint green jumpsuit that was all the rage last year, might not see the light of day this! Neutrals are so important that I tell my clients to buy the best that they can afford; true investment buys that will have longevity. Discovering your best neutral colours is key to creating a wardrobe that is not only versatile, but you will enjoy wearing. Black, white, grey and navy are the obvious shades that everyone recognises. But there are also far more interesting hues such as Pewter, Taupe, Bronze, Spruce, and Cocoa. For example someone with a rich golden look will find that Moss is a key neutral that they can combine with Terracotta, Primrose and Coral. ( and that’s just for starters). Someone with a blended look i.e. very little contrast between hair, eye and skin-tone – think like Kylie Minogue, look particularly amazing in neutral shades, especially when combined together like Rose Brown and Beige. Of course life would be very boring without pops of colour and whilst neutrals are important, they are building blocks for you to add to. Understanding how colour works on you will enable you to combine fashion colours with your neutrals for a flattering look. Get your neutrals right and you will find that a few on trend pieces are all that is needed to remain current each season. Great for the purse strings! Let your Style Personality run riot with your fashion colours, but make sure they are your most flattering.

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Many clients say to me ‘I pack my Summer wardrobe away when September comes…..’ I say to them don’t!! For example if you’ve purchased a top over the summer re-use it by changing the way you wear it, the one below by Sosandar looks great with the neutral Taupe trousers and would equally look good with Denim or Black Brown trousers/skirt or maybe add a Coat or Jacket in Blue or Brown! There are so many ways to combine colours and styles. By adding boots and either jumper or Jacket will take the same outfit from Summer to Autumn/Winter. Orange is going to be a big colour this season, in fact the pantone colour has been hailed as Apricot Crush, so being from the Orange family you’ll be in one of the latest trends! Base your outfit on your neutrals and add your pops of colour.

From the Darkest Navy to the lightest powder blue there is a shade for everyone! Which Blue will suit you and how to combine it with one of your wardrobes neutrals, some blues are neutrals i.e. Navy and Teal. Below are some on trend colours that look great worn together but make sure you wear the right shade for your dominant characteristic!

Orange Paisley Print Ruffle Sleeve Top by www.sosandar.com paired with neutral trousers

Shades of Autumn (and beyond)

Blue is another favourite this year and it’s hardly surprising when it is by far the most popular colour! I suppose with its meanings of trust, calm and reliability it is a safe choice for most! But do you know the shade of Blue that suits you – there is one for everyone!

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www.lancmag.com

Certain colour combinations can be very stylish and neutrals next to each other is a good way to start, however, it very much depends on your Style Personality. For example Creative Style Personalities would wear neutrals in a completely different way to the Classic’s. Once you know your Style Personality you will feel at home in your clothing and that is the best way to be!! I remember when I was a little girl my mum used to dress me in Browns and Greys and now I cannot wear brown or grey, unless it is with another colour!! My mum wasn’t doing anything wrong she was just putting what she liked on me which is what we do, and I see now that we saw different things because our Style Personalities where different! Now I am able to wear what I feel is right for me and what makes me feel comfortable. If you need any help with your colours or styles please do get in touch. I hope that this will help you arrange your wardrobe for the coming months and remember don’t pack all your summer clothes away, try and re use them by adding layers to them!

Enjoy this lovely new season, the Colours and Styles that hopefully you will already have in your wardrobes! And if you would like any help with your Colours, Styles or are interested in a Seasonal Style Update do get in touch. Look after yourselves and each other,

Warm Wishes, Sarah x E sarah@sarahharrisstyle.co.uk D www.sarahharrisstyle.co.uk

Style

Restoring the Natural Heartbeat of Wigan Borough An ambitious project to continue the transformation of vast areas of Wigan is now underway.

• The Wigan Greenheart Landscape Recovery project will build on half a century of post-industrial restoration in this unique and inspiring environment. • One of only 22 projects to receive funding through the first phase of the Landscape Recovery scheme announced last year, the project will benefit wildlife and people by restoring, creating and connecting green spaces across the borough of Wigan. • Work is now well underway in developing the plans for the 20-year implementation phase of the project.

Patrick Woods, Natural England Landscape Recovery Project Liaison Officer stated “Landscape Recovery is a fantastic opportunity to work in partnership to restore nature across large areas in a more connected way by offering long-term, bespoke agreements and enabling projects to access private investment. We are really excited to be working with Wigan Greenheart and all the round one projects to achieve their ambition for nature recovery.”

This historically important industrial landscape, largely created through the flooding of subsided deep coal mine workings, has gradually been developed into an exciting wetland mosaic made up of open water, swamp, reedbed, tall herb fen, wet marshy grassland, meadows and wet woodland.

It is one of only 22 projects to receive funding through the first phase of the Landscape Recovery scheme announced last year through the DEFRA Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes.

The huge scheme covers a combined area of more than 1400 hectares, including the Flashes of Wigan & Leigh National Nature Reserve (NNR), at the heart of the Great Manchester Wetlands Nature Improvement Area (NIA), building links for both wildlife and people through Wigan Greenheart’s green corridors and open spaces.

he Wigan Greenheart Landscape Recovery project will build on half a century of post-industrial restoration in this unique and inspiring environment, creating and restoring habitats on the areas once dominated by mining and other industry.

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The Greenheart already provides thriving habitats for wildlife and beautiful spaces for people to explore. This project represents an exciting opportunity to continue that work, prioritising the recovery and protection of threatened species such as the willow tit and bittern and benefiting many other important native species including the water vole, reed bunting and great crested newt. The grasslands will continue to be improved for a range of plants including orchids all of which will help to conserve the pollinator species within this rich landscape. Dr Mark Champion, Senior Landscape Recovery Officer for the Lancashire Wildlife Trust enthused “This project is vitally important to protect rare and threatened species like the willow tit and bittern by transforming and connecting their habitats. The genuine excitement when you encounter these birds for the first time is pretty astonishing”. Encouraging more people to visit Wigan’s Greenheart is also a key part of this project, giving local residents and visitors with more opportunities to discover, enjoy and connect with the nature on their doorstep. There will be events, activities, learning and volunteering opportunities as part of an innovative community programme, all playing an important role in improving mental and physical health along with confidence and wellbeing.

“This scheme is an exciting opportunity to keep developing our Greenheart and provide our residents more opportunities to get closer to nature and explore those fantastic greenspaces that exist throughout the borough.”

Councillor Paul Prescott, cabinet portfolio holder for environment at Wigan Council said

Richard Topley, Forestry England Operations Manager noted

“We are deeply proud of our rich industrial heritage and our pioneering efforts in helping the recovery and restoration of this unique landscape. “Two-thirds of Wigan borough is green space, and we were hugely proud that the Flashes were nationally recognised last year as a National Nature Reserve.

Work is now well underway in developing the plans for the 20-year implementation phase of the project which includes reviewing land use, public access, species and habitats.

partners to make sure the benefits for wildlife and local communities are maximised.” The scheme continues the legacy of years of restoration, conservation carried out by partners over the last 50 years including the Carbon Landscape, the flagship programme of the Great Manchester Wetlands Partnership which delivered community, skills, education, heritage, access and habitat restoration and connection projects over five years ending in September 2022.

“Over the past few decades, Forestry England has successfully transformed a number of previously industrial sites into beautiful timber producing forest environments, including Viridor, Byrom Woods and Barlows Farm. Woodland is a key part if the Wigan flashes landscape, and it is great to now be entering this next phase of these sites development, where we are able to work with neighbours and

The Wildlife Trusts The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is dedicated to the protection and promotion of the wildlife in Lancashire, seven boroughs of Greater Manchester and four of Merseyside, all lying north of the River Mersey. It manages around 40 nature reserves and 20 Local Nature Reserves covering acres of woodland, wetland, upland and meadow. The Trust has 30,000 members, and over 1,200 volunteers. To become a member of the Trust go to the website at www.lancswt.org.uk or call 01772 324129

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Open Golf History at Hoylake The Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake on the Wirral is staging the world-renowned British Open Golf Championship for the 13th time in July 2023.

his famous old links course has provided some of the Open’s most memorable moments, from Irishman Rory McIlroy’s thrilling victory in 2014 all the way back to 1897 when local man, Harold Hilton, became the winner of the first Open to be staged there. In June 1869, a local Cheshire newspaper reported that, “On Saturday the Scottish national game of golf was formally inducted into its new home in Cheshire by the inauguration of the Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake”. As this report suggests, the Liverpool Golf Club was founded at a time when the modern sport of golf was still in its infancy in England. The course was established on what was then Liverpool Hunt Club’s racecourse and for the first few years of the golf club’s existence horse racing continued at the site. The racecourse’s original saddling bell is still on display in the clubhouse today.

Within two years it was being reported that the Liverpool Golf Club had “sprung into a vigorous and most successful organisation” and the decision was taken to extend the original 9-hole links to 18 holes. The club’s early members certainly did not lack ambition. Queen Victoria’s son, Arthur the Duke of Connaught, was known to be a keen golfer and, in that same year, Club Captain, Colonel Edmund Kennard, persuaded him to become the club’s Honorary President. As a result, the Liverpool Golf Club was granted its “Royal” designation only two years after coming into existence. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s growing status within the sport was further enhanced when it played host to the first British Amateur Championship in 1885. The tournament, which was open to all amateur golfers of recognised golf clubs, attracted many of the best players in the country. Royal Liverpool’s then Honorary Secretary, Mr T O Potter, was credited with working hard to put on a tournament “that should definitely settle the honour of the amateur championship at golf” (Newcastle Journal). The tournament proved such a resounding success that the British Amateur Championship became an annual event thereafter and it remains a popular event on the golfing calendar today.

Harold Hilton pictured in 1913

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In 1897, the Royal Liverpool hosted the prestigious Open Championship for the first time in its history. First held at Scotland’s Prestwick Golf Club in 1860, the Open is famous for being

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the oldest golf tournament of its type in the world. Its name stems from the fact that it was originally “open” to all golfers, whether professional or amateur. For the first three decades of its existence, the Open was dominated by Scottish professional players. Finally, in 1890, the tournament was won by one of the top English amateur golfers of the era, Hoylake’s own John Ball. www.lancmag.com

Royal Liverpool’s Clubhouse built in 1895 - Credit “Rept0n1x/CC BY-SA 2.0”

Ball was one of the early titans of the sport, winning the Amateur Championship eight times in addition to his Open win. This record is made even more remarkable by the fact that, in his mid-thirties, he took a break from the sport to serve, with some distinction, in the Boer War.

golfer in his own right, owned the Royal Hotel on Stanley Road, which served as Hoylake’s first clubhouse until 1895. Ball Junior, unsurprisingly, took up golf at an early age and, as a 16-year-old starlet, finished fifth in the 1878 Open Championship held at Prestwick.

Born in 1861, Ball appeared destined for golfing success from the start. His father, an accomplished

In 1890, he won the Amateur Championship for a second time on his home course at Hoylake, before

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heading to Prestwick, which was once again hosting that year’s Open. The highly competitive field included three former Open champions, but, with his powerful long game and calm temperament, Ball came out on top with a remarkable victory. Local Scottish newspaper, the Ayr Advertiser, commented that, “Golfers on the north side of the Tweed will find food for reflection in the fact that on a Scottish green and in a Scottish

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game an Englishman has proved himself more than their equal”. Fellow Royal Liverpool Golf Club member, Harold Hilton, was one of Ball’s closest challengers at Prestwick. Born in January 1869 at West Kirby on the Wirral, Hilton was eight years Ball’s junior. Like Ball, the Hilton family home was very close to the Hoylake club. Hilton later recalled in his book, My Golfing Reminiscences, that, “At the age of two I was taken to live in a house right on the very edge of the links”. Yet, by the age of 15, his “golfing education had barely commenced”, mainly because he spent several years away at boarding school. When he did turn his attention to the sport, however, he proved an exceptionally quick learner. In 1892, the Open was held at Muirfield for the first time, a tournament that was also notable for being the first to be played over the now standard 72 holes. Played over two days, Harold Hilton was seven shots behind the leader after the first two rounds on Day One, but on the second day produced an outstanding exhibition of golf to claim the title by three shots, overtaking his great rival, Ball, in the process. “If it were possible to speak of a golfer as dashing, that player would be Mr Hilton. He has moments of extraordinary brilliancy”, reported London paper, Black & White. Remarkably, it later emerged that Hilton originally had no intention of travelling to Muirfield and was only persuaded to enter the tournament when a friend in the area offered him accommodation. Five years later, Hilton would famously repeat the feat on his home course during the first Open Championship to be staged at Hoylake. His biggest rival on this occasion proved to be the Scot, James Braid, who would subsequently go on to win the Open five times during the following decade. Hilton again trailed the field going into the last day, but, after a final round of 75, looked the favourite to win the Championship. The local man had finished his round by lunchtime and is famously reported to have played billiards in the clubhouse whilst waiting to see if Braid could beat him. The Scot was 128

Plaque to John Ball at entrance to Royal Liverpool Golf Club Credit “Phil Nash/CC BY-SA 4.0”

still in contention as he teed off at the final hole, but narrowly failed to hole a long putt and so the title was Hilton’s by one shot. Having bemoaned the lack of a Scottish winner, the Edinburgh Evening News had a lot to say about the spectators at Hoylake, comparing their behaviour unfavourably with the Scottish golf watching public who were more accustomed to attending major tournaments. Criticising the Merseyside public’s “ceaseless chatter, their restlessness, their utter inability to grasp the fact that, in intruding on the line of play, they were making a nuisance of themselves and their sublime contempt for a shout of ‘fore’”, the Scottish reporter even goes so far as to suggest that James Braid’s play was adversely affected by the crowd’s behaviour. It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that this report was at least, in part, motivated by disappointment that yet again a Scottish professional had failed to win the Open. However, it does appear that the Royal Liverpool Club may well have been surprised by the sheer number of people that turned up to watch the event. Even one of the local papers, the Liverpool Mercury, was moved to write that, “The attendance was very large, and

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caused no little inconvenience to the players, one of whom lost a stroke by his ball striking a too eager spectator”. These teething problems regarding crowd control aside, Hoylake’s first Open proved a great success. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club played host to the tournament on three more occasions before the onset of World War I, but there were to be no more local amateur winners. Instead, in 1907, the French golfer, Arnaud Massy made history at Hoylake for becoming the first non-Brit to win the Open. The Frenchman was so delighted with his victory that he named his daughter Margot Hoylake Massy. Following the enforced break caused by World War I, the Open tournament resumed and returned to Hoylake in 1924, 1930 and 1936. The 1930 Open was notable for producing the last – to date – amateur champion, when the legendary US golfer, Bobby Jones joined the select group of only three amateurs to have won the tournament. Such was Jones’ dominance of the sport during this era that in 1930 he completed a remarkable Grand Slam, winning the Amateur and Open Championships in both the UK and USA in the one year. Soon afterwards one of the sport’s alltime greats retired at the age of just 28. www.lancmag.com

John Ball pictured in 1913

As for Harold Hilton, following his triumph at Hoylake he never won the Open again. However, like John Ball, he did enjoy great success in the British Amateur Championship, winning the title on four occasions. In the year of his last win, 1911, the now 42-year-old Hilton travelled to America to compete in the US Amateur Championship and won the title at the Apawamis Club in New York State. Hilton continued to play as an amateur golfer until well into his fifties, but also branched out into journalism. In 1911, he became the founding editor of Golf Monthly magazine, which is still going strong today. Hilton also wrote several wellreceived books about the sport and even found time to become involved in course design. In later life, he moved to the Cotswolds and passed away there, aged 73, in May 1942. His former great local rival, John Ball, had died in North Wales, aged 78, some 17 months previously. www.lancmag.com

The Royal Liverpool Club hosted the Open on three more occasions in the immediate post-World War II era, but the 1967 tournament proved to be the last to be held at Hoylake for nearly four decades. By this time golf was becoming a more popular spectator sport than ever before, watched by a global TV audience of millions in addition to those on the course, and, as one of the sport’s four “majors”, the Open was right at the forefront of this exciting new era. There were bound to be casualties along the way and the Royal Liverpool Club was one of them. Hoylake was adjudged to be behind the times in terms of its infrastructure and thus was sidelined.

the event, with the total attendance being the then second highest in Open history. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2019 and its future as a venue for topclass golf seems assured. The sport has come a long way since local boy, Harold Hilton’s, victory at the first Open to be held in Hoylake back in 1897. However, the history of the game would not be complete without acknowledging the contribution made by those early golfing pioneers.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending to this story. Following much work behind the scenes, the Open returned to the Wirral in 2006 when one Tiger Woods won his third Open title at Hoylake. It was an emotional victory, as Woods had lost his father to cancer only a few weeks previously. The crowds came out in force to support LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 129

Withington Baths:

Last Remaining Working Edwardian Pool in Manchester Celebrates 8 Years of Community Ownership South Manchester swimming pool and leisure centre, Withington Baths, celebrated its 8th birthday last weekend, marking eight years since a group of local residents (the Love Withington Baths Group) battled for two years to save it from closure.

ithington Baths has since become a thriving community hub, receiving a one-million-pound investment from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to restore the Baths to its former glory. On Saturday, the Love Withington Baths Group invited the local community to enjoy the newly restored leisure centre with an afternoon of fun, food, and drinks. As part of the celebrations, a barbecue and bar was provided by local business Burton Road Brewery. Free face painting for kids and a children’s entertainer also provided family entertainment, which was a great opportunity for both members and non-members to enjoy the completion of the latest phase of restoration and celebrate the community. The most notable restoration of this phase of renovations was the swimming pool’s iconic roof, which boasts views of the sky above and brings natural light into the pool hall, featuring the same glazing system originally installed when Withington Baths was built in 1913. Another highly anticipated element of the restoration project was the stained-glass windows. The Love Withington Baths Group collaborated with a local artist who designed a new concept for their signature stainedglass window in the pool hall, encapsulating the project’s spirit of heritage and regeneration, the city of Manchester and the Withington community. Paul Smith, Managing Director of Withington Baths commented: “Our 8th birthday celebrations were a huge success, we really enjoyed celebrating the progress we’ve made since the takeover in 2013. The restoration project means so much to us as an organisation, and we’re thrilled to see what a positive impact it has had on our community already.

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“The restoration was all made possible thanks to The National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, a loan from Manchester City Council and support from the local community. Through the good times and the tough, it’s the local community that has always been there for us. Now, because of them, we can continue to serve our community as a not-for-profit hub where generations learn to swim and enjoy a range of gym and leisure facilities alongside their community members.”

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Over 350 Celebrate Porsche’s 75th Anniversary Porsche Centre Preston Reveals New Bespoke Artwork by Local Artist

ore than 350 Porsche owners and Lancastrian motoring enthusiasts have celebrated Porsche’s 75th Anniversary this week. The event, held on Thursday 8th June at Porsche Centre Preston on the docks in the city, marked a significant milestone for the iconic brand. The award-winning centre revealed new artwork created by renowned local artist Carla Raads to mark the occasion. Carla created her tribute inspired by the global theme of ‘Dream in Full Colour’. The artwork features a solar explosion of speed and acceleration, with specific references to the sun. The sun represents reaching new heights when following dreams. The artwork was painted in iconic Porsche colours. Lytham-based Carla is known for her profound impact on the world of art through her abstract sea and landscape paintings. As part of the celebration, fellow artist Lincoln Townley interviewed Carla. Lincoln Townley is one of the world’s leading contemporary figurative artists. Over the past ten years, his works have been exhibited internationally and bought by some of the most famous and powerful people on earth as investment-grade art.

Together, Lincoln and Carla explored the intersection of art and automotive excellence, taking a closer look at the inspiration behind Carla’s work. Tom Fox, managing director at Porsche Centre Preston, said: “Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to make the celebration such a huge success. Carla Raads’ exceptional talent was the perfect fit with the ‘Dream in Full Colour’ theme. We were also grateful to Lincoln Townley for sharing his insights and time as part of our celebration.

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illustrious history. Many guests offered some lovely comments, and it was a joy to talk to Lincoln about my work. I hope everyone enjoyed the night.” In 1948, Ferry Porsche realised his dream of a sports car, and since then, the company has continued to innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible in the automotive industry.

“We were celebrating 75 years in which Porsche has fulfilled the sports car dreams of drivers worldwide. But the event was also an opportunity to thank the many people who have supported us in our four years since opening. As a relatively new member of the Porsche retail family, it was important for us to come together and make our mark on a global celebration.” The celebration also featured a raffle in support of Porsche Centre Preston’s 134

new charity partner, the Community Foundation for Lancashire. The raffle prize was a limited edition signed print of Carla Raads’ 75th-anniversary artwork. All proceeds contributed to a vital cause benefiting the local community.

Porsche is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year with several events and shows. The “75 Years of Porsche Sports Cars” exhibition opened on January 27, 2023, at the DRIVE Volkswagen Group Forum in Berlin and ran until September 10, 2023. Porsche released a book called “Porsche 75th Anniversary: Expect the Unexpected,” which provides a comprehensive look at the carmaker’s history. 

Carla said: “It was an absolute honour to be commissioned to create this artwork to mark Porsche’s 75th Anniversary. I wanted to showcase this iconic brand’s enduring legacy of passion and innovation throughout its

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As much as this was our son’s recovery, we as parents have also become stronger for the future.

Helen & Mark

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Guests come to stay with us when an aspect of their life is overwhelming all else. Whether it be their relationship with alcohol, substances or behaviour, we help guests heal and take back control. Our award winning clinic is set discreetly amidst 6 acres of grounds beside Delamere Forest in Cheshire. Since opening in 2020 we have helped nearly 1,000 people grow beyond addiction.

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Warrington Animal Rescue Set For Winter Thanks To Funding IMPROVEMENTS have been made to weather-proof an animal rescue centre thanks to Redrow’s community fund.

left: Redrow’s Lesley Langton Lindsay Coles, Murray the pony, Libby Schonewille, Jack, Imogen, Lily Little Nest Rescue successfully applied for a £500 grant from Redrow to lay new stone paths at the centre to allow the community to visit during the winter months.

Sian Pitt, sales director at Redrow Lancashire, said: “These community grants are designed to support small projects at the heart of local life that can potentially make a big difference.

The fund was launched to help community groups, charities and other good causes based in, or serving, the area around Redrow’s new development Oakwood Fields, in Lowton.

“Little Nest Rescue is a wonderful example of a cause that has wide-reaching benefits within the local community; rehabilitating animals in need and educating visitors young and old, who can now visit the rescue centre all year round.”

“We are trying to create a safe area for our volunteers and the community to be able to access the rescue and enjoy the therapy our animals offer,” said Katy Pinder, director of Little Nest Rescue. “We haven’t been able to open our doors to the community during the winter months due to mud preventing access to our fields and woodland. But thanks to Redrow’s community fund we will be able to do that this year.” The team rescue, rehabilitate, foster and re-home animals, most of which are from neglect cases, or owners who can no longer home the animal. Katy added: “We welcome families of home-schooled children too, giving them opportunities to learn how to care for farm animals and horses. Over the last three years we have welcomed over 100 visitors to the rescue over the summer months and we would like to extend the support we offer all year round.” 136

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The community grants are in addition to more than £400,000 of contributions Redrow is providing to the local community around its development in Lowton as part of the planning process. Around half of this has already been paid to Wigan Council, following the recent 25th property completion at Oakwood Fields. Located in a semi-rural location, the development will have just over 100 three and four-bedroom homes. For more information visit www.redrow.co.uk/oakwoodfields

For further information about Little Nest Rescue visit https://littlenestrescue.weebly.com/

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Whole School Open Morning Saturday 7 October, 9.30am-2.00pm

With consistently high examination results, outstanding inspection reports, excellent facilities and incredible extra-curricular opportunities, our friendly school will enable your child to realise their full potential. Call 01204 840201 or email info@boltonschool.org to arrange your visit or to discuss enrolling your child at Bolton School.

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Certainty in Times of Educational Change By Philip Britton, Bolton School’s Head of Foundation There is as sharp a focus on the landscape of education as there has ever been. The structural systems in which our children are educated for life are under immense scrutiny, whether that be the teacher supply crisis in the state sector, the condition of school buildings, school attendance post-Covid, changing behavioural norms or further discussion about assessment and exams. It is not surprising school choice may well be at the front of mind for many parents.

or some, one of those choices has always been about whether to look at independent education. In the landscape of education, independent schools are the oldest piece of the jigsaw, before church schools and long before the idea of state education for all. Schools at which some people paid and others were supported have existed for centuries. Bolton School itself is over 500 years old, and, what is now the Girls’ Division, was one of the very first proper girls’ schools in Victorian times, nearly 150 years ago. This choice used to be about whether the school was right for your child and, for those not eligible for a bursary, affordability – which in turn was about lifestyle choices and priorities for the family. More recently, the forensic lens of the public narrative has brought other strands of thinking to the mind of parents. Three of those especially are whether affordability will be impacted by any VAT charges; whether schools will remain financially viable as businesses, since no one wants their child to have to change school if they can help it and, finally, and most philosophically, are independent schools somehow not fit for the morals of a modern society? Let’s take the last, first. One of the bedrocks of our society is choice, the ability to choose what we want for our family and ourselves, so long as that choice does not impact others. This choice is what independent schools are all about. No parent should be made to feel guilty about wanting to afford an independent education for their child. The fact that independent schools often illustrate and innovate 138

excellence is good for all – so often education as a whole has benefitted from the lead of the independent sector, which can be nimbler and better able to respond to change. A case in point being how quickly such schools adapted in Covid times to online learning. No parent should feel guilty about spending money to secure a good education. The house price premium around strong state schools most often far exceeds the costs of an independent education. And the current condition of state education is emphatically not caused by the existence of independent schools. There are many reasons why state schools are as they are, but it is not because there is an independent school down the road. What about certainty for the future? Many independent schools are thriving in terms of their sound financial management and will most certainly be around for the time your child will be in education. The latest report using the ISC/Oxford Economics economic impact modeller has found Bolton School contributes around £25 million pounds to the local economy. Adding the UK-based supply chain and the induced GDP, which is generated through the spending of staff and the school’s suppliers’ staff, this figure doubles. The school generates one of every 200 pounds made in Bolton. It also contributes some £16 million in tax revenue.

Some parents worry that large and successful schools like Bolton may be too big and impersonal. A visit during the working day or at an open event to talk to pupils will dispel such worries. LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE

The careful use of small form groups, a carefully thought through and wellresourced structure of pastoral support and a well-designed curriculum mean that children do not get lost in the system, they in fact get nurtured by it. Size and resource allow investment in the right people to nurture and develop your child. With size also comes opportunity. In the last three days pupils from Bolton have been at the national chess championship, taken instrumental music exams at the highest level, canoed on Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, visited our outdoor centre in Patterdale, played cricket against the MCC, attended athletics finals, a debating competition, performed in musicals and kayaked in the Alps. That is just a snap shot. There is something for everyone and each pupil finds their passion in a well resourced and large school looking after them and their development. So, if for that certainty for the future you decide that big may well be better, do not worry that this may mean poorer pastoral care and personal attention. Some larger schools also have an ‘all through’ provision from nursery to sixth form as we do at Bolton. That can be attractive for parents to get to know the values of a school that chime with their own ambitions for their child and to know that there will be a constant thread as their child grows up. For us, we also have the ‘best of both worlds’ with all of the advantages of single sex education for the older pupils and with all the advantages of being able to mix and mingle when that adds value to an activity or helps young people develop. www.lancmag.com

And what about that VAT? Will it suddenly make fees unaffordable? None of us has a crystal ball to see the future, but often the best way to see what will happen in the future is to look at how a school has addressed challenges in the past. This gives an insight into what matters for those leading the school and how they are likely to react to future challenge. For example, at Bolton we recognised that to be as inclusive as possible we not only needed our bursary programme but also needed to keep fees affordable for as many families as possible. To fulfil that aim our fee rise every year since 2015 has been 2%. This year it has had to be 5%, with the abnormal inflationary pressures around at the moment. We did that to create certainty for parents, so that they did not commit to fees at one level and then find them somewhere very different only a few years later. Relative to wage inflation for most across that time the school has become relatively less expensive. Certainly, we have slipped down the league table of costs of north west independent schools. Of course, in this instance being less expensive most definitely does not mean being less good. The clear focus at Bolton is on being affordable, but also being worth affording. We must provide a great school for those pupils with facilities and equipment we need to be at the cutting edge of education. Above all, we must have great teachers to inspire the children with their own passion for their subject. It is for this reason we moved to 5% this year as we cannot allow what we do to diminish, yet we absorbed much of the inflationary costs in our financial planning. In short, we shared the burden of unusual financial times with our parents. That is exactly what we did during Covid times, giving back to parents the fee revenue we had not spent during that time. This was fair and in a simple and obvious way shared the burden of difficult times. As and when there is a change in the political aspect of the educational landscape, and perhaps independent school fees are taxed, what has happened in the past is very likely to happen in the future. The school will wish to share the burden of new costs with parents and it will wish to provide certainty and reassurance about making sure any change in fee is measured and as manageable www.lancmag.com

as possible for as many people as possible. I can be completely sure that all of any new tax burden would not be passed on to parents and also completely certain that whatever must be afforded will not just be added all of a sudden. As with all we do, school and parents will work together in the best interests of the pupils, as they are what a school is all about. A significant help in all of this is the bursary programme, where currently 1 in 5 pupils are supported financially and by 2030 we aim for that figure to be 1 in 3. The programme is funded by the tremendous generosity and philanthropy of former pupils. This tells you all you need to know about the ethos of the school, since so many former pupils feel so strongly that their education gave them the best start in life that, when they can, they give back to commit to give that very best start in life to the next generation. This strong programme will keep us inclusive, a

varied and vibrant community of able young boys and girls who will grow into young men and women who will make a difference to society. So, as the educational landscape shifts in coming years, a thriving independent education sector will be part of it. The choice of an independent education is not for everyone, but if it is for you, be reassured that you will have that choice to make and you can do so confidently. Bolton School began when Henry VIII was happily married to his first wife; it reshaped itself during the civil war and it rebuilt itself during the First World War and the great depression of the 1920s. We, and many other independent schools, will be around for a few centuries to come, doing what we do well blending long established traditions and values with modern and forward looking approaches.

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Veteran Former Councillor Don Clapham: A Life of Service and Dedication Marion Teal

In the bustling town of Blackpool, where local politics shape the community, one name has stood the test of time - Coun Don Clapham.

ith an impressive political career spanning over three decades, Don has left an indelible mark on the town’s governance. Don’s journey in public service began 31 years ago when he was first elected as a councillor for the Ingthorpe ward. He dedicated four years to representing the interests of his constituents before making a switch to a seat in Bispham. Throughout his tenure, he has remained committed to championing the needs of the people he serves. A true team player, Don devoted four years to working alongside Paul Wilshaw, ensuring he would be wellpositioned for success in the 2023 elections. Speaking on his decision, Don shared, “I have seen over the years sometimes people stay on the 140

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council that bit too long through no fault of their own. My wife Gill has been very understanding, but she said it’s time for me to spend some time with her!” Before his foray into local politics, Don worked a teacher at Collegiate, Montgomery, and Millfield schools in Blackpool and Thornton. This educational background equipped him with a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of the town’s youth. Notably, during the Conservative Party’s governance of the town hall, Don held the crucial position of cabinet member for children and young people. Having been entrusted with leadership roles throughout his career, Don’s contributions have not gone unnoticed. He ascended to the position of deputy leader of the Conservative group and assumed the mantle of interim leader in February, following Coun Tony Williams’ departure. These roles allowed Clapham to steer the group’s direction and lend his invaluable advice, guidance, and unwavering support.

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While his political achievements have been significant, Don’s personal highlights deserve recognition too. In 2010/11, he had the honour of serving as the Mayor of Blackpool, a time when the local football club made its mark in the prestigious Premier League. The excitement and interest generated by this feat resonated deeply with Don, who fondly reminisced, “Being in the Premier League created so much interest in Blackpool, and that year was fantastic.” Additionally, Don has been a director of the board of Blackpool Sixth Form College and is the deputy chairman which exemplifies his commitment to fostering the progress and development of the town’s younger generation. Speaking on Don’s imminent retirement, Coun Tony Williams expressed his admiration, saying, “Don deserves a well-earned rest.” Tony, who had the privilege of working closely with Don during his tenure as leader of the Conservative Group, recognized Don’s indispensable contributions and unwavering support, which proved integral to the smooth functioning of the group.

Now Don has bid farewell to his distinguished political career, Blackpool will undoubtedly feel the impact of his absence. Throughout his many years of service, his dedication, leadership, and genuine concern for the welfare of the community have set an example for aspiring politicians and will continue to shape the future of local governance in the town he calls home.

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Lolloping Around Leyland By David Hatton

Lancashire Author, David Hatton, talks about returning to his Lancashire roots and how it’s inspired his novels.

am Lancashire born and bred. I was born in Sharoe Green Hospital in Preston just over thirty-five years ago. I went to Primary school in Ashton, where my thirst to write was encouraged by my teacher, Miss Moss. And then in High School, at Archbishop Temple in Fulwood, English was my favourite subject, where I thrived, while I struggled in other subjects such as maths or science.

After school, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I had enrolled on some A-Level courses in academic subjects such as History, English, Drama and Sociology at Cardinal Newman College, however, I was burnt out from my GCSEs, I really needed a break to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. At the time, you could leave education at sixteen, so I departed and took on a full-time job in retail for a year. We seem so fixated on ensuring everyone has a plan at such a young age, but you have your whole life to figure it out. I think it’s important to tell young people that they can take a step back if they need, have a break, and return later. When I did finally return to education a year later, I was pumped to start learning again and performed so much better because of it. In my year’s break, I had the travel bug and knew the travel industry was what I wanted to eventually to work within. I enrolled on a tourism B-TEC course at Runshaw College, which took me to Leyland. I loved Leyland; having lunch in Worden Park on sunny days, and playing pool in the Fox & Lion on the days where the

weather was grey. It was truly some of the best of times. When I finished my course, I knew I wanted to continue to study tourism and even had the thirst to spend some time abroad. So, I attended Leeds Metropolitan (today known as Leeds Beckett), which lured me in with the option of an international placement. That placement took me to Chicago, where I spent a year completing an internship in a hotel. During my downtime I blogged about my travels and experiences. My cousin commented how good my writing was, which gave me the thirst to continue. I began to pen The Medium (a story about a psychic who claims to know the whereabouts of a missing woman) and The Return (a 9/11 fiction novel where a businessman fakes his death in the terrorist attacks to claim his life insurance); these two stories became my debut novels, although I didn’t release them for another ten years, and I’m glad I waited as I was closer to the ages of the people I was writing about by the time I was ready to release them. I needed that time to mature, gain experience and learn what it was like to be an adult with responsibilities before I began writing it. If I hadn’t taken that leap to change my life, take a break and rethink about what I wanted to do in the future at sixteen, I doubt I’d ever be writing now. That move to Runshaw College in Leyland kickstarted a chain of events and experiences which brought me to who I am today. After finishing my degree, I moved to Manchester for a few years, but due to rising costs of housing in the city and the call of the motherland, I’ve slowly made my way back to Lancashire. I now live in Buckshaw Village, just outside of Chorley and it’s lovely to be back. Leyland is just a short walk away and I’ve really enjoyed revisiting some of my favourite periods of my

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life. I returned to Worden Park and had a nostalgic pint down at the Fox & Lion. It’s funny with time how much smaller things feel today, than when we were younger. I’ve also added new favourites to the list of Leyland delights, which I now enjoy with my partner, who is also called David. We love a pint down at the Eagle & Child, which dates back to 1753 and they’ve kept the historic décor of its original inhabitants. We also enjoy a Wednesday quiz down at Charnock Farm, where you can also feed ducks and donkeys by the lake in the sunshine. We love walking too and there are miles of walking routes around the town. And we attended the Leyland Festival this year for the first time. It’s an annual event with a parade, live music and food at Worden Park. It began in 1889 and occurs every year in June, which is free to attend. It began as a fete for children organised by Sunday Schools, but today it’s much bigger and is great for everyone. This year they had a Queen tribute act and thankfully the weather held out.

together as a deadly asteroid looms. I decided to set the novel in Preston as I wanted to take the characters away from the big cities such as London and make them more relative to everyday folk. The book ends at Beacon Fell, where I’ve spent many a Sunday walking and even one Easter singing hymns with a local church gathering. Lancashire has featured subtly in my novels in the past. Preston featured in my second novel, The Medium, and Chorley played a small role in my third novel The Catfish (which follows a lawyer who is defending a man who is entrapped by an online predator hunter gang). But it was only in my last novel, It’s the End of the World as We Know It that Lancashire took a starring role. It follows six friends who decide to spend their last day on Earth

No matter where I am in the world, Lancashire will always be in my heart. It’s what made me me! It’s where my family and friends are. Where my dreams always return to at 3am in the morning. It has so much to offer too. How many places can you be walking through an urban jungle one minute and then sprinting around a rural wilderness the next? I don’t know what my next novel will be about, but I’m sure Lancashire will feature again in the future. 

All of David’s books are available as E-books or Paperbacks on Amazon. www.lancmag.com

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KNUTSFORD BASED SITE MANAGER CELEBRATES SCOOPING TOP INDUSTRY AWARD A REDROW site manager is celebrating after winning a top industry accolade.

Above: LtoR Ben Goostrey, Pete Campbell-Wright, Jake Green and Cait Grady. Jake Green, 28, has been awarded a NHBC Pride in the Job Quality Award for the North West. The National House Building Council (NHBC) celebrates the very best UK site managers and their commitment to raising standards in house building. With only 444 winners selected out of over 8,000 entrants across the UK, Jake is among the country’s best house builders, and among just 42 winners in the North West, along with his colleagues Cait Grady, Ben Goostrey, and Peter Campbell-Wright. Judging for the awards is rigorous, with the current competition beginning in July last year. Each site manager is assessed across six key areas: consistency, attention to detail, leadership, interpretation of drawings and specifications, technical expertise and health and safety. 144

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Thousands of site inspections and meticulous scoring and verifications have taken place to decide the winning site managers. This is the second year in a row that Jake has received this award for the work he’s undertaken at Redrow’s Tabley Park development in Knutsford. Jake has worked for Redrow for the past six years, after starting its graduate scheme in 2017. It was obvious from the start that the father-of-two was heading for success when he was taken off what should have been a two-year training programme and fast tracked to a promotion after just 11 months. He was given the role of assistant site manager at 23 and his own site to run at Mulberry Park in Macclesfield. From there he went to Cranberry Gardens in Congleton before being made site manager at Tabley Park, where he’s worked for the past three years. www.lancmag.com

Above: Jake Green “I am delighted to win this award for the second time. It is testament to my team’s hard work, dedication and consistency that we have won it two years in a row,” said Jake, a father of two. “The culture of the team is excellent. Everyone is working to the same standards from the company’s senior managers to the site management team, site operatives and tradespersons.” Jason Newton, managing director for Redrow NW, said: “This award is given to the best site managers in the UK and I’m very proud to say that four of those work for Redrow here in the North West. “Jake’s hard work, dedication and determination to achieve the highest quality standards has been deservedly recognised; I wish him all the very best for the next round.”

in ensuring new homes are delivered on time, on safe sites and to exacting construction quality standards. “This accolade recognises the best site managers across the UK and celebrates how much all the winners have inspired their teams by going the extra mile to deliver homes of the highest quality.” The Quality Award winners will now go on to compete for Seal of Excellence and Regional Awards in the autumn, with the national Supreme Award winners unveiled in January 2024.

To find out where Redrow is building in the region visit www.redrow.co.uk/northwest or to find out more about a career at Redrow visit www.redrowplc.co.uk/careers

Commenting on the awards, Steve Wood, CEO at NHBC said: “It is important we recognise the vital role site managers play www.lancmag.com

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By Paul Cusimano

“This is a beautiful City. It has everything. Lancaster deserves for everything to be of the highest quality. This is why I want to do this. I want to aim high.” is how Bruno (Buccelli) responded to a question about LIFF

LIFF is the acronym for the ‘Lancaster International Film Festival’, which was held for the first time, on the 26th May this year. Bruno was being quizzed about the standards he had set, and why he was looking to further develop the Event, as will be the case with Festa Italia, next year.

orking in reverse, lets talk about the top two prizes. The winners were to receive, in addition to the accolade of being the inaugural winners and the beautiful trophies; flights, accommodation and Press Passes for the entire 80th Venice International Film Festival, organised by La Biennale di Venezia, 30th August – 9th September 2023.

Lancaster International Film Festival Awards

These top prizes certainly raised a few eyebrows and are only possible as a result of the collaboration with Cinemaitaliano. The Passes, each will receive, cannot be purchased. Films, Film Stars, Producers, Directors, the Paparazzi and Venice. What a prize. What an experience. With Bruno, everything has to have a purpose, it has to be part of a bigger picture. He is as creative as he is strategic. He doesn’t do things just for the sake of doing it. Everything is carefully considered and driven by an endless passion. Bruno, Victoria and I work so well together, because we all wholeheartedly subscribe to this philosophy. Lancaster Festa Italia started out as a, totally by chance, conversation between Bruno and I in late 2017, 146

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The Capacity Audience Were Treated To A Wonderful Experience

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Oscar, who always tried to stop time, capture memories and thoughts, which he had succeeded in, until his wife took ill. An incredible piece of cinematography that was equally, very moving. Emanuela was unable to attend the Event as she was on the location of her current film, but sent a video accepting the Award. She will be joined at the Venice International Film Festival, by the young and highly talented, Katie Hatt, who was Awarded the Panel Prize. Katie’s entry, ‘Amour De Soi’ follows a journey of self-discovery. Following the split between Lucy and, her childhood sweetheart, Alex, she struggles to find who she is without him. She rediscovers her inner self

It Was Always Set To Be Relaxed, Intimate & Fun (L-R Bruno, Katia, Stefano)

Lisa Captivated The Audience As She Talked Dance To Screen

and today, the Gran Finale, stands as being the biggest single day event in Lancaster’s calendar. LIFF 2023, for practical purposes, took place during the ‘Nine Days of Festa Italia’, and was a single day event that was never designed to attract tens of thousands of visitors, in it’s first running. The day was largely focused at The Storey, a fabulous multi-use building in the heart of the City. The format was, following a brief welcome and introduction by Bruno there would be screenings of the short-listed finalists ‘short’ film entries. Such were the high standards of the entries, the Judging Panel had an extremely difficult job narrowing down the 27 entries, received predominately from outside of the UK. This was followed by the introduction of the beautiful Katia Greco, who after the screening of a show reel of some of her work and one of the films she appeared in, Cruel Peter (chosen by Katia because it was English speaking), returned to the stage to give an overview of her career and took questions from the enthusiastic audience. www.lancmag.com

LIFF 2023 Best Director Award - Emanuela Mascherini

The audience was further wowed when, star of New Amsterdam and Wednesday, directed by Tim Burton, to name only her latest works she has appeared in, Lisa O’Hare took to the stage. Like Katia, Lisa spoke candidly about her career, her choices and her love of dance, stage and film. Lisa also took questions, which gave a real insight into the world of an actor. To round off the nearly six hour event, came the presentation of the Awards. There were five Awards given, for Best Director, a Panel Prize, Best Story, International Actor and LIFF Ambassador. The Best Director Award went to Emanuela Mascherini for her film, ‘As The First Time’. This 15 minute film was written and Directed by Emanuela. It tells the story of a photographer,

LIFF 2023 The Panel Prize Award - Katie Hatt, The Moment She Was Being Asked About The Prize

love, amour de soi, and begins to fall in love with life once again. The Award for the Best Story went to Danny Hardaker for his film about ‘Riley & Rambo’, the unlikely partnership of a young gypsy boy and

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LIFF 2023 Ambassador - Lisa O’Hare

LIFF 2023 Best Story Award - Danny Hardaker (C) For ‘Riley & Rocky’

Time To Relax & Chat

LIFF 2023International Award - Katia Greco

Sponsors & Stars - Giusy Masiello (L) And Samantha Del Vigna (R), of Del Vigna Ltd, Event Sponsors

his horse that offers an insight into the Rag ‘n’ Bone world of Holme Wood, Bradford. This was such a heart-warming film that really touched the full to capacity, audience, as it navigated its way around a day in the life of this duo. Set in the backdrop of deprivation, it shows the resourcefulness and

Bruno Buccelli Explaining Why He Created The Event In Lancaster To Complitaly TV

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Stefano Amadio, Director of Cinemaitaliano, Explaining Why He Wanted To Partner With Totally Local Lancaster

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happiness that’s found in an older and genuine way of life, where freedom can be found. The International Award was presented to Katia Greco. Katia’s considerable catalogue of work spans both television and cinema, with performances that are simply stunning. LIFF Ambassador Award was the final of the day, and that was presented to the multi-talented, quintessentially English Actor, Lisa O’Hare. This, like all the other Awards, was met with huge applause from all those present. At the close of the Event, there was time for photographs, selfies and time to chat and meet the celebrities and winners - no one was rushing off. It would be completely remiss of me if I failed to mention one very special moment. When Katie Hatt was presented with her Award, she was playfully asked if she knew what she had won. With a rather startled and bewildered shake of the head, she made reference to

The Winners & Sponsors In One Final Shot

the glass trophy that she was literally, just being handed to her. When she was told that she would be going to the Venice International Film Festival, the shock hit her so hard, she immediately began shaking and became emotional. What a wonderful

moment that was for everyone. LIFF totally superseded ours, and our sponsors, Del Vigna Accountant and R&B Estate Agents, expectations. Perhaps this is the right time to thank the sponsors, Stefano Amadio and

Lee & Judith Bradbury, Sponsors R&B Estate Agents, Mesmorised By The Whole Event

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As They Say In The Movie World, That’s A Wrap, For 2023

Cinemaitaliano, Complitality, Katia Greco, Lisa O’Hare, all those who submitted the fabulous films and finally, Alessio Zinna for the fantastic images of the day. But the plan was always to both grow it, and move it to another date, and I can announce that LIFF 2024 will take place on the 1st to 3rd March. LIFF 2024 will be a three day Event, encompassing workshops, screenings, a Gala Night and Awards Ceremony, held at a number of venues around the City. The next edition will also see an increase in Award categories, with filmfreeway.com already receiving entries. We were privileged to have the Italian media company, Complitaly+, join us. They have produced two 16 minutes documentaries showcasing Lancaster Festa Italia and Lancaster International Film Festival (links for both can be found on the respective Facebook pages, of the same names) that they have shared on their platforms, giving the Events, and Lancaster, great exposure. Exposure, and keeping Lancaster on the ‘map’, is what these large scale, strategically created, Events help to do. Giving people good reason to not only visit, but stay for a few days, is what helps drive the local economy, of any town or city, not just Lancaster. Small scale, disjointed, meaningless initiatives are a waste of time and resources.

Light Up Lancaster - Making Use Of All The City’s Assets (Credit. Robin Zahler)

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So, to finish the year off, and in addition to such Events as the Highest Point Festival, there is the Lancaster Music Festival. It’s the gigantic City centre Event that grinds Lancaster’s traffic to a standstill, as the tens of thousands flock in (12th – 15th October). Over 30 venues, host over 200 acts, putting on over 300 performances. www.lancmag.com

Christmas Lights Switch On 2022 (Credit. Ginny Koppenhol)

Light Up Lancaster transforms the City’s landscape into a magical place for all the family. Contemporary art using lights and projections compliment the City’s architecture and is completely free to enjoy (3rd – 4th Nov). Then, the final large Event of the year launches the festive season, the Christmas Light Switch On, organised by Lancaster BID. This year it takes place on the 26th November. The Santa Dash, by St John’s Hospice, always sets off proceedings, then its music and entertainment all the way through until around 7pm, only interrupted for switch on which usually takes place around 5pm. Light Up Lancaster - Lancaster By Night (Credit. Robin Zahler & Darren Andrews)

Perhaps you want to put some of these dates in your calendar and book your accommodation early.

Light Up Lancaster - Side Street, Squares and Buildings Are All Transformed (Credit. Darren Andrews)

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Mental Health and Self-Esteem in Schools

September - clean white paper, first ink on new books, catching up with friends after the summer, and the exciting question: what will this year be like? Or - How will they look at me? Will my friends still like me? Will I keep up with homework? Will I fail that subject again?

he school associations dominate children’s minds, linger powerfully into adult life… and for increasing numbers, an academic new year means not anticipation, but anxiety, or even dread. Serious mental health issues (selfharm, suicidality, anxiety, depression) rose in under-18s by 30% in 2021/22, according to NHS data, while hospital admissions for Eating Disorders went up by a staggering 82% across two years (2020 – 2022). No group is privileged, or overlooked enough to escape: children of all backgrounds were found to be affected, though there was a greater increase of depression and self-harm among poorer groups, and in eating disorders (statistically the most deadly) in richer. It is no coincidence that schoolrefusal has also seen a steep increase. A report published this April showed that 140,000 children were ‘severely absent’ from UK schools by the summer of 2022. ‘Emotional-based School Avoidance’ (EBSA) is the new phrase being applied to acknowledge how many of these youngsters are not having a lark or defying the system, so much as paralysed by feeling

overwhelmed. Needless to say, their parents are affected too, worrying about their children’s wellbeing and their future, whilst feeling pressure from society and school. Before the pandemic, young people’s mental health was already raising alarm, with factors of online bullying, media-influence and schoolrelated stress often cited. Covid and the Lockdown response seem to have had a further, enormously negative impact. Being shut up at home cut off regular activities, online comments replaced socialising in-person, while uncertainty about the future was compounded by a sense there wasn’t much that they could do about it. Life in the world at large, and most personal interaction, was experienced through online channels… which tend to present a world of extremes: disaster in the news, perfection in other people’s pictures – maybe equally intimidating. Social media posts - so easily sent, so easily misread, so difficult to mentally erase – became magnified by the online focus. Access to a world-wide-web of information is a gateway to immense resources, good and bad - but with nowhere

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to go, frustrated thought and action fixed on virtual personae, food, and an echo-chamber of feeling. And then there are the family stresses: financial worry, health, relationships… School has become the norm again, but for many children, crucial years of development happened in abnormal conditions, and left them feeling inadequate. This in addition to all the usual turmoil of growing up. Even the more troubled have difficulty accessing support because mental health services are overwhelmed. The fallout could be exponential, as fear or low self-esteem prevents youths from engaging at school, causing more anxiety and spiralling mental health… impacting those around them in ever increasing circles; we are all part of the texture of society, and these people are our future. So what to do? Parents and teachers, already juggling demands, cannot give the time, nor expertise required. And time is an essential element: numerous studies have shown that with mental health issues, especially eating disorders, the earlier intervention happens, the better the chance of full and swift recovery; but all fundamental changes in perspective, feeling, mind… can only take root bit by bit, with patience. Experts like Tasmin Ford (Professor of child and adult psychiatry at Exeter University) agree that:

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“We need to equip teachers with the means to find out about things from reliable sources, but we do not need to turn teachers into counsellors. What they need is structures in schools that can plug them into the support available.” She suggests that for most effect this should be a ‘local and context-dependent model’. (The rise in children needing help for serious mental health problems | SSS Learning Ltd (ssscpd.co.uk) We all know prevention is better than the cure. It may be a little late to prevent a psychological pandemic – but one means of helping young people from reaching crisis point, could be bringing local services into schools or youth-groups, to engage with them in situ and teach them some of the perspective, the resilience, the coping-skills, which went missing in their real-life education. Flourish Therapy Clinic, in Preston, using funds raised by the grieving family of Eve Lewis, a student at Burscough Priory Academy who succumbed to anorexia and took her own life, have started doing just this. At the request of the family, they are providing workshops on Self-Esteem and Body Image to local schools, to begin that awareness, to open the conversations, to initiate the learning and growth of emotional intelligence, which need to happen before it is too late.

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Self-Esteem is not about arrogance or achievement, but a deep-level trust that you, as a person, are valuable, regardless of how life is going. In many cases it is the intangible difference in a choice of life or death. Body Image speaks for itself and is, sadly, a significant part of the worries and potential disorders of many young people today. Starting in July this year, Shelley Perry-Clarke, Clinical Director at Flourish, who trained as a Mental Health Nurse and is a specialist in Eating Disorders among other things, has been going into schools, supported by her team to present these workshops, tailored to their requirements. Going into classroom

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after classroom, she has been struck by “how fragile” a whole generation of young girls, and the less confident boys, are; but also by the willingness of a few young people to open up and discuss these issues – which is a hopeful sign. Our young people are struggling and - after the love of their families the help they most need should come from two directions: experts to teach them better understanding and coping skills, and their peers, whom their psychological state so often depends on. Raising awareness among and in these groups, could be a prompt which lets children and teens seek and give support to one other.

Where more is needed, services like Flourish can step in with individual therapy for the whole range of mental-health and eating disorders. But let us reach out now, with early intervention, and support those who want to help all of our young learn to cope where they most need it: in school.

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Aswad Announce Liverpool - Furnace Show on Sunday 17th December 2023 After thirty albums and five decades on the music scene, Aswad remains one of Britain’s best loved reggae bands.

Aswad are still very relevant in the 21st century as can be seen by the many festivals they appear on both in the UK and around the world. Sit back & look forward to a night of nice enjoyable pop reggae ONE LOVE.

Aswad, after more than 40 years, are still the purveyors of the UK reggae scene and will continue to be way into the next millennium.

riginally led by the trio of Brinsley “Dan” Forde (on vocals and rhythm guitar), Angus “Drummie Zeb” Gaye (on vocals and drums), and Tony “Gad”

Robinson (on bass), Aswad is renowned among reggae fans for their rich melodies and compelling harmonies, woven over hard rhythm tracks and inspired horn riffs. Aswad have the distinction of being the first Reggae Band in the UK to be signed to an International label ie. Island Records in the 1970’s

Aswad are releasing a new album in the Summer 2023. Tickets for ASWAD – December 2023 – Liverpool show are available now: Sunday 17th December 2023 LIVERPOOL – Furnace www.seetickets.com/event/aswad/camp-furnace/2629299 Doors – 7.00pm / Curfew – 11.00pm

Their album ‘LIVE & DIRECT’ – is one of the NME’s critically acclaimed albums of the 20thcentury. They crossed over from being Reggae royalty to a member of the pop dynasty with their smash hit album ‘DISTANT

Tickets - £22.50 plus STBF Age restriction – 14+, under 16 with an adult For further information on ASWAD, check out the following

THUNDER’ which spawned the number 1 International hit

website / social media links:

‘Don’t Turn Around’ & ‘Give a Little Love’ but still keeping

d spainemusic.com/aswad-3/

their political edge at the time with the chart hit ‘Set

f therealaswad

Them Free’ – which was part of the Free Nelson Mandela campaign. Aswad’s many hits include, Shine, On and ON,

i legendaryaswad

Smoky Blues, Best of my Love & many more.

y @AswadVEVO

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Dead Dog in a Suitcase – and Other Love Songs Chris Atherton.

love ‘amateur theatre’. I think the popular opinion that one needs to travel to somewhere like London, Liverpool or Manchester or even to an area’s Grand Theatre in order to find a production worth seeing is ridiculous and untrue. I feel the authenticity of theatre is much stronger when the sets are minimal, the cast is made of local talent (rather than big names) and the audience is situated together, on one level, experiencing the show together. As breathtaking as enormous theatres are, and as spectacular as the view is from grand balconies and boxes, I personally love sitting in a row of regular chairs while watching a show, truly participating in the action.

convenient, not only to someone like me who lives in the centre of town already, but to commuters who use buses, trams or trains. The building, located on Springfield Road, is close to bus stops, the tram lines and only a short walk from Blackpool North train station.

Having said this, the seating at The Old Electric is far above ‘regular chairs’; the layered benches with pretty cushions makes for an inviting and relaxed atmosphere, something many theatres lack. The combination of these benches, standard chairs and space for wheelchairs is very inclusive and accommodating. In addition, the option of the stairs and a lift make it very easy for people with limited mobility to navigate the theatre. The location of the theatre is also very 162

I won’t spoil the plot of the play in case you wish to see it for yourself (I highly recommend you do) but the show is an adaptation of John Gay’s 1728 The Beggar’s Opera, which has been remodelled and modernised numerous times such as Kurt Weill’s 1928 The Threepenny Opera and of course Carl Grose’s 2014 Dead Dog in a Suitcase and other love songs, which I will be reviewing… First and foremost, I have to compliment the set and overall appearance of the show as I walked in and throughout the performance; I love to see characters on stage before

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the show starts, it really makes me feel immersed in the experience. There was a puppet show to one side of the stage and a character situated to the other side, reading a newspaper. I was intrigued to see how the puppet show would fit into the plot as well as who the other character was and how she would transpire throughout the show. Both were very entertaining to see. Also, the way the minimalist stage was used as multiple different locations within the story and the way this was executed made it so that there was never any confusion as to where the scene was taking place thanks to props and backdrops as well as context clues. The use of the balconies being extensions the main stage was clever and kept my attention more so than just using the floor and runway would. The costumes were brilliant. Although it is not stated exactly when the action is based, the costumes www.lancmag.com

humour and songs, but the musical elements did not distract me from the plot. In fact, I found it a very clever storytelling device to deliver certain parts of dialogue as a cappella verses, some as full songs and some in this style of spoken word poetry. The contemporary style dance choreography was entertaining and seemed so natural that I would have assumed the specific arrangement of movement was part of the original 1728 production.

made it clear that it was around the Victorian era, with the characters sporting formal dress clothes, corsets and flapper-girl-style attire. Many quick changes were executed effectively (always impressive) and it was clear what kind of people the characters were based, on what they were wearing and the props they had about them. As well as all this superb creativity, the show included songs and dance routines! Now, as much as I love a musical, I do feel that some shows do not need musical elements to tell the story, however I strongly feel that this show benefited from the various different delivery methods. The serious tone was complimented by the silly www.lancmag.com

As well as an incredible show, the interactive interval was very entertaining and aided the illusion of the performance. The politician (character) took the time to talk to many audience members, ensuring he could count on our votes in the election of the second acts while his wife was kind enough to be selling ice cream! Good to see some politician figures being active in the community. It was fantastic to see a (beautiful) drag queen - Mykey Young - playing the part of Mrs Peachum, the before-mentioned politician’s wife, especially during the current climate regarding drag artists and gender nonconforming individuals. Additionally, I always love to see characters played by actors of a different sex as it reminds me of the Shakespearean tradition of having male actors play female characters. Many male characters in Dead Dog were played brilliantly by female actors including, Elizabeth Wilkinson as MacHeath,

Ruth Collinge as Inspector Lockitt and Jeanette Dervish as a gang member, a judge and a worker. It is good to know that drag and ‘gender bending’ always has a place in the theatre community and drag performers will always be safe within theatre. A lot of work has obviously been put into the play, some names to credit include Lucy Ray – original music Janine Walker – props / costumes Hannah Dial – choreography Melanie Whitehead – director Keep an eye out the Alternative Christmas Cabaret at The Old Electric, tickets available online soon at theoldelectric.co.uk ‘Fantastic show. Such colourful characters and immersive scenery … such a creative experience’. ‘An incredible piece of theatre that has been put together with such love … an incredible show and excellent value … full house was transfixed’. ‘Very apt for times we are living in … joy of the cast doing their stuff was very infectious … obviously a lot of hard work has gone into it’.

Stunning experience:

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Celebrating Art across the North – The New Light Prize Exhibition on Tour New Light Art

In February, the prestigious New Light Art Prize opened for entry and soon, The New Light Prize Exhibition 2023/24 will begin. It is the largest and longest tour to date, visiting five galleries across four Northern counties in addition to London’s South Bank over 14 months.

t provides Northern artists with an unparalleled platform to showcase their work and reach new audiences. A panel of industry experts comprising of Olivia Heron, Curator at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, Nan Perell, New York Collector and supporter of emerging British artists, Matthew Hall, Director of London gallery Panter & Hall, renowned figurative artist Mark Demsteader, and Director of New Light, Rebekah Tadd,

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will shortlist artworks for the £10,000 Valeria Sykes Award, judging Royal Academicians alongside emerging artists. The final judging will take place at The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery in Birkenhead on Friday 29th September with the winners announced at the launch that same evening.

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The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery sits in the heart of Oxton village and opened to the public in 1928. It was funded by philanthropists John Williamson, Director of the

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Cunard Steamship Company Ltd, and his son Patrick. It is a creative, cultural, community hub in the Wirral with a regularly changing programme of diverse exhibitions – often with local connections. It is home to the Wirral Museum Services permanent collections which include fine art, ceramics (including the largest collection of Della Robbia pottery in the UK) internationally important paintings, sculpture, and maritime history. Niall Hodson is curator at The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery. He has over a decade of experience working in Museums, galleries and archives including Assistant Keeper of Art at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle. Having studied Art History with the aim of working with Art collections, Niall readily admits that this is his ‘dream job’. When built in 1928, the location and architecture were chosen to be in the heart of the community – to be accessible to all and was consciously designed not to be over imposing or grand. This ethos has been kept at the forefront of the gallery’s’ programme, which offers visitors not only the opportunity to enjoy fantastic artwork but also to participate in workshops, events, and talks. The onsite café is a popular destination with both local residents and exhibition visitors. Live music is a regular accompaniment to the late-night Friday openings.

with New Light is clear. Both the Williamson and New Light believe that great artistic talent exists in the North of England, and it deserves to be celebrated. The New Light Prize Exhibition provides the gallery with the opportunity to build closer ties with the wider art ecology in the North. It is a natural fit, building on the popular annual ‘Williamson Open Exhibition’ which demonstrates the appetite of the region to discover local talent and extend this to illustrate how the Wirral fits into the broader Northern artistic community. Niall expands on this: “We want to be able to support the creative economy and the viability of artistic careers in the North West and beyond. Prizes like the New Light create opportunities for recognition which can be fundamental stepping- stones on the path to building a sustainable career.

“We are delighted to host and launch the New Light Prize Exhibition 2023/24. It will provide economic benefit for the artists, opportunities to embrace new talent. We are part of the Own Art scheme which helps to make purchasing art accessible and affordable, which encourages visitors to invest in the artwork they love.” The Williamson Museum & Art Gallery is easily accessible via public transport and provides free parking. Open Wednesday to Sunday 10am – 5pm (9 pm on Friday) with a lively entertainment programme, the New Light Prize Exhibition is open to the public from Saturday 30th September until 22nd December 2023. The Rheged Arts Centre, Penrith Rheged Arts Centre, Penrith, is the third gallery in the 2023/24 tour and the second gallery in the North

Niall Hodson explains that one of the greatest challenges of his role is in dealing with the large Collection, making sure that as much of the Collection is accessible as possible, dealing comprehensively with the enquiries and identifying opportunities for new works – in addition to fundraising to enable it to happen! The majority of the temporary exhibitions programme is focused on local and national artists. The synergy www.lancmag.com

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West. Rheged is a destination for both the local community and for people on holiday in the area. It is a place that celebrates all that is great about Cumbria, - its landscape, its food, its culture, its art, and its people. Part of the Westmorland family, Rheged is a unique place which provides a changing programme of art exhibitions, talks, films,

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creative learning classes, alongside independent shops and delicious cafe menus that celebrate local cuisine. The award-winning Art Gallery and Design Shop which opened in 2011, has hosted 55 exhibitions. It comprises of a mix of touring, selfcurated and partnership exhibitions and has a reputation for being the

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place in Cumbria to buy high quality crafts, art, and photography. The large independent gallery boasts 100m of hanging space, hosting three to four exhibitions a year with the majority having a natural association with Cumbria. It’s forward thinking, well

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respected and is designed to attract a significant and diverse audience. National exhibitions include ‘Great Print’, ‘The Cutting Edge Paper’ Exhibition and the current exhibition ‘Wildlife Photographer of the year’ as well as the New Light Prize Exhibition. Claire Logan-Stephens is Head of Programme Development at Rheged. “Having seen the New Light Prize Exhibition at Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle two years ago, I was very impressed by the quality and variety of the artwork. New Light is open to artists across the North of England which is very appealing to us as it will bring together artists with whom our audience are familiar alongside exciting new names. The fact that this is a competition with several fabulous prizes ensures that the work will be new and engaging. All the artwork is for sale. It will help to raise awareness of Rheged as an Arts destination, across the North of England. We also look forward to making new partnerships with the other touring venues.

“We have a common desire with New Light to support the artistic community by displaying their work beautifully, engaging visitors through the interpretation and introducing artists to a new audience.” Rheged is Only 5 minutes from Penrith Railway Station, on the main Stage-Coach bus route with free parking and admission, and is truly accessible to all. The New Light Prize Exhibition ran from 14th March – 2 June 2024. These two exciting North West venues provide a fabulous opportunity to visit the exhibition, familiarise yourself with talented Northern artists and even potentially purchase the work of an emerging artist that could be tomorrows household name. For more information about The New Light Art Prize and the following exhibitions, visit www.newlight-art.org

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We’re Preparing Your Autumn Collections

Aiming Higher YOU CAN DONATE TO AIMING HIGHER USING THE FOLLOWING METHODS:

WEBSITE | www.aiminghighercharity.org.uk/donate JUST GIVING | www.justgiving/aiminghigher/donate/ PAYPAL | Found on Aiming Higher website or call to make donations by phone POST | Aiming Higher, 231 – 233 Church Street, Blackpool, Lancashire FY1 3PB. To see more of what we do please visit our website www.aiminghighercharity.org.uk or follow us on facebook @aiminghighercharity, Instagram @aiming_higher_charity or twitter @ahcharity. Please ring us on 01253 206447/8 for further information.

Aiming Higher Reach New Heights! Aiming Higher for Disabled Children & their Families is the Blackpool based charity that supports hundreds of local children and their families. The charity has been bringing the families of children with disabilities together for over 11 years. They offer stay and play groups for under 5s, offer family support workers, counsellors, peer support and friendship through monthly family trips and weekly Coffee & Chat sessions for parents.

n July, a group of intrepid climbers took on Snowdon in an attempt to raise funds for the charity. The target for the climb was £5000 and at the time of this going to press (the day after the climb)they had already smashed this and raised £6170 with donations still trickling in. You can add to this by visiting www.justgiving.com/ campaign/aiminghighersnowdon. The weather could have been kinder with strong winds and some mist obscuring the views at the very top but the group all reached the summit and there was a great atmosphere of support, camaraderie and determination. The group included the charity manager Latoya Sykes, three of the Board of trustees and several family 170

The team assemble for a photo before taking on the climb.

members who access the charity with their children. Latoya Sykes described the day as “Inspiring. We couldn’t be happier to shout out our incredible team of walking instructors from Aspire Adventures, who empowered our group of determined individuals. Through their expertise and unwavering support, they’ve enabled the group to achieve remarkable feats and exceed their own expectations.

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Ascending the mighty Snowdon is no small feat, but these instructors stood by our team every step of the way, making sure every member felt safe, guided, and motivated throughout the entire climb. Their guidance and encouragement have been invaluable, giving us the confidence to reach new heights and discover the strength within ourselves” Chair of Trustees Paul Jebb said “Being part of the team that climbed Snowdon & facing the challenge was www.lancmag.com

Dexter the dog was delighted that he got his own medal too!

Aiming Higher trustees Catherine Bell, Ged Mills & Paul Jebb mid climb

absolutely amazing, people talking to each other, supporting each other & listening to how the charity has impacted their lives reminded us why we do what we do and how important the team’s work is”. The charities next big fundraiser will be their annual ball in September. Tickets are on sale now. If you are interested in joining our next fundraising adventure or organising something of your own please contact Heather Holt at: heatherholt@aiminghighercharity.org.uk

If you would like more information regarding the support offered by Aiming Higher and would like to join our email mailing list please give us a call on 01253-206447 or email info@aiminghighercharity.org.uk You can also view our new newsletter by visiting bit.ly/AHnewsspring2022

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EDDI READER announces Autumn 2023 UK Tour Dates

Coming to Lytham St Anne’s - Lowther Pavilion On Thursday 21st September 2023 Celebrating over 40 years as a live performer, Eddi Reader has effortlessly developed into one of popular music’s most thrilling and affecting performers. What sets Eddi apart is the depth and quality of the emotional performance and ability to not only move the listener, but connect her experience to that of her audience. No two performances are ever the same.

hough first brought into the limelight as front woman for Fairground Attraction, who’s #1 single, Perfect and parent album, First of a Million Kisses, both topped the British charts, it was Eddi’s subsequent solo albums that signaled her ability to assimilate different musical styles and make them very much her own. Notably, The Songs of Robert Burns (2003) is a timeless interpretation showcasing the poems of Scotland’s national bard and gained her an MBE for outstanding contributions to the Arts. From the traditional to the contemporary, Eddi Reader extinguishes the preordained boundaries of genre, bringing joyous life to all forms of song. Her rare blend of meltingly true vocals and towering romanticism combine with an astute and pragmatic nature to make her a unique and powerful figure in contemporary British music. With 10 critically acclaimed solo albums, 3 BRIT awards, a #1 single and an MBE in tow, Eddi continues to delight audiences worldwide. 2022 proved to be one of her busiest touring years yet, playing sell out shows as part of her ‘40 Years Live Tour’ in addition

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to appearing as special guest with the Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra for an extensive UK tour. -

“One of my favourite singers of all time”

EDDI READER – September & October 2023 UK Tour Dates include: Thursday 21 September LYTHAM ST ANNE’S – Lowther Pavilion

- Jools Holland

Monday 25 September LINCOLN – Drill Hall

“Just perfect – Eddi Reader gets every song just right”

Thursday 28 September LIVERPOOL – Hanger 34

- The Sunday Times

“Flawless, not just perfect, world class”

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- R2 Magazine

“Timeless and universal” - The Scotsman

Sunday 15 October BUXTON – Opera House Tickets for the above shows are available from: www.thegigcartel.com/Artistsprofiles/Eddi-Reader.htm www.lancmag.com

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3 Night Christmas Accommodation Package £635.00pp Christmas Eve Mince pie & mulled wine arrival Delicious 4 Course Evening Meal Live Entertainment Christmas Day Breakfast with a glass of bucks fizz Visit from Santa with a gift Festive 4 Course Lunch with music from our pianist Kings Speech Shown Live Festive Evening Buffet Boxing Day Breakfast with a Bellini Hot Buffet Lunch Afternoon Live Entertainment Sumptuous 4 Course Evening Meal with music from our resident pianist

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Lifetime Achievement Accolade is Climax of Active Burnley Awards A referee’s lifetime devotion to local football, a thriving kickboxing club and a school with platinum sporting credentials were among the winners at the Active Burnley Awards organised and run by Burnley Leisure and Culture (BLC).

he annual celebration pays tribute to those who show dedication at a range of sporting, health, and wellbeing activities at all levels, and those who work tirelessly to support individuals or community clubs, for the love of the sport or their community. Twelve winners were announced at a glittering ceremony at Burnley Mechanics hosted by former Lionesses goalkeeper turned TV pundit, Rachel Brown-Finnis. Burnley-born Rachel won 82 caps for England in a stellar career that saw her collect a Women’s FA Cup winners’ medal, play Women’s Super League (WSL) soccer for Liverpool Women and Everton Ladies, and represent GB at the London 2012 Olympics. All the Burnley winners will now go forward to the Active Lancashire Awards, where they will pit their achievements against those chosen from similar award scheme throughout the county. The awards, which saw three Burnley winners named best in Lancashire last year, will be held at Ewood Park, Blackburn, on Friday 17th November.

Lifetime Achievement Award – Stuart Nicolson The climax of the evening was the Lifetime Achievement Award for someone who has shown a commitment of at least 20 years to sport and active lifestyles, won by football referee Stuart, who has been involved in the game at all levels for more than 60 years. Over the decades, he progressed his career until officiating at Football League Youth Lions Under-21s matches from

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1985 until recently. His claim to fame includes refereeing a Lancashire Youth League game - Manchester United vs Bury - when he made it into the tabloid press for cautioning Sir Alex Ferguson for dissent! Stuart has refereed in the Lancashire Amateur League for over 40 years, and in 2018 was appointed LAL president. He has also been president of the Burnley Referees’ Association, manager of Brunlea Juniors and the fourth official at Burnley FC’s Turf Moor ground many times and is well known for being an avid Burnley FC fan. The judges said: “Stuart has been instrumental in coaching and training new referees for future generations, and as he reaches a ripe old age and his career will be coming to an end in the near future, this is the perfect year to recognise his dedication to refereeing and football over the last 61 years.”

Club of the Year – Dragons Kickboxing Club

Dragons Kickboxing Club celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Open seven-days-a-week, it provides up to 26 hours of classes every week, serving children as young as three years up to adults aged 50-plus. The club has inspired lots of young people working at the heart of the most deprived area of Burnley. It prides itself on being totally inclusive, inspiring young people to work hard, learn vital life skills, discipline, and respect for other people. It strives to reduce many barriers to participation including costs and always tries to find a way to support young people to attend who struggle to pay for their classes.

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Volunteer of the Year – Awais Javid Awais – known as AJ – began as a teenage volunteer coach for the Burnley Sports Development Team. He has been committed to improving opportunities through sport for over 20 years most notably at Daneshouse FC, starting as a player, then a volunteer coach and now as club chair.

qualifying for World Junior Golf Championship again for February 2024. He has also raised over £3,000 for Pendleside Hospice at various events over the past 12 months.

He has recently led on developing the canal side centre as a community venue and youth club, creating another safe space and more opportunities for young people. He does all this on top of a full-time teaching job and having his own family. The judges said: “AJ is a true example of a young person being given opportunities and then using them to develop himself as a leader, constantly giving back to the community. He is a proper role model, respected by so many.”

Coach/Instructor of the Year – Steven Wong Dragons Kickboxing Club founder, Steven has been teaching martial arts for 21 years. Although he has a young family, Steven’s dedication and devotion to his students is truly second to none. His typical day includes teaching three group lessons at one hour each, plus four 1-1 lessons at an hour each. His students have achieved English, British, European, Five Nations and World Championship titles.

Young Achiever of the Year – Oliwia Kaczmarek

He has secured funding from local business Depher to support young people who cannot afford to pay for classes - with a year’s worth of free sessions being offered to these families. Steven also works in partnership with Active Lancashire, delivering sessions for their target groups, in particular people with substance misuse and complex needs.

Oliwia has been at the Dragons Kickboxing Club for the last eight years. She trains four times a week and now, at the age of 16, competes at the sport’s highest level and has more than 100 fights to her name. She is the current British WKO -55kg full contact kickboxing champion as well as WKA, ISKA, AFSO, and WFMC champion in her weight division. During an unbeaten 2022, Oliwia won English, British, European, and World open tournaments. Oliwia is due to undertake her black belt this year and will be attending some of the biggest martial arts tournaments of 2023, with great results expected.

Rising Star – Ritchie Riley Richie is a talented seven-year-old golfer already competing at international level, having recently taken part in the World Junior Golf Championships in Portugal where he came joint 5th. Ritchie is enjoying a superb 2023 - he is the current leader of the Robert Rock junior tour order of merit; he’s won all four of the first four junior majors of the year, including the British Masters champion, held at the Belfry along with www.lancmag.com

Individual Contribution to Active Communities – Noor Miah Noor is a volunteer at Shah Jalal Mosque in Burnley and started the Stoneyholme community project, which aims to get people connecting and socially interacting to increase their overall wellbeing, for which he was named Volunteer of the Year at the National Beacon Mosque Awards. He works full time but uses his spare time to run different activities and initiatives including careers fairs, regular LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 175

sports sessions in partnership with Burnley FC in the Community, and other partner organisations. Weekly sports sessions take place at Stoneyholme Primary School and at the community hall, introducing young people to sports and youth activities.

The Shah Jalal Mosque is also working with Burnley Council to develop a community garden onsite, to encourage outdoor activity through gardening, whilst also connecting to nature, looking at food sustainability, healthy eating, and improving both physical, mental health and wellbeing.

Contribution to Active Communities – Ejaz Hussain, Burnley Cricket League Ejaz is responsible for the resurgence of cricket at Towneley Park, once a hotbed of the game until 2015 when its demise came about through a combination of factors. Following the pandemic, Ejaz and a number of other cricket enthusiasts decided they would bring cricket back to Towneley to promote physical activity, improve mental health, and promote the sport.

She has continued to be just as active in retirement through the third and faith sectors in which she worked with distinction alongside her mainstream career – a dedication resulting in countless young people becoming active in various forms of public service. She has helped young people from diverse backgrounds to participate in a wide variety of sports and cultural activities. Bea played a leading role in developing a multi-faith and multi-cultural response to the disturbances of 2001 and has continued this important work through Building Bridges in Burnley. She has also been a key player in securing the future of West End Community Centre and has served as a local councillor following her retirement.

Burnley Together Partnership Award – Burnley Linked This award is given to a project showcasing true collaboration to achieve its aims and objectives.

Without any funding or support and working in partnership with the local authority and community leaders, they encouraged teams to enter the league and in its first season back, four teams competed in a cup and league competition. The aim now is to add more teams as time goes by. As well as benefitting those playing, the return of cricket to Towneley has brought a little extra to the park, with passersby regularly stopping to watch the games.

Health and Wellbeing Award – Bea Foster Bea has been an outstanding youth worker in Burnley for more than 40 years, initially through her role with Lancashire County Council’s Youth Service before retirement. 176

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Burnley Linked is a partnership for connecting and sharing that focuses on voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise groups and charity organisations in and around Burnley. The group regularly feeds back into the Burnley Together Health and Wellbeing Partnership. The Burnley Linked network meets on the last Thursday of every month at 10am, with the meeting taking place online, making it accessible to more partners and members. www.lancmag.com

The partner list is extensive, and members include BPRCVS, PCN East, PCN West, Burnley Borough Council, Burnley Leisure and Culture, Calico, Participation works, UCLan, Brighter Lives, Building Bridges Burnley, BFCitC, Carers Link, Cherry Fold Primary School, and Gannow Community Centre, to name a few.

Primary School of the Year – Cherry Fold Community Primary School This award is given to the primary school that has gone above and beyond to support its pupils’ physical and mental wellbeing. Cherry Fold Community Primary School has been awarded the Platinum Schools Games Mark accreditation, progressing from the Bronze Award in it acquired in 2015 a huge achievement for a school in a highly deprived area of the town.

Active Workplace of the Year Award: Birchall Foodservice This award is for local businesses that have gone above and beyond to support employees’ physical health and wellbeing – both of which Birchall Foodservice see as being integral to employee development. To help their staff lead healthier lifestyles, they provide fresh fruit bowls, free fitness classes, standing desks, and reduced cost gym memberships for all employees. They also have a fully qualified counsellor regularly visiting the site to offer free counselling to any employee who needs it and have employed a full time in-house chef to prepare daily fresh meals, all subsidised by the company.

As part of a drive to deliver the 30 active minutes a day, the school has implemented a Daily Mile and through this pupils have travelled all over the virtual world and linked it to the wider curriculum The school supports Sports Leaders, where the older children deliver structured activities on the playgrounds at break and lunchtimes for Early Years Foundation Studies (EYFS), Key Stage 1, and Key Stage 2. Alongside this, staff run a daily sporting event on the Key Stage 2 yard at break/lunch open to all children. After-school swimming lessons are offered to pupils to develop water confidence. Expert coaches are invited in to deliver specialist sessions such as golf, rugby, dance, bike safety, and fundamentals skills.

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Employees can enjoy nutritious meals for as little as £1, have fresh salads prepared for them daily for £1.50 and the chef cooks weekly specials, all combining in healthier diets and saving staff money. Birchall’s community support is prodigious too. For the past three years, they have been the headline sponsor of Towneley Golf Course, enabling their employees to enjoy complimentary golf on the course and at the Prairie Sports Village driving range. They are also the main sponsor of Lowerhouse Cricket Club and other sponsorships include a player at a local rugby club and an under-15s football team. All of this is underpinned by an in-house charity, Helping Hands, providing financial and other support for employees and their families.

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Denise Mullen is a journalist, columnist, writer and entrepreneur.

AND THIS …. IS THE PANIC PANTRY - WE HAD TO HAVE BEER LATER By Denise Mullen

My husband wakes early. Around 5am usually. I am presented with freshly brewed coffee, at around 5.15 from beans he’s just ground downstairs. I know this because I can hear the grinder which prevents me from nodding off again and enables me to work out it’s around 5.10am. While messing about with Grinder (I know, I know) he’s also feeding an assortment of moggies on the porch. This involves the slamming of the front door approximately four times. One to say hello to everyone and tell them breakfast is coming, the second to collect bowls from porch after he’s checked his grinding. Then he’ll pop his head out again while the bowls are drying to say how nice it is to see everyone and that it won’t be long now, and serve an aperitif of Dreamies – one leg holding back the overenthusiastic dog. Then he’ll take out breakfast. This is a four slam-dunk morning. It’s the norm. Then he starts singing to the dog. In fairness the dog has a ‘resigned face’ she reserves for this one occasion. On appearing at the bedroom door announcing ‘Coffee!’ he then perches on the dog’s bed to fill me in on international 178

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affairs, the state of US politics, a new theory on why Brexit hasn’t been up to snuff and then rip into the list of plumbing/ electrical/welding thingamabobs he’s going to be doing that day. It’s more dispatch box than dog bed really. Anyway, I’m briefed on world news, wired on caffeine and werewolf-scale grumpy by the time I’m up. I polish off the coffee, obvs. During this lag he’s had another 19 ideas to change the world, use renewables more effectively or persuade the most terrifying cat to be brushed (some sort of adjustable clamp, apparently). It’s a ‘no’ from me. Some battles he wins. ‘Course he does. So we have a ‘panic room’. Originally conceived as a pantry, and admittedly it contains likely pantry items, this is the sort of pantry you may find Jodie Foster behind a big barrel of dog biscuits. Well, she is only quite petite. I wasn’t really on board with this new facility, but let me talk you through. First, I need to assure you that I am 1. Not joking and 2. This is completely true. www.lancmag.com

There’s a thumb turn on the inside of the door, so you can actually lock yourself inside the pantry (where no one can hear you scream). It’s also pitch black if someone tries to coax you out by dousing the lights (they’re on the outside you see). Then he tells me that if I ever lose the key to the pantry, I can open the door with a 2 pence piece. I’m envisaging the scene where I flee to the pantry. There’s no seating, no en suite, no lights and I’m pretty sure Betty has brought in a mouse that she didn’t quite finish the job on because there is a hole in one of the pasta bags. All goes to show, Johnny is right, the panic room pantry is a belting refuge facility … if you’re a mouse. Cue big sort out of dried goods and eco trap (bit of newspaper over a bucket with a treat on the paper) for rodent relocation. Not too overengineered that one! So he decides that for coolness, darkness and general pantry-ish integrity it will be made from concrete blocks. The shelves will be shuttered and concrete poured into the moulds. Crushed glass added to offer a jaunty twinkle when the door is opened and the interrogation wattage lights switched on (it’s a bit like autopsy lighting – again not really the look I was going for). The floor is similarly poured (with twinkle) and rounded edges up to the walls so its easy to clean. Then he adds a commercial-grade fire door. Inside there is another floor to ceiling cupboard for secret things to be locked in (not sure I’m allowed in that bit). Every pantry should, of course, have a robust lock. Now I know the dog is a bit of a devil for a Dreamie or two, but I’m not really thinking this through here am I. He puts his ‘explaining to the hard of thinking’ face on and explains that this lock is not to prevent ingress of dog, or some sort of grocery jail-break by tinned items – its there to keep people out.

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What’s on my plate Veggie hotdogs (from Lidl) on the BBQ, scrummy brioche hotdog buns and salsa. What’s in my glass We were delighted to have been invited to the home of 90s Indy band member, Steve Grimes of ‘The Farm’ (you’ll remember the song ‘All Together Now’…) – he’s been making perry, cider and now has a micro brewery (and micro private pub) turning out some of the most delicious and quaffable beverages. As he’s a beer aficionado we weren’t sure what to take with us. We took Greene King craft beers Level Head and Flint Eye. Both refreshing and light – and easy on the eye both in and out of the can. I also got a teach in on what an IPA is – India Pale Ale (there’s a story…). Both our offerings were enjoyed by the master brewer of private collection ‘Groovy Grain’ beers.

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Glenda Jackson:

A Journey through an Iconic Life In the realm of entertainment, few individuals possess the innate ability to captivate audiences with their talent, versatility, and sheer brilliance. Glenda Jackson, a name synonymous with excellence, has graced the world of theater, film, and politics, leaving an indelible mark on each domain.

a successful transition to the silver screen. Her breakout role came in the 1969 film “Women in Love,” where she portrayed the free-spirited artist Gudrun Brangwen. Her powerful performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress, solidifying her status as a force to be reckoned with in the film industry.

ith a career spanning decades and an illustrious life that defies conventions, Glenda Jackson stands tall as a shining example of talent, passion, and resilience. Join us on a journey through the extraordinary life of this remarkable woman.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Glenda continued to impress audiences with her remarkable range and fearless approach to acting. From historical dramas like “Mary, Queen of Scots” to poignant character studies like “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” Jackson’s performances were a testament to her ability to breathe life into complex and diverse roles. Her undeniable talent and magnetism made her a favorite among directors and audiences alike.

Early Life and Theatrical Beginnings:

A Dynamic Shift: Politics and Beyond:

Born on May 9, 1936, in Birkenhead, England, Glenda May Jackson grew up in a working-class household. Her path to stardom began when she discovered her love for acting during her school days. Her undeniable talent and passion led her to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she honed her skills and prepared for a future on the stage.

In the early 1990s, Glenda Jackson embarked on a new chapter in her life by venturing into politics. She joined the British Labour Party and contested the seat for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency in London. Despite facing skepticism about her transition from the world of entertainment to politics, Jackson proved her mettle and served as a Member of Parliament for over 23 years.

Glenda’s theatrical debut came in 1957 when she joined the Liverpool Playhouse Company. Her captivating performances garnered critical acclaim, paving the way for her transition to London’s West End and eventually the Royal Shakespeare Company. Jackson’s ability to embody complex characters with depth and nuance quickly made her a soughtafter actress, and she became a prominent figure in the British theater scene. The Rise to Film Stardom:

Glenda’s political career was marked by her unwavering dedication to social justice, equality, and the arts. She fearlessly advocated for causes close to her heart, lending her voice to campaigns against war, cuts to public funding for the arts, and issues impacting women and the LGBTQ+ community. Her transition from actress to politician showcased her immense capacity for reinvention and her unwavering commitment to making a difference.

Glenda Jackson’s remarkable talent was not confined to the stage alone. In the early 1960s, she made 180

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Return to the Stage: After retiring from politics in 2015, Glenda Jackson made a triumphant return to the stage, reminding audiences of her unparalleled talent and magnetic presence. Her portrayal of Shakespeare’s King Lear in 2016 was met with rave reviews, earning her critical acclaim and accolades. Her command over the stage and her ability to embody the complexities of the character solidified her status as one of the greatest actors of her generation. Glenda Jackson’s Legacy and Impact: Glenda Jackson’s extraordinary life and career have left an indelible impact on the world of entertainment and beyond. Her unwavering commitment to her craft, her courage to challenge norms, and her passion for social justice have made her an icon and an inspiration to aspiring actors, politicians, and artists alike. Her influence continues to shape the industry, breaking barriers and opening doors for future generations. Glenda Jackson’s life was an incredible journey filled with artistic triumphs, political milestones, and unwavering dedication to her craft. From her early days on the stage to her transformation into a political powerhouse, her contributions have left an indelible impact on multiple domains, and her talent and passion will be remembered and celebrated for years to come. Her remarkable career and legacy will continue to inspire generations of actors, artists, and activists.

Right: Glenda Jackson at the 65th Evening Standard Theatre Awards at the London Coliseum in 2019.

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Dr Mani

Introducing Dr Mani of Lancashire GP Private Practice in Garstang answers your questions in our new regular medical advice column.

I sometimes get period style pains 2 or 3 weeks before my period is actually due. It is usually brought on by some kind of exercise but I just wondered if there was any reason to be getting this type of pain at the wrong times?

Hello there, I got ‘Long Covid’ during the pandemic and while never ill as such, I was never well and certainly needed more rest or sleep than normal. My GP stated when I asked how long these symptoms would last, that ‘we simply don’t know, there is not enough research or information yet to clarify or assess’. Honest enough, but that was maybe a year ago, has the situation changed as mine has not particularly?

This is the pain associated with ovulation and is often normal .It’s also known as mittelschmerz (German for “middle pain” or “pain in the middle of the month”).Some women get a one-sided pain in their lower abdomen when they ovulate. It happens about 14 days before your period, when an ovary releases an egg as part of the menstrual cycle. if you are worried about your symptoms I would advise you to see your GP for further assessment.

I have just started the menopause and out of nowhere I am really struggling with depression. I was previously a very positive person but I now seem to be waking up with a heavy weight on my shoulders. I know this isn’t me and I am trying really hard to shake it off but most days I am losing the battle. I have never been a big fan of medication, is there anything else that could help ?

I am sorry to hear that you suffer these symptoms. Menopause marks the end of reproductive life, which could be associated with debilitating symptoms and could coincide with the challenges that modern life throws at a middle-aged woman. While some women will wish to take hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

There is currently no long-term evidence base studies to help determine how long the ongoing effects currently seen after covid infection will last. The panel from The National Institute for Health Research themed reviewed the evidence in November 2021 and agreed that recovery time is different for everyone but for most people symptoms will resolve by 12 weeks. The likelihood of developing ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or postCOVID-19 syndrome is not considered to be linked to the severity of their acute COVID-19 (including whether they were in hospital). If you are worried about new, ongoing or worsening symptoms, or if you are struggling to return to education, work or other usual activities, especially if it is more than 4 weeks after the start of acute COVID-19 make sure you see your GP. Reference:

NICE (December 2020). COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19

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to relieve their symptoms, others will prefer to consider HRT alternatives. Hormone replacement therapy may not be suitable or safe for everyone. lifestyle changes such as regular exercise, healthy BMI and relaxation exercises are recommended. Herbal remedies such as Isoflavones (soy) and black cohosh may help hot flushes but preparations vary in content/safety. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and some antidepressants medications can be used to treat low mood and anxiety. The approach to menopause care needs to be holistic and therefore your GP is the perfect place to manage the menopause. Doctor Mani of Lancashire GP Practice in Garstang will be answering Questions each month on any health queries or concerns you have. Please email us at: info@lancashiremagazine.co.uk to put your questions forward. Lancashire GP n 01995 238081 d lancashiregp.co.uk

Lancashire GP • Appointments Costs - can be as little as £65. (Bear in mind Dr Mani aims to do as much in the one appointment as she can too.) • Beat the NHS waiting lists. • Face to Face and Video call options.

• Cholesterol and Blood Pressure Checks. • Sexual Health Screening. • Depression and Anxiety. • Menopausal Symptoms and Treatments (Inc HRT).

• Appointments Promptly Scheduled and On Time.

• Medical Examinations: Pre-employment, Driving and Insurance.

• Blood and Smear Tests.

• Speedy Referrals to Specialists.

• Health Screening.

• Personal Quality of Care Given at All Times!.

Dr Farzaneh Mani MBChB ( Hons), DRCOG, MRCGP, IMMOFP

Dr. Farzaneh Mani is the founder of Lancashire GP Private GP surgery which is based at Garstang Clinic. She also works as a GP in the NHS and is fully covered by the CQC. Dr. Mani is on the GP performer’s lists and undertakes full NHS yearly appraisal.

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The Lancashire GP Practice specialises in general family medicine. We also offer a prescription service, health screening, and referrals for tests and scans. Our easy connections to local hospitals mean that we are able to refer you for any necessary follow-up treatment.

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The Dukes’ Sunset Screenings Return:

An Unforgettable Summer of Theatre and Film in Williamson Park Step Outdoors for an Unforgettable Summer of Theatre and Film in Lancaster’s Beautiful, Williamson Park.

he Dukes have been creating memorable outdoor experiences for over 35 years, and this year is set to be bigger and better than ever. Audiences are invited to join the Dukes for a full summer takeover at the picturesque Williamson Park in Lancaster where they can immerse themselves in exciting film and theatre. Guests can look forward to the anticipated return of Sunset Screenings, the Dukes’ premier outdoor cinema experience. Set amongst the backdrop of Williamson Park’s The Dell. Surrounded by rockery and lush greenery, it’s the perfect setting, providing great natural acoustics. From the 1st - 10th of September, audiences can immerse themselves

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in a unique outdoor cinema experience. The Dukes will be showing ten fantastic films including brand new blockbuster Barbie and beloved favourites such as Top Gun Maverick, The Greatest Showman, Pretty Woman, IT, and Mamma Mia. With Food & Drink stalls provided by Williamson Park, this is a perfect late summer treat.

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Leading up to Sunset Screenings the Dukes park show will be taking off on an epic whirlwind adventure, delighting audiences once again with, Around the World in 80 Days, from 21st July - 27th August. Audiences will be invited to follow Phileas Fogg, as he races against the clock by trains, boats, elephants and

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balloons to travel around the world in 80 days in this epic whirlwind adventure for the whole family. The stunning backdrop of Williamson Park in Lancaster provides the perfect setting for this epic whirlwind adventure. The cast for 80 Days has now been fully revealed, featuring 6 stellar actors who will bring the story to life amongst the immersive sets, lighting, music and even smells which will pull you even further into the action. Lancaster House, sponsors of this year’s park show, are offering a stay with a Play in the Park. This offer includes a Bed & Breakfast stay in one of their Luxury Suites, Tickets to the Play in the Park, Pre-arrival sharing platter in their Sandeman Bar. For more information on this deal visit: englishlakes.co.uk/lancaster-house/ offers/ The Dukes advise advance bookings for both Sunset Screenings and Around The World In 80 Days. Tickets can be booked visiting www. dukeslancaster.org, by contacting the Dukes Box Office at 01524 598500 or emailing tickets@dukeslancaster.org.

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d n a l i a t k c o C Wine Bar e heart th n I n e p Now O St. Annes m a h yt L of

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Barrumba

Cocktail & Wine Bar Lytham St. Annes has a new, hot venue to visit for the finest cocktails, wine, spirits and fantastic music, including live entertainment. Barrumba Cocktail and Wine Bar opened its doors at the end of June to coincide with the Lytham Festival and has proved to be an instant success with local businesses, residents and visitors. Business partners Selvan Acehan and Erdal Ince have worked in the industry for many years, most recently at nearby Anatolia Seaview Mediterranean restaurant, before deciding to open their own bar.

Selvan commented, “We are so pleased to have been able to open Barrumba in the heart of St Anne’s, where we have lived and worked for many years. It’s lovely to have had so much support from our friends, previous customers and local businesses, making some new friends along the way. There are several successful pubs and craft beer bars in St Anne’s, so we’ve added something new and different to the town’s offer.” 188

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You can tell from the service that the team has had a lot of experience, with attention to detail being essential to their business. The choice of specially selected wine, beers, ciders and cocktails, using only high-end ingredients, is superb, whilst the interior manages to be both trendy and inviting. Here are a few of the images from the grand opening event on 24th June, to give you a taste of what to expect.

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Retracing the Steps of Morecambe’s Miss Great Britain Pageant By Sally-Ann Fawcett

As the official historian and a lifelong fan of the Miss Great Britain pageant, one of my dreams was to follow in the footsteps of the contest’s origins in Morecambe.

y book charting the story of the contest up to its 75th anniversary, Miss Great Britain 1945-2020: The Official History, required hours of research but I still yearned to trace the path of the event in person. So after a night in Manchester attending a modern day pageant, my husband Anthony and I took the train for a stay at the iconic Midland Hotel, and to walk in the footsteps of 192

Miss Great Britain past in a 24 hour odyssey of Morecambe’s rich pageant tapestry.

permanently windy conditions and partly due to the introduction of TV cameras.

First stop - and, to my mind, the most important - was the former site of the Super Swimming Stadium, situated mere yards from the Midland Hotel.

When holidaymakers were tempted away from British seaside resorts by cheap air travel in the 70s, the decision was made to close the swimming stadium in 1975.

Opened in 1935, it was Europe’s largest outdoor pool and at the height of summer welcomed thousands of swimmers and visitors a day.

The site was used for other ventures including Bubbles and the Superdome, but has lain empty for many years.

In 1945, the very first Miss Great Britain contest took place there, and the weekly heats and finals attracted vast numbers to watch. The pageant was held there until 1970 when it was taken inside - partly due to the

Last month, the green light was given to Lancaster Council for funding to build the Eden Project North on the site, which will rejuvenate Morecambe’s ailing fortunes on a huge scale.

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They were also thrilled to learn that the pageant is still thriving in Leicester! But here’s the best bit. The very charming curator and local artist Linda Page led us upstairs to their storage room - where a treasure trove awaited us: row after row of boxes containing Miss Great Britain memorabilia, programmes, photos, cuttings - and Miss GB judges’ rosettes. These were donated largely by the estate of the longstanding Miss GB chaperone Dorothy Fisher and several former winners for safekeeping. Linda told us to go through as much as we wanted and take photos. Who knew heaven that was within the Arndale Centre, Morecambe...? I realise this privilege is offered to very few and I was incredibly honoured. We didn’t have time to look at everything of course, but we will be back, and can’t thank Linda and her team enough for not only their generosity towards us, but for their wonderful efforts to keep the history of Miss Great Britain alive. Part three of our Miss Great Britain odyssey took us to my birthday treat from Anthony - a stay at the Grade II listed Midland Hotel. This iconic Art Deco building was built in 1933 and quickly became the place to see and be seen, with its magnificent spiral staircase, clean lines, and fabulous views across Morecambe Bay.

It was therefore really important to me to be able to walk the site before any building work begins. It was a very poignant experience and one I’m thrilled to have done at last on this beautiful, blustery spring day. Unfortunately the Winter Gardens, which hosted the contest from 1970, was closed to visitors on our trip, but we were at least able to marvel at the architecture and appreciate the fact www.lancmag.com

that it is once again a working venue. The next stop on our Miss Great Britain History Tour of Morecambe was this tiny but wonderful museum. The Morecambe Heritage Centre houses a fabulous collection of documents and artefacts from the past, and the staff were delighted to receive a copy of my Miss Great Britain book for their display and to hear of my adventures as a Miss Great Britain judge. LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 193

After being sold in the 90s it fell into neglect and disrepair, boarded up and unloved, before being rescued by regeneration company Urban Splash. After extensive refurbishment The Midland opened its doors again in 2009 and now the 44-room property is thriving once again. During its heyday in the 60s, the hotel played host to the Miss Great Britain contestants, and even today proudly displays memorabilia from the pageant in the foyer. And by coincidence the artwork on show in the reception area is by none other than our lovely new friend Linda Page, the curator at the Morecambe Heritage Centre! Although only a very loose connection to Miss Great Britain, no trip to Morecambe is complete without a visit to see the one and only Eric Morecambe. This wonderful statue, unveiled by the late Queen in 1999 and created by sculptor Graham Ibbeson, is called Bring Me Sunshine - and one glimpse of the superb likeness of one of the greatest entertainers of all time does just that. It is pure, pure joy. Nobody can pass this tribute to the town’s most famous son without stopping to pose with him against a

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backdrop of blue sky and Irish sea, and mimic his best known stance. A brilliant addition to the prom and an absolute delight to see. Eric and his comedy partner Ernie Wise judged several Miss Great Britain pageants at the Super Swimming Stadium, and helped crown the 1965 winner Diane Westbury.

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I can’t express my joy at being given the opportunity to visit the sites of one of Morecambe’s most famous and popular events, run by the council for fifty years from 1945-1990, and still the biggest and oldest beauty pageant in the country. I was too young to ever visit the Super Swimming Stadium myself so to stand on the exact spot of all those women from across five decades was a privilege.

I loved my 24 hours in Morecambe, and I will be back. To me, the town will always be the epicentre of British beauty contests. “Miss Great Britain 1945-2020: The Official History” is available from Amazon, Blackwells and Waterstones.

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Are Bulrushes the Answer to Sustainable Clothing and Farming? Swaying bulrushes on a Manchester peatland could soon sashay their way onto the catwalks of the fashion world.

Bulrushes: credit Katrina Martin 2020VISION

he Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, Saltyco® and Peel L&P have announced plans to use new funding to enable bulrushes to be grown near Salford. The fluffy seed heads being turned into a revolutionary new textile to fill padded jackets. Bulrushes can often be seen growing wild along pond edges and other areas of waterlogged ground. With their tall fibrous stalks and fluffy dark brown seed heads they are one of our most recognisable plants – but could bulrushes also make sustainable filling for padded jackets and eco-friendly building materials, whilst also fighting climate change and nature loss, and helping support our farming communities? With nearly £400,000 funding from the Government’s Paludiculture Exploration Fund, administered by Natural England, a new project will see bulrushes, also known as reedmace or typha, be developed into a climate friendly crop, grown on restored carbon capturing peatlands. The seed heads of the bulrushes will be used to create BioPuff®, a sustainable and eco-friendly replacement for the use of goose feather down in padded jackets, developed by emerging materials science company, Saltyco®. Julian Ellis-Brown, Co-founder and CEO at Saltyco®, commented: “This project holds paramount significance, not only in the scaling of BioPuff®, but also in the establishment of an agricultural archetype that can facilitate both the expansion of peatland restoration and the creation of healthier textiles for the fashion industry.”

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The bulrush crop will be trialled on a five hectare area of lowland peatland in Greater Manchester which was drained and converted to agriculture over 50 years ago, a process which can contribute to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, announced plans to re-wet these peatland areas will

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dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions – in some cases by nearly 90 per cent in just one year. By 2050 re-wetting this site alone could save 2,822 tonnes CO2 equivalent – the same as over 7.2 million miles driven by an average car. Re-wet agricultural peatlands can then be used to grow crops which will thrive in these wetter conditions – and www.lancmag.com

The field has been worked for over 35 years by a tenant farmer but with decreasing yields for conventional crops such as potatoes, wheat, barley and rapeseed, he is looking for new, more sustainable farming methods. Once initial work has been completed to re-wet the field, existing farm machinery will be used or modified to work with the wetter ground conditions.

BioPuff® YOOX Collection

Steve Denneny, who will be farming the land and growing the bulrush crop, said: “I’ve been farming this land for 35 years and have seen steadily declining yields and increasing difficulty finding a market for traditional crops. I’m really excited to be part of this trial to find a new way to manage my land that is more environmentally friendly, but will also provide me with a commercially viable crop. I think that wetter farming could be the future for a lot of lowland agricultural peat, and it’s great to be part of it right at the start.” The land for the trial is owned by Peel L&P, a family-run regeneration company in the area who are looking to develop a sustainable future vision for their peatlands.

bulrushes are just one of these. Lead partner in the project, The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, is already trialling growing celery and blueberries on a nearby site. The bulrush trial is also ripe for growth, as Saltyco® estimate that a further 100 hectares of bulrush will be required to meet BioPuff ® demand, having the potential to save 56,448 tonnes CO2 equivalent – the same as the annual electricity use of nearly 11,000 homes. Mike Longden, Senior Peatlands Project Officer for the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, said: “This project is really exciting, paludiculture or wetter farming, could be the future for so many of our drained agricultural peatlands, not only protecting the carbon in the peat and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also providing an income for the farmers who need to make a living from the land.” www.lancmag.com

Bulrush - Jenny Bennion, Lancashire Wildlife Trust

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Bulrush seed head (Typha latifolia) credit Vaughn Matthews

Jo Holden, Sustainability and ESG Director at Peel L&P, said: “We’re excited to be working on this trailblazing project with our local partners, including the Wildlife Trust and our tenant farmer, as well as SaltyCo®, to capture more carbon emissions in Greater Manchester. By growing sustainable materials for the fashion industry, we hope to show that it’s possible to farm land in different ways that are good for the local economy and better for the environment. “The future of homegrown sustainable alternatives is very exciting and we’re looking forward to playing our role in these innovations and sharing results from the North West with other regions.”

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many of our peatlands have been drained and converted to agriculture: credit Jenny Bennion, Lancashire Wildlife Trust

Rosie Wilson, Director of Land and Estates at Peel L&P, said: “We were excited to be involved with the paludiculture trial and delighted that we could offer our land as a trial area for this project. We hope this trial will establish whether Typha growing could be a commercially viable option for our own Tenant Farmers.

“Currently most of our land in this location is in arable production with income from this supporting tenant farmers and covering land management costs such as fly tipping clearance and road maintenance. If successful Typha could help to provide a carbon and biodiversity positive alternative to arable farming and a more sustainable future for the Mossland.”

The lowland peatlands of Greater Manchester once covered an area of 28km2, but today only tiny fragments remain. Whilst further restoration of areas to functioning peat bog is required, wetter farming crops such as bulrushes could provide a vital, and climate-friendly, link between these areas helping nature to thrive, provide an income for our farmers, and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Celery growing at the Rindle wetter farming trial in Greater Manchester: credit Jenny Bennion, Lancashire Wildlife Trust www.lancmag.com

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Settle Flowerpot Festival Celebrates 10th Year creative installations guaranteed to raise a smile.

The residents of Settle, a small market town in the Yorkshire Dales, have been pottering about for a decade, drawing visitors from far and wide. As the annual Settle Flowerpot Festival gets underway this summer, the community has been reminiscing how this whimsical initiative has become one of Yorkshire’s favourite summer-long attractions.

The idea for the Festival was originally conceived in 2013 by the Vibrant Settle Community Partnership, an initiative spearheaded by local residents, Steve Amphlett and Tony Hardwick, who were later joined by Richard Handscombe and a small team of enthusiastic volunteers. The objective then and now is to encourage the economic sustainability of Settle, a town with an ageing demographic of just 2,500 people which has not significantly increased in over 100 years. The hope is that the festival helps to support the many independent shops to survive by not only attracting visitors to the town but also keeping them entertained there for a few hours. It also aims to encourage exploration beyond the picturesque market square.

unning from 15th July through to 3rd September, part of the Festival’s attraction is that it’s free and genuinely appeals to all ages. This year more than 150 flowerpot displays adorn the streets of the town and it is estimated that several thousand flowerpots have been used to create the diverse and entertaining exhibits, ranging from a tiny bee to a very large Plantpotosaurus.. The Festival unites the town each year as Individual households, business and community groups come together to contribute their 200

Steve Amphlett explains “We had no idea it would take off the way it has done. We’re delighted that here we are celebrating 10 years of the Festival and everyone is still just as enthusiastic and creative. As organizers we do little other than encourage people to get involved and get creative. There is no theme for the festival other than ‘make people smile!’, so people can create whatever takes their fancy. There are no prizes, and no permissions required, so visitors are also welcome to have a go themselves, bringing along their own exhibit to take a photograph of it in situ and post on the Festival’s Facebook page.“ The Festival has attracted attention over the years from The Great Exhibition of The North, which celebrates great art, culture, design and innovation and was featured on Susan Calman’s Grand Day Out series on Channel 5 last year.

Rather than limiting the event to a fleeting or intensive weekend or week, the nature of the Festival means that it can run all summer to support and boost the normal running of the town. After the initial effort in creating each exhibit, it runs without expensive financial overheads or huge demands in terms of volunteers’ time.

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There have been some amazing creations, including, in 2018, a 10ft climber mounted on the face of Castleberg Crag overlooking the town which lit up with 600 LEDs at night, and a large blue crayfish suspended from the ancient Settle Bridge over the River Ribble in 2021. www.lancmag.com

The nature of the festival meant that it was of the few that were able to keep going through the COVID pandemic as all the exhibits are outdoors and as no one had to touch anything, people could just visit to enjoy the creative fun on display. The town’s setting on the edge of the Three Peaks places it firmly in fabulous walking country which added to the appeal. The Festival this year promises to be as popular as ever. Three different trails have been created to help visitors armed with a free town map to discover the latest exhibits; the Town Centre trail, Riverside & Giggleswick, and Upper Settle. Optional detailed trail quiz sheets are available at £3, each with around 50 varied educational and entertaining questions aimed at all ages and naturally relating to the exhibits. The sponsor of the 2023 Festival is Watershed Mill Visitor Centre, who have generously provided space dubbed The Potting Shed” where many of the displays have been made and which hosts flowerpot workshops for children run throughout August on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. These must be pre-booked due to their popularity. More information about the Festival can be found at http://www. settleflowerpotfestival.co.uk/.

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LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 201

BIG COUNTRY Play LYTHAM ST ANNE’s

– Lowther Pavilion on Saturday 30th September 2023

Indie-rock legends BIG COUNTRY are coming to LYTHAM ST ANNE’s – Lowther Pavilion on Saturday 30th September.

IG COUNTRY perform classic hits and live favourites including Harvest Home - Fields of Fire - In A Big Country Chance - Wonderland - Look Away The Teacher - Plus many more... Steeped in a stunning catalogue of proud and stirring hit songs such as ‘Fields of Fire’, ‘Chance’, ‘In A Big Country’ (which sold 2 million), ‘East Of Eden’ and their biggest UK hit ‘Look Away’, along with massive albums such ‘The Seer’, ‘Steeltown’, ‘Peace In Our Time’ and the triple Grammy –nominated, ‘The Crossing’, BIG COUNTRY continue to look beyond the next horizon. The band – BRUCE WATSON (guitars/vocals); MARK BRZEZICKI (drums, vocals); JAMIE WATSON (guitars/vocals) will be augmented on stage by singer/guitarist SIMON HOUGH and bassist GILL ALLAN. Formed in 1981 by guitar playing founder members, the late Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson, both native of the band’s hometown Dunfermline in Scotland. Initially driven by a shared vision of widescreen guitar melody, harmony and lyric, the classic Big Country sound was further enhanced later that summer by the 202

arrival of drummer Mark Brzezicki and bass player Tony Butler. This is the Big Country that (with Producer Steve Lillywhite), recorded the classic debut album ‘The Crossing’ in 1983. The band broke massively worldwide with the release of the album’s classic singles ‘Fields Of Fire’, ‘Chance’ and signature song ‘In A Big Country’, which went on to become massive worldwide hits, selling over

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2 million copies and driving ‘The Crossing’ to 3 prestigious Grammy nominations in the USA. The run of success continued throughout the 1980s with the release of the anthemic single ‘Wonderland’ and the second album ‘Steeltown’ (1984), which debuted at Number 1 in the UK and contained the hit singles ‘East Of Eden, ‘Just a Shadow’ and ‘Where The Rose Is Sown’. www.lancmag.com

Tickets for the BIG COUNTRY – 30th September 2023 – Lytham St Anne’s show are available from: LYTHAM ST ANNE’S – Lowther Pavilion Web: lowtherpavilion.co.uk/shows/big-country/ Doors – 7.00pm Tickets - £25.00 advance plus BF

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For further information on BIG COUNTRY, check out the following website / social media links: D – bigcountry.co.uk/ F – www.facebook.com/inabigcountry/ T – twitter.com/BigCountryUK/ I - www.instagram.com/bigcountryofficial/

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Over 450,000 Lonely Bunnies: Nearly Half of the UK Rabbit Population Lives Alone, Despite Calls for Companionship

Rabbits are naturally sociable animals so it is vital to make sure they have a bunny-friend to live with, according to vet charity PDSA. This ‘Cheer up the Lonely Day’, PDSA is highlighting the importance of rabbits having a compatible companion.

he 2023 PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report revealed that 42% of rabbits live alone, with a further 5% living with another species of animal, meaning that an estimated 530,000 rabbits (48%) are still not having their companionship needs met appropriately. The PAW Report also highlighted that 36% of veterinary professionals identified the ‘lack of an appropriate companion’ as one of the top welfare issues for rabbits.

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PDSA Vet Catherine Burke said: “If rabbits live alone, they can feel socially isolated and become bored, frustrated, anxious, and destructive. They need fellow bunny companionship, as it offers them warmth, comfort and

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company. This minimises boredom, and reduces their anxiety and stress. “We’d always recommend keeping rabbits in a bonded pair or a small group, for happy, healthy bunnies.

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Keeping rabbits together Catherine added: “Whilst you don’t want a lonely bunny on your hands, it’s important to try to make sure you pair or group your resident rabbit with a compatible companion. “Rabbits can happily live together in the following combinations: • a neutered male and a neutered female – often the most successful pairing • two litter brothers or two litter sisters together – although there is no risk of pregnancy when you have rabbits of the same sex living together, it’s still important to neuter to reduce the risk of fighting as they get older. There are also many other benefits to neutering your rabbits such as preventing illness. • a compatible group – rabbits can live in groups, but unless the rabbits are related and neutered early, bunny bonding can be harder to achieve so it’s often best to keep them in pairs. “For the happiest bunnies, we suggest keeping a neutered male with a neutered female. If you can home a brother and sister together, that’s ideal as they’ll already know each www.lancmag.com

other and will be less likely to fight”, Catherine explains. “If you have a resident rabbit and would like to provide them with their perfect companion, your local rabbit rehoming centre may have lots of suitable bunnies waiting for a new home with a fellow fur-friend. But they always need to be introduced gradually and a rescue centre may be able to support you with this.” Important tips on rabbit companionship: The process of introducing rabbits to each other is called bunny ‘bonding’. Your new rabbit and resident rabbit will need to be kept apart at first, and slowly introduced. Once they’re both happy and comfortable together (with no sign of fighting), they will be able to share a living space. Rabbits won’t necessarily get on straight away so it is important to take things slowly - be patient with your bunnies as they get to know each other. If you’re keeping any male and female rabbits together, it’s really important to get them neutered. It will reduce their chance of fighting with each other, stop them from having babies and will protect them from serious illnesses. The timing of

neutering is important as bunnies are able to get pregnant from around three months old so it is important to keep unneutered males and females separate from this age. Male rabbits can be neutered from 10 weeks old and female rabbits can be neutered from five months old (or may be as late as eight months in giant breed rabbits). Rabbits should never be kept with other species of animal, such as guinea pigs. They have very different needs and they also can’t communicate with each other or provide the social support that they need to stay healthy. They both need their own kind for company. For more information about keeping your rabbits happy and ensuring they aren’t lonely, please visit PDSA’s website.

p d s a .o rg.uk

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Things You Should Always Take With You When Out and About With Your Pet With summer holidays fast approaching, most of us would rather spend time outdoors and go on adventures with our pets. However, there are a few precautions all pet owners should take to make sure every outing is as safe as paw-sible.

esearch conducted by leading vet charity, PDSA, found that 80% of owners don’t own a pet first aid kit and nine out of ten owners have no pet first aid training. Yet these could be crucial in case of an emergency, according to Vet Nurse Shauna Walsh, who has revealed the must-have items owners should be taking on every walk. “Just like we have our own first aid kits, pet owners should have one with the items needed to treat smaller injuries,” said Shauna Walsh. “This is especially important if you plan on taking your furry family member out and about with you this summer. If you are taking any road trips with your pet, it can be helpful to keep a second one in the car too. “Every first aid kit should include bandages, cotton wool, self-adhesive tape, and dressings which will come in handy for cuts and scrapes and allow you to treat them effectively. If your pet’s wound is small, carrying wound wash to help you flush the area can be helpful, as clean water might not be available when you’re out and about. However, if the cut is bigger, having these items with you in an emergency can help to stem any bleeding while you seek further treatment from a vet. “In the summer we see a rise in ticks in the UK, so including a pair of tick tweezers in your first-aid kit could be useful. To ensure you remove the whole tick, grasp the tick as close to 206

the skin’s surface as possible then pull up with a steady, even pressure. If you twist or jerk the tick, it is possible for parts to break off under your pet’s skin. If you think this has happened, it is best to seek advice from a vet. “Stings and bites from insects, such as bees and wasps, are commonplace

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over the warmer months. Most bites and stings can be treated at home, providing they’re not severe or haven’t triggered an allergic reaction. In the case of bee stings, you may also try to pull the sting out with tweezers – but never try to squeeze it as it could make things worse. You can apply a cold compress to soothe the area. www.lancmag.com

“If your pet does show signs of an allergic reaction such as swelling or a rash, I’d recommend calling your vet for advice. Your furry friend may need medication to make sure their reaction doesn’t get worse and to keep them comfortable. “Of course, make sure to assess every situation and do take your pet to see a vet even after doing first aid at home. Having these items available can help mitigate many emergencies and bridge the gap of time before you can get to a vet.” PDSA Vet Nurse Shauna Walsh says a pet first aid kits should include: •

Bandages

•

Blunt-ended scissors

•

Wound wash

•

Cotton wool

•

Tweezers

•

Tick tweezers

•

Wound dressing

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•

Self-adhesive tape

•

Dressings

•

Vinyl gloves

•

Foil blanket

•

Antiseptic wipes

To help pet owners who may be unfamiliar with pet first aid, PDSA has created a free first aid guide, packed with advice on how to treat most common injuries and illnesses, from heatstroke and burns to cuts and scrapes.

•

A blanket or towel to use as a stretcher.

To download, visit: pdsa.org.uk/pr-free-first-aid-guide

LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 207

Lindeth Howe Wins Wedding Venue of the Year at Cumbria Tourism Awards

e are very pleased to announce that Clare & Liz of Lindeth Howe, attended the Cumbria Tourism Awards at Castle Green Hotel in Kendal, where they were winners in the Wedding Venue of the Year category. At the ceremony Clare and Liz said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the whole team here at Lindeth Howe who work so hard each and every day to ensure that we look after all our guests so well. We couldn’t be prouder and this award reflects the hard work put in by the whole team, whilst Clare & Liz were honoured to attend the awards, it is certainly a team effort! Of course, we would also like to thank you, our very loyal and supportive guests who make our job such a joy, we couldn’t do what we love without your ongoing support. Keep your eye out for the award in the reception area where it will be on display.”

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