7 minute read
OTHER NEWS
Youngest WVM reader?
Sinitta Maria Marshall writes: “A message to the Wriggle Valley Magazine Team, your efforts are extra appreciated every month by my 7 year old Shanti and she always looks forward to reading it before any of us in the house gets a chance to!”
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Singing4Fun
Do you love singing, but are not confident enough to join a choir? Are you intimidated by trying to sing in parts and just want to sing in unison with likeminded people? Do you love singing some of the old songs? (Wouldn’t it be Luvverly, Getting to Know You, Cwm Rhonda, Amazing Grace, Happiness (remember Ken Dodd?), Moon River, Hello Dolly.)
On Thursday afternoons a few of us get together in Leigh Church, led by Tony Durkin, and try to raise the roof. We have a lot of fun, singing some great songs, and we’d love you to join us. We have friends who have dementia, Parkinson’s disease, suffer from minor ailments, or just like singing anytime, anywhere! And we’re none of us in the first flush of youth!
If you’d like to join us, you’d be most welcome. We charge just £3 per session, starting at 2.30pm until 3.45pm. Please feel free to drop in and see if this might be something you’d enjoy. You need no musical knowledge, just a love of singing. See you soon.
If you’d like more information please contact me, Karen Spencer, on 07930 873920.
Update from Dorchester & Sherborne offices of Central Dorset Citizens Advice
Cost of Living Q&A
Q: I am a single parent, with two young children. I am already struggling to stay on top of my household bills; my weekly food shop isn’t stretching as far anymore
and now my energy bill is going up too. I don’t know how I’m going to afford these price rises. What can I do to stop my finances spiralling out of control?
A: Firstly, you are not alone in this and there’s support to help you. It’s always worth checking if there are benefits you don’t know about that you’re eligible for, including support with your energy costs and living costs. On the Citizens Advice website there’s a benefits calculator, advice on how to reduce living costs and information on other ways to increase your income.
There’s also emergency support that you may have access to, such as food bank vouchers or fuel vouchers, and access to grants - ask Citizens Advice for more information.
If you’re struggling to stay on top of bills, it’s important to understand what money you have coming in and going out each month. Citizens Advice has a budgeting tool on its website that can help with this.
And if you’re already behind on bills, prioritise paying your rent or mortgage, plus energy bills and Council Tax first. Not paying these bills has the most serious consequences. You should speak to the person or company you owe money to, to see if they can help you repay your bills sustainably.
We know that times are incredibly tough but please remember, you don’t have to face this alone. Do contact your local Citizens Advice to help you find a way forward via our Freephone Dorset Advice line number on 0800 144 88 48 between 10.00am-4.00pm, Monday to Friday. Alternatively visit our national website: www.citizensadvice.org.uk.
For information about local Citizens Advice service go to: https:// centraldorsetca.org.uk/ 48 The Global Mercy is the world’s largest purpose-built hospital ship, capable of more than doubling the surgical and training capacity of Mercy Ships’ work. She has been built and designed as a medical teaching hospital ship so that the expertise of her volunteer surgeons from around the world can be share with the local doctors they visit. This enables their life transforming work is continued when the ship moves onto her next country.
Back in March, I flew to Rotterdam to visit the Global Mercy. She had come to Europe from China via the Suez Canal for final fitting of technical and surgical equipment in Antwerp. On her exit from the Port of Antwerp for her transit to Rotterdam, people stood on the banks cheering; around 2000 people were on the final bridge waving goodbye and wishing her bon voyage. Neither the European ports nor the Egyptian authorities charged her any fees.
I was invited, along with other British visitors, to lunch on the seventh deck of the Global Mercy, followed by a presentation given by the founder, Don Stephens. He and his wife Deyone had come to Europe to present the Global Mercy, the fifth ship, since the founding of Mercy Ships in 1976. In a very moving speech, Don described how he had a dream of providing a ship to help the poorest people of the
world to have happier healthier lives and how a meeting with Mother Theresa had encouraged him to persevere in his efforts to bring this to fruition.
We were shown around the medical department on Decks 3 and 4 and the equipment was truly amazing. The crew capacity is 641, there are six operating theatres and a patient capacity of 199.
It was wonderful to be back and welcomed as part of the Mercy Ships family. What incredible changes have come about since my time onboard in 2007, embarked in the Anastasis. Truly miraculous.
Sue Footner
Ryme Intrinseca
Eccentric vicars!
It’s a sad but true fact that as we get a bit older our memory starts to slip a bit as most people of a certain age would readily admit. Few would however admit to getting anywhere close to the Rev George Harvest, an C.18th incumbent of Ditton.
Apparently (as reported in Fergus Butler-Gallie’s book ‘A Field Guide to the English Clergy’ (Oneworld, 2018)), Rev George was probably the most forgetful man in England. On the day of his wedding, he woke up and decided to go fishing. Without a care in the world, he headed off to the river bank with his rod and tackle. No-one is quite sure at what point he remembered his wedding, but by the time he arrived at the church, the marriage was most definitely over before it had begun.
Notwithstanding that, on the day of his second wedding (to a different lady of course) Rev George’s carriage arrived to collect him but nowhere could he be found. Hours later as he was dining with friends after a day of pleasant walking, he realised that he should have been somewhere else. Arriving at the church many hours late, his defence to a distraught ex-intended ‘that it had been one of the pleasantest walks of my life’ did nothing to help the situation.
Rev George apparently remained a bachelor for the rest of his life.
Geoff Goater
The Rev George Harvest; © The British Museum
Alfred Edward Housman was born in Worcestershire, England in 1859. He is best known for ‘A Shropshire Lad’, which was first published to not very much enthusiasm in 1896. It had been rejected by Macmillan Co and was eventually published at Housman’s own expense by Kegan Paul and sold slowly enough for the Author himself to buy up remaining copies. Republished in 1897 it gradually achieved wider sales and over the following 25 years became a popular rather than critical success, especially among younger audiences disaffected by the violence of WW1. George Orwell remarked on it: “Among people who were adolescent in the years 1910-25, Housman had an influence which was enormous and is now [writing in 1940] not at all easy to understand.” Probably his reputation as a pre-eminent classicist was the greater.
Housman returned again and again to the themes of the passing of time and death, though in one of his letters he claimed that this focus was “owing to my observation of the world, not to personal circumstances.”
The first poem (below left) is one of the 63 in ‘A Shropshire Lad’. The second, ‘We’ll to the woods no more’ is taken from ‘Last Poems’ published 100 years ago and was notably set to song in 1928 by John Ireland. Remarkably, another 35 of the 42 in the collection, were also set to music or song by various composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams.
