This Terence Carroll documentary on the last days of the line from King's Lynn to East Dereham was first broadcast on BBC2 on 2 June 1969, though Wikipedia tells us the line had been closed for the best part of a year by then: The line was not listed for closure in the original 1963 Beeching Report. But it was nonetheless closed to passenger and freight services by the Eastern Region of British Railways on Saturday 7 September 1968, save for a three-mile section for sand freight from King's Lynn to Middleton. Wendling station continued for a short while as ...
I thought I'd played chess for Northampton Working Men's Club (or Whyte Melville, as we were often called) only in the national club knock-out competition, which was a tournament to which Market Harborough did not aspire. But, sorting out some old files, I found I had also played a season for them in the Northamptonshire league and done rather well too. All of which makes more sense of this memory... I was playing some five-minute games at Whyte Melville after winning my league game, and there was a beat-up old guy watching us. Even non-players are entranced by people playing ...
Yesterday I went into the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Great Bowden for the first time, and here's the Doom painting on the north wall of its north chapel. I photographed another one in Wycliffe's church at Lutterworth a few years ago. They were doing coffee in the church, and one of the women in charge was a friend of mine. Not only that. Her husband, who I was at school with back in the day, had written the words for the plaque explaining this fine Edwardian stained glass window. Perhaps we really are the grown ups ...
Editor's Note: This month party members will be voting to elect our next Party President. At Lib Dem Voice we welcome posts from each of the candidates - one to launch their candidature plus a maximum of one per week during the actual campaign. Local government is the bedrock of Liberal Democrat politics. It is the layer of politics that is closest to the everyday lives of people – from the mundane to the momentous. It is local government that controls everything from bin collections and fixing roads to adult social care and SEN provision. In fact, around 800 essential ...
'Het kan wel', a play on Barack Obama's 'Yes, we can' quip, was ringing out in the Netherlands as Rob Jetten and his liberal D66 party surprised the pundits by winning the Dutch General Election last week. It was a close-run thing though, and it was only after all the postal votes had been counted that he was declared victorious against Geert Wilders' nationalist PVV party, by a historically small margin of 28,000 votes. D66 will now be able to look to form a coalition government after increasing their seats from 9 in 2023 to 26 seats. Jetten's style in ...
What can the Liberal Democrats learn from Zohran Mamdani's clean sweep victory of the NYC Mayoral Race? This week, American Democrat Zohran Mamdani ended a year-long campaign with a decisive victory in the New York mayoral race, winning over 50% of the vote on record turnout. For progressives across the Western world, it was a breath of fresh air: a politics of hope had won. That same evening, at my local party's AGM, we heard from Martin Tod, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the newly created Hampshire and the Solent Combined Authority. One line from his speech has stayed with ...
Last night I chaired the meeting of Sunniside History Society at Sunniside Social Club. The speaker was Dr Paul Stott who used to work as a naval architect in the shipbuilding industry in the North East before moving into the world of academia where he lectured on the industry of which he had lots of practical experience.Paul's presentation looked at the decline of UK shipbuilding from its
Large Remembrance poppies have started to appear in Sunniside. Thank you to the volunteers from Planting Up Sunniside who have been hard at work placing the poppies around the village.
Planting Up Sunniside held their monthly meeting on Tuesday and I was invited to come along and discuss a number of issues with them. Most of them was about the Christmas tree switch on event on Wednesday 26th November. Most of the details are now sorted. There will be live music and the mayor will do the switch on at 5.30pm. I've also arranged for three donkeys to be there (my links to farming
I canvassed seventy-five doors for the Liberal Democrats last Saturday. I know it's not a massive number by many politicos' standards — I mean, I did seven hundred and sixty-nine across the short campaign period last year — but it's still a decent amount to do on one casualish action day, I think. And yet, when I watch my partner (our local candidate) trawling through the local rag's website for things we can use as Focus stories, I can't help but wonder what I'm doing here. I am (as far as I'm aware) the only trans member of our local ...
The Guardian reports on one Reform voter in Lancashire, who is learning the price of supporting Nigel Farage's party. They tell us about Phil Price, whose mother is in Grove House in Adlington, one of the homes earmarked for closure by the Reform-run council: He said: "My mum is 93. If she finds out about this, it'll kill her." He said he was disgusted at what he fears is a conflict of interest involving Reform's cabinet member for adult social care, Graham Dalton, who owns a private care company in Lancashire. "I'm a paid-up member of Reform and I'm disgusted ...
We are holding a Thursday street surgery tonight to speak with residents on any local issues or concerns they may have. Should you have an issue you wish to discuss with us, e-mail us at westend@dundeelibdems.org.uk or call Dundee 459378 and we will be pleased to meet you - many thanks.
