YOUR LETTERS: January 15 2009
A ROUND-UP of letters from the January 15 edition of the Advertiser.
Want to air your views? Email us a letter by clicking here or write to us at: Letter's Page, Rugby Advertiser, 2 Albert Street, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 2RS.
All letters MUST include full names and addresses to make sure it is bona fide. If you wish for these details not to be published, please state so in the letter.
Christian doesn't come into it
I WISH to respond to the recent letter entitled 'Not very Christian', which refers to the article on page 3 of December 25 issue.
I wonder if the author is in full possession of the facts. I am not a resident of Wolfhampcote, but I do pass the site on a daily basis.
I too would take a sympathetic approach if this article was about a destitute traveller. But it is not the case.
The photograph printed does not depict the extent of Mr. Rourke's possessions, which include two large vans, one fitted with an expensive solar panel, and contain hedge cutting equipment and machines of considerable value.
Mr. Rourke has made it clear he is aware of his rights but made no mention of what he has to contribute.
As for comparing this case with the story of the birth of Christ, I fail to see any parallels.
Mary and Joseph were seeking short term hospitality. They were travelling to pay their taxes and I doubt very much that the innkeeper and residents of Bethlehem were disturbed by rhyhm and bass music emanating from the stable at high volume.
J Parsons,
Crick Road,
Hillmorton,
Rugby.
Pantomime is a masterpiece
NO NEED to travel miles from Rugby to be entertained. Dick Whittington, directed by Mike Allen at Rugby Theatre is a masterpiece of music, laughter and the usual well-timed slapstick.
The cast puts 110 per cent into all performances and a special mention must go to the newscomers, Helen Cotterill, Hannah Wright and Kirsty Giles.
Well done to all.
The glittering costumes, lighting and scenery add a final touch to an excellent night's entertainment here in Rugby. Don't miss it.
Keith Ward (Monday evening
audience),
Rounds Gardens,
Rugby.
Fed up with state of pitches
AS usual people may read this and think 'oh my God, another moan and groan'. But like most amateur footballers in Rugby, I am sick of the way the football pitches are not looked after.
As a club we, like other clubs, have paid our registration fees and pay for the 'rental' of pitches each week.
On Sunday, January 4 our game was called off very late when some of our players had come away from family and work commitments, and travelled from Coventry, Leicestershire and even Northampton to play, only to face the cancellation.
I know we have had bad weather and the likelihood of any games going ahead very minimal, but as my 'moan' is all about if the pitches were looked after, we would have been alright to play.
I completely understand as a player that our safety is the most important thing, but even the league official who looked at our pitch said that if the council had rolled the pitches during the Christmas break there would have been no problem with the game being played. Something needs to be done in my opinion. The last two seasons have had the league season extended because of the backlog of games not being played all because of the condition of pitches.
A possible solution is for a league official to inspect the pitches first thing in the morning on occasions like Sunday so that teams have some kind of notice as to whether the games will go ahead instead of leaving it till the last minute before kick off. They could at least monitor the condition of pitches during the week leading up to games being played at the weekends. As mentioned we have all paid our fees and pay for the pitches so can't they at least be looked after?
I know I'm only whinging and speaking my opinion but surely I'm not the only person who thinks this. It is just annoying getting everything planned as a team for each game only for it to go up in smoke at the last possible moment.
Ricky Sutcliffe,
Materials Logistics Co-ordinator,
Cummins Ltd.,
Daventry.
I remember that bridge too
IN your issue of January 8, you printed a letter from Mrs. M. Carter, who remembered the old canal/road bridge at Brownsover as a place of shelter on a Sunday afternoon during an air raid in the 1940s.
I remember it also as a place where, when sailing some toy boats under the bridge, one of the group put his hand on my shoulder making me topple over into the murky water. It may have been the same person who grabbed my shirt collar and hauled me out, causing one of the shirt buttons to shoot away into the water. I remember that this distressed me more than having to go home in wet clothes.
Referring to the photo, in the distance on the edge of the opposite bank of the canal, you can see two or three willow trees on which we had hung some sturdy ropes, allowing us to swing out across the water like Tarzan, often risking wet feet.
At times during severe winters, the ice-breaker barge would be towed along by a horse, the occupants of the boat rocking it from side to side to break up the ice-floes which were sometimes three to four inches thick and certainly strong enough to bear a persons weight when skating or sliding. Mrs. Carter recalls hearing the air raid siren that Sunday afternoon followed by the noise of a speeding aircraft.
My family lived in Houston Road then, my father being employed at the BTH company on essential war work. But an aunt from Rainsford in Essex was visiting and she immediately chased us under the dining table as a temporary shelter. Her quick reaction to possible imminent danger, was due to her being used to air raids as a daily occurrence where she lived.
There wasn't time to get to the Anderson shelter down the garden before any bomb dropped. The one that did, made a large hole in the road a few hundred yards away where Mill Road joined Boughton Road very near to the 'white' bridge, as it was called, and almost on top of the water works pumping station. Neither are there now, of course, but the occupants of the houses and flats in Seymour Road would have had a very near and frightening experience.
The burst of fire Mrs. Carter saw under the German bomber, which was probably on a lone intruder flight, must have been the disintegration of a shell fired by an anti-aircraft weapon. Such a gun was positioned on the hill where the postwar estate now stands. Actually only one bomb left the speeding aircraft at that point because it had jettisoned the others along the way from New Bilton, Willans Works, across the railway lines by Hunters Lane and finally the one by the Avon bridge.
The pilot was obviously dropping his heavy load anywhere because he was being chased by a British fighter, Spitfire or Hurricane. Despite trying to give his engines more power to get away, the aircraft crashed, I think at Lilbourne, its demise caused either by accurate shooting by the pursuing fighter or by the ack-ack gunners.
I submit that the falling metal shrapnel Mrs. Carter and her friend noticed at the canal must have come from exploding gun shells because I don't think any debris from the bomb could have gone that far.
Also I don't think the water works employee, Mr. Wood, had any part in the downfall of the German bomber because he was down an inspection shaft at the water works at the time of the detonation and suffered loss of hearing for quite a while afterwards, as told to me by his daughter, Jean.
A piece of the bomb casing, patiently dug out of the brickwork of the "white" bridge by me was a memento kept in a cardboard shoebox for many years. It was accompanied by a fin of an incendiary bomb and a piece of bomb shrapnel from the blitz of Coventry. It was given to me by my uncle, Ernie Jarvis, a member of Rugby fire service who had been sent there to assist the local brigade. All items were lost/mislaid sadly during the following years, but the memories linger on.
Bryan Field-Enticott,
Wolsey Road,
Rugby.
Those horses worried me
I WAS perturbed to see two miniature horses standing in Rugby town centre this week, accompanied by charity workers collecting for children.
Intelligent animals are not meant to be standing still in a town centre for hours in all weathers, muzzled and without any sign of water or food. Horses are meant to be exercised or free in a field, not demeaned by being constantly patted on the head while the public throw their money into open buckets. On request, printed information was unavailable.
I am perplexed by the presence of miniature horses when it is a children's charity. Why not have children there, say, on a Saturday, when there is no school?
Based on their visits to Rugby from another area, the animals are probably transported regularly to different venues and, to me, this partly resembles a travelling circus where you pay your money to be entertained and to be near intelligent animals that should never be there in the first place.
Janet Cummings,
Tower Road,
Rugby.
Too fast to take down the decs
A NUMBER of shoppers in Sainsbury's, Dunchurch Road, stared in some disbelief on Christmas Eve, when with Dunchurch brass band playing Christmas carols in the entrance hall, the Sainsbury's staff in the main shopping area and restaurant started to take down the Christmas decorations!
Nobody could quite believe that on the day the 12 Days of Christmas started, one of the festival's principal features was being removed.
Enquiring of the manager, who was standing close by, why this was so, I was informed in a somewhat grumpy and irritated manner that the staff had been 'working their socks off' for the previous few weeks, that the 25th was the only day in the year the store was closed and that the tinsel might cause the alarms to go off, resulting in some poor unfortunate being called out to put them off. Moreover, I should have better things to do than make such an inquiry.
Now, while I have every sympathy with the staff only being allowed 24 hours off at Christmas, I feel this could have been explained in an informative and polite manner, not the reaction I encountered.
The point being made remained valid - for the whole of the 12 Days of Christmas the store remaines without decoration. What kind of Christmas spirit does this show?
With the run up to the festival over and the profit motive fulfilled, Christmas was being immediately dumped until next year.
I, a mere customer, had had the effrontery to question the profit motive and not merely consume.
Well, come summer 2009 and the 'advent' of Asda, we will all be able to vote with our feet, Mr. Manager.
Name and address supplied.
It's a total contradiction
ON the rare occasion that I listen to local radio (probably once a year), I tuined in today to listen for school closures due to the freezing temperatures and much to my daughter's disappointment there were no announcements today.
However, imagine my amusement when I heard the news that Rugby Borough Council have a competition for primary schools in the town for pupils to create a poster to promote the importance of recycling. This in itself may not seem amusing, but when you consider the fact that during the festive holiday period both my husband and I (ages 40 & 41- not primary school age!) went to the Rugby tip, sorry Recycling Centre, with a vast amount of cardboard boxes, only to be told by staff, that as the cardboard skip was full, we had to place the cardboard in the skip marked 'Waste that cannot be recycled'!
This is a total contradiction of the word 'recycle' and I would like to ask the council why they didn't have more skips available knowing that this was the first day open for the centre after Christmas and Boxing Day. People are on holiday and have far more waste than usual at this time of year and have the time to dispose of it correctly should they be given the facility to do so.
Samantha Lee
Boughton Vale
Rugby.
(Full address supplied)
What a mess they're making
TO drive north along Corporation Street is now quite disturbing to the eye. Whoever, in the Rugby borough technical planning department was responsible for the plans for the new ASDA complex has surely no responsibility towards the look of the developing town.
This monstrosity has been forced/pushed upon the inhabitants. And it is just a short distance from the Conservation Area, where residents and owners of Listed Buildings live in terror of the Technical Planning Office in case they use the wrong paint, windowpane or alter slightly some configuration of the garden layout.
Just who passed the plans or gave the authority to allow this monstrous structure to be constructed should be taken to account for initiating the start of the final destruction of Rugby as a pleasant town with what were good shopping facilities.
They should be ashamed of what they have allowed to be created. At the end of the day, the Rugby citizens were not asked if this is what they wanted their town to become.
Responsibility to the people for the future of Rugby cannot have been taken into consideration in the planning of this debacle of commercial interest.
Name and address supplied.
Is this the way to get results?
AT last I have have had some response from Walsgrave Hospital regarding parking on Christmas Day at the hospital.
I have had an email from our local MP Jeremy Wright's secretary telling me they are waiving charges on Christmas Day 2009 and 2010
Maybe by going through our MP and getting your views printed in the local paper is the only way to get a response from the hospital, so I thank you for this. Des o' Driscoll,
Jenkins Road,
Hillmorton.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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