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Signs of artistic ambitions in highways department

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on May 8, 2008 1:46 PM

THIS country has developed a serious problem to go with all the others. This one borders on obsessional.

We cannot resist tinkering with our roads, adding this, putting in that. Usually, it is in the name of safety, but sometimes I do wonder.

Our relationship with roadways seems to be one of gardens and gardeners.

Continue reading "Signs of artistic ambitions in highways department"

Industry gets into bed with university

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 22, 2008 12:17 PM

ONE of the country’s newest universities is offering a degree in selling beds. The Britain we live in, eh?

It is what would have been called a training course in your day.
Now it comes with a cap and gown and two years’ obligatory student drunken revelry.
But for being born in the wrong era I would have enrolled myself and happily moved into the halls of residence. Not only would I have bedded the pretty little blonde-haired girl down the corridor I’d have sold her the mattress as well.

Continue reading "Industry gets into bed with university"

Is trip on spaceship truly out of this world?

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 17, 2008 1:58 PM

WEIGHING up what to do for my hols, I was torn between a rainy week in a caravan in Abergele – it always rains in Abergele – and joining the first civilian space flight on Virgin Galactic’s spaceship Two Feather. They are now taking bookings, you know.

Abergele stands on a direct route for the rain clouds from Snowdonia. All the while, it is sunny in Llandudno. You can see it sort of shimmering in the distance.
But the cheap caravans are in Abergele, or Towyn if you are the fun-loving sort. If there’s a caravan site, there is always a shop and social club nearby, so there’s no end of things you can do if it is raining.

Continue reading "Is trip on spaceship truly out of this world?"

Make My Dream Come True

Posted by Kingsley Road Kid on April 8, 2008 1:13 PM

The first time I watched Runcorn FC, I was seven year old boy. My Dad had just beaten the ‘bookie’ with a ‘Six Penny accumulator’ and won over £11 on the horses! He took us to Canal Street to watch Runcorn FC in the winter of 1964.

I didn’t know then that standing on the Popular Side would change my life forever. I would end up writing a book about my home town club - Runcorn FC, called “Gone But Not Forgotten.”

So, after two years and lots of hard work researching and writing the book against the odds, I have had no funding at all to do this project.
I’m asking all football fans and ex-players, or anybody who can help me fulfil this life long dream, to sponsor this book.

The reason I am writing the book is so that our club’s wonderful history, will be remembered for generations to come.

I have interviewed ex-players, managers and life-long fans, including relatives of the famous 1939 team. I have collected together dozens of photographs, some even go back to the very beginning of Runcorn FC in 1918.

I am hoping that local companies will see that that this project is worth while, and sponsor the printing costs to make this dream become a reality.

If you would like to be one my top twenty sponsors - because that’s all it would take - to make this book something we could all be proud of, please do not hesitate to contact me!
A donation from every sale of the book will be given to aid ‘The New Ground Fund’ for Runcorn

Mon Dieu! Classroom pranks turned Fat Malc into a thug

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 8, 2008 8:34 AM

Teachers are being worn out by classes who hum in unison or start orchestrated coughing and other schoolboy pranks, says the union NASUWT.

Humming? Coughing? They should be so lucky. We drove our French teacher mad. Of course we did not mean to, not so he’d spend months off work and return from some psychiatrist’s couch a thug with the manner of a kindly uncle, but we did.

All teachers are supposed to have ways of dealing with mischievous classes. I remember a physics teacher who could lift me off the ground by the ear lobes. Mine, not his.
Others just had authority. You played your joke and then did as you were told.
Whenever Fat Malc, the French teacher, turned to write on the board we’d swap places, so when he turned back, no one was where they were supposed to be.
Ha ha.

Continue reading "Mon Dieu! Classroom pranks turned Fat Malc into a thug"

Grumpy Boy Scouts and Blackberries

Posted by Kingsley Road Kid on April 6, 2008 7:33 PM


When we were teenagers, in the early seventies, we played football on Heath Park in Runcorn, until you couldn’t see the ball.
Once, the football went into the pond, the water was dirty, and we knew there was broken glass at the bottom, it was going dark, no one would volunteer to go in with the frogs.

Luckily it was in the middle of the Scouts “Bob a Job” week and a little red headed Boy Scout happened to be passing the Heath Park, so we grabbed him, gave him a stick and held him over the pond to get the ball.
After the boy got the ball out, he ran off throwing lumps of soil at us and using quite shocking language for a Boy Scout, perhaps they had a badge for swearing in those days. We shouted after him “See you again next year” “Not blooming likely he shouted”. He was none too pleased with the task, even though we did give him a bob for the trouble.

Later in the year, as the autumn weather came and leaves littered the pathways, we climbed trees for conkers to string.
We also used our old jams jars to go blackberry picking, the ones we had collected tadpoles in, but had to throw them back as Dad would go mad if we took anymore home. We washed the old jam jars in the dirty pond water, then we went blackberry picking at Weston, after playing in the caves on Runcorn Hill. The blackberries were always at their best in mid to late September.

We took them home and Mum made homemade blackberry pie and a rice pudding to go with it. I can still taste that pie now, as far as the Boy Scout goes, I wonder what happened to him, I bet he kept well away from the Heath Park on “Bob a Job week”!

Real Cheshire folk know their true boundaries despite lines on a map

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 1, 2008 11:08 AM

LET me tell you something about Cheshire.
It starts at Hoylake in the west and ends at Stalybridge in the east.
Even though Wirral and anything the other side of Bowdon has not been in Cheshire since the last time they mucked about with the boundaries, the folk who live there still see themselves as Cheshire people.
Certainly those whose families who can trace their residential antecedence right the way back through the mists of time to, oh, 1974 and beyond.

Continue reading "Real Cheshire folk know their true boundaries despite lines on a map"

Brush over Basil’s gaffe

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 25, 2008 1:02 PM

IS Basil Brush racist? His joke about a Gypsy nicking his wallet is a slur on all travellers, says a Gypsy and Travellers Network and stereotypes them.

Personally, I suspect it’s a class thing. Mr Brush is extremely well spoken, dresses very well and doesn’t throw litter about, just the kind of person to get up a Traveller’s nose.

Continue reading "Brush over Basil’s gaffe"

A Weaverham Special - Past Rose Fetes

Posted by Weaverham Community Website on March 24, 2008 10:59 AM

Thought I’d put this special in as a supporter of the Cheshire Rose Fetes. Read with dismay some time back that despite surviving for 75 years they may very well not continue through lack of support and expertise!

The Weaverham Rose Fete in the 50’s was an amazing event. It was a bit like Christmas in June/July. Here in Western Australia we actually do celebrate ‘Christmas in July’. July is in the middle of winter, and pretty cold. So some of us crazy gals and guys, take off for weekends and hols in the south of the state, which is the coldest part and celebrate ‘Christmas in July’, with real Christmas food, cards and celebrations!

Weaverham in the 50’s was pretty quiet and the two main exciting times were the summer rose fete and Christmas. The rose fete of course attracted the traveling fair, and that was a week or two of excitement and ‘the big night out syndrome’! Whether it rained or shone, it didn’t matter. The fair ground was a honey pot to the ‘bees’ of Weaverham. We strutted are thing and met the girls for a fling. I managed to catch the last night of the Weaverham fair in July ’99. It was much smaller than I remembered and one of the stall holders confirmed the fact. The fair ground seemed to be loosing its’ appeal to modern entertainment and technology.

In the 50’s the Weaverham fair took up the whole field practically and had every imaginable event. Dodgem cars, boxing rings where you could fight the resident boxer and win a quid or two. Ferris wheels, merry go rounds, hot dog stands etc etc. For us it was magic and we felt like kings for the night. I remember we all got dressed up in our best jeans, shirts and for some of us cravats and kept trying to bump into as many girls as we could and dare them to try the more dangerous rides.

In ’99 on my return after 37 years away we turned out for the Davenham Rose Fete. A much smaller place and event than the Weaverham one. So come on don’t ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’. We can enjoy the new technologies like the internet but let’s retain some of the old world charm as well and support the revival of the Cheshire Rose Fetes’. It doesn’t after all have to be exactly as it was in the 50’s. What about a ‘new age’ rose fete with modern themes and space –aged displays. Remember ‘achievement is only limited by a lack of imagination’

British humour is a funny thing for others to follow

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 19, 2008 8:29 AM

Three interesting reports reach my ears: The secret of British humour is in the genes, say researchers; Britons are only happy when miserable, says an American – and Germany to buy ’Allo ’Allo.

The last item is bound to make us happy. Constable Crabtree, speaking broken French in English and dubbed in German, will be worth watching with subtitles. I think we should buy it back.

Continue reading "British humour is a funny thing for others to follow"

A Walk Around My Old Town?

Posted by Kingsley Road Kid on March 8, 2008 12:40 PM


I Can’t help feeling sad, seeing so many of our lovely old buildings disappear from the ‘Old Town’ landscape.
While I understand the need for redevelopment after all these years.
It does seem such a crying shame that a lot of our unlisted old buildings are being snapped up to be turned into apartments, when what the Old Town badly needs is a retail development.
Our heritage is fast disappearing along with our identity, maybe we won‘t realise this until its all gone.
What we don’t want is for the Old Town to become a distant memory, or a collection of old black and white photographs

Take the La Scala building in the High Street in Runcorn, originally it was a cinema, then a well known bingo hall.
It’s said “the Beatles once played there in the early nineteen sixties”
I’m sure it had an art deco frontage and was used in many top t v drama, such as ‘Pennies from Heaven’ by Dennis Potter.
It’s a shame the buildings façade couldn’t have been kept in it’s original state and the building redeveloped inside, this could be said of a lot of Old Town buildings.
It is really heartbreaking to see the ruined shell the La Scala has become because redevelopment has taken so long.

Waterloo House in Waterloo Road was built in the late 1830s by Charles Hazlehurst and it later became our Town Hall from 1874 to 1933.
It became well known as a community centre for the company YKK.
Who, in their right mind would let one of Runcorn’s Town Halls be turned into yet more apartments?

To complete the trio of well known buildings due to disappear soon is the Technical Institute known locally as the Tech.
The Tech was built in 1894 by John Tomlinson Brunner of I C I fame with the help of public subscription.
In 1902 the pupils of the new Runcorn County Secondary School shared the building.
These building are all a major part of the history of the Old Town.
I can’t help but have some misgivings as to what is happening in the Old Town and if we are really doing the right thing.
Such a pity we couldn’t take a leaf out of Frodsham’s book and preserve our heritage for the future.

A quintessential cheshire Village

Posted by Weaverham Community Website on March 5, 2008 12:16 PM

I'm not sure where I'm going with this one but I do know where I've been - so now a short posting to see if I grapple with the machinations of all this new technology. But I feel sure James will come to the rescue if necessary he seems such a gentle soul!

Imagine Weaverham if you can in the mid 50’s. A sleepy Cheshire village with add-on old and new housing estates belonging to that big chemical factory spouting smoke all day called ICI. For a young 12 year old straight from the back streets of Liverpool this was paradise. Plenty of fresh air (when the ICI smoke was blowing in the right direction) green fields and laid back country folk!

Personally Speaking

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 4, 2008 12:53 PM

You cannot take early flowers and sunshine as evidence of Armageddon

Spring is early again. I know because the newspapers tell me and because, well, I saw two ducks, you know, at it, the other day.
It may be nature but it is not romantic. It’s a wonder she didn’t drown.

Other ducks were milling about as ducks do and you wonder what they thought of it all.
Daffodils have been flowering for months, hedges are in bud, the sun is shining, there are gnats in the air and it is all the fault of global warming.

Continue reading "Personally Speaking"

On the crest of a wave

Posted by The Drama Queens on February 29, 2008 9:29 AM

Sam and I had a fantastic session together today. We worked flat out from 9am until 1.30pm. We raced through episode 5, we discussed episode 6; we even had enough drive and inspiration to outline series two! We also began to imagine another comedy drama series, on a completely different theme. The next Sam and Anna collaboration would be about couples; forty-somethings with marriages, children, second marriages, affairs, broken promises, failed dreams, sadnesses and triumphs. The new series would include characters like Charlotte and Ray; one minute they’re on top of the world, happily married, a golden couple, in love with each other, sustained by shared values, the importance of good friends, good wine and their thriving careers helping others. The next minute, Ray is struck down with depression.

Continue reading "On the crest of a wave"

The Oldest Sport in Runcorn?

Posted by Kingsley Road Kid on February 27, 2008 6:57 PM

football-thumb.jpg
1903 Highfield and Camden Works Competition.


I am trying to find out which sport is the Oldest in Runcorn.

As far as I know, The Runcorn Rugby team seems to be the oldest sport on record (Established in 1876).

I have found that the earliest Football Club in Runcorn may have been established in 1903 - Unless anyone can tell me otherwise.

If anyone knows of any earlier sporting clubs in Runcorn than that of the Rugby Team, please - let me know.

Read me, Kate

Posted by The Drama Queens on February 26, 2008 11:33 AM

Sam has had a reply from the BBC. I did what any fledgling scriptwriter would do and clicked on the link. Kate Rowlands, creative director new writing, had received our script entitled 'Cleaning Up' and had replied.
I know there's no way she would have had time to read it so was this just a polite 'no' do you think? My finger hovered. Actually I'm not sure I wouldn't rather leave it a few months before reading it. I'm not ready for rejection yet; I'd quite like to be a 'possible sriptwriter' rather than a 'failed scriptwriter'.
But then I caught sight of Sam's message at the top of the email: 'We haven't fallen at the first hurdle' and believed her....

Continue reading "Read me, Kate"

Education system is failing even examination cheats

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on February 26, 2008 9:23 AM

MORE than 4,000 students were caught cheating at A-level and GCSE exams last year. Proof indeed of the dumbing down of education, that so many should try and get caught.

The percentage success rate in my day was far higher, I’m sure. It is bad enough standards seemingly in all subjects should be dropping – the latest example is a teacher who gave his class of 10-years-olds a science GCSE paper to do and a third of them passed, even though they had not yet studied any science - but that the system, despite all its billions, is not producing pupils who can cheat and get away with it is condemnation of the system indeed.

Where is the UK in these Euro league tables they keep trotting out at such times? Bottom I shouldn’t wonder. I bet there are sharper cheats in France. Oh, the shame!

Continue reading "Education system is failing even examination cheats"