Issue 389 29th May 2015

Staffs Mobile Library Service to be Slashed by more than HALF

Local media are reporting that FIVE of Staffordshire's EIGHT mobile libraries will be closed to make savings of £350,000, under the Tory led council’s plans.

Library staff will lose their jobs: the number of villages/stopping places visited will be more than halved -

from 350 down to 157. Staffs County Council say there‟s been a decline in mobile library uptake in recent years. These savage cuts come on the tail of the public library consultation which led to 23 of the county's 43 libraries

to be planned to be run by volunteers, if any come forward — any plans to keep branch libraries open if volunteers do not come forward have not been revealed.

Staffordshire has six mobile library vehicles which tour the rural parts of the county making 15-30 minute stops at each village. Under the cutbacks, four of these vehicles will go. There are two larger travelling libraries, which stay for half a day or a full day in a village, one of these vehicles will be cut.

It is widely reported that libraries spokesperson Cllr Mike Lawrence, Staffordshire County Council, said:

"New technology and better connectivity has transformed the way people read books and this has particu-larly affected use of the mobile and travelling service. The simple fact is it costs the county council almost £7 every time someone steps on to a library vehicle. At a time when we‟re spending an extra £20 million this year on care for the old, young and vulnerable we are unable to sustain that investment." Under the Tory led council‟s plan, 18 services in the suburbs of Stafford Borough will be slashed to one.

The villages of Tixall, Doxey and Walton-on-the-Hill will lose their mobile library, as will the rural, Etching Hill and Slitting Mill near Rugeley.

County Councillors will be relying on volunteers to take books to 350 housebound readers. According to SCC records, 13,000 people registered in the last year with 5,600 actually borrowing books; 360,000 books were issued in 2010-11, falling to 218,000 in last financial year.

The proposal for mobile library service cuts will be discussed by councillors on June 1. Slashing of mobile services will then go to cabinet and, if the cuts are approved, a nine week consultation will start on

July 1. Changes will be brought in from April 2016.

Source Document: http://moderngov.staffordshire.gov.uk/documents/s70106/Item%20no%204%20Libraries%20report.pdf

2

FLASH FICTION: Random Words: more next week

Assignment: tit for tat

WARM WELCOME: COME to WORKSHOP ... Every Monday 1.30 start Rising Brook Library

Workshops resume next Monday

Re: Page 11 images: This is a govt report. http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=2737&p=0

If you are interested in forestry, bio-diversity and the future of our trees, this is worth a look.

If trees gave us Wifi we‟d all be planting

them and we‟d stop any-

one from cutting them

down to make a profit. But trees only give us the stuff we breathe in to keep us

all alive ... There‟s a thought, we need

trees for more than

flat-pack drawers ...

http://www.bridlington-poetry-festival.com/

LICHFIELD POETS

Our next event is Poetry Alight at

The King’s Head, Lichfield on Tuesday July 7th.

www.issuu.com/risingbrookwriters

BLOOMING POLITICS AGAIN! ACW Flash fiction from the patio …

The spring sunshine came from an azure sky, to give a brief glimpse of nice weather, as

the two old mates enjoyed a brief sojourn in the back garden, sat on the patio in comfy deck chairs.

One old lady was leafing through the paper idly, as the other old „un in summer frock but still shivering a bit yet, watched the bees and birds lazily going about their daily chores.

A sigh came from one who observed, “The National Health Action party and Sup-port Stafford Group political parties are indeed a one issue group.”

“You what? Mary, me ducks,” said the other. “Folk said, no point voting for a small party with only about a dozen MPs and for

just the council. But small parties have their part to play in government, as a political party and a MP with a single focus has the resources of a political party and is deep in the heart of government for information and parliament debates.”

“So why should we care that a small party didn‟t win, Anne?” Mary observed, “If we had really cared for Stafford Hospital, we would have had

12 NHA MPs in the UK parliament now, which is about the same as the entire slim ma-jority that the Tories now enjoy in government.”

“So the Tories would have been a minority government, then,” opined Anne.

“Yeah. And Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru could have joined with the NHA party to fight the coming destruction of the NHS in England,” observed Mary.

“I see. Because Scotland and Wales have devolved NHS. That many of the Welsh don‟t realise so didn't vote Plaid Cymru. So have saved theirs,” informed Anne.

“You‟re right. The NHA would have been a formidable stumbling block to the wiping out of England‟s NHS, being a party invented by senior medical consultants,” agreed Mary.

“Yeah, some folk made the mistake of thinking „I'm not voting for a single issue small party. Ranks the same as, I'm not voting for any party,” added Anne.

“I despair of what has happened in England. From my old Greece Greek mum my dad brought back after the war, it got drummed into me the western democracy the an-

cient Greece Greeks invented thousands of years ago,” moaned Mary. Anne agreed, “Because the SNP, not by nationalism but by proving by their works

to be anti-austerity cuts and for helping the vulnerable, got up to 80% voter turnout in

Scotland.” Mary cursed, “Some say Labour did not offer the Old Labour, but New Labour,

that is, well, Tory.” Anne further agreed, “It‟s potential

Labour voters who do not vote or register

to vote.” They slumped back into their deck

chairs. A thrush warbled into full song. “Want a cup of tea, Mary?”

“Jolly good idea. I‟ve got some choccy biscuits.”

4

5

Gardening Tips for June ... Frances Hartley

Summer time is coming at last. All the bedding plants are in, or at least should be

and baskets can be hung out. Outdoor Tomatoes should be hardened off by now and

be ready for going outside. It’s not too late to plant everything though and if you

like Sweet Corn that can still go in. I have grown plants in tubs successfully before

now, but you need a very large tub - big enough to take 4 plants to ensure good pol-

lination. Cobs will be a bit on the small side, but they make an extra tasty vegeta-

ble. Plants can still be bought in trays ready to grow on. Turnip seed can go in later

than most vegetables and indeed are a good crop to grow on after the Potatoes are

harvested. Just fork over the ground well after harvesting and sow the Turnip seed.

You may get a lot of small ones, but they are tasty in stews, or casseroles on a cold

Winters day. Although all the Summer vegetables should really be in now it is time

we should be thinking about planting vegetables for the Winter like Sprouts, Kale,

Leeks, Spring Cabbage, Spinach and Swiss Chard. These can all be started in what

are called 6 packs that are a plastic tray with 6 cells in. You can get these cell trays

with all sorts of combinations of the number of cells in, but they all make planting

out easier and the fewer the cells the bigger they are and the more growing room

they have for the young plants.

Strawberries will soon be ready for picking and if we do as well as last year I

shall open freeze some again, so that when they are frozen they can be tipped into

bags and will still be loose instead of making a solid lump of Strawberry ice. We

found that when 4 or 5 Strawberries are put in and into a fruit crumble it sweetens it

enough, so that you don’t need to use Sugar at all - even with Rhubarb, Gooseberry,

or Apple. The taste of the Strawberries comes through strongly though, so don’t put

too many in, or else you will over power all the other tastes.

The Grass is growing so well that we seem to be cutting it every 3 or 4 days.

Grass cuttings make an ideal mulch round all sorts of Bean plants and any scattered

amongst fruit and vegetables like Squashes, or Courgettes will help to keep the

weeds down and moisture in. Another use for grass cuttings is to help to warm the

compost heap up. Don’t put them in too thickly though – just scatter them in and

they will help turn your garden rubbish into good garden compost. Done properly a

compost heap does not smell as some people think it might and it does not encour-

age rats as long as no waste food goes into it.

Winter flowering Heathers should be clipped over lightly now to tidy them up

and encourage new growth, but there isn’t much other prun-

ing to be done at the moment. Wisteria is one thing that will

need a little pruning soon and you can lightly prune some of

your fruit trees just to keep them in shape, but make sure that

you don’t cut off the branches with fruit on although, it is

time to thin out heavily fruiting trees. We have lightly

trimmed up our Grape Vine to remove some of the excess

bunches and encourage those left to grow a little bigger.

Well that all for now. Cheerio.

Frances Hartley

I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky,

And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,

And heard the waves, and the seagull's mock-ing cry.

And in them all was only the old cry, That song they always sing -- "The best is

over! You may remember now, and think, and sigh,

O silly lover!" And I was tired and sick that all was over, And because I,

For all my thinking, never could recover One moment of the good hours that were

over. And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.

Then from the sad west turning wearily, I saw the pines against the white north sky,

Very beautiful, and still, and bending over Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.

And there was peace in them; and I Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,

And laughed, and did no longer wish to die; Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky! Pine-Trees And The Sky: Evening Rupert Brooke

Imag

e: G

Sim

mons

Martha Ellis Gellhorn (November 8, 1908 – February 15,

1998) an American novelist, travel

writer and journalist, was one of the

greatest war correspondents of the

20th century.

She reported on virtually every major conflict

during a 60-year career. Gellhorn was also the

third wife of American novelist Ernest

Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945: she is widely

reported as saying she did not wish to be

remembered as a footnote on his life. The

Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is

named after her.

It is well documented that Gellhorn was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Edna Fischel Gellhorn, a suffra-

gist, and George Gellhorn, a German-born gynaecologist. Her father and maternal grandfather were of Jewish origin.

Gellhorn graduated in 1926 from John Burroughs School in St. Louis and enrolled in Bryn Mawr College in Phila-

delphia. In 1927, she left to pursue a career as a journalist. Her first articles appeared in The New Republic. In 1930,

to gain experience as a foreign correspondent, she went to France to work at the United Press Bureau in Paris. While

working in Europe, she became active in the pacifist movement: What Mad Pursuit (1934).

Returning to the US, Gellhorn found employment as a field investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief

Administration (FERA), created by F. D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. She travelled extensively reporting

on the impact of the Depression. Later, working with Dorothea Lange, a photographer, to document the suffering of

hungry and homeless people. Their reports later became part of the government’s historic record of the Great Depres-

sion. They investigated topics not open to women of the 1930s, which makes Gellhorn and Lange, major contributors

to social history. Gellhorn's reports caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt, the two women became lifelong

friends. Her findings were the basis of a collection of short stories, The Trouble I've Seen (1936).

Gellhorn first met Ernest Hemingway during a Christmas family trip to Key West 1936. They travelled in

Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War, where Gellhorn was reporting for Collier's Weekly. Later, from Germany, she

reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler and in 1938 was in Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of World War II, she

wrote of these events in the novel A Stricken Field (1940). She later reported on war from Finland, Hong Kong,

Burma, Singapore and Britain. Lacking official press accreditation for the Normandy landings, she hid in a hospital

ship and impersonated a stretcher bearer; she later recalled, "I followed the war wherever I could reach it." She was

the only woman journalist to land at Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944.) She was also among the first war corre-

spondents to report from Dachau concentration camp when it was liberated.

She and Hemingway lived together off and on for four years, before marrying in December 1940. It is said, he

became increasingly resentful of Gellhorn's long absences. After four years of a stressful marriage, they divorced in

1945. The 2012 film Hemingway & Gellhorn, in which she was portrayed by Nicole Kidman, is based on these

years. The 2011 documentary film No Job for a Woman: The Women Who Fought to Report WWII features Martha

Gellhorn and how she forever changed war reporting.

After the Second World War, Gellhorn worked for Atlantic Monthly, covering the Vietnam War, the Six-Day

War in the Middle East, and civil wars in Central America. At age 81 she travelled to Panama where she wrote on the

US invasion. When the Bosnian War broke out in the 1990s she conceded she was too old, saying, "You need to be

nimble." Gellhorn published numerous books, including, The Face of War (1959); a novel about McCarthyism, The

Lowest Trees Have Tops (1967); Travels With Myself and Another (1978); and a collection of articles The View From

the Ground (1988).

Martha Gellhorn died in London in 1998, aged 89, after a long battle with ovarian and liver cancer and near

total blindness.

Sources: Biography, Wikipedia and other web outlets

http://www.marthagellhorn.com/

1941 Chungking China: Gellhorn & Hemingway Public domain Wikipedia

I love wind farms. Daft name. People have an emotional response to the word

“windmills”, they are even in songs ... but not to wind turbines. But, the technology is basically the same idea: capturing the wind to drive

machinery to make electricity, or drive a millwheel. If these wind catchers had been called “windmills” would some people (the NIMBYs) feel differently about them?

Anyway, I love them. And, I’d be very happy with them in my back yard. Or decorating a hillside, or a coastline. They are majestic and brave and some-thing beautiful being useful in a dysfunctional planet.

I love their whoosh, their pick up of speed and mesmerising gracefulness. There are other schools of thought, but this is my opinion. (SMS)

Pho

to cred

it: G S

imm

ons

WE THROW PEOPLE AWAY AND THEN THEY MAKE OUR LIVES BETTER blog by ACW

Sometimes one despairs of a society that sneers at poverty. Many seem only too pleased to throw people away into the most dire cruelty allowed upon them by the state. Then they do something like this to us and for themselves. By the random kindness of someone to install a piano for public use in a railway station. So wrapped in a soaked duvet this homeless man had the rare chance to play a piano he obviously loves, after year and a half on the street. And the public get a treat that moved them to tears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJJi5GJno_c The article is in one of the national newspapers dated 22 May 2015: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/watch-homeless-man-reduce-commuters-5745421

His mate from school set up a fund-raising page to get him a place to stay: http://www.gofundme.com/v4vpq2as (NB this worthy online campaign - which doubled its modest target of raising £2,000 to nearly £4,000 in less than a month - has now been taken down (SMS)) The comments on that page showed there were still some kind people out there.

Tim

ber

Felling images taken by a

shocked tourist in Spring 2015

Scottish West Highlands

Consider: Trees as a crop ... What do trees mean to the

economy? „Sustainable‟ forestry ...

What is that? Environmental Blogs and

YOUR images always welcome ...

Gone

Gone

Gone

Refugees ... Continued Clive Hewitt

Hunting: jackals and other things. Shortly after dawn, three men appeared at the fort gates and shouted up to the sentry that they were the ex-

pected hunters. The sentry, one of the local men, Musa ben Hiliel, reported the arrival and said that he'd never seen them be-

fore. “Keep an eye on them hunters, lads,” Moab told them as they gathered to go through the gates. “They're sup-posed to be local, but Musa ben Hiliel says they aren't. I trust Musa and don't like it when something like this hap-

pens, don't turn your back to them.” Ad grumbled, quietly, that Moab was being an old woman. Abram, another local lad, agreed with that the hunters didn't come from the area.

The gates were opened for them. “March,” commanded Moab to his ten men as the hunters led the way to-wards where the last kill cry of the pack had come from.

The donkey was getting nervous when one of the hunters, a rail thin man calling himself Yousef and stinking of dung, came back to them. “They've got a den of some sort in a wadhi behind those bushes in front.” He said pointing to line of scrub.

“We think that the pack is about forty strong.” “Too many for us to take on at one go,” Moab decided, “we need to split them into smaller groups. Any ideas?”

For a hunter Yousef was a dead loss. “We could always drive the donkey into them. Then, when they're busy pulling it down shoot a few.” “Brilliant idea, Yousef, brilliant, and if we take the packs off it first you can carry them back to the fort! Of

course water and food aren't all that heavy, are they?” Moab knew that food was light and water very heavy. “At this time of the day you can run out of water very easily. Ask Anep what it's like, he knows all about it.”

Abram looked around before saying, “That dip, a few paces back there, is a good place to get out of the sun and decide.” Moab nodded and they set off back with Yousef in the lead.

Abram walked behind Moab and said, softly. “There was no jackal pack in that wadhi. For one thing they al-ways yip and there wasn't a sound, also, and I'm not sure about this, but I think I saw some feathers appear at the lip. Soldiers is my guess and not our soldiers either.”

“A trap then?” Moab didn't seem to be too put out by the information. “It adds up. Hunters who aren't local, that Yousef being useless and trying to get us separated from our food and water, and it's about the time of the

year for the Nubian's to start and make noises.” “It's been a few years since the last time they came around,” Abram replied as they dropped into the dip. Moab nodded again, and then walked over to where Yousef squatted in the shade. “Got a job for you, Yousef.

Go and find those hunter friends of yours and bring them over here for some food. We'll all have some bread and beer, then go over and kill those jackals.”

Yousef left, walking in the tracks they'd made coming in. “Right lads, listen and remember what I say. There aren't any jackals over there, but there are some Nubian soldiers. We can get more for a Nubian than we can for a jackal skin so we're going to sneak up and grab some.

If you come across that Yousef, or any of his so-called hunter friends, stick a spear into them. They're spies, and spies need to be discouraged from coming around here. Got it?” Heads nodded as he continued. “Now we go … that way,” he pointed off to the side with his mace of office,

“keep well down from the rim and follow me!” The Nubian sentry was asleep in the heat of the day; Moab used his mace to make sure he didn't wake in this

world. The fight that followed was brief and one sided. A flight of spears took down eight of the Nubian's and the hand-to-hand fighting killed another four. Four or five more of the remainder took to their heels, the rest were wounded or became prisoners. Yousef didn't survive.

“Well that was short and sweet,” Moab declared. “Well done lads, hardly a scratch amongst us and four slaves ready for the auction block. If the others survive they'll join them.”

“What chance is there of that then, fifty?” “Even with the best of care those belly wounds will go bad, Soldier Ad, one won't make it to sundown. Two more ... maybe, we'll have to see what the slaves can do with them.”

Moab walked across to the worst wounded and smashed in their heads with his mace. The unit gasped in shock at his show of cruelty, “They can live in agony for a few days or die easily now. I know which I'd choose,”

he explained. “Make your own minds up lads.” After a few seconds he said, “Gather up anything of their kit we can use and let's head back to report. Slaves

to carry the wounded.”

The smell of fresh blood had attracted the jackals who stood around yipping and snarling at the men.

“Walk, don't run,” Moab instructed them as they left the wadhi. “Running will bring that lot down on us, but all that fresh meat will keep them here until we've got well away.”

***

“Abram, what's the matter with those Nubian's do you think? Any-

body would think that they're not happy with being captured.” “I don't suppose they are Anep. On a slave block and heading for

a short life in the mines, I don't suppose I'd be happy either.” “I don't think that Moshe is going to be happy. First we get three spies, well two now 'cos one's ended up dead, a fight with a band of

Nubian soldiers and we're stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, short of spears.”

“So, you think that there's going to be another invasion then! A bunch of Nubian's taking on the Pharaoh and his army?” “Yes! Another just like the last and we're stuck here; right in the

middle of it.” “Abram, you're panicking. We've had a fight with a few foreigners

who may be soldiers. Don't forget that they had more men than we did and we gave them a real thrashing. I don't think we need to

worry for a few days yet. I'll have a word with the Captain though, maybe he'll want to send the women and kids

off somewhere for safety.” The next two days were tense with worry. The women baked a lot of hard bread, bread that would keep, water was drawn from the well and stored in any kind of jar that was available. Old oil was taken from the stores that

they had been able to gather and put in easily breakable jars on the battlements, with kindling stacked nearby to set it aflame if required.

No boats arrived at the quay from either direction and the jackals were silent. To be continued ...

Photo credit: P Shilston

Find more on Facebook: Portuguese Street Artist

Artur Bordalo Tag: Bordalo II

His work of 3D animals made from junk and wall murals

decorating Lisbon is amazing.

Grateful thanks

To

Staffordshire Archives

And Heritage for putting these

historical images into the

public domain

on FACEBOOK

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