Letters, April 20, 2012

is well used

IN response to comments in the Mercury about Caister, I am sure people like me and my family having lived and worked in the community since 1978, are well aware of the extensive builds which have happened over the years.

The comments about the car park being an unused paved area is misleading, also the comment that rarely a car seen there. My house backs onto this area and I can assure the persons who chose not to identify themselves, that school times, weekends and evenings when the children’s football clubs are on it is well used.

Also this is a tenants car park and large delivery vans to residents on Charles Close plus the refuse collections rely on this area to turn around. I am sure Caister is not that desperate for this small open space to be lost to four houses. It will be like a rabbit warren, and we will lose rear access to our properties and car parking space, which is not available on the front of the properties on Braddock Road, due to a bus stop opposite.

If this development goes ahead I hope the homes are allocated to people who have spent many years on the council waiting lists, living in the area and deserve to be considered.

Regarding the lack of consideration I totally agree with the comments, having attended the borough council meeting on the 10th and it was disappointing there was no representative from the parish council or any councillors prepared to even listen to people’s concerns with regards to other developments across the borough.

It proved to be a waste of time when you only have three minutes to address your case, unless of course, you are representing the case for the developers when it seems it is possible they are allowed to extend their time which I felt was grossly unfair. Having listened to some of the councillors’ comments which were quite personal at times, it was like immature playground tactics.

JEAN FREETH

Braddock Road

Caister on Sea

Anyone recall

Big Daddy bout?

I AM a writer and historian and am looking for anybody who may have been involved in an event at the Hippodrome Circus in August 1987. Wrestler Big Daddy fought King Kong Kurt and Kurt unfortunately suffered a heart-attack and died. I am looking for eye-witness testimony for a piece I am writing about Big Daddy. If there is anybody still working at the venue, or you are in touch with any former employees, historians etc who were there than night or could help, I would be grateful. Are there any stories still floating around about that night?

RYAN DANES

ryandanes@msn.com

07722 210873

Descendant help

I AM trying to trace the descendants of Arthur and Elizabeth Wright and their children who moved to Great Yarmouth from Wickham Market between 1901 and 1911. The surnames connected with this family are Bond, King, Edwards, Nunn and Turner. I hope that readers can help and would be very pleased to hear from anyone with any connections to this family.

Mrs I CHARD

eneric@aol.com

This pomposity

must stop now

I REFER to the letter, April 6, relating to the unwanted jubilee festival on King Street in Great Yarmouth. Unfortunately Suffield Road in Gorleston is suffering the same fate.

A few people, including Mr Bruno Peek, are organising a street party for the Diamond Jubilee. A committee has been formed, involving the Mariners public house and has arranged for half the road to be closed with barriers and closure signs organised. Entertainers have been booked, including a local band and additional music. We suspect this will be loud.

Residents are not allowed to park their cars or access their houses from the road. We will have to enter via a back alleyway which is never used because of its messy condition as it is often used as a dog’s toilet. This will be totally inconvenient to many of us.

Many of us do not want this street party to take place. We are not Royalists and do not see why we have to be dictated to by a few people who have only been resident on the road for a few years. Perhaps it is not too late to stop this pomposity now.

Name and Address withheld

Discrimination,

not religion

LIKE many others, I always look forward to the letters page of the Mercury; a great arena for one’s views about the local community to be made public and appropriately debated. However, I was very disappointed – in fact almost disgusted – to see the blatant sexism allowed to spill from the words of a E Barkhuizen. No women allowed to teach in the church – nor to hold any position of authority – he proclaims. But fear not: he approves of the Mercury’s editor! And therefore perhaps ensuring the platform for his discrimination. Which is what this is really all about – not religion at all.

2012? 1912 more like.

KATHERINE AUDUS

Stafford Road

Great Yarmouth

Dustmen are the

town’s treasures

I WOULD like, through your column, to thank the dustmen who collect on the Middlegate Estate, for taking the time to take my dustbin from my front garden and emptying it for me.

I forgot to put my bin out on Thursday night and I was not up when they arrived about 7am on Friday, but they took my bin out for me and emptied it.

The dustmen around the borough take a lot of stick over various things, but I have always found our binmen excellent. They very often take rubbish that has obviously been flytipped in rubbish areas, ie old carpets, old chairs and tables etc which I know they do not have to take. They also always make sure they leave the areas tidy when they collect such as taking any black sacks that are on the ground instead of in the bin.

I do believe that many people in this town do not give these guys enough credit for what after all is a rather smelly and dirty job, and sometimes dangerous with things like the risk of stick injuries etc. I bet those that do complain would not do their job.

Anyway thanks a lot lads, some of us really appreciate what you do.

JOHN DONOVAN

Clarendon Close,

Great Yarmouth

How proud we

are of Kenny!

HOW lucky we at Hemsby are to have Mr Kenny Chaney who rescued two children on the beach on Good Friday. Those children were so lucky he was there. Mr Chaney spends a tremendous amount of time on the beach, not least when he is cleaning up litter, always leaving it in an immaculate condition for holidaymakers and locals to enjoy. His knowledge of the sea, sand, tides and weather is second to none and I would like it known how much we all appreciate what he does. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say how proud we are of him.

ANN REEVE

Beach Road

Hemsby

Fight the threat

to old cottages

I AM appalled to hear that the unique and historic wherrymens’ cottages on Utopia Way, Stalham Staithe may be demolished and rebuilt “to make them more suitable for the 21st century”. As a former county councillor for the area I worked with local residents to stave off a huge residential riverside development on the chalet park, not five minutes from the cottages in the same conservation area. I have no idea why the Broads Authority planning officers have seen fit to recommend approval of these applications, but I fear they will set a precedent and everything in the area will be up for grabs again. The site meeting for Broads Authority members is 10am today, Friday, and I urge all those concerned to come along and show them how much we care about this very special area of Stalham Staithe.

SHEILA CULLINGHAM

Wodehouse Close

Stalham

Offering was

provocative

HAVING written in for last week’s Mercury, I wasn’t expecting to send another letter quite so soon. However, neither did I anticipate another offering from E Barkhuizen, which was unbelievably provocative and offensive to many people.

While the subject of Christianity and the way that churches seek to work and serve may be of little interest to some readers, may I assure them that Mr Barkhuizen’s views are far removed from the reality of most modern churches in action.

The apostle Paul taught and preached in the 1st century AD, and in doing so in a forthright manner he reached out to people whose customs were completely at odds to any we would easily find acceptable today. Paul was merely a man called by God, and ultimately it is God who still calls us today - men or women, youthful or elderly - to teach and preach the Gospel. God does not discriminate between men and women. This problem only arises when SOME believers build their own barriers to the furtherance of God’s Kingdom.

I wish to have no connection with any Church or denomination that does not freely allow women to follow their vocation to teach and preach the Gospel, and am proud to know many who have answered God’s calling to do so.

GEOFF BENSLEY

Address withheld

Why were roads

closed for fair?

IT was really good again this year to welcome the Easter Fair to Yarmouth - it is a much-loved event in the town’s calendar. But why did we have part of The Conge and Market Place closed off to buses and traffic? This may have been a public safety gesture following a loss of life in Kings Lynn at a public event but it did seem ill-judged in the Yarmouth context. There are ample barriers in place to prevent conflict between pedestrians and traffic and the closure caused unnecessary inconvenience and delays for local people. My colleagues and I as local councillors certainly weren’t consulted over this road closure. I do hope it won’t happen again.

MICHAEL CASTLE

Central and Northgate Ward

Record Straight

LAST week it was stated in a letter that the Acle Straight was started in 1829 and finished in 1971. This should have said it was started in 1831.

JACK EDMONDS

Caister on Sea

Coronation bus

man was Baker

ONCE again, Peggotty has reminded me of those lovely days throughout the 1950s when I worked on the Corporation blue buses. He mentioned the driver with No 33 Coronation bus and I am almost certain his name was Baker, who had a brother who was a detective with Yarmouth p[olice. Half a century is a long time to think back; perhaps therte is someone who can tell us if my memory is correct. Peggotty raised the point that No 33 was used mostly on the No 4 Newtown/pleasure Beach route; that was because if rain set in one of the garage staff would run another bus up to Salisbury Road and the passengers had a roof over their heads for the rest of the day. Another interesting point is that No 43, one of the same batch of buses, was blown over by a bomb when parked in the destructer yard during the war and it was rebuilt with a body the same as the utility buses No 14 and 23, but had upholstered seats. The two body builders who supplied the wartime utility buses were Strachans of Scotland Nos 14 to 18 and Park Royal London, Nos 19 to 23.

A WATKER

Sturdee Avenue,

Great Yarmouth

Yet more plans

for extraction

I WAS concerned over marine aggregate extraction when we had only one company doing the extraction, at a million tonnes per annum, but it now seems two more companies have applied for further licences – one of them applying for two. With a suction rate of around three million tonnes per annum if the double licence is granted for one. Are the remaining two going to be satisfied with their quotas? With the drag of the suction around our part of the coast producing an alarming increase in the signs of erosion, is now the time to stop and think?

JACK DYE

Gonville Road

Gorleston on Sea

Technology is

not working

“DID you get wrong?” This delightful old dialect question seems to hold true today, in spite of all the apparent advantages of modern technology. A letter from the Paget Hospital spelt it as ‘Hopsital’ Trust! When pointed out there, the answer was “Oh, that’s all done at Milton Keynes!” Don’t they have a spell check facility? Who can you trust? Paying �2.70 recently to park in car to attend an appointment, I was told that none of the income from the spreading parking spaces actually goes into hospital funds. Never really wanting to complain, however is that the only way to get things done more reasonably, or are we all April Fools?

ROY WALDING

Mill Lane,

Bradwell

Care centre will

benefit the ill

I WOULD like to respond to the letter in the Mercury from Mrs Cantell, April 13. I have worked for over 10 years listening and acting upon the needs of cancer patients and those who have palliative care needs. I fully understand the need for a Palliative Care Centre in this area having watched my daughter’s distress when at the age of 28 she found out she was facing the end of her life.

I have voluntarily devoted the past ten years of my life to the pursuit of a dedicated building which will provide state of the art care for local people, who need this kind of specialist service. Yes, of course it will provide information which we are told by various patients groups is necessary for the well being of the patient. However this unit will be more than just an information centre as it will accommodate Crossroads, Big C, Marie Curie, Macmillan and St Elizabeth Hospice representatives as well as the Palliative Care team, who will all be working together to ensure patients receive the help they so desperately need.

These patients will benefit from the facilities as they proceed on their journey and not just at the very end of their life. How much easier it would have been for my dear daughter and I to have had a specialist Palliative Care Centre available and to have felt cared for as I know people here will experience in the future. This centre will be the hub of activity not only providing excellent care but also providing much needed support in the home.

Whilst a hospice is a place that can only provide care for a limited amount of patients at any one time the Palliative Care Centre will be dealing with vast amounts of patients and carers at a time when they need help the most. I for one am very proud the people in this area have worked tirelessly to make this centre a reality and for me it cannot come soon enough. I have no doubt when the first patients come through the door they will be so grateful as I will be, in the knowledge so much is being provided under one roof.

ROBERTA LOVICK

Potter Heigham

Argument does

not stand up

IN reply to Mr R Barkhuizen’s letter, I would like to remind him that God’s plan for mankind comes to us through one man, and one man only - Jesus Christ (John 14.8). The Apostle Paul was a good man but only human and may on occasions have been mistaken. The attitude of Jesus himself seems to have been quite different.

The reason he chose men only for the 12 disciples probably was that they lived and travelled together in a band, and if there had been women amongst them they might have laid themselves open to charged of immorality.

It may also be that what was right in Paul’s time is not so today. There is a myth that God’s laws are unchanging and for all time. The Bible, however, proved that wrong.In the days of the Patriarchs and later, men were permitted to have several wives and even to take handmaidens (mistresses), but by the time of Christ it was not so and has not been so ever since. Today, few would argue that women are incapable of studying the Scriptures and imparting valuable lessons for us all.

P REEVE

Springfield Road

Gorleston on Sea