Once again I’m trying to sort stuff out and hope that this time I might be more successful and there will be clear visual evidence that STUFF HAS GONE!! However, reading old writing books delayed me – but I resolutely put them to one side and they now await my attention. If they are stories which might hold up and have some promise, then I will employ the voice-to-text app on the computer. Stories recorded, the writing books can go in the paper recycling. There were other books, recipe books, poetry, novels, tucked away which I excavated, and naturally I had to have a little look through them. I came across a couple of cuttings from the Cambridge Evening News; one from December 11th 1995, was a report from a swimming club competition against another club (we won of course) The other was an article called “Looking Back“, and was a series of cuttings from December 11th in previous years:
December 1970 Burwell poultry farmer, John Medlicott decided he had had enough of the big blackout today. So he hit back with the great pong… and sprayed Eastern Electric plant with six tons of liquid chicken manure. The effect was stunning. Workers stood aghast as a 60ft by 30ft arc of manure fell on cars, buildings and electrical fittings at Reach Road, Burwell, today. And farmer John kept spraying until the whole six tons was spread over the sub-station.
December 1945 Mr Shinwell, Fuel Minister, told the Coal Mining Committee of the International Labour Office in London today that we in this country were about to take the first decisive step in laying the foundations of an effective efficient organisation of the mining industry, and one by which alone it was possible too create that sound social structure from which miners of this and other countries could take advantage.
December 1895 The Cambridge Tramways Company has determined upon an important extension of operations for the convenience of the public in the Castle End and Chesterton District. We have for some time past heard suggestions of a line of omnibuses such as are found in most important towns, and on Wednesday the shareholders of the Tramway company proposed that the Directors make arrangements for running vehicles between the Post Office and the Wheat Sheaf and the Portland Arms.
It’s quite an interesting selection, farmers do still spray manure as a protest but I think it’s more common in France, I found a report of French farmers in the south of the country protesting about a proposed mass slaughter of cattle because of a dangerous and contagious disease. Reading the 1945 article from the distance of eighty years, and knowing now how the coal industry in this country was decimated – and the political and social ramifications it caused by “effective and efficient organisation, makes it sober reading. The final one, from a hundred and thirty years ago has resonance today, where transport and traffic is a common topic of discontent, and news of upgrades and extensions triggers the French saying… “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”!
My featured image is of the Portland Arms, mentioned in the 1895 article, and where my grandparents and my dad and his brother and sister lived from the mid 1920’s.
Lois Elsden 