Week 26.08

Tendring Topics………….on Line

Gone with the Wind?

There are not very many 'flat earthers' today who insist that 'all this talk about global warming is just a scare, got up to help big business make even bigger profits out of us' or alternatively, 'to turn us into a nation of bearded, sandal wearing tree-huggers'. Most people, I think, accept the reality of the threat of global warming and the consequent need to find alternative sources of energy. They accept too that wind farms have a contribution to make to this.

However, wind farms are like sewage treatment works, abattoirs and waste recycling centres. Everyone accepts the need for them but few people want to live very near one. This sad fact of life has been illustrated locally by the fierce opposition to the provision of just five wind turbines on Earl's Hall Farm, between Clacton-on-Sea and St. Osyth.

'Too near to Homes' was the slogan of the protestors which might give the impression that the proposed turbines would be situated within a few hundred yards of local residents' dwellings. Nobody seems actually to have measured the distance but the most that the protestors' claim is that it is 'less than a mile away'. Well a mile is quite a long way. I think that in support of the small wind farm it could equally well be claimed that it would be 'almost a mile away!' I find it difficult to believe that at that distance either the sight or sound of a few wind turbines would be in any way intrusive.

I think it likely that in the distant past, those windmills that we now find to be a picturesque part of the unspoilt English countryside, were similarly condemned. Wouldn't they have 'ruined the view from her ladyship's bower', 'developed into a haunt for beggars, outlaws and vagabonds', 'provided a possible vantage point for a hostile force?' 'Why, it's little more than a bowshot from our castle walls!'

Yet another present-day objection was that the wind turbines would threaten the building of a proposed new housing estate bordering Little Clacton Road and St. John's Road because this would be 'less than a kilometre' from the turbines. Well, of course, a kilometre is only two thirds of a mile. However it has to be remembered that this estate hasn't yet been built. I understand in fact that planning permission to build it hasn't yet even been sought. If such an estate is built it will, I am sure, have far greater impact on both the environment and on the infrastructure than 'less than half a dozen' wind turbines.

I am not surprised that, after careful investigation, the council's planning officials recommended that planning permission be granted for the five wind turbines. Nor am I particularly surprised to note that permission has, in fact, been refused by the Council. Councillors like to think that they take note of local public opinion especially when it is as vociferous and well publicised as it has been in this case.

Will there be an appeal against the Council's decision? If so, the good that would result from provision of the turbines would be balanced against any possible harm that might result. I think it likely that such an appeal would succeed. I hope so.
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'The best-laid plans of mice and men ………….'

Harwich Society members were hoping for great things from their annual Redoubt Fete this year. Always held on the late spring Bank Holiday Monday it was to be an extra special fete to celebrate the historic Napoleonic era fort's bicentenary. Alas! Circumstances decreed otherwise.

Rain was forecast but the fete's organisers were not to be deterred. They ordered extra gazebos to provide shelter from any downpour than nature sent. What they hadn't reckoned on was that driving rain would be accompanied by bitter gale force winds which, as Andy Rutter records in the Harwich Society's journal Highlight, 'made it impossible to erect the gazebos at the upper level or on the hill, and also made it difficult to keep them anchored down in parts of the moat. The high winds also made it impossible to erect the bouncing castle, and other major sideshows in the moat had to be abandoned when they became waterlogged. All this resulted in a frantic relocation of as many sideshows as possible within the structure of the fort, which was both a race against the clock and very hard work'.

Lesser men and women would, I am sure, have thrown up their hands in despair and gone home. The Redoubt team are of sterner stuff and, as Andy Rutter gratefully acknowledges 'such loyalty is priceless'. They carried on regardless, and not, as it turned out completely rewardless. Visitors did come, though it was estimated that the attendance was only about a third of the normal. Immediate net profit was £800 which was certainly destined to rise as post-fete sales and credits came in.

This figure was, I have little doubt, a disappointment to the organisers of the fete and members of the Redoubt team. Others though, who recall what the weather was like on that memorable May Bank Holiday, will agree that it was a hard-earned miracle that they didn't make a loss!

I think that they deserve everybody's thanks and congratulations. Better luck next time.
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A Diamond Celebration!

The NHS celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Its proud aim, still boasted of by politicians, to 'provide a free health service to all at the point of delivery' is only partly achieved nowadays. How about dental care? How about optical care? How about the ever-rising cost of prescriptions? Aren't these an integral part of health care? Nye Bevan, to whom the NHS owes its existence, certainly thought so.

Nevertheless I still believe that there is a great deal for which to give thanks and celebrate. My wife was one of its first beneficiaries. She was diagnosed with pulmonary and laryngeal TB in 1948, the year in which the NHS was born. As a result she was admitted with minimal delay to what was then the British Legion Sanatorium at Nayland from which (after having major surgery at Papworth) she was discharged two years later with the disease defeated. For many years I am glad to say that I myself had little need of the NHS' services though it was good to know that they were there for me. However, old age brings its problems and I find myself seeing my doctor fairly regularly and occasionally consulting this, that or the other specialist. Always I have found both courtesy and competence and have never had to wait too long for an appointment with whomever I had to see.

I am highly suspicious though of the way in which the NHS has been developing in recent years. I distrust the PFI and LIFT schemes that have given private enterprise a foothold in health care management. The limitations of such schemes have, I think, become all too obvious in our area. I am convinced too, that putting hospital cleaning out to contract has been a major factor in the development of such hospital acquired infections as MRSI and C-Difficile.

I can claim to have had experience both of the private and the public sectors and I have not found the private sector to be invariably more go-ahead, more innovative, more efficient and more courteous than the public. Nor is it less prone to fraud and corruption. I have found that in both sectors 'small' is likely to be 'best'. Large public authorities and large business corporations may have greater resources and be able to offer more varied services than smaller ones but if you want to find someone who will actually take an interest in your problem, it is in a small unit, whether of the public or the private sector, that you'll be most likely to find that person.
And that, I think, is what most of us want when we need medical care or advice.
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Making a Splash!

Like any other large organisation the NHS has its bureaucratic failures, a particularly idiotic example of which, just beyond the boundary of the Tendring District, came to light this week.

Rowhedge, on the south side of the River Colne a few miles downstream from Colchester, has its own pharmaceutical dispensary at the doctor's surgery in Rectory Road. This facility, much appreciated by patients, is permitted only because there isn't an independent pharmacy dispensing drugs within a distance of 1.6 kilometres.

Soon however there probably will be. A commercial pharmacy is proposed for a site only a few hundred yards away. The only trouble is that it is to be provided in Wivenhoe…. and the turbid tidal waters of the River Colne lie between the two communities. The nearest crossing is some three miles away!

Surely this shouldn't have to lead to the closure of the Rowhedge pharmacy. Two Rowhedge ladies, Mrs Jo Brennan, aged 68 and Mrs Elizabeth Trellis aged 74, are determined that it will not! They are registering their protest at the possible closure by a well-publicised swim across the Colne that was scheduled to take place yesterday, Thursday 26th June at 6.00 p.m. Local people were invited to join them in the river and/or by signing an appropriate petition against the threatened closure.

Bureaucracy, this time from the Environment Agency, has warned them against such a swim; the water will contain (fully treated) sewage effluent, there could be hidden dangers beneath the waters, strong currents, extreme cold, risk of Weil's Disease. What, no piranha? no crocodiles?

The two ladies are undeterred. After completing a trial run a few days ago, they told a reporter from the East Anglian Daily Times: 'We really want to fight for something that is working really well. We want to encourage people to come along and cheer us on'.

I hope that they completed their swim without any of the threatened dire effects and that they succeed in their campaign. Surely all that is required is for the rule about 1.6 Km proximity from the nearest commercial pharmacy to be qualified by adding 'by the shortest practicable route'.
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New Millennium New-Speak

I am constantly surprised by the fact that although nowadays, one can hear what would once have been regarded as the very vilest of bad language used casually on radio, tv and in the street, in some respects New Millennium Man (and Woman) is, by my mid-twentieth century standards, remarkably mealy mouthed.

Without my glasses I am quite unable to read even the largest print and, as a result of age and arthritis, I am unable to walk either far or fast without an aid. I think though that folk would be really shocked if anybody described me as being 'old, crippled and half blind'. Someone, I am sure, would hasten to assure me that I was, of course, a 'senior citizen with somewhat impaired vision and limited mobility'. When I first heard the expression 'learning difficulties' I really thought it included people like myself who would have problems with differential calculus and the like!

The latest example of this reluctance to call a spade a spade is in a questionnaire that I (and I imagine every other Essex resident) have been asked to complete about my use of transport. I am asked to fill in my name, address and 'gender'. Now I was educated to believe that 'gender' was a grammatical expression relating to nouns and pronouns. They could be masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender of nouns was loosely connected with the sex of the object but only loosely. Our French master at school used to delight in telling us that the French word for 'recruit', as in a 'new recruit in the army' was in fact 'feminine', although, at that time, he would certainly have been of male sex. Later I discovered that the German words for girl, young lady and Miss, are not feminine as one might have expected, but neuter.

Have we really so changed the meaning of the word 'sex' that it is considered improper to use it to mean 'either a man or a woman'? I shall cross out 'gender' on my questionnaire and replace it with 'sex'. I hope that I won't be prosecuted for sending rude words through the post!
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