Diamond day for Litton couple

Haydn and Betty Walker
Litton couple Haydn and Betty Walker celebrated their diamond wedding last month with a party that crammed the village hall with family and friends. The couple were married on December 14, 1946, in their home village of Brownhills in Staffordshire. Haydn was in Bomber Command with whom he had served during the Second World War flying in Lancasters and was stationed in Norfolk. Betty was secretary to his father who was deputy manager of an insurance company.

The couple went on to have five children, Paul, Lynne, Martin, Nichola, and Sara and now also have six grandchildren, Daniel Heidi, Richard, Gemma, Lucy and Emma. They moved to Litton in 1963 when Haydn¹s work with the Hoover organisation brought him to work in Bristol. "Over the years I moved around for the company and when I was asked to go to Bristol I sought assurance it was the last move. We rented in Chew Magna until we were certain of staying. and then bought our present home in 1963. We were living here when our youngest daughter was born. In fact, we've been here so long," says Haydn who retired 21 years ago, "that we are nearly locals now." Haydn is a former chairman of Litton parish council, a member of Probus at Wells and a member of the Chewton Mendip and Litton branch of The Royal British Legion. Betty is an active member of Litton Women's Institute of which she is a past president.

Alan Goode

Fairtrade Fortnight
Munch it! Wear it! Spread it! And Choose it! These are the slogans for Fairtrade Fortnight 2007 which takes place throughout the UK from February 26 to March 11. The annual promotional campaign set up by the Fairtrade Organisation has had great success encouraging a large yearly increase in the consumption of Fairtrade products. Chew Magna provides a good selection of such products in its shops and is currently exploring Fairtrade Village Status. The idea is that all businesses and organisations offer their shoppers, members and employees the choice of fairtrade products along side all other brands. Local food has become the food of choice in Chew Valley and hopefully this will lead to fair deals for the local producers.

Would you also like to buy fairly traded products that are not available locally but give world producers and workers a fair wage and price? Are you unsure which ones suit your taste or of the wide variety out there? Come and have a free taster of the products available in local shops and supermarkets. To celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight the Chew Magna Fairtrade Village Status Group will host an event at the Old School Room from 6pm to 8pm on Friday March 9. The event will be opened by Malcolm Hanney. He and the group will help you to munch it, sip it, swig it and hopefully choose it. Come and try Fairtrade. Pat Roderick

Felton school hopes for refurbishments
Felton School WITSEND (Why Isn't the School Even Near Development) campaigners say that North Somerset Council has responded to their campaign by at last taking a serious look at the state of the current school buildings, and prioritising refurbishments. Parents are hoping that this will lead to action being taken shortly, although there is still no news of progress on securing a site for the new school. North Somerset also took down the WITSEND banner which was featured in the January issue of the Gazette, and have so far not given it back.

With regard to the site next to the George and Dragon pub, the landlady, Mrs Crago, says that although she and her husband have had four meetings with North Somerset Council officers, and they attended the public meeting in Felton last year, at no time has NSC made an offer for the site next to the pub. She says she is very sympathetic to the parents' concerns regarding the school, as she has five grandchildren of primary school age, but she says she has raised a number of issues with NSC about the field next to the pub being used as a site for the school, such as desperately inadequate parking facilities, speed limits and lighting, and has received no answers. The response from North Somerset Council: "We have visited the landlords of the pub and representatives from the pub chain. We are still pursuing a negotiated settlement. We want to reach a settlement so we can get on with the building project."

Tory couple will live at West Harptree

On Saturday January 13, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Helena de Chair were married in Canterbury Cathedral. The ceremony was unusual in that The Abbot of Downside, Father Aidan Bellenger, attended and conducted Roman Catholic Mass in Latin. Permission had been obtained from Church of England authorities. The bride wore a beautiful lace dress by a British designer, set off by the family diamond tiara and necklace. Nine bridesmaids in deep red were in attendance. Jacob Rees-Mogg, son of Lord Rees-Mogg, was selected in 2006 to challenge Dan Norris at the next election, as the Tory party's parliamentary candidate for North East Somerset.

The bride is the daughter of late Tory MP Somerset de Chair and his fourth wife, Lady Juliet Tadgell. The reception was held at Bourne Park home of Helena's mother, The Lady Juliet and Dr Tadgell. 650 guests that included the Earl and Countess of Leicester, Lord St John Fawsley, Peter and Virginia Bottomley and Lord Peter Brooke were entertained by amusing speeches by Jacob and his best man Thomas. Jacob and Helena spent their honeymoon night in Somerset before flying off to warmer climes. Their home will be in West Harptree.

Somerset Nuke to stay shut till end of March
More cracked boiler tube pipes at Hinkley Point nuclear plant, in Somerset, have contributed to an extended closure till the end of March. 'Tail pipes' at the top of the difficult to access boilers were found to need repair in reactor 4. Although this has now been done, reactor 3 requires a similar inspection and repair work. A detailed safety case then needs to be put together and approved by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Hinkley's two reactors were shut down in October and November with the surprise discovery that extensive cracks had occured in their boiler tubes. Teams of workers have been examining and rewelding or plugging the damaged pipes, working for short periods before being replaced due to radioactive exposure.

The boilers are housed alongside the reactor core and within the reactor housing. British Energy had announced restart dates at the end of December and January for the two reactors, in a six-monthly financial report. But the dates had not been agreed by the nuclear safety regulator as discovered by Stop Hinkley through a Freedom of Information request. In fact no correspondence had been exchanged on the subject. The company had been sticking to its announced dates till as late as August 15, but Dow Jones/British Energy reports show the assumptions were optomistic. Even with the new delay and extra work, Hinkley will not operate at full output till March 2008. It can only operate at 70 percent of its normal output, as many of the boiler tubes will have been blocked off, reducing its efficiency. The plan is to use regular outages to continue rewelding the cracked pipes until March 2008.

New PCSO for North Somerset

Michele Barrett is the Police Community Support Officer who is now covering the parishes of Barrow Gurney, Blagdon, Burrington, Churchill, Dundry, Langford, Winford and along A38.

She says: "I will be working with PC McDonald and PC Bradley who are the Beat Managers for these areas. I have been a PCSO for over three years. The last two and a half years at Nailsea. As we are gaining more PCSOs I decided to change areas. I am looking forward to getting to know people in the area and a new challenge. I hope to get actively involved with the schools and the local communities."

You can contact her at michele.barrett@avonandsomerset.police.uk