20th NOV 2019

Introducing the first online magazine covering the three villages of Cradley, Storridge and Mathon. This will be a monthly magazine with updates available during that time. We aim to be very flexible in time scales to allow members of the communities (the people of the villages) the maximum time to get their contributions to us. We have a very relaxed editorial stance only requiring that submissions meet basic standards of good manners and decency (and of course legality) So open house on making a contribution either personal or on behalf of your group. Make use of us to get your point of view or personal opinion and event out there or even debate a topic all for FREE. For local (and slightly further away businesses) we offer FREE advertising with us for three months(suck it and see) and a very low annual cost thereafter along with direct links to your own website and free advert design. We are a non profit making project and only have web management costs to consider. To contact us with any contributions, notices, information or your expertise in your favourite interest drop us an Email of fill in the form

Now Active as cradleydiary.com no longer exists

It has been reported that The Fox Pub at Bransford has been seen on fire. Three fire engines are in attendance. More details as they emerge 19:40 hrs 6th December

FIRE!

THIS MONTH’S MAGAZINE TOPICS

LOOKING AHEAD

During 2019, you may have noticed a great deal of repair work, and other improvements being undertaken at Cradley church. To mark the completion of the work, there will be a series of 3 talks on different aspects of Cradley church's history, each being given by an expert. Sunday February 16th: Rev. Stephen Williams, historian whose special subject is the history of the Three Choirs Festival, will be talking about "Thomas Bisse and the Three Choirs Festival". Thomas Bisse was Rector of Cradley between 1713 and 1724, a nationally-famous and eloquent preacher, an enthusiastic promoter of church and cathedral choral music, and a key figure in the history and development of the Three Choirs Festival. A lovely display about him can now be seen in Cradley church. The Festival attracts thousands of people eachh summer to the Cathedrals of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester, and is the oldest music event of its kind in the world. Sunday 1st. March: Cradley church dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, and is also a beautiful example of Victorian church restoration. Tim Bridges, Church Buildings Officer for the Diocese of Hereford, and an expert on Victorian buildings, will talk about the Victorian restoration of Cradley church and explain how, and why, Cradley church was transformed in the 1860s and 1870s. Sunday 15th. March: Cradley church has a beautiful stained-glass window showing St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds. The window is linked to a Cradley family, and was the basis of a recent film project by pupils of Cradley School. Roy Albutt, expert on stained- glass church windows and author of the book "The Stained Glass Windows of A.J. Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild", will give a talk on the windows designed and made by Davies in Bromsgrove, including the St. Francis window. Davies, who died in 1953, also made fine windows for Hereford and Worcester Cathedrals. The talks are supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. They start at 2.30pm., are free, and will be followed by afternoon tea, served from the church's new kitchen.

TALKS ON THE HISTORY OF CRADLEY CHURCH: DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

LOOK WHAT YOU MISSED

Cradley Village Hall Christmas Fair & Market 7th December What an excellent occasion for all who attended this now tradition in the Village. Attendance was up this year on previous years no doubt due to a break in the weather which allowed some sun to shine through. Father Christmas arrived to take his place in his ice cave at 11am and was immediately inundated with children vying for his attention and gifts. The Toy Attic, new this year, ran a children’s tombola all of their own, with a great selection of well loved toys, books and games which were snapped up with glee. The adults had to settle for a vast array of stalls from which to choose gifts and presents for themselves and others. The Bric-a-Brac stall was very popular and over run by bargain hunters. Santa’s Snack Station was kept busy supplying Tea, coffee and Julia’s hot home made soup and cones of chips. Outside there was the Cradley Scouts BBQ doing a great trade in hot dogs and burgers. To ward off the cold the bar on the patio served hot mulled wine which was so popular it ran out (sorry!) The tombola and Raffle were crammed full of great prizes and were enthusiastically supported. A full list of Winners of the raffle will be announced on the cradleyvillagehall.co.uk website. All in all a very successful and enjoyable event made possible by a veritable army of volunteers and donators who work for months to bring it all together Unconfirmed money raised looks like a record this year for Cradley Village Hall which is a charity. A magnificent amount of £1990 to help the Hall continue as an asset of the Village THANK YOU AGAIN

Around 25 parents and their children with a few grandmas as well had a happy time making Christmas puddings at Cradley church on Stir-up Saturday. With recipes in hand and the ingredients all laid out on tables, the children could weigh and assemble all they needed to make a delicious pudding to take home and cook for Christmas Day. The last Sunday before Advent is the traditional time to make cakes and puddings to give them time to mature before Christmas and takes its name from the words of the prayer for the day which begins "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people".

Saturday 30th November

Stir-up Saturday

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem preserves the place where Jesus is said to have been born-a low, dark cave, which may once have stood beneath an inn, being used for the keeping of animals. An ikon of the Nativity shows the infant Christ in the manger, watched over by Mary and Joseph and an ox and ass, mentioned in prophecies of the coming of a Saviour. Ikon images like these are famously rich in symbolism, using the things of this earth as windows onto the divine. Here, the cave in which the Saviour is born echoes another ‘cave’ in the Gospel story - the one from which the stone is rolled way on Easter Day. What began at Christmas comes to fruition then, and in all the centuries thereafter. Join us this Christmas, to celebrate the birth of Him who, banishing the darkness, fills our Winter world with light. Revd. Robert Ward, Rector robert.ward776@gmail.com Tel. 01886 880438

Happy Christmas!

Before we bring you our packed diary of festive events this Christmas season, our Chairman wanted to communicate the following message to the community. To all the members and friends of the Cradley, Storridge and Mathon RBL, I would like to say a very personal thank you for all your support after the recent break-in at the club premises. As you may know on the evening of Monday the 4th of November we were unfortunate enough to be visited in the early hours by persons unknown who think it is perfectly acceptable to deprive others of their property and potentially their livelihoods. This has resulted in some damage to the club and the loss of over £1000 worth of cash and stock. Fortunately they failed to open the main safe and left with what they could carry. Sadly the police are not very hopeful of catching and bringing to justice those responsible. I’m sure with everybody’s help and support we can overcome this event and continue to provide a facility where people can come and enjoy a drink, play snooker, skittles and all the other events and activities we put on. Don’t forget you don’t have to be ex-forces to use the club, please come and join us any night of the week except Sundays. It is what keeps us going. Thank you very much. Richard Collins - Chairman

Royal British Legion Club – News & Events for December 2019

Masterpiece or Fake you decide!

WHO WAS KILROY? by Harold Armitage

He is engraved in stone in the National War Memorial in Washington, DC, back in a small alcove where very few people have seen it. For the WWII generation, this will bring back memories. For you younger folks, it's a bit of trivia that is a part of our American history. Anyone born in 1913 to about 1950, is familiar with Kilroy. No one knew why he was so well known, but everybody seemed to get into it. So who was Kilroy? In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, "Speak to America," sponsored a nationwide contest to find the real Kilroy, offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article. Almost 40 men stepped forward to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts, had evidence of his identity. 'Kilroy' was a 46-year old shipyard worker during the war who worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters were on piecework and got paid by the rivet. He would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice. When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would erase the mark. Later on, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters. One day Kilroy's boss called him into his office. The foreman was upset about all the wages being paid to riveters, and asked him to investigate. It was then he realized what had been going on. The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn't lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk. He continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but added 'KILROY WAS HERE' in king-sized letters next to the check, and eventually added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence and that became part of the Kilroy message. Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks. Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint. With the war on, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn't time to paint them. As a result, Kilroy's inspection "trademark" was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced.

Next time: how Kilroy went, as we would say today, “VIRAL”

Always Room for Humour in Life

Too much doom and gloom in today’s world? Let us have you favourite joke or cartoon to share with others and brighten up their day and put a smile on their faces

Online Lookouts

As Will Shakespeare might have said if he had lived today: “to answer or not to answer, that is the question”

What spam is to email, robocall is to telecommunications devices, such as home phones, mobile phones, and VoIP landlines. There is usually no real human behind a robocall, only an automated, pre- recorded message—as the name suggests, calls are made by computers. On the other hand, cold calls, warm calls, social calls, and a more personalized and targeted form of cold calling salespeople are referring to as “smart calls” all require a live person.

ROBOCALLS

Increasingly we are receiving robocalls and the topic of the moment being that BT or Amazon are about to terminate your service with them and you need to press a number on your keypad to connect with an advisor to stop this happening. Scammers of all types focus on urgency. They convince people that if they don’t act quickly, they’ll face dire consequences. When a victim hears about something related to their health or money, they may offer personal details without taking the time to investigate. Also, a phone call requires in-the-moment communication, and many people instinctively respond politely to avoid conflict.

GRAND PUMPKIN WEIGH-INN no it’s not a spelling mistake!

photos by Jeff White

Planning Applications and Decisions

Cradley, Storridge & Mathon

Hover over the feed to stop scrolling use up and down arrows to find the item you want then click the item to go to Hereford planning for full details, drawings and documents or make a comment

It has been announced by Herfordshire Planning that the appeal lodged against the planners decision to refuse permission for houses at Mirrorbrook Smallholding has been decided. The Appeal was refused on a list of reasons mostly relating to contravention of the Parish NDP. The full details can be found here: Hereford Planning Yet again the parish should be grateful to those who worked long and hard on producing our NDP

Let us have your gardening tips and tricks and even host a regular gardening column. We will continue to seek out the most informative videos from the web but feel free to let us have a video tour of your garden or a video of how you do things. Wonderful things smart phones!

Got a great garden design idea to share then let us know and we can bring it to everyone’s attention

Think-UP

Found the best equipment around or an innovative gadget? Let your fellow gardeners share it.

AWWWW………..

STEP OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE and try something new

Give us the reality of taking on that “dream cottage” Let others know the pitfalls and the pleasures

Tell us about your pets: the good the bad and the ugly. Include your pictures

Speaks for itself. Let’s have them. Upload copies of that special animal in your life-No husbands allowed!

Let people know that you need help with something or to do with a project you want to undertake. You have a wealth of skills and experience in the three villages

Ever wanted to try something new in your life? If so let us hear about it and how you overcame the fear of that initial jump you had to make. Inspire others to go for it!

Sue Armitage with her badly behaved beautiful parrot

MEMORIES, MEMORIES

As we keep hearing we are an ageing population in the three villages and as the “Uncle Fred “article shows we all have memories of something we take to our graves with us. Get them down on paper and we will publish them. You never know they may just trigger others to jog their memories. Better still if you have old photos to add of in and around the villages we will be happy to post them( and credit you), for all to see and then pass them on to our excellent heritage group at Cradley Village Hall to compliment their archives. So come on get digging.

“UNCLE FRED”

I had the privilege of serving with Fred on both the Parish Council and our Village Hall Committee, I learnt a lot from his wise words and advice as did others, and it was a very sad day when he recently retired from both of these roles. As we will hear Fred was an enthusiastic stationary engine fan and owner but he was also extremely community minded and as a result he has set a few records in his lifetime that will be very hard and probably impossible to beat. He started as a Parish Councilor in 1964 and served for 54 years during that time he was a Chairman twice and he served under no fewer than twelve different Chairmen and six Parish Clerks. That is an amazing achievement in itself. However it doesn’t end there. During that period he also had thirty years on the Churchyards Committee, thirty seven years on the Richard Hill Charity and thirty years on our Village Hall Committee, and was Chairman for ten years. You may have seen the plaque in the Village Hall in recognition of his work for the community on both the Parish Council and the Village Hall. He also saw the refurbishment and extension of the Village Hall in 1999, he was also on the PTA of Cradley School in the very early days. Whilst he was on the Council he witnessed the development of Buryfields, Brookside, Chapel Lane, Pixiefields phase one, Oakland’s, and more recently was involved in the debates regarding phase two of Pixiefields all in the Village of Cradley. He also witnessed the arrival of the water and sewerage there.

I think a lot of people said to him at sometime that he needed to write a book but he never got around to it. The closest I believe he came to it was sitting with Jackie Pye and Jackie White and recalling some of his memories which they had published in the CMS magazine. In it he recalls - The Village Hall being a School until about the early 1940’s. That the School belonged t the Beauchamp Estate who sold it for a shilling (5p!) and it then became the Village Hall and the property of the residents in Storridge. He talked about the development of the A4103 when it only used to be wide enough for 2 cars until in the early 60s when they widened it. Where the telephone box is today that little road was the width of the old road. He mentions the surgery, Dr Bibbin’s place, then, it was a little wooden hut, it wasn’t very big and the waiting room was about 10ft x 10ft, now look at it. There were a lot more interesting facts in the CMS magazine but too many to mention now. The Village has lost another great character he will be missed by us all but never forgotten. Well done Fred Derek Scully Chair Storridge Village Hall

I was very pleased to be asked by okcradley.com to write a short piece about Fred Beard for the new Cradley & Storridge and MAthon online magazine. I first met Fred when he was one of the Parish Council team of three Councillors who interviewed me for the post of “Clerk to the Council” way back in 2003. Luckily I was given the job and attended my first meeting within a week/10 days of being appointed. Had I not been falsely accused of financial fraud by one or two new members of the Council in 2017 (being cleared at the Tribunal) I would still be working as Clerk to the Council, although when reading the Cradley Enquirer you cannot help but notice how different the Council is nowadays from the “ good old days”! The quick turnover of Clerks is a clear indication of unhappiness within the Council. Fred was one of the “old school” and kindly wrote me a wonderful reference for the Employment Tribunal and indeed, despite his age, even offered to attend the Tribunal in Birmingham to help me clear my name. Fred was always at meetings and due to his lack of hearing he would sit adjacent to the top table alongside me so that he could hear what was being said. During meetings, he would quite often touch my arm and offer me a mint sweet when he was having one himself to stave off his desire for a cigarette! Fred loved his Parish and was there for “what he could do for the Parish, not for what the Parish Council could do for him”. A man of honour. In all the fourteen years I worked with Fred and the Parish Council, I only remember him missing one Parish Council meeting. When Storridge Village Hall was used for meetings during the winter months, he would always go up to the hall earlier in the day to put the heaters on so that the room was warm for Councillors when they arrived. During the dark, wet, icy winter months, Fred was always in attendance at meetings and his wealth of knowledge of the Parish was appreciated by all. Towards the end of his term in office, another kind Councillor Derek Scully would collect Fred at home and drive him to the meetings in Cradley Village Hall. I always called him “Uncle Fred” although he was not related to me. The name Uncle Fred was a term of endearment and respect for this much loved “gentleman of the Parish”. Rest in peace Uncle Fred - you will not be forgotten. Mary Barnett – 29 th October 2019. Ex Parish Clerk

News & points of View

27th October 2019

30th October2019

4th December 2019

4th December 2019

MAKE A CONTRIBUTION

This is a community online magazine and is open to whoever in the community wants to contribute. It is not here to churn out the safe establishment viewpoint though accommodation will be made for their inclusion if they so wish to. We will have a very light editorial touch but within the requirement of the law. We will not judge comments or points of view as contrary to sometimes entrenched traditions but look upon them as a basis for open debate and discussion. For it to be a truly community magazine we want to ensure that there is no one in the community of the three villages covered is ever “afraid” to put forward their viewpoint or opinion

Submit an article or make a comment

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS HERE

We are offering free advertising for local businesses within easy reach of the three villages for a period of three months and a very low annual rate thereafter so you can assess the value and responses without cost or obligation. We include links to your own website and any additional promotions you may run during that period without extra charges. We also do a free design service for your advert or publish whatever you have at the moment.

PLEASE NOTE THESE SAMPLES ARE VERY LOW QUALITY AS THEY ARE COPIES OF EXISTING PUBLISHED ADVERTS ADVERTS HERE WILL BE HIGH QUALITY GRAPHICS

Villages Diary

Your local group or club here

Please email us if you wish us to include your group/organisation in our contact list

Poster Parade

Free exposure for that poster for your event or fund raising. We can design it for you or you can fill in the contribute form and attach a picture. Either way you get full colour exposure without printing or laminating costs (save the planet)