Category: News
April – 200 Club Draw
Meet the Author – ‘Motorway Madness’
‘Meet The Author’ Evening In The Wenvoe Arms.
‘Motorway Madness’
Our thanks to Ian Pate and The Friends of Wenvoe Library for organising another excellent ‘Meet the Author’ evening in the Wenvoe Arms. The topic ‘Motorway Madness’ might not have initially sparked your interest, but through photographs, expert knowledge and an array of personal anecdotes, Ian ensured that we had an evening which was both sobering and entertaining.
With a twenty-five year career in sales, which required extensive travelling in the UK, Ireland and the Benelux countries, Ian thought he knew everything there was to know about driving on motorways. However, it was not until he started working as a Traffic Officer in 2008, that he learnt about the unpredictability of our motorways. In this role, with powers to stop and direct traffic and work under the authority of a police officer, he began to appreciate the phrase ‘expect the unexpected’.
Statistically, the motorway is the UK’s safest road. Drivers know that if something happens whilst driving on the motorway they should move onto the hard shoulder, put their hazard lights on, get out of the car if possible and get to a place of safety. The last of these is important because the most dangerous place on the motorway is the hard shoulder. A safe place Ian reminds us is ‘behind the barrier, up on the embankment, under signs, by bridges or even on a police observation post’. If you stay in your car, your life expectancy according to police statistics is 30 minutes. The message is ‘When it is safe to do so – get out, keep safe, stay alive!’ At night, this risk increases. There have been cases in which lorry drivers at night have put their inside wheels onto the rumble strip that separates the hard shoulder from lane one, to keep them alert whilst watching TV!
As a Traffic Officer, Ian was involved in a wide range of incidents. Twenty five percent of all breakdowns attended on the motorway are simply because drivers have run out of fuel. Some drivers get into trouble when transporting goods like a mattress or even a complete bed from IKEA on the roof of their car without the legally required roof rack and safety harnessing! Getting animals to safety – horses, swans and at one time a small herd of water buffalo in Newbury – were all in a day’s work. Drunk drivers, unwell drivers, car fires and extreme weather all require assistance from the Traffic Officers. These people ensure that you and I are safe if an incident does occur. Ian and his colleagues set up rolling roadblocks, clear dangerous debris from motorways and are the people on the ground responding to alerts from the Traffic Management Centres across the country.
Ian concluded his talk with a look at new smart motorways where all lanes are running. On the first smart motorway on the M42 in the West Midlands, there is no hard shoulder and a refuge area every 500 metres. Above every lane there are signs to note variable speed and clear messages e.g. lanes closing. Any difficulties drivers encounter, are immediately 
picked up by the control centre and a lane can be automatically closed. The M4 between J3 and J12 is currently being upgraded to a smart motorway. However, the model has undergone modifications. Refuge areas are now1.6 miles apart and overly detailed signs on the left hand side of the motorway, have replaced the clear signs above each lane. It can take up to one hour for an ambulance to get to an incident. Inevitably, such concerns have led road safety campaigners to lobby Parliament and they are now working with an all-party group of MPs to look at the safety concerns relating to the rollout of smart motorways.
The Friends of Wenvoe Library would like to thank Ian for his support in helping to raise funds for Wenvoe Library. Please look out for the next ‘Meet the Author’ evening – we would love to see you there.
Unsightly Litter Surrounding Wenvoe
I am sure that the amount of unsightly litter surrounding Wenvoe’s roadsides has not gone unnoticed.
Whilst on a recent walk along Station Rd East on route to the Salmon Leaps, I was appalled at the amount of litter in the trenches alongside the road, so much so that I took it upon myself to return and collect it.
Armed with a pair of plastic gloves and one black bag, I set to work & in twenty minutes the bag was full with rubbish from one side of the road only!
I contacted the Vale Council’s Refuse & Re-cycling department & informed them of my collection and that the rubbish contained much which could be re-cycled. They were very accommodating, arranging to collect the bag from outside of my house the following day – which they duly did.
However, whilst grateful for this efficient service, I was mindful of one driver and one van coming to collect one bag!
I don’t know the answer to the problem of individuals dropping litter or throwing litter from their cars, but I wonder if any village residents who, like myself, have a spare hour in which they could collect litter from a designated area and collectively have it collected by the Vale. Thus attempting to keep the village devoid of unsightly litter.
Any responses to What’s On or the Wenvoe Community Council (see page 2 for contacts)
Lent and Holy Week
The season of Lent came to a glorious conclusion on Easter Sunday, when the church was beautifully decorated with Easter Lilies provided by members of the congregation, given in memory of loved ones who have passed on to a greater life in the Lord. This year the celebration of Easter, considered to be the Queen of Festivals in the church calendar, fell on Sunday 21st April one of the latest dates that Easter can be. The next time Easter falls on such a late date as this will be in 2030. The reason why Easter is a moveable feast is due to the phase of the moon. Western Christianity decided that the feast always falls on the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, so Easter follows the Jewish tradition of the Passover, and the Bible tells us that the death and resurrection of Jesus took place at the time of the Passover festivities.
During Lent on Mothering Sunday, the “Pebbles” children gave a splendid slide presentation, on how they love their Mums for all the care they give them day by day as they grow up. The church was decorated with the daffodils grown from the flower bulbs handed out at harvest time last year, and flowers were handed out to all the ladies in the congregation as they left church. The following Sunday the “Pebbles” held a pre-Easter Egg Hunt, and the winners proudly displayed their prizes of yet more larger chocolate eggs. Thanks must go to Alyson and her helpers for the way in which they work out how best to convey the Gospel message in a practical way the children can easily understand.
Holy Week 2019 – The procession into church on the morning of Palm Sunday, of the congregation bearing their palm crosses was a memorable start to the solemnities of Holy Week. Jon had devised a special service sheet for the occasion and Helen Ormrod gave a suitable reading to mark the beginning of the last week in the life of Jesus as he made his way into Jerusalem, to be falsely accused of treason and eventual crucifixion.
The saga of the lead stolen from the church vestry roof is near resolution with quotes received for our Insurers already in and it is hoped that the replacement of the roof covering and the repair to the internal damage to the walls and the flooring will take place without much further delay. Not being able to use the Vestry has been a great inconvenience, with registers and all the other things needed for the services scattered about the church, but soon all will be put right.
Christian Aid Week 2019 – In advance of the house to house collections, Jude Billingham gave a presentation in church on April 28th on the theme chosen for this year’s collection, which is “More Happy Birthdays”. Christian Aid this year is working with women’s groups, listening to their concerns in many parts of Africa. Through working in communities, women are able to identify their own needs and make steps to gain their goals.
In this way developments can be sustained and developed further when necessary. The example shown was a group of women who were building their own medical centre, where they could receive good antenatal care and when necessary give birth there.
Collectors will be delivering envelopes through your doors during the week and collected back at the end of the week. Please give as generously as you are able to support women in parts of Africa and elsewhere who are not as well looked after as in the UK.
In Gwenfo Church in Wales School, pupils will be having a “Big Brekkie” on Friday 17th May for those children who have school lunches. A non-uniform day is also being arranged so on Friday the charge of £1 will be going to Christian Aid.
The Annual Church Vestry Meeting took place after an evening Eucharist service on Monday 15th April, when the parish report was accepted, as was the financial report and the election of Peoples Warden took place. Carol Wyllie remains as Rectors Warden and Sandra Dicks was also elected as Peoples Warden. The past year has been one of progress with much of the work to the fabric of the building being completed as required by the most recent Quinquenial Inspection of the building.
Messy Church met in the Wenvoe Community Centre on Saturday 30th March to celebrate Motherly Love. Around fifty people attended with children and parents enjoying a variety of craft activities which were either gifts for Mum or helped develop a greater understanding of how much our mothers love us. Crafts included decorating gingerbread mums (one for mum and one for me), making cards and gifts, writing promises to help our mums and planting plants to give the following day. A short worship session followed with a tea party to end the session which was much enjoyed by everyone.
The next Messy Church will be an outdoor messy event, in the school field at Gwenfo church in Wales Primary School on Saturday 15th June when the theme will be Father’s Day. See you there.
Thank You For Sticking With Me
Three Years Older
Three years ago, on the 17th of April 2016, I launched this blog. In true me style, my first blog posts were about feminism, and how hard being a teenager is. Fifteen-year-old Tirion thought she’d run the blog for a bit and probably forget about it, but three years later, I’m so glad I stuck with it.
I knew when I was about fourteen that I wanted to explore journalism as a career. But trying to be a journalist when you’re fourteen and fifteen is hard, especially when you’re too shy to even put your hand up to ask to go to the toilet. I would submit work to The Guardian and search for work experience that would satisfy my craving to write what I wanted to write. But most companies like the BBC don’t let you apply for work experience until you’re eighteen. Public speaking and BBC School News Report were great, but they were seasonal.
I remember sitting in the back of the car and reading some magazine when I came across a piece about Tavi Gevinson, the Editor of Rookie (which has since released its final copy). She’s only a few years older than I am, but she’d started a blog before she was able to expand Rookie into this incredible magazine for teenagers that Teen Vogue could only dream to be. My brother told me that he’d heard of her, and that she was eleven when she’d started her own blog. I didn’t really know what a blog was, but upon further exploration, I realised that it was what I wanted. Within a few weeks, just shy of turning sixteen, I finally launched my blog after much deliberation.
My blog gave me a chance to explore my beliefs and expand upon them. These days it’s common to read a post about something I’ve been outraged by in the news, as opposed to complaining about not being able to wear a coat in school.
I’ve grown up over the past three years, and I feel my blog is a reflection of that. A lot of things have happened in the past three years since I started my blog. I was following the news to an extent, but I wasn’t educating myself enough on the events which occurred on our newsfeeds. I was being passive, taking in the information but never really acknowledging its impact. Until I did. I used my blog as a way of understanding my own viewpoint, and further understood that maybe I could tell the story in a way which made more sense to more people.
By continuing to write blog posts over the past three years, I’ve been able to improve my writing. I’ve learnt my writing style, and I think a little bit of me has stopped caring what a lot of people think, too. My blog posts aren’t supposed to be substitutes for newspaper articles, as there’s almost always a bias I don’t pretend to hide. But it doesn’t mean running a blog hasn’t helped to improve my writing skills in a journalistic capacity.
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, I would always say do it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, if you feel passionately enough about something, do it. My blog has helped me a lot, in all seriousness. Because I’ve practiced my written skills, I’ve since been Editor of my secondary school’s newspaper; started writing monthly articles for Wenvoe What’s On; gained work experience (and been published) in Buzz Magazine; been published on S4C’s Hacio website; gained a place at Cardiff University’s school of Journalism and been published in the University’s newspaper, Gair Rhydd. Most importantly to me, it’s given me more confidence to speak out about issues I care about. Although I’m always careful and aware of others’ views, I’m more open about my beliefs now and I know that they deserve to have a platform. It’s a platform I made myself, but sometimes if you want something done you’ve got to do it yourself.
It’s been three years, and although the blog posts are less often (guys, University’s actually a lot of work) I still love writing them. I’ve received some amazing feedback over the past three years, and it’s always nice because it means I’ve reached someone.
I didn’t start a blog to be rich and famous, I started it for me. And boy how I’ve changed since I started it. But that’s okay. It’s good.
The past three years have been a whirlwind but it’s been brilliant. I learned some new, fancy words (could you tell?) but I also learned more about me. I’ve got a lot more fire in me than I thought I had when I was fifteen. I mean, it’s probably always been there, I just never let it out.
Thank you for reading my blog. Even if you thought what I’d said was rubbish, thank you for taking the time to read a post. If you’ve sent me a message about one of my posts, know how much that truly does mean to me. Thank you for setting aside a few minutes of your day to read even a few sentences of a post. Thank you for sticking with me since I was fifteen. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tirion Davies
The Wenvoe Telephone Box
Our Grade II Listed Telephone Kiosk
In spite of being a relatively small village, Wenvoe has three listed buildings. Most will probably be aware of St. Mary’s Church (Grade II*) and the Old Rectory (Grade II), but perhaps less well known (and not another attempt at an April Fool) is our Grade II listed telephone kiosk.
Listed buildings are nationally important and of special interest. For a building to be included, it must be a man-made structure that survives in something at least approaching its original state. Other than buildings, structures such as bridges, monuments, sculptures, war memorials, and even milestones may also be listed.
The Wenvoe telephone box is a K6 (Kiosk 6) design. These cast-iron boxes were introduced in 1926, with our K6 version appearing in the 1930s. They were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Cathedral. At its height there were 92,000 telephone boxes like this in the UK. The iconic booths began disappearing in the 1980s, when the privatisation of British Telecom and the rise of the mobile phone consigned most of them to the scrap heap.
Our telephone box shares its listed building status with some other iconic landmarks. Wenvoe has something in common with the famous Beatles Crossing in Abbey Road (an ideal question for the excellent annual St Mary’s Church quiz), recognised as Grade II in 2010 for its historical and cultural importance. It also shares the distinction with an Esso petrol station in Redhill, Leicestershire. The circular Mobil canopies were designed by the American modernist architect Elliot Noyes in the late 1960s, along with the controversial Preston Bus Station.
On the left is a defibrillator at Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds. Defibrillators in phone boxes like this one, have helped save lives in areas where medical help can be slower to arrive. On the right is an art work in Kingston upon Thames
Jan & Feb 200 club Draws
Wenvoe Neighbourhood Watch AGM
The AGM of Wenvoe Neighbourhood Watch took place on 20 February 2019.
Two new Co-ordinators were welcomed, one covering Springfield Close and the other Old Market. There are now 32 Co-ordinators covering the whole village including most of the new housing developments.
A small number of criminal acts were reported from within the village. Fly tipping occurred at St Lythams but was cleared very quickly by the Council after notification by the Co-ordinator. On another occasion vehicle headlights were stolen but the thief was caught, and the headlights returned. In one area it was reported that residents were proposing to install a surveillance camera in response to local thefts.
On the Saturday after the meeting some lead was stolen from the roof of the Church. If anybody has any information about this, please would they contact Vicar Jon.
Residents are advised to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity or criminal act to their Co-ordinator. If unsure of your Co-ordinator please contact Alan French: 02920 59 8092.
Officers elected for 2019 are:
Chairman Alan French
Vice Chairman Trevor Case
Secretary/Treasurer Jackie Gauci
Minutes Secretary Bert Bates
Future Co-ordinators meetings in 2019 are July 3 and October 23.
Alan French
For The Love Of Libraries’
‘FOR THE LOVE OF LIBRARIES’
THE BRITISH LIBRARY, SUNDAY 10 MARCH
Faced with the threat of closure, it was the ‘Love of Libraries’ that underpinned the decision by members of our community to create the Wenvoe Community Library. Now, three years later, this group of volunteers are looking forward to the opening of the new library early in 2020 in surroundings which will be a hub for the community. Whilst funding from Welsh Government and the Vale of Glamorgan Council have made this possible, the volunteers are under no illusion that for the library to retain a place at the heart of our community, they need our continued support.
Authors Jaqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman and Salley Vickers shared their ‘Love of Libraries’ at the British Library in London on Sunday 10 March. Each author talked about the importance of libraries to them as children and how those libraries influenced their work as writers in later life. Sylvia and Cathryn Harvey write about an inspiring day.
For Jacqueline Wilson, the library served as a place of refuge during the summer holidays with arguing parents. She has wonderful memories of the silence, the smell and the blissful feeling of losing herself in the world of books. In this safe haven, she discovered books by Louisa M Alcott, Jane Austen and Mazo de la Roche. As a young mother later in life, she took her daughter Emma to her local library, letting her choose picture books like The Tiger who came to Tea and Where the Wild Things Are for them to read together. When Emma got older, the Nipper series became a favourite and served as the final inspiration to Jacqueline to fulfil the lifelong dream of becoming a writer. And the library also served an important role in Emma’s later life- she became fascinated by the French literature section and has gone on to become a professor of French Literature at Cambridge University. Jacqueline’s books focused on those stories not often heard, of children in difficult family situations in urban areas, that have become a staple for children across the country.
As the child of RAF parents, Philip Pullman moved many times throughout his childhood. Eventually, the family settled in Harlech, North Wales. Philip loved it, and it was there that his love of libraries and the stories they contain developed. A local lady ‘from the big house’ lent him books, and there he discovered HG Wells, the Tarzan novels, and The Moomins. As a teenager, the fortnightly mobile library introduced him to the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, and his school library opened his mind to great artists through the art history books published by Fontana. His university years at Oxford meant he spent a great deal of time in the Bodleian (readers of
his books will know how much this influenced his later work), and after graduating he worked in Charing Cross library for a time and as a teacher, before becoming a full-time author. In many of his novels, libraries feature heavily, particularly in His Dark Materials series and La Belle Sauvage, the first of the Book of Dust series.
Salley Vickers started her talk with her challenging childhood. As her parents were outspoken Communists, they often struggled financially, and the family was unable to buy books. As a result, Salley, from a very early age, spent much of her time in her local library, whose wonderful children’s librarian recommended books for her and let her choose her own. Salley developed a love for The Moomins, by Tove Janssen, especially the character Snuffkin, whose famous line, “all small creatures should wear bows on their tails”, has become one of Salley’s favourite quotes. Other discovered favourites included The Princess and The Goblin and other books by George McDonald, and Rosemary Sutcliffe’s The Eagle of the Ninth series. But her most treasured childhood book is Tom’s Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce. The wonderful librarian, a Ms Blackwell, whose guidance was so invaluable to Salley as a child, served as the inspiration for her latest novel, The Librarian. In the novel, Sylvia Blackwell’s goal is to inspire the children of East Mole to read, but elements of her personal life cause tension within the town, threatening the existence of the library altogether.
The discussion between the authors and the audience highlighted the importance of choice; for children to choose their books and for librarians to choose the books they believe their patrons would like to read. The current push for diversity has failed to take into account the treasure trove that is a library. Where else can you find the stories of so many people from so many different walks of life in one place? Reading and listening to stories teaches empathy and understanding in a way that nothing else can.
By investing in libraries, we are investing in the future by giving children a place to grow and develop ideas, and hopefully, help them become the best versions of themselves. We will leave you with this quote from an audience member: ‘A library is a treasure chest of Serendipity’. It is a place to be discovered and explored, with the unknown surprising you at every turn.
I do hope this will inspire you all as much as it did us. Please share your childhood memories of libraries with us on your next visit to the library or email us at sylviaharvey@hotmail.co.uk. We would like to display a collection of excerpts of your memories at the community events which will celebrate the opening of our new library.