New strategy aims to help nature recover in Shropshire

Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Councils have published their Local Nature Recovery Strategy, reports Shropshire Live.

David Walker, the Liberal Democrat run Shropshire Council's cabinet member with responsibility for planning, tells the radio station:

"Nature underpins everyday life, from clean air and water to the green spaces that support our health and wellbeing, yet many species and habitats across Shropshire are still in decline.

"This strategy sets out a shared, locally‑led approach to turning that around. It’s about bringing councils, landowners, organisations and communities together to deliver real, practical improvements for nature. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed and the whole team who have pulled together such an excellent piece of work. The focus now is on turning this ambition into action on the ground."

An LNRS sets out proposals to help recover nature and improve the wider environment, but doesn't give anyone extra statutory powers to make change happen.

You can read the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin LNRS on the Shropshire Council website and the BBC News report is worth reading too:

Dave Cragg, from Natural England, said "there's a lot that needs to be done" to address "the global biodiversity crisis".

In Shropshire, "there are definitely places where it is really good", Cragg said, noting the county's nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

The diversity of Shropshire's nature makes it special, he added, recalling "those brilliant hills, the Stiperstones, the Long Mynd" as well as "bogs, fens, and a brilliant river system".

"It's got a bit of everything really."

Good Friday in Shropshire

From The Folklore of Shropshire by Roy Palmer:

Until the 1860s, when the well was drained, it was the custom on Good Friday to dip one's hand in the water, deemed good for weak eyes, of St Margaret's well at Wellington. 

Much more recently, comfortably into the 20th century, the congregation of Lords Hill Baptist Church met at Snailbeach in the afternoon and perambulated the area, pausing to sing hymns to the accompaniment of a brass band. 

Until the 1930s, most places of work closed on Good Friday. People traditionally spent the time in their gardens, and this was considered a good time for planting potatoes. Formerly, bread baked on this day was believed to have curative properties. 

Many Shrewsbury families trekked to Haughmond Hill, following the canal towpath to Uffington. Children played and picnicked on the hill until the Second World War ended the custom.

Failed teeth op woman admits drug driving

This tale of everyday life in Telford wins BBC News our Headline of the Day Award.

National Trust takes over the Ironbridge Gorge museums

The National Trust is taking on the running of the 10 museums in the Ironbridge Gorge, with the help of a £9m government grant, reports BBC News.

At present they are run by the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust, which was set up in 1967. The National Trust is also assuming responsibility for the upkeep of 35 listed buildings and scheduled monuments, including Blists Hill Victorian Town, the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron and the Old Furnace.

When I visited Ironbridge back in 2011, I didn't bother with any maps or guide books, I just set out for a stroll along the river. The first attraction I came to was the Jackfield Tile Museum, which I wouldn't have planned to visit, yet it turned out to be fascinating.

I hope the National Trust can keep this unique collection of attractions thriving.

The oldest iron canal aqueduct in the world is in Shropshire

We join the LeiceExplore crew again and they're still in Shropshire.

First they find remnants of the town's canal basin near the railway station - I'll confess I had no idea they were there or even where the basin had been.

Then it's off to Longdon-upon-Tern to see the oldest iron aqueduct in the world. It was built by Thomas Telford and it's still in place over the Tern. 

The canal is long closed and the aqueduct is drained, but you can walk along its trough with the blessing of officialdom.

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'Penis-shaped' housing estate application lodged

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

Telford cheese thief ordered to go to drugs rehab

Though the story soon disappears behind its paywall, the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award - and not for the first time.

I don't know what the judges think, but to me the case for legalising cheese is overwhelming. Better that people buy it in supermarkets than buy (or steal) it from street-corner dealers.

GWR train service cancelled after two stowaway squirrels 'refused to leave'

ITVx wins our Headline of the Day Award with this bushy tale of life on the Reading to Gatwick line. Thanks to the reader who alerted me to this story 

The story below our winning headline informs us that:

The Great Western Railway service was cancelled at Redhill after the animals got on the train at Gomshall. 

Staff attempted to remove the animals but the squirrels "refused to leave" and the service later returned to Reading. 

A spokesperson for GWR said: "We can confirm that the 0854 Reading to Gatwick was terminated at Redhill after a couple of squirrels boarded the train at Gomshall without tickets, breaching railway byeclaws. 

"We attempted to remove them at Redhill, but one refused to leave and was returned to Reading to bring an end to this nutty tail."

In other rodent news, Cinammon, the escaped Telford capybara, has been located but not recaptured.

Shropshire zoo seeks runaway ‘beloved’ capybara

The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges noted that the rodent in question is called Cinnamon and has legged it from Telford's Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World. 

They added that if one of the dinosaurs had escaped then that would really have been a story.

The Joy of Six 1264

"Psychologists, however, are all too aware that people are reluctant to change their minds and that, when it happens at all, it occurs gradually. Famously, those who invest heavily in ideological projects such as end-of-the-world cults (or Prohibition, or Brexit) are likely to double down when their prophecies fail (numerous cults have seen the hour of the apocalypse arrive and pass without incident, and then simply recalibrated their calendars)." Richard Bentall asks when Britain will change its mind on Brexit.

Gemma Gould sets out what happens to women who speak out on social media: "For women who take a stand on social issues, the backlash can be swift and severe. In the UK, women in politics, journalism, activism and other public spheres who speak out against injustice are often met with hostility. This hostility is not limited to public debate; it extends into their personal lives, affecting their mental health, well-being and sometimes even their safety."

Phil O'Brien celebrates the Welsh socialist writer Raymond Williams on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

"As I learnt more about the history of these stones, I became more interested in them. The myths attached to them are Christian – the church was assigning meaning to all this ancient stuff to scare people into conformity. And that’s really intriguing. Why were the Methodists so keen to come into Cornwall to control the working classes? What the hell were we up to?" Mark Jenkin talks to Bob Fisher about his film Enys Men.

"Towards the bottom right-hand corner is St Georges Recreation Ground. The former cinder running track with a spectator pavilion is highlighted by the green surround. The 100-yard sprint section on which Harold Abrahams qualified for the 1924 Olympics in Paris (where he won the 100-metres Gold medal) can just be seen." Anthony Rowley on the volumes of history to be found in one aerial photograph of a Shropshire village.

Jonathan Pomeroy watches this year's swift season end.

Helen Morgan welcomes plans for new London to Shrewsbury and Wrexham rail service

The Shropshire Star reports:

The new Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway Company (WSMR) is proposing to bring back a direct service to and from London in 2025.

The plan would see new, daily train services between Wrexham General and London Euston, serving existing rail stations at Gobowen, Shrewsbury, Telford Central, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Coleshill Parkway, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes Central.

WSMR intends to be an ‘open access’ train operator which is wholly commercial and does not require government subsidy.

And Time Out quotes Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, welcoming the proposed new service:

"One of the main issues on the doorstep here in north Shropshire is the lack of decent public transport links. A new link between Wrexham, Gobowen, Shrewsbury and London is very good news, and will bring an important improvement to our links with other areas.

"This is also an exciting prospect for Oswestry, which is set to be connected to Gobowen by rail in the coming years.

"They could see the benefits of additional services to Shrewsbury and Wrexham as well as to London Euston, making the case for reopening the line even stronger."

A similar open access service, the Wrexham and Shropshire, operated between 2008 and 2011. You can see one of their trains above and read the post I wrote after catching it.

Looking at the new service's proposed list of stops, I wonder if they plan to use the freight line through Sutton Park to get from Coleshill to Walsall.

Microwave starts fire at Blists Hill Victorian Town

The Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award by a distance.

Chuckles were heard from the judging room, but I feel sure that in the steampunk world there is such a thing as a steam-driven microwave.

Police alert over 'chubby teenager' and 'suspicious' large white van in Telford

Thanks to the Shropshire Star, we have our Headline of the Day.

The judges did point out that if the teenager is sufficiently chubby then he will need a large van, which perhaps makes it less suspicious.

The Joy of Six 1032

"Watering down the HRA has long been one of Raab’s pet projects - he quite literally wrote a book on it – but to human rights lawyers like me who’ve spent the last 20 years seeing the Act change lives for the better, these plans make no sense." Louise Whitfield stands up for the Human Rights Act against Dominic Raab.

Nigel Warburton celebrates the power of disgust - it forced a government U-turn on an amendment to the Environment Bill to curb the discharge of raw sewage into our rivers.

"According to a wry joke in Central Europe, socialism was the long road between capitalism and capitalism. Is Brexit the long road between the EU and the EU?" Bob Hancké says Brexit has made trade in goods between the UK and the EU very difficult and also severely limited our ability to conclude free trade agreements with the rest of the world.

Sukaina Hirji and Meena Krishnamurthy look at the romantic friendship between the philosophers Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot.

"While he hoped for progress in human affairs, he was only too well aware that it was not inevitable and might not be sustained. Throughout his career he celebrated the technological developments that were revolutionizing life but feared they might lead to eventual degeneration or, as came to pass in 1914, a catastrophic war." Peter J. Bowler looks at H. G. Wells and the uncertainties of progress.

Pete Jackson on Telford's role as birthplace of the climate revolution.

Plan to reopen railway from Ironbridge to Bridgnorth

The enthusiasm for reopening long-closed railways has reached Shropshire. A plan has been published to reopen the line up the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to a station serving new housing on the site of Ironbridge power station.

According to the Shropshire Star:

The plan would create a 10-mile route, with six new stations, and ambitions to link with the Severn Valley Railway in Bridgnorth.

It could also connect to Telford, if plans from Telford Steam Railway to extend its line are developed.

You can find the full plan on the Ironbridge Railway Trust website.

From the outside, reopening the line from Bridgnorth to the industrial museums of the Ironbridge Gorge has long looked like a natural ambition for the Severn Valley Railway. But its Wikipedia entry suggests the idea was long ago written off by them as impractical,

And a link to the Birmingham to Shrewsbury line at Telford is surely vital if this scheme is to go ahead. This line existed unril recently and was used to bring coal to Ironbridge power station.

Telford people outnumbered by rats as lockdown boosts rodent population

This worrying effort from the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges also appreciated the precision of the story's first paragraph:

Residents in Telford are now outnumbered by rats as lockdown has boosted their population to 358,616, according to a pest control company.

New Lib Dem Brexit policy convinces Tory mayor to join us

Last week it was the Duke of Wellington. This week it is the Mayor of Wellington.

The Shropshire Star reports:

Wellington mayor Anthony Lowe has defected to the Lib Dems after more than four decades with the Conservative party, due to the national Brexit turmoil. 

His decision comes after the Lib Dems pledged to cancel Brexit if they come to power at the next general election. 

Councillor Lowe, who joined the party in 1975, follows in the footsteps of six MPs who have joined the party in the last few weeks including ex-Labour MPs Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna and former Tories Phillip Lee and Sam Gyimeh.

I am heartened by the reason Lowe, who joined the Conservatives in 1975 because he supported British membership of the European Economic Community, gives for changing parties:

"It is absolutely a wrench for me to leave after so many years, but the position adopted by the Lib Dems at conference to revoke Brexit if they achieve a majority at the next election was the clincher for me. It is time to nail my colours to the mast."

Telford Lib Dems plant trees to offset election carbon footprint

Embed from Getty Images

From, inevitably, the Shropshire Star:

Liberal Democrats in Telford have bought 175 trees to offset the carbon footprint the party built up during this year's election. 

The party decided to make the purchase through the Eden Reforestation Project, which seeks to plant a minimum of 500 million trees each year and to offer hope through the employment of tens of thousands of people in countries where extreme poverty is rampant. 

The idea was brought forward by Telford & Wrekin Young Liberals through their chair Molly Morgan. 

Party chairman Councillor Greg Spruce said: "We want to help achieve carbon neutrality in Telford & Wrekin before 2030, by setting this example we hope other parties, businesses, charities and residents join us in offsetting their carbon usage."

We've come a long way from Mr Gladstone.

Ghost signs for Parkinsons Pills in Leicester and Telford

When I photographed this ghost sign in Clarendon Park on Saturday it rang a bell.

Sure enough, I found that I had already photographed another one for Parkinsons Pills at Madeley in Shropshire. You can see it at the bottom of this post.

The Lancashire Telegraph once told the firm's history:

Parkinsons’ pills, manufactured in Burnley, were once known throughout the land – and even overseas. 

The company claimed that it sold more pills than any other business in the world, with millions being produced annually. 

It was also the first anywhere to coat tablets with sugar to make them more palatable.
Parkinsons’ range of products included ‘female pills’, ‘blood and stomach’ pills, soda mint tablets, and Red Indian ointment. 

The firm was founded by Richard Parkinson in 1848 as a chemist and dry salter, in Brierfield, before it moved to Nelson, and then into Curzon Street, Burnley.

And it seems that it did leave a notable legacy of ghost signs. A blog devoted to the company has a post about them with lots of photographs. They include the two here.

John Kirkpatrick: A Shropshire Lad

Coming back through Oakengates yesterday I was naturally reminded of John Betjeman's poem A Shropshire Lad. In it, the ghost of Captain Mathew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, returns to his old haunts:

There wasn’t a man in Oakengates
That hadn’t got hold of the tale,
And over the valley in Ironbridge,
And round by Coalbrookdale,
How Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Rose rigid and dead from the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley,
Rigid and dead, rigid and dead,
To the Saturday congregation,
And paying a call at Dawley Bank
On his way to his destination.

Musically, the poem is best known from the setting by Jim Parket. It is great, but Sir John's reading of his own poem does suggest the Dawley and Ironbridge are somewhere in the north of England rather than Shropshire.

John Kirkpatrick, whom I saw playing with the Band of Hope in Leicester many years ago, lives in Shropshire and uses the right accent for the district now occupied by the new town of Telford.

These days you can hear A Shropshire Lad sung in folk clubs.