Letters - April 28, 2020

Last week, any citizen circling in cyberspace would have been astonished to find that all 10 members of the Garstang Town Council were linked to each other and to all, both visually and audio, courtesy of the ubiquitous Zoom mechanism taking on a full agenda at the usual monthly meeting.

After a few glitches, we got on fine as long as we remembered to mute our speakers and stick up our thumbs to vote for the recommendation. We had a handful of guests join us, including borough councillors and members of the public. It’s not quite the same as the library but at least we have not let the pesky virus deter us. The ingenuity of man is a wonderful thing. In other arenas, people, who would never have given it a thought, are now switching to electronic means to join up families divided by lockdown rules. Virtual gatherings are happening everywhere.

Our local church, St Luke’s, Winmarleigh, is of course closed but throughout Easter, we have been able to see and hear our vicar, as he has posted services and sermons online. A trawl through the internet demonstrates that he is not alone, with literally hundreds of archbishops, bishops, reverends, fathers and pastors et al reaching out in the most modern of ways. It is worth searching for.

Time seems to have stood still under yet another cloudless sky. The big question on everyone’s lips seems to be, how long will lockdown last?

I have mixed feelings.

Our trusted local family butcher and farm shop deliver promptly with a smile, saving us the bother of driving and allowing us to get out in the garden and take part in our Boris hour of exercise.

Talking of our PM, I was struck by the words he used on emerging from St Thomas Hospital recently. He was talking about the “enemy we didn’t pick a fight with and about which we still know so little”. Nobody has contradicted him. We have no reliable test and a vaccine is months, if not years, away.

The Government grapples with the dilemma of opening up the economy and risking a second spike in infections, as happened disastrously in 1918, when the so-called Spanish Flu killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.

Being in the ‘elderly’ category, I have no need to get back to work, unlike my young neighbours, but I see the damage months of lockdown will cause.

I appreciate the quiet lanes free of traffic except the odd lone cyclist, as were the trio of ladies who I saw on my walk, riding three abreast across the full width of Church Lane as if gearing up for a cavalry charge. In normal circumstances, they would be cramped into the hedge.

Many will have had their year’s plans, at best, put on hold including VE75 commemorations, cup finals, A-Levels, Garstang Children’s Festival, the Open as well as personal anniversaries and holidays. The list is endless but there is always next year! Keep safe.

Roger Brooks

via email

Food

Memories of brussel sprouts

As it was my job to prepare the vegetables for our Christmas dinner, I was peeling the sprouts which, at the last minute, had appeared on the shopping list for the market on the morning of Christmas Eve. A sort of tradition I suppose, we all had to eat at least one sprout with our dinner – even if we didn’t like them!

I think I may have been to blame for them being added to that last minute shopping list, or should I blame Terry Wogan, the Radio Two DJ?

I had been telling Christine, my wife, the tale he had related, sent in by one of his listeners. They had come up with the idea of taking a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and removing them carefully from the gold foil wrappers, taking care to also retain the little brown paper cups that they were held in. The idea is to then take some brussels sprouts, dip them in chocolate then re-wrap them in the gold foil and replace them in the brown paper cups of the Ferrero Rocher box.

Back now to this story. While peeling the sprouts and putting a little cross cut in the stem of each one, my mind wandered back to my childhood days and how this was a traditional job when I was very young.

We were lucky to have quite a long back garden then, with plenty of room for my father to grow his own vegetables and even keep a few chickens right at the top of the garden.

We also had our own apple tree, a real luxury at that time.

As I was born in 1937, my earliest memories must have been from during the latter part of the war years.

I remember Dad telling me was that the sprouts were always best after the frost had been on them. I don’t know why, but I do remember picking them off these long stalks and it being very cold.

Because food was scarce, we also used to cut the tops from the sprout plant and this was also cooked and referred to as a baby cabbage!

We lived in a village called Lillington, which is close to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. At the end of our road, just past where the houses finished, there were a number of ‘allotments’. These were areas of ground, which were rented off for people to grow further quantities of vegetables and generally extend the scope of their gardens. It was in this area that there was an air-raid shelter built of brick with a reinforced concrete roof. Some people had built their own shelter in their gardens.

These were known as ‘Anderson shelters’ and consisted of a room formed by excavating the soil and then covering the hole with sheets of corrugated tin which would again be covered with the soil from the original hole in the ground. I think, on reflection, that the protection of either of these was more psychological than effective!

Graham Archer

Lancashire

Virus

Thank you to the government

My reason for writing is to say thank you for our Government’s handling of this pandemic.

I find it sad that we are now inundated with armchair experts with diplomas in hindsight constantly criticising. Wherever possible, I have watched the Downing Street daily bulletins and I admire the courtesy extended to the media.

I was taught in my working life that those who never make a mistake never do anything. The main thing is to learn from those mistakes and make sure you never make the same mistake twice.

Colin Richardson

via email