HAYES IN THE HOUSE: By South Holland and the Deepings MP John Hayes

The latest James Bond blockbuster ‘Spectre’ is topping the charts for cinema attendances across the world. Ian Fleming’s creation has become a truly global phenomenon - a brand that can fill cinemas in places like India that even Hollywood films fail to reach. The Bond series – from the Sean Connery and Roger Moore films of the 60s and 70s through to the latest incarnation, Daniel Craig – is a wonderful reflection of both the expertise of British filmmakers and a welcome reminder of the extended reach of British culture.

Bond is just one example of Britain’s extraordinary success in selling our image abroad. From the Beatles and Rolling Stones to Adele and Coldplay, Britain produces more hit albums than any other country; the English Premier League is the world’s most popular football championship; and the Harry Potter book series is the best-selling in history. Audiences around the world gather to listen to and watch the BBC, a remarkable 160 million people in China watch Downton Abbey, and British clothing labels are desired by shoppers on all continents.

This is not a recent phenomenon, of course; it’s hard to think of an author whose writings have had such an enormous contribution to Western literature as William Shakespeare, and, though written over 400 years ago, his plays are still studied today by school children and performed on the stage the world over.

This cultural influence has wider significance, boosting Britain’s diplomatic clout. According to the annual Portland survey, Britain tops the world rankings for ‘soft power’ – the ability to persuade others through the positive power of attraction rather than the negative force of military might. This survey concurs with others based on international data on global attitudes, which routinely put Britain near or at the top. The value of ‘brand Britain’ is vital as the government strives to sell more high quality British goods and services abroad and seeks to attract foreign investment.

Take education; British universities are universally acknowledged as among the finest on earth. Where once British teenagers dreamt of life in America, now the idea of studying at a British University is a dream that inspires many millions around the world.

That’s not to mention our Royal Family, who are admired and respected internationally, and, of course, our Westminster model of democracy; a system of government which has been emulated by many nations.

Henry Ford once remarked ‘you can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.’ While the European Union spends 3.9 billion Euros annually on self-promotion, the UK’s global image is built on a solid history of achievement. Our global reputation has always been high, but thanks in part to the incredible success of British culture, now it is skyrocketing. As a Bond film it might be titled, ‘From Britain with Love’.

Previously...

We are right to back nuclear energy

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Rev Adrian Mason, Mid-Elloe Anglican Parishes

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot………

This little ditty was written about Guy Fawkes and his cronies and their attempt to depose the government.

However, for many of us, all of November is now the month of remembrance.

In the Christian Church calendar we start the month with All Saints’ Day, a day on which we can remember all of those saintly people gone before who are not otherwise specifically recognised. This is followed by All Souls’ Day when we have a chance to remember those we have known and loved who have died and whose memory we treasure.

November 5 is now fireworks day or bonfire night. Some will remember fully the reason for this. Others will just enjoy a good display and a party and maybe raise some funds for a good cause.

Today we as a country remember those who have died in war, on Remembrance Sunday, close to November 11.

Some would prefer not to remember. I believe that we should remember out of respect for people and events of the past and to move towards healing any hurt of memories, individually and together.

We will remember them.

Rev Adrian Mason

Mid-Elloe Anglican Parishes

I write in response to your story asking for comments about speeding in the town of Spalding.

We live on the racetrack known as Cowbit Road. Ever since the opening of the new bypass (A16 Peterborough), cars leave the roundabout, heading into town, often driving at 60mph or more.

There is one completely insignificant, small 30mph speed restriction sign 100 yards from the London Road bridge junction – and that is all. Cowbit Road is one of the major routes in and out of the town, but it is also heavily residential.

The pavement is extremely narrow and used by families, dog walkers and joggers. Despite this, drivers are breaking the speed limit every day.

It is obvious that motorists using this road do not know there is a speed limit in force, therefore the signage is totally ineffective.

Cowbit Road is now an extremely dangerous road to live on.

A Market Deeping woman and her partner have just set off on an around the world charity trek to raise 180 smiles in 180 days.

Jaymie Duke and her partner Alvaro will spend six months travelling to China, India, Laos, Cambodia, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia, helping local charities, community groups and families along the way.

Until a week ago, Jaymie worked for a charity and Alvaro, who is from Madrid in Spain, worked in digital marketing.

But unlike typical ‘gap year trips’, they wanted to positively impact the communities they planned to visit and, after much discussion, created the 180 days, 180 smiles concept to raise a smile for every day they are away.

Jaymie (29) said: “We decided to give to good causes on our trip because we know how lucky we are to be born in rich countries and lovely families.

“We already knew we’d be visiting some of the poorest countries in the world and didn’t just want to ‘take’ from them.

”We’ve also just taken six months off work to do nothing, so we are clearly very privileged!”

During the trip, they plan to collaborate with local charities, community groups and families we come across on our journey.

Jaymie said: “We will also support well-known, sustainable , non-governmental organisations – one of these being Smile Train, an international children’s charity with a sustainable approach to cleft lip and palate conditions.

“The charity provides training and funding to empower local doctors in more than 85 developing countries to provide 100 per cent free cleft repair surgery in their communities.”

So far Jaymie and Alvaro have raised £1,400 which will be split between two NGOs – Smile Train and Help Them Hope – where Jaymie used to volunteer.

The final third will be spent on the grassroots projects Jaymie and Alvaro decide upon en route.

To make a donation, visit http://180smiles.org

Having been a member of Castle Sports Centre for the last 10 years (I play 50-plus badminton), I have noticed that the centre is used more and more frequently for social events, resulting in the sports hall being unavailable.

As an example, from mid-December to mid-January, we will be unable to use the sports hall due to the fact that it is being taken over for a string of social events.

After an event, it is not uncommon to find the floor in a terrible state, rendering it dangerous, especially given the age group of our players (50 to 85).

Of course, this does not only effect us, but all the other indoor sporting groups that use the hall.

Surely the use of the Springfields Events Centre is better suited to social functions, rather than a sports hall.

I would be interested in your readers’ views.

A South Holland country fayre is hoping to hurl itself into the record books next year after coming up with another idea to take the world by surprise.

After the success of the World Cabbage Hurling Championships, Holbeach Town and Country Fayre hopes to attract the biggest line-up of the world famous Ransome Crawler – a small tractor designed to operate on small orchards, vineyards and market gardens.

The tractor was first produced in 1936 by the Robert Ransome engineering company and sold both at home and aboard.

It will be exactly 80 years since the first one rolled off the production lines.

Built over assorted years, production of these style of twin tracked ‘garden crawlers’ stopped during the mid-1960s, when the company ended building robust machines to concentrate on the lawn equipment market.

However, many are still going strong and are owned by farming and gardening enthusiasts, many of whom keep them in good working order to display at assorted shows and events up and down the country.

The event will run alongside the third World Cabbage Hurling Championships – the brainchild of inventor John Ward.

Vegetables are launched from a catapult-like machine based on trebuchets - weapons used to fling projectiles.

John Ward, from Lincolnshire, said it “took the world by surprise” at Holbeach Town and Country Fayre last summer.

He said: “What we want to do with the new event is get the people who own these machines locally and make them aware of this possible world record event. Anyone with any model or designation, with or without the assorted attachments, is very welcome to take part.”

Perhaps you could ask John Hayes MP to use his regular half-page of party political musings in this newspaper to explain why he and almost all his Tory colleagues voted to retain the five per cent rate of VAT on tampons and female sanitary products which HMRC currently regard as luxury items.

A recent amendment to the Finance Bill would have forced the Government to challenge the EU over this outrageous tax, but John Hayes last week voted not to rock the boat.

This is yet another Tory tax which, as a share of household income, falls most heavily on the poor. You might think the tampon tax does not affect me because of my gender. I can assure readers that it does. As a husband and a father to three girls, I can confidently tell you that monthly menstruation cycles are trouble enough with having to pay tax to boot.

As toy manufactures publish their top ten toys for Christmas 2015, how many of you grown-up kids remember the chart from 1985?

We’ve dug in our archives and found some great favourites from 30 years ago.

1. Transformers, (particularly Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime). Thirty years ago a robotic man that could turn into a car and then back again became the best-selling toy at Christmas, leading to a stock shortage that devastated thousands of doe-eyed children and anguished their helpless parents. Cleverly marketed along with the popular cartoon series at the time, the Transformers’ brand endures through Michael Bay’s immensely popular demonstrations of CGI technology.

2. Cabbage Patch Kids. The story goes that a ten-year-old boy following a Bunny Bee discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids after being led into their waterfall habitat. The boy then extracted the Cabbage Patch babies from their natural home and sold them for adoption. Parents bought them to appease their own offspring, sometimes resorting to fighting other parents for the privilege. The popular toy fad reached its zenith in 1985.

3. Pound Puppies. Also available for adoption were Pound Puppies, stuffed toy dogs with large floppy ears and wide wholesome eyes. The toys sold well in the UK, but were even more popular in the US where they inspired an animated TV series and a widely-despised standalone film.

4. Atari 2600. One of the first major home video game consoles, the Atari’s 2600 model continued to be popular throughout the 1980s. Modest and austere by today’s standards, the console played host to many classics of the genre including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Likely to be superseded this Christmas by newer next-generation models.

5. Care Bears. A huge year for the Care Bears as it coincided with the release of their first feature film. There were many multicoloured bears to collect, each one further differentiated with a unique insignia branded onto their stomachs. The Care Bears remain resolute in a crowded toy market, undergoing seemingly biannual relaunches and makeovers.

6. Rainbow Brite. A young girl with complete dominion over nature logically extends her power to encompass all the colours of the universe. An entire media franchise is born and a doll of the eponymous hero sells extremely well in 1985. The brand’s popularity fluctuated over the next thirty years, and the toys are currently only sold in the US and Canada.

7. G.I. Joe. A reinvention of the toy-line branded G.I. Joe ‘a real American hero’ and made him about a third of his original size. Somewhat emasculated, the international peace-keeper developed a ‘swivel-arm’ action to entertain and amuse children. He remains part of a worldwide media franchise behemoth.

8. Skateboards. In 1985, Back to the Future came out in cinemas and transport changed forever. Children weighed up their options: the Delorean was infeasible and a hover-board unlikely, but skateboarding was certainly possible. Cue a rocketing demand come Christmas time after the film’s December release.

9. Teddy Ruxpin. An animatronic talking bear whose mouth and eyes moved whilst an audio cassette lodged in his back played recorded stories became a huge seller in the mid-1980s. Advances in technology eventually made Teddy Ruxpin redundant and he was discontinued five years ago. He is now found being bought and sold in the dark corners of the internet.

10. Trivial Pursuit. Not strictly a toy but Trivial Pursuit was near the peak of its popularity in 1985. The game developed a huge following due to its acute mixture of dense quiz questions and convoluted board layout. Remains the bane of Christmas for many.

Pictures have been released of how a new modular build for Pilgrim Hospital is set to look when it is finished.

As reported in May, the hospital was given a share of £25 million by United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust for a major refurbishment project for its maternity and women and children’s services building.

Now artists’ impressions of how the £1.5 million investment in the Pilgrim Hospital tower building and the £3.7 million investment in a new modular clinical ward will look, have been released.

Plans for part of the building to be demolished and the staff ‘decanted’ are going well according to ULHT’s director of operations Tina White.

Mrs White said: “It’s progressing really well, we have now actually decanted most of the staff around the site where we need them.”

She acknowledged the build, which started in mid-September, had been delayed after surveys found damage to some of the flood drains which had to be repaired and it was hoped the works would be complete by end of Spring.

The tower block refurbishment aims to create a replacement clinical ward to the existing M2 facility.

The trust, with contractors Kier, is refurbishing part of the existing Level 1 floor, currently used for administration. There is set to be a ‘revitalised and comfortable environment’ for all users.

In line with government guidance there will also be capacity for bariatric patients.

The modular clinical ward will form an extension to the main hospital building and ULHT says it ‘will provide a welcoming and comfortable environment for all in a positive move away from the 
outdated facility that it replaces’.

Smaller works are also being carried out around the site including ward refurbishments, mechanical and electrical infrastructure, improved theatre ventilation, fire safety measures and roof repairs.

A 19-year-old man is in hospital with serious injuries after a car crash near Bourne.

The man was a passenger in a red Volkswagen Fox which left the A151 in North Drove, Twenty, and ended up in a ditch at about 2.50pm on Friday, November 6.

A specialist water rescue team from Bourne and firefighters from Spalding used ladders to get inside the car and ensure there were no further casualties.

Paramedics then treated the man and then took him to Peterborough City Hospital where his condition is described as stable.

The car driver, an 18-year-old man from the area, was also taken to hospital but with less serious injuries.

Anyone who saw the crash but have not already spoken with police should call the Collision Witness Hotline on 01522 558855, quoting incident number 263 of November 6.

Barney, Eva and Henry are among the names we could be calling future storms affecting the UK and Ireland.

However, Quentins, Yvonnes and Zanes will be disappointed, as names starting with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z will not be used, to give consistency with hurricane-naming in the USA.

The new conventions are intended to raise awareness of bad weather so that people take care when conditions are dangerous. In 2013 severe weather around October 28th - St Jude’s Day - was referred to as the St Jude’s storm, while in Scotland in December 2011 the Friedhelm cyclone was renamed - unofficially - as Hurricane Bawbag.

The next storm of severe enough proportions - one with the potential to cause “substantial” impact on the UK or Ireland - will be called Abagail, followed by Barney, and hopefully not all the way through to Wendy.

While the Met Office has yet to name a UK storm, many are predicting that Abagail could hit this week if storms trigger a ‘red’ or ‘amber’ warning. Last night only a yellow ‘be prepared’ alert was in place, but Met Office forecaster Sophie Yeomans warned: “Gusts in some isolated places could reach 65 to 75 mph.” Conditions are expected to be worst in south-western Scotland and northern England.

The Met Office received thousands of responses via email, Facebook and Twitter and has published the full list of potential hurricane names: Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Henry, Imogen, Jake, Katie, Lawrence, Mary, Nigel, Orla, Phil, Rhonda, Steve, Tegan, Vernon and Wendy.

A man rescued from his vehicle after a two-car collision near Market Deeping on Friday evening is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.

The man, in his 50s, was trapped in his vehicle after the accident, at about At 7.20pm.

The Magpas Rapid Response team assessed the patient, who had suffered serious leg injuries, and sedated him before working alongside Fire and Rescue Services to safely remove him from the car.

He was then taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge by land ambulance, where on arrival he was in a serious but stable condition.

Spalding’s famous war memorial has been upgraded from a Grade II to a Grade I protected listing.

The memorial is one of 44 First World War memorials designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens – who is famous for the Whitehall Cenotaph.

Historic England made the announcement on Friday, just in time for the Remembrance Service held at its Ayscoughfee Hall gardens home on Sunday.

Seven of Lutyens’ memorials are now Grade I listed – representing half of the total number of all Grade I war memorials in England.

Lutyens (1869-1944) is known as architect of the Whitehall Cenotaph and the war cemeteries of the Western Front but few people realise that he actually designed 44 war memorials for towns and villages all over England.

Spalding’s war memorial commemorates 224 lives lost during the First World War. Lutyens’ tranquil Tuscan pavilion design was chosen above five others, and includes a Stone of Remembrance.

Spalding’s MP Francis McLaren was killed in a flying accident on August 30, 1917 and it was his wife Barbara who proposed the memorial. It was unveiled on June 8, 1922.

A large crowd assembled in 1886 for a stone laying ceremony for a Spalding chapel.

A hundred and twenty nine years later an equally large crowd gathered for the re-opening of that place of worship – Broad Street Methodist Church – following a major refurbishment project.

Among those who filled the church – in its new upholstered chairs as well as in the upstairs gallery – were current and former worshippers, past ministers as well as the current superintendent minister Alan Barker, and members of the team that dreamt up the project, Vision21.

There were the great and the good – MP John Hayes and his wife Susan, and South Holland District Council chairman Coun Francis Biggadike and his wife Freda – as well as ordinary people whose lives have been touched by the church from their earliest days.

One of these was Lynnette Enser who went to Sunday School and youth club, married and now attends a weekly exercise class for over 60s – all at the church.

She admits she was sad when she heard the building was being altered and that most of the pews were being removed – a few have been retained at each side of the worship area.

However, Lynnette admitted: “We have to move with times and I was excited to see the brand new church.”

Welcoming everyone to the rededication service, the Rev Barker said the transformation of this “special place” meant it was “better able to serve the spiritual and social needs of Spalding in this and future generations.”

Chairman of the steering group of Vision21 David Baldwin thanked everyone involved in the project, adding: “We are really grateful to the congregation who grasped the vision and were willing to take a step forward in faith to bring it about.”

Committee member Bryn Chappell described the work involved in the £600,000-plus project so far. Changes include exterior work, new entrance doors and a new coffee lounge with kitchen area.

Bryn paid tribute to the quality of the original Victorian craftsmanship.

He said: “I hope we have been true to that legacy with what we have done here and generations that follow say we did a good job too.”

The early worshippers at Broad Street Methodist Church in Spalding reached out from the past to have a presence at the official reopening of the refurbished church.

There were displays in the new coffee lounge of material found in a time capsule during the refurbishment work.

Artefacts inside included a copy of this newspaper from 1886, a letter to church members in the same year as well as other papers.

On the wall of the new lounge is a plaque discovered during the project which commemorates the stone laying ceremony in 1886 and listing the people involved.

Other interesting finds during the work included a brick archway – built to cover a tree stump – as well as animal bones and pieces of pottery.

A Bourne policeman’s four patriotic sons were pictured in these newspapers in 1915.

They were Sgt Horace Brighton, who had been severely wounded at the front and reported missing. Nothing had been heard of him for a year.

The second son, Harry, was the only one to decide on a sea-faring life and was a stoker on a warship.

The third son, Pte Cecil Brighton, belonged to the 7th Lincs Regiment and was serving at the front, where he had recently escaped a shell burst close to him.

The youngest son was Pte Leslie Brighton, who was also “imbued with the patriotic family instinct”. He was in training with the Territorial Force (2/4th Lincoln Regiment) at St Alban’s.

A man who breached a court order for the fourth time was sent straight to prison by magistrates.

Martyn Miles (22), of Pinchbeck Road, Spalding, was given 12 weeks’ custody when he appeared at Boston Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

On February 19 this year, Miles was given a community order with unpaid work for dangerous driving and failing to stop after an accident.

Three previous breaches for failing to comply were marked with an additional 50 hours unpaid work and two fines.

Esther Moss, for the probation service, said Miles had completed only eight hours of the unpaid work and had 242 hours remaining.

She said the latest breach involved failure to attend an unpaid work session on September 13 and failure to provide an acceptable explanation to cover his absence within seven days.

Presiding magistrate Ann Harrison told Miles: “You have had no end of opportunities and you have just paid a complete disregard to the court’s orders. We feel as a bench that we have got no other option but to give you 12 weeks custody with immediate effect.”

Miles, who admitted the breach, was asked to wait for custodians to collect him from the waiting room.

Today is Equal Pay Day and the #equalpayday is trending on twitter, but the upbeat name for November 9 hides an alarming fact, according to charity The Fawcett Society - women, in effect, don’t earn any money for the rest of the year.

According to the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings by the Office for National Statistics, the pay gap for men and women working full-time is 14.2%. The average full-time female worker’s hourly rate is £14.39, compared to £16.77 for men.

The government recently pledged to do more to bring women’s pay in line with men’s, with David Cameron vowing to ‘close the pay gap in a generation’, but gender equality charity the Fawcett Society believes the Government will not achieve its aim without more being done to speed up the pace of change.

Sam Smethers, Chief Executive, said: “There has never been a better opportunity to close the pay gap for good. Progress has stalled in recent years but with real commitment for government and employers, together with action from women and men at work, we could speed up progress towards the day when we can consign it to history.

“We welcome the inclusion of bonus payments and the extension of the new regulations to the public sector. But new regulations on pay should require an action plan alongside the pay gap with tough penalties for employers who do not comply.

“The message to women and men at work is – it’s OK to talk about pay. How can we achieve pay equality if we don’t even know what our colleagues earn? It is time to have the conversation and ask your employer if they are ready for the new pay gap reporting requirements.”

Recently launched government legislation - targeted at addressing the gender pay gap - requires big companies to publish how much they pay employees - including bonuses.

The Fawcett Society believes that at the current rate of progress, it will take 50 years to close the gender pay gap in the UK.

Popular messaging services such as WhatsApp and iMessage will not be banned after the British government confirmed the upcoming Investigatory Powers Bill will not restrict encryption in the country.

The news comes as Home Secretary Theresa May outlined new powers that will primarily help target and combat paedophiles and terrorists online.

Critics had warned changes will affect the lives of everyone who uses everyday technology such as smartphones and tablets.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has more than 900 million active monthly. According to Apple, last year their device users sent over 300 billion messages using iMessage and the firm said it delivers an average of 28,000 messages per second.

The messaging services faced the prospect of a ban or at the very least stricter controls because its use of encryption makes it too private for the security services to access.

Both the US and UK governments had expressed growing concerns that criminals and terrorists are making use of such services to communicate, knowing that they are completely private.

It had been mooted that the Conservative government was looking to include an ‘end-to-end encryption ban’ – protecting people from hacking into private communications on services likes WhatsApp and iMessage – in the bill.

Instead the new legislation will see authorities have access to everything your phone and computer does. That information will then be stored for a year.

But the apparent step-down might be because the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which the new bill is intended to update, already gives the Government the power to access much of information.

Monday saw one of the warmest November nights on record and we have already had the hottest November day ever record in the UK as parts of the country hit 22.4c last week...so will it last?

Well actually yes, for this week anyway.

The Met Office is forecasting “Exceptionally mild” conditions this week all the way through until Saturday, with the maximum temperature reaching a very comfortable 17c today, Tuesday November 10, a heat not out of place in August let alone November.

Exceptional warmth in November in the UK is almost always imported - delivered from sub-tropical latitudes by a strong southwesterly or southerly wind.

Here’s your full look at a warm week ahead:

Today: It will be generally cloudy, breezy and exceptionally mild. A few limited bright intervals may occur, mainly this morning. This afternoon there is a chance of outbreaks of rain arriving. Maximum Temperature 17°C.

Tonight: Outbreaks of rain soon clearing to leave the rest of the night dry with large amounts of cloud. However, some breaks may develop. Staying very mild. Minimum Temperature 13°C.

Wednesday: Mild, breezy again, generally dry and cloudy. However, some bright or sunny intervals may occur. Maximum Temperature 16°C.

Outlook for Thursday to Saturday: Thursday dry and bright morning, then becoming windy, with rain arriving later. Friday windy, with heavy showers, and feeling noticeably cooler than recently. Saturday staying windy but becoming milder.