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October 2005
I was extremely embarrassed by the state of www.feltwell.org when it went live last month. I hadn't realised that half the links pointed back to pages on my hard drive! The upshot of this was that all appeared to be working perfectly on my machine but on every other PC on the planet the site was full of missing buttons and links. Having spent many hours over the last few weeks checking every page and every hyperlink I now hope everything is fixed and working properly. I'm sure you'll let me know if there are still errors. I also took the opportunity to change every email listing on the site to include either the word SPAM or REMOVE. These words should be taken out before an email is sent and have been put in to foil, hopefully, email harvesters which are used by spammers to glean addresses across from websites. I'm also expecting the old site and the old "pgarland@garlandp etc" address to stop as I've cancelled my second phone line with BT and it was through that one that Wanadoo got paid. Wonder how long it will take them to pick up on this? This email should arrive via garlandp@btinternet.com, my new broadband address. Hopefully, I can get back to doing regular additions at the end of this month (half-term in two weeks).
Two big bits of news to report involve the Surgery and the Church. Firstly Dr Nisbet retires at the end of October after 28 years in the village. Well done Ian and many thanks for all your hard work. Secondly, Rev David Kightley has retired after many years of selfless service to this parish during which St Mary's got floodlighting (to mark the Millennium) and some desperately needed repairs to the tower. David will be back occasionally as he still has some weddings to conduct! Thank you David for all your devotion to duty and Feltwell.
On the development front, the Youth Centre has been demolished and all that is left are the two changing rooms and toilets. This is a sad loss but should, in the long run, save the Parish a lot of money in terms of maintenance and insurance costs on a building that nobody wanted to use despite many efforts over the years. I know, I was involved in some of them. Plans are being formulated for the development of the allotment land behind the surgery for starter homes in association with a Housing Association and the Old School, now no longer an engineering works, is due to be converted into 3/4 houses with up to 12 additional houses being built on the land behind. The ruling of the Planning Authority in both cases is eagerly awaited by all interested parties, from the Parish Council through neighbouring homeowners to those looking for their first home. Many of you will remember the lay-by (pull-in) opposite the entrance to the Base on the Wilton Road. Well, it is no more. It has been raised about a yard in height by the addition of large amounts of soil in order to stop it being used as a second-hand car lot which was a distraction to drivers in this potentially dangerous area. Whilst I'm on the subject of the Base, the new arrangements to get the traffic off the Wilton Road have helped enormously but the closure of Gate 2 (the Long Lane gate) means that all traffic, regardless of the direction from which it comes, has to use Wilton Road and, at busy periods traffic wanting to turn right into the Base now cause a small jam for those leaving the village! Still, my maximum wait so far has only been 2 minutes and I once timed a five minute wait at the railway lines at Hockwold, a full 7 minutes extra to what is normally a 20 minute journey to work, but this has only happened once since 1st September.
I'm going to stop now but before I do here is a note from John Jacobs in answer to a question about a huge pile of boxes in one of the fields alongside the Southery Road. Hope you enjoy it.
"A lot of older readers will remember all the smaller farmers growing a field of celery. These boxes were used to transport the celery to market. These first belonged to the Bullards Brewery (my favourite beer at the Chequers), but when the middle section could no longer be used they were sold to the local farmers who used them to transport the celery to market and returned them for use again. I am told by the men who worked in the celery fields how hard the work was as it was always wet in the autumn and winter so the boxes became wet and heavy. I can remember lorries being loaded for market every night. Danny Wortley, being one of the drivers, working and driving the lorry for his brother-in-law, the late Lenny Fletcher whose land the boxes now stand on. The boxes were stacked in the shape of a building with a roof to keep the boxes dry. It's sad to see no celery in our fens now." There will be a photograph of the stack on the website after the next update.
