A week at the opera

Longborough Opera House

I have been spending a week in Worcestershire with my old friend Angela.

The reason for my visit this time is that we are going together to the Ring Cycle at Longborough Opera in nearby Gloucestershire.  Invitations to accompany us, extended to both husbands, were for some reason politely declined.

For a lover of opera the experience of sitting through all 16 hours of the Cycle is not unlike undertaking a trip to Mecca...a lifetime's ambition for which one has to save up!

I suppose the absolutely right place to 'do' The Ring is Bayreuth in Germany, where the opera house was specially designed by the composer and is still run by members of his family.   Longborough, which although small, shares a number of the German house's features, is said by some to come a close second.   It is the only place in the UK where all four operas are being performed in sequence this year, the two hundredth anniversary of Wagner's birth.

Gloucestershire countryside

Reviews of the productions have been good, and they have, so far, definitely lived up to expectations.  Also, Brunnhilde, the Valkyrie, is quite slim and good looking, which is unusual.  She, and her faithful horse, will leap onto her funeral pyre this evening in Gotterdamerung, the final lap of the marathon sing.

Teas served by wishmaidens here.

Back to earth, and Suffolk, tomorrow.

Angela's magic flower garden

Babergh and MSDC on BBC 1 this Sunday

Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils – and more particularly the achievements and challenges of the last two years of change and integration - are under the spotlight in this coming Sunday’s The Politics Show on BBC1 from 11am.

The two councils recently won a national award for 'Shared Services', i.e. the integration of the two officer structures to create one organisation for two separate constitutional bodies.  The process is now close to completion.

It is understood that Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis has also been interviewed for the programme.

Is Suffolk Broadband behind schedule?

A week or so ago it was reported on Look East that both Suffolk and Norfolk are 'behind' in their plans to roll out faster broadband across their respective areas.

This is certainly not the case in Suffolk.

Here in Suffolk we have always guaranteed to provide 85% of the population with superfast broadband and the remaining 15% with an improved broadband service. Elsewhere in the country the roll out has been 90% superfast with the intention of giving the remaining 10% some improved coverage, but not guaranteeing this by the deadline. This has caused confusion and is why media are claiming that the rural broadband roll out is late. In Suffolk we are actually ahead of our targets and timescales.

Mark Bee, Leader of Suffolk County Council, has made the following comment:-

 "Here in Suffolk we consulted with residents and businesses about the kind of broadband service they wanted. They told us that they would rather we rolled out superfast broadband to 85% of the population with the remaining 15% receiving an improved broadband speed but not superfast, rather than 90% superfast and 10% getting nothing.

"This is what we are doing here in Suffolk - it doesn't mean that we are critical of how other local authorities are rolling out their Better Broadband programmes. Each local authority is different and Suffolk has many rural communities so we felt our programme had to ensure they had the best chance of improved broadband coverage.

"We are on track with the roll out in Suffolk with phase one - 8,391 premises set to have better coverage by Christmas this year, and we are on target for the rest of the programme to be delivered by 2015."

Junior Road Safety Awards

Junior Road Safety Officers

On Friday I attended the Junior Road Safety Awards at Endeavour House.

I went along because Junior Road Safety Officers from Whatfield Primary School in my Division won a Silver Award for work done promoting road safety throughout the school.

The Junior Road Safety Officer Scheme has been running in Suffolk for over 10 years. In that time the number of schools Countywide that have become involved in the Scheme has steadily increased to over 80.

The Scheme involves at least two (Year 4 to Year 6) pupils who are given the title ‘Junior Road Safety Officer’, together with a pack containing road safety resources. Supported by their local Road Safety Education Officer and a nominated Teacher or Teaching assistant from their school the Junior RS Officers act as 'message givers' to the whole school community through their own notice board, promoting national, regional and local road safety campaigns. They may be asked to help with class talks or school assemblies and write articles for school newsletters. They also run road safety themed competitions throughout the school year raising awareness of important road safety messages among their peers.   

Occasionally Junior Officers become involved in projects for their local community working with not only with the Road Safety Team but other agencies also.  The Whatfield Junior Road Safety Officers for example have spent time with the local PCSO's, working on speed reducing activities.

The Suffolk County Council Road Safety Team provide a website which acts as a resource for Junior Officers and has further details of the scheme  www.suffolkroadsafe.net/JRSO. 

Around 40 schools were represented at the County Council on Thursday.  Many had lunch at Endeavour House and received a portion of the Road Safety Cake pictured below.

Parish Council reports

As part of my role I regularly attend Parish Council meetings to deliver a report about the County Council (or District Council in Waldingfield).

I thought that it might interest local readers if, from time to time, I post sample reports on the tab above labelled 'Reports'.

The first is a report I will be delivering to Lavenham Parish Council about the County Council this evening, and one about the District that was delivered at Great Waldingfield PC at the end of June.

News from Little Waldingfield History Society

From Andy Sheppard:-

 

Little Waldingfield History Society recently hosted a tea party to thank those brave souls we have interviewed for our HLF “All Our Stories” project.

The venue was the School House in Little Waldingfield, which some remembered from their school days before it closed in 1963. Unfortunately we could not make use of the lovely gardens as originally planned, so after much work by a small band of helpers, furniture was moved around the house and three large tables and 30 chairs set up inside; luckily there was just enough room for it to be cosy and inviting rather than cramped.

More volunteers then arrived with more than enough food for the soon to be assembled masses. Special thanks must go to Jan Carter for the beautifully presented sandwich platters, Sue Horsley for the professional standard cakes and buns, and Jill Duffy for her lovely scones and continuous gallons of freshly brewed tea – we were all in for a right royal treat.

Somehow we resisted the temptation to set our recorders running again, but it was great seeing old friends and neighbours from years past catching up on fondly recalled times; the village truly must have been a brilliant place to grow up in as a child / young adult, as we believe it remains so today. It was also lovely to see how much attention our interviewees gave to the many enlarged photos of village outings and events from long ago that we had laid out for viewing. We hoped to identify many unknown faces and gratifyingly a substantial number of names were recalled, though interestingly one current resident who shall remain nameless didn’t recognise his own grandfather! This newly acquired knowledge will greatly assist our research efforts.

 

One interviewee who had turned 80 the previous day was presented with a superb birthday cake (thank you again Sue) and all present broke into a pretty good rendition of “Happy Birthday”; unfortunately for Beryl, this was a bittersweet moment as her sister Pearl, who we had also interviewed, had returned home earlier in the day and, we subsequently learned, later transferred to hospital. Get well soon Pearl.

The party was scheduled to run from 3.00 to 5.30, but given the last person didn’t leave until 7.00, it is fair to presume that a good time was had by all our guests; the trustees also had a most enjoyable time.

A follow up coffee morning was held later in the month to share recent findings with the village.

Story of the summer

Spotted in Elmsett yesterday evening.....Sums up the year to date really.