Adventures on the Pennine Bridleway

01/02/2010 by admin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, it’s nice to leave the car at home. When we first moved to Littleborough, we revelled in the walking out of the back door and …hiking!

For ten months of the year, now we have our caravan in the Lakes, we spend all our spare time in Cumbria. But the site closes down between January and March and we rediscover the forgotten pleasures of living in Greater Manchester.

Last week it was Lyme Park and today it was the Pennine Bridleway. We must have walked abo0ut 10 miles, straight from the back door. The ground stayed frozen so we avoided the dreaded mud which can be a problem in the boggy South Pennines…and the sun shone all day!

We walked down the Rochdale Canal to Hollingworth Lake, under the Rakewood Viaduct (the M62 was horribly busy) and across to Piethorn Reservoir near Newhey, before heading back across the moors underneath Blackstone Edge before walking down Halifax Road and turning off at Sladen Mill to complete the circle home.

There were hundreds out in the hills, refugees from the recent bad weather, which got me thinking about Rochdale’s criminal failure to become a tourist destination.

The birthplace of the Co-op and so much open country really deserves better.

I went to a council meeting last year to listen to the debate about tourism strategy, thinking, perhaps, to pick up some work. Until, that is, a councillor proudly announced the borough’s tourism budget for this year…..£10,000.

I rest my case.

 

 

 

 

 

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A walk in the woods

26/01/2010 by admin.

 

My wife took a day off today – her first since the bad weather hit and we took a stroll in Hardcastle Craggs (right). We parked in Hebden Bridge, rather than drive to the National Trust car park at Midgehole, to avoid the stupidity of the A6033 Keighley Road, out of town.

This must be the most dangerous road in the North of England. With residents allowed to park outside their houses, you are left with a single lane, uphill and a series of blind bends. Really, you might as well close your eyes and hope for the best.

Anyway, with the caravan in the Lake District closed up until March, we are aquainting ourselves with some local walking. And the deep valley of Hardcastle Craggs did not disappoint, especially with most other people at work.

It really is a magnificent amenity and we rounded off the day back in Hebden Bridge with some fish and chips…proper ones, Haddock fried in proper fat.

The good people of Matlock Bath in Derbyshire were blowing their own trumpet on the excellent Michael Portillo Great Railway Journey last night. I reckon Hebden Bridge is a match for it.

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Concessionary fares

20/01/2010 by admin.

People approaching pensionerhood who do not reach the age of 60 in the next 11 weeks will have to wait longer for their free bus pass.

For the government has decided to gradually raise the eligibility age for the popular passes to 65 – starting on April 6 this year. Anyone whose 60th birthday falls after that date will have to keep paying up as the age rises gradually until April 2020 when the qualifying age will be 65.

Since April 2008, everyone in England who is over 60 or disabled has been entitled to a free annual bus pass giving free off-peak travel on local buses anywhere in the country. Greater Manchester residents are also entitled to free tram and train rides within Greater Manchester.

But in a little-publicised reform last month, the government announced plans to re-establish the link between the age of eligibility the state pension age as part of a wider package of changes to increase the age at which pensioner benefits can be received in line with pension age changes.

It means that from April, the age of eligibility for concessionary travel for women will be pension age, and for men it will be the pensionable age of a woman born on the same day. – and the state pension age for women is rising by five years over the coming decade.

Dean Nicholson, GMPTE’s Customer Services Director said: “These changes may have implications insofar as there will be an overall reduction in the numbers of pass-holders (and thus concessionary journeys), compared with previous assumptions, and these will need to be considered by the Authority in due course.”

The scheme has been hugely popular policy and passes have been taken up by around 11 million older and disabled people.

But in some areas, councils protested that they were being forced to cut services to other residents. And some bus operators admitted that fare-paying passengers were being left at stops because buses on the most popular routes were full of pensioners.

Over 60s travel free on all off-peak buses, trains, and trams in Greater Manchester and only pay the new 80p concessionary fares if they travel before 9.30am. No-one who has already qualified for a pass will have to give it up. Last year former Oldham Council leader David Jones failed in a bid to ease the recession for families by scrapping a 10p bus-fare rise for schoolchildren.

Labour members of Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority attempted to halt a 10p rise in concessionary fares to 80p – which authority leaders said was needed to balance the books - but were defeated by the Conservative and Lib/Dem coalition which runs the authority. Personally, I thought it was a scandal to fork out for extra perks (i.e. free train and tram fares) for people who can easily afford them while putting extra burdens on less well off families with several school-age kids.

THERE IS ONLY ONE FAIR WAY: MEANS TEST THE CONCESSIONARY FARES.

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New Year’s Honours

01/01/2010 by admin.

Delighted to see Ewan Easton of the Halle Orchestra getting the MBE for voluntary service to HM Young Offenders’ Institution, Thorn Cross, Warrington, Cheshire.

I saw him and some prisoners performing at a Business in the Community dinner in Liverpool. He spoke with a passion about how well the young inmates responded to learning how to play an instrument.

Musically, they weren’t actually very good but there was certainly some magic at work because they got a standing ovation.

And one of the first tables to its feet was mine. I was the guest of British Transport Police!

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On the nightmare of a White Christmas

26/12/2009 by admin.

Yes, the weather has been exceptionally bad…but does that excuse exceptionally bad service?

Consider this :

AA president Edmund King, not known for intemperate comment, accused councils of doing too little, too late” when it came to gritting the roads this year.

Councillor David Sparks, Chairman of the Local Government Association Transport and Regeneration Board, responded: “Councillors and council workers are drivers too and understand how frustrating and distressing some drivers are finding this week’s severe weather. Councils know how important it is to keep Britain moving, even in the worst conditions.

“Thousands of council staff have been working as hard as they can in what are sometimes difficult and dangerous conditions to clear roads and keep motorists safe. The whole transport network has been struggling over the last 24 hours from trains, to planes and motorways, but major local roads have generally been kept moving.”

Total rubbish.

I thought Rochdale council was bad enough – three days in and Halifax Road still hadn’t seen a gritter.

But then I came to Staveley and found South Lakeland District Council – a body which really ought to be geared up for bad weather – appears to be asleep.

There is a road which leads to the road to our caravan site. It leads off the busy A591 dual carriageway and is a tricky turn at the best of times. Imagine my horror, therefore, when I made the turn last night to find myself on partially melted and refrozen snow. Were in a 4×4 but expected tomorrow are 60 touring caravans. The site warden has been pleading with the council to do something, so far without result.

Let’s remember that it first snowed a week ago.

OK, caravanners are a minority, Christmas caravanners even more so. But then we took a walk along Crook Road at Staveley. Criminally under gritted.

Whatever the LGA says, you have got to suspect the councils of hoarding their salt with an eye on next year’s spending cuts.

OK, we’ll look after ourselves….and the government can stop penalising the drivers of 4×4s to get cheap global warming headlines.

 

 

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Rolling Stock problem solved.

13/12/2009 by admin.

At last, some new rolling stock on the Calder Valley Line between Manchester and Leeds! This picture was taken on Sunday, December 13, from my back garden.

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Manchester Victoria Station

28/11/2009 by admin.

Police were called as passengers swamped a Leeds-bound train from Manchester Victoria after a concert at the adjoining Arena.

They ordered the crowds back from a pacer train which turned up to form the 10.20pm train to Leeds, just as fans poured out of the Arena where popular comic Michael McIntyre had been performing.

The crush was made worse by the increased demand caused by the closure of the Oldham loop line and work on platform 2 of the station which has been cordoned off by metal barriers.

Security guards kept crowds back in the foyer of the station – dubbed Britain’s worse by transport secretary Lord Adonis last week – until the train arrived. But the two carriages quickly filled up and police had to step in to prevent people trying to force their way on board. About 100 people were prevented from boarding the train.

One joker who pushed through the angry crowd to the front was hauled out again by police and security guards. I was on my way home from Manchester Airport’s media reception, a wonderful evening turned into a nightmare by these disgraceful scenes. I took this picture of the crush with my phone.

No-one was hurt in passengers finally got away on the last train of the day an hour later.

Rail campaigners have demanded to meet councillors at stations along the Calder Valley line through Mills Hill after reports that commuters have been regularly left behind in both morning and evening rush hours because there is not enough capacity while the loop line is converted to Metrolink.

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The joy of computers

26/11/2009 by admin.

I am a very busy man. I only have time to write this because my internet provider has let me down and I can’t get into my website to work on it.

It started when I decided to buy some expensive software to make the pages of my online magazine turn. So impressed was I that I thought I had better give the website a revamp to celebrate…so I upgraded my hosting package to a more sophisticated one. I’ve signed up, paid up, and so far I have a half built website online ruining my reputation and a Exchange email account which is bouncing back emails.

Oh, and after two long phone calls to support at 6p a minute to a country which sounds like it may be in South America, and three threatening emails (from my webmail account), I am left with this: “In this regard, we need to reescalate (sic) your case to our Administrators. Please wait for an update from them.”

I am a bit of pioneer in this computer lark. I still have, in my wardrobe, a Sinclair Spectrum. I upgraded proudly to one of the early IBM pc’s – and promptly deleted the operating system by mistake. Of course a computer without an operating system is as much use as a large stone. You need the software to switch it on.

Fortunately, my brother-in-law worked in software at the time and managed to reboot using a floppy disc (remember them?) I even wrote a humorous article for a computer magazine about the experience. They didn’t print it.

My interest in computers being known at work, I was invited to get involved in the early days of the Manchester Evening News website. I was conned.

This involved mainly the clerical duties of inputting stories of the day and going through an extremely flaky process of uploading to the web. If it worked OK, it took an hour and a half. If it went wrong it could take all day - and as the paper did not come out until lunchtime in those days, when it went wrong, I ended up staying late.

But now, having attended a course on convergence at the University of South Carolina – in the days when the M.E.N. had money to throw away on training the staff – I am as close to an IT expert as I can afford.

So, having set up my own business, I moved on to the joys of networking. There are two sorts of networking. One involves drinking wine and handing out business cards and there is wireless networking. The later is a joyless affair which involves a inputting very long passwords and tearing your hair out.

And when it is down, it can feel like you have been put into solitary confinement. Having become so dependent on the internet, being deprived of it is like walking around blindfolded.

On the move, power management is the big issue. I took my laptop to Germany last week, complete with charger and continental adapter. But the adapter did not fit German plugs and my battery, as usual lasted 10 minutes. I ended up having to write out in longhand a feature about a new electric train being built by the Germans for Scottish railways. Once back in blighty, I found a plug, fired up the laptop, keyed in the text and emailed it off.

In the olden days, we would have found a phone box and dictated the story to a copy typist while members of the public banged on the door, impatient to use the telephone.

There, that’s off my chest and still no news on the website. I’ll have to find something else to do. Perhaps I’ll clear out the shed.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cheeky villains

09/11/2009 by admin.

http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/091106maynard.shtml

This story reminds me of the time when the brother of a very wanted many came into the office one Saturday morning and we gave him £40 “expenses” for him to find his runaway sibling and get him to ring us.

Of course, we never heard from him again…but at least it was the managing editor’s money!

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The woes of a freelance journalist

02/11/2009 by admin.

Above are two versions of the same story. The first was written by me a month ago and sent to both newspapers. The second newspaper chose to ignore it until Rochdale MP Paul Rowen issued a press release after the story had appeared in the railway press.

Now, I absolutely respect the right of any newspaper not to pay me. ..

But a MONTH????

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