You call it a jetty, I call it a pier. Either way, it was lovely to see Wivenhoe’s very own walkway out towards the water [snappy] finding a use over the weekend.
Following the grand opening of the jetty / pier by our friends from Taylor Wimpey earlier in the year, I had feared that the planks of wood would have about as much life in them as can be found in a sterile show home.
Not so.
We’re rather good at adapting and improvising here in Wivenhoe. Kids have decamped from the traditional West Quay crabbing vantage point of choice, and are now dangling their crab lines from over the side of the Seventh Wonder of Wivenhoe.
Technical note: don’t ask me about the other six until I’ve had six pints, but you’ve probably already guessed that Papa’s Chip Shop features prominently on my list.
But anyway, about the pier; or jetty even…
It’s also found a use from the newly formed Wivenhoe Jetty Fisherman’s Club. Numbers may be low, but then so is the water for most of the time during the fishing hours. I do like the sight of seeing a fine young fisherman dangling his big rod in the water, and then pulling it in with a sharp tug.
Meanwhile, back in m’South London manor and I see that m’South London colleagues, the fine @SE11_lurker and @TradescantRoad, are getting their hyperlocal hot pants all overheated over the appearance of the new VauxhallPier.
Pah.
You are unlikely to see any of the local kids crabbing there, Comrades. And unlike m’South London colleagues, yep - we are able to offer the fabled (and STILL absent) “free swimming for every resident.”
Stick that on the end of yer crab line, suckers.
Perhaps Wivenhoe Pier and Vauxhall Pier could be twinned? It would open up a new cultural, um, legacy, not to mention providing me with the train fare back and forth when I agree to become the first Cultural Ambassador between South London and Wivenhoe.
To the Wivenhoe Bookshop on Saturday morning for some Radio Wivenhoe interview training. We may revel in our amateur status, but to keep the big boys of broadcasting from getting hold of a community licence, a training programme has to be in place.
Which is no bad thing, given the bumblings around the edges of of an mp3 player that I have so far put out in the name of Wiv Chat.
We are blessed here in Wivenhoe to have Heather Purdey as a local resident. Having made a name for herself in fronting up radio newsrooms in the ’80s and early ’90s, Heather is now a highly esteemed academic, holding the post of Director of International Journalism at City University.
But that’s all for the day job. Heather very kindly gave up her weekend to help out a rag tag collection of hyperlocal broadcasting types to sit in the splendour of the backroom shed at the Bookshop, and help us out as we explore what lies ahead for Radio Wivenhoe.
We have pretty much been making it up as we go along in the short history of Radio Wivenhoe - have mp3 recorder, will travel. Physically setting up the station was the priority. Smoothing out the rough edges and coming up with the What Next has to be addressed now.
With news of the hyperlocal station just starting to spread around the town, we have a little grace to experiment and find some future direction; or even find how to turn on your portable mp3 player and actually record some content.
Whoops.
But Radio Wivenhoe needs a focus to keep the momentum and enthusiasm progressing. We certainly found this on Saturday, with a microphone being thrust into our face and an impromptu interview greeting each guest upon arrival.
Must try that one at the locals stagger out of The Station after last orders on a Saturday night…
It wasn’t just the interview technique that Heather was able to condense into our three hour slot, but also the physical set up in putting in place a makeshift studio in your own front room.
With @AnnaJCowen covering all four corners of Studio Wiv Chat with a pot of Dulux back at base, there are some basics that I have overlooked. Body language is all-important, especially when you have strapped down your guest for an hour as you try and unearth that previously unknown piece of hyperlocal history.
Come mid-morning and is was time to be let loose on the locals of Wivenhoe.
Oh Lordy.
The practical task was set to tear up and down the High Street and come back with a short piece. I pondered going to Papa’s Chip Shop and delicately producing a piece of advertorial, all for the small price of one of the finest saveloys you can get your yer lips around in North Essex.
I buggered off down to the Quay instead: not a single soul insight. Wivenhoe is very good at sleeping though Saturday mornings. Questions were considered about the unwelcome boat, but no one was around to answer them.
Hard-pressed hyperlocal news hounds can probably find a story at the Sailing Club I though. Not at low water Jase.
Whoops.
The charming Pet Shop Girls at the Business Centre were also on my radar, but by now I was starting to get some slightly crazed looks after watching a couple of local lads roll around in the mud by the jetty, hovering with my mic, and poised to ask them what they hell they were doing.
“Having fun, innit?”
Hey hoe.
With the studio clock counting down, I made a dash for the Wivenhoe Trail. This has been a hotbed of hyperlocal debate of late over on the Wivenhoe Forum (whaddya mean… blah blah blah - oh, just…)
Permissive Use by Bicyclists doesn’t amount to free love and understanding being dished out by Ferry Marsh, but watch yer back - it’s only one of those lycra lovers about to take you up the backside.
THIS is local news. THIS was going to be my lead back in the Bookshop shed.
I wandered lonely as a cloud, almost as far down as the Hythe. Not a single cyclist or pedestrian passed me.
Wake up Wivenhoe: TIME TO DIE.
Eventually a charming Dutch couple slowed down outside the old Engine Shed as I waved at them on their touring bikes like a mad fool waves at a wet hen.
“Um, yeah, um, Radio Wivenhoe, y’know, so, right, what d’ya think of cycling?”
It wasn’t the best opening question and my guests were struggling slightly with the lingo. Still, I recorded three minutes of audio, which probably made more sense if you could see the head nods that got us around the language issues.
Happy with the scoop, and with a skip and a hop along Station Road, I listened back to my recording.
So yeah, I inadvertently deleted my three minutes of fame.
Back down towards the Hythe it was then.
Well, not quite. A couple of new to Wivenhoe locals walked past, I filled them in; they had heard of Radio Wivenhoe and were only to keen to help out the bumbling boy about town with a mic.
A closed question here and there went against all the theory that we were taught back in the Bookshop shed, but I quite like the short piece. It’s not going to throw the global financial crash off the top of the news bulletins, but then again the Dow Jones never really played out very strong in the beer garden at The Station.
Back at the Bookshop and all four students listened to the recordings that we returned with. Puffin came back with a brilliant insight into life in the village Post Office, ex Cllr-Cyril headed for the boozer and welcomed the new land lady at the Black Buoy for a bar side chat. Mr Mule talked about Led Zep with Heather.
We all had four unique interviews, with four very different interview techniques. Those Editorial Board meetings at Radio Wivenhoe are going to keep us up all hours over those long winter months.
And so some three hours later after first bumbling through the Bookshop doors, I reflected on what had been the most useful and practical Saturday morning that I have experienced in some time - I’m including my time spent getting lost in the gardening aisles down at B & Q.
No formal news gathering is in place as yet at Radio Wivenhoe, but there are stories out there to be told, I tell ya.
We concluded with some wonderful serendipity. I knew of Heather in a different life some twenty-five years ago as my first job as the bumbling boy at the local radio station. Heather was already running the newsroom, and was about to go on to even better things.
A quarter of a century later, and we were both in the backroom shed at the Wivenhoe Bookshop and about to take the next step for Radio Wivenhoe.
The local radio station from back in the day has long since been lost to the big boys of corporate radio. Heather told me of how a breakaway hyperlocal online station back in the Fair City has since sprung up.
Now *that* sounds like something you want to here…
A weekend downpour of Biblical proportions, which can only mean that it’s time for the summer publication of Wivenhoe News.
Blimey.
Sea Defences Saga Flows On is the lead story.
See what they’ve done there?
“There has been much anger and dismay caused by the stripping of vegetation from the seawalls in Wivenhoe alongside our tidal river, both downstream and upstream from the flood barrier.”
The bad science justification that was bungled out by the Environment Agency is also re-published, as is a very kind plug for *cough* the Wivenhoe Forum thread.
What’s new here is the offer by the Natural England - the spineless body that rubber stamped the destruction - to re-plant 5,000 “compensatory trees” - you break our legs and we say thank you when you offer us crutches.
Eight hundred and fifty have been put aside for the North Essex estuary. Don’t go getting your digging spades out just yet, Comrades:
“In the Colne Estuary they [Natural England] have provided 850 small tress to Brightlingsea Town Council for a site to the east of the town.”
If you stand at White House Beach on a clear estuary morning, and then squint out over the water with one eye closed, you may just be able to see the benefits of the trees bestowed upon our beloved Brothers in Brightlingsea.
Cheers.
No worries. What we need is a smiling picture of a lovely local lady to add some cheer to the sea defence doom:
“Workers of Wivenhoe - Shelia Scammell, Lollipop Lady.”
Lovely.
Wivenhoe May Fair 2011 gets the p.2 treatment, in something of an after the Lord Mayor’s Show airing. Time to move on, time to plan and time to restore May Fair as a community event for 2012.
Speaking of Mayor’s, Cllr Sinclair is captured in one of his final acts of civic duty in what has been a busy year. The Guide’s Wedding Party is all part of wearing the Wivenhoe civic chains.
But it’s not all about the Brownies or Girl Guides. On a more serious note, there is a plea on p.2 for a new Scout Leader for Wivenhoe:
“Let’s not beat about the bush: twenty youngsters, full of energy and enthusiasm [and then some] raring to take up the opportunity offered by the Scouting movement.”
This is a BIG role that really needs filling. The Wivenhoe News editorial on p.3 plays with similar themes:
“Off the Rails seems to be looking for pretty much a whole new team, the Wivenhoe Society is limping along with no Secretary and a very small committee, the WEA has been without a Chair for a year and is about to lose its Secretary.
One of the things that you often here in praise of Wivenhoe is ‘there’s so much going on here.’ Well folks - things only happen because people organise them.”
Wise word, but maybe it is a reflection of the work / life balance? There are only so many hours in the day and bills still need to be paid. It’s no secret that I have had to severely cut back on my out of hour’s unpaid activity of late.
On a more lighter note and any news article that contains the phrase: “superb French folk music, played on hurdy-gurdies [geddin there!] and bagpipes” has to be a winner. The Town Meets Gown event gets a mention on p.3.
Dr Philippa Hawley and Halcyon Palmer pen a simply superb local historical account on the various Wivenhoe surgeries dating back over the past Century. It is apt timing, what with the STOP / START / STOP farce of the new Wivenhoe surgery by the Fire Station continuing to stall.
I’m not going to re-publish any of the copy here - this article is worthy of your purchase of Wivenhoe News alone. More of the same please.
The Two Ronnies of Wivenhoe local politics, Cyril Liddy and Dave Purdey, are given the It’s Goodbye From Me, and It’s Goodbye From Him headline.
With sixteen and eight years respectively serving as unpaid Town Councillors, both Cyril and Dave are rightfully given a short column to say a fond farewell.
Of sorts…
Along with Sheila Scammell and her lovely Lollipop Lady tales on p.8, Alison Kent also carries an ACE interview with Ray the Rubbish, the retiring litter picker of Wivenhoe:
“I think you should try to keep the front of your property clean, like the old days. Have pride in where you live.”
Hear, hear.
I didn’t realise that the job was only fourteen hours a week - Ray has seemed to be ever-present during my short stay here. Good luck to James, Ray’s replacement.
Aquatic matters are the concern on p.11. Lifeboat Week gets a deserved plug, as does the Wivenhoe branch of the Royal British Legion:
“Remembrance is a very large part of the Legion’s ethos. Those who attend the Legion Wednesday evenings will know that those who have given their lives in Afghanistan and other places in the service of their nation are individually remembered.”
The building fund for the Legion has been boosted by a donation of over £2,000 from the Boxing Day walk staged by WORC. £690 was also raised at the ACE fireworks display. October 29th is already in the calendar for one of the best nights that Wivenhoe is able to offer.
Next door but one at The Nottage and there is a plug for Water Marks - the Summer Exhibition, featuring local artists Alison Stockmarr, Barbara Peirson and Pru Green.
The exhibition is open on Sundays from 2pm - 5pm until 11th September, and on Regatta Day on 23rd July. It is VERY good. There’s a blog post already being lined up…
Speaking of the Regatta, Wivenhoe News reports:
“There will be the usual wacky races and about thirty stalls and a brass band. The pram race will take place on 22nd July.”
Wivenhoe Youth Hub continues to grow and develop new ideas and partnerships. Page 12 updates with reports on the gig at the Philip Road Centre by local band Rising Soul, a go-karting event organised with Brightlingsea’s 4Youth (reckon we got the better name…) as well as the ACEarchery and rowing evening.
What is rather humbling about The Hub is that those involved offer so much more back into the community. There was a considerable presence at the WivSoc riverbank clean up, help offered at May Fair, as well as support for the Crabbing Competition next month down by the Quay.
Likewise good news coming out of the ADP Theatre School:
“Angie Diggens has booked the Colchester Charter Hall for a show with her Wivenhoe students, combining the best of her last two shows at Clacton.”
Saturday 25th June at 7:30pm, £12 a ticket, details on 282020.
Helen Chambers writes a review of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society production of Oklahoma! at the Loveless Hall:
“The singing was faultless, the whole cast strong and talented.”
And keeping with the Wivenhoe artistic feel, Andy Brooke writes a well-deserved homage to Moving Image:
“It’s great to see people you know in the audience and have a genuine community atmosphere, rather than renting a DVD at home.”
Further details of the Moving Image summer schedule are up on m’blog over here.
The rock ‘n roll rollicking rollercoaster ride that is Radio Wivenhoe (blimey) get a plug on p.14, as does a call for “journalists, bloggers and poets” for Off the Rails. The Wivenhoe Poetry Prize looks forward to the 2011 results as part of the poetrywivenhoe evening at The Greyhound on the 23rd June. Meanwhile a new University of the Third Age art group is starting at the Loveless Hall on 14th September.
All ‘appening - all ‘appening I tell ya.
The good folk of Wivenhoe Bookshop have an entire page to plug future activity, such is the depth of the programme that is on offer. Too much to condense into a throwaway blog paragraph - my suggestion would be to head to the Bookshop for a perusal and a polite chat.
Open Gardens on p.16 is caught between the publishing deadline and the sheer splendour that was the most splendid event this spring. It remains the highlight to date of My Year in Wivenhoe - wonderful, wonderful community spirit and pleasure.
Keeping it green fingered and Wivenhoe Bloom explain a little more about the brilliant use of dead space on the Wivenhoe Triangle that is overlooked by the Co-op, the opticians and Jardine:
“The site belongs to Highways - it’s classed as a verge - but WTC has a licence to plant. Jardine has contributed a very generous donation of £250 towards the cost of materials and plants.”
I have no shame in plugging local businesses that put something back into the community. An excellent gesture and kind contribution, Cristian. Jolly good work, Jardine.
The Parish Paths Partnership column penned by Helen Evans on p.16 puffs out a huge PHEW after finding out that Essex County Council continues to support the hyperlocal initiative.
Three Wivenhoe rights of way have been worked on by P3 to day: the side of Broomgrove Schools, the back of the houses in Broome Grove and the path along the top of the sea wall - you might have already heard about the latter…
So successful is the Wivenhoe P3 project that the group has now become a roving project. It is the A-Team of parish paths partnerships. If you have a problem with some overgrown bramble around the North Essex estuary, this crack team of cleaners should be first on your To Call list.
Cripes.
The joyous news coming out of p.17 and the WAGA update is:
“Spring is finally here.”
Hurrah!
Mayor Needham (woh!) explains more about the recent Beating the Bounds walk around Wivenhoe:
“The tradition of beating the bounds came from a time when no one, except the rich, could leave the parish without permission. It was a method of ensuring that local youngsters knew the limits of their parish.
It involved choir boys, the Parish Clerk and clergymen, leaving from the church armed with wands or sticks.”
Splendid. Soft lot, nowadays. The tradition was restored on 5th June this year. No young child was hurt in reviving this most excellent local tradition.
Wivenhoe bird watcher supreme Richard Allen explains very helpfully the difference between swifts, swallows and martins on p.18. Recent local sightings include:
“Nightingales have arrived in good numbers with a particularly vocal bird near the railway underpass along the Trail. Butterflies have enjoyed the good early weather.”
The ever-observant @AnnaJCowen (blimey) has also spotted a Jay along the Trail.
It all gets rather saucy at the foot of p.18 with Spoons, Spurtles and Spatulas.
Oh Lordy.
“Members of the Wivenhoe Woods Working Party recently attended a day’s course in green woodworking. Instruction was given on how to turn wood on a pole lathe and make spoons and other utensils using knives and a shave horse.”
Phew.
A Personal View of Transition Town Wivenhoe by the good Bob Mehew on p.19:
“I considered Wivenhoe a good place for a Transition Town: strong community spirit; a great awareness of climate change, environmental and sustainability issues; a willingness to get involved, to learn, to educate, to participate.”
TTW continues to grow and innovate. Wivenhoe is all the better for it.
The Wivenhoe Townscape Forum (*not* the Wivenhoe Forum…) gets a deserved article on p. 19:
“There is much in Wivenhoe of historic interest. There are 73 buildings in the town which are included in the English Heritage list of buildings of national interest.
The local list of historic assets is being carried out with the support of WTC and WivSoc, in order to list some of the best historical features of Wivenhoe which have not yet been recognised so that they do not become forgotten in the huge amount of new building and development.”
Bill Ellis writes a brilliant personal account of life at Cook’s Shipyard when the order books were full, with comparisons of the modern day site. Photos of the new jetty accompany this on p.22.
We return to the seawall clearance on p.24 with Peter Kennedy, the esteemed Editor of Wivenhoe News, explaining the depth of debate that this has delivered:
“We have received many pages of emails and submissions, and I shall attempt some sort of overview.”
A summary of comments and complaints follow. The consensus is that the Environment Agency has been crap at communication.
Fine work then from Wivenhoe News, which has put some direct Q’s to the EA, and received some rather direct answers:
“Q: Were any badgers found during the Wivenhoe work?
A: No - there were no badgers found for the Wivenhoe work.
Q: Are any of the proposed sites for compensatory replanting located in the Wivenhoe area?
A: No. Wivenhoe Marsh has found to be unsuitable.”
That’s what happens when you rip the entire natural habitat out, fellas.
Whoops.
The Surgery Saga Grinds On is the p.25 message from Bernard Jenkin, MP. Nothing to do with your national coalition NHS policy, I trust, Sir?
To be fair to the MP for Harwich and North Essex, our Conservative colleague airs a sense of frustration over the continued delay:
“The Government’s decision to review its health legislation raises the immediate concern that the new Wivenhoe GP surgery will be beset by even more uncertainty. There is no case for this. There is no excuse for further delays, and I have made this clear to the CE of the PCT.”
Speaking of the impact of coalition policies on a hyperlocal level, p.26 explains more about the £9k (!!!!) tuition fees that @Uni_of_Essex proposes to introduce.
Some PR fluff from the University is then re-printed. Twenty-one summers ago and I was fishing around for a University place. £9k (or the inflationary equivalent) would have put me off considerably. I wouldn’t have heard of Wivenhoe. I wouldn’t have moved here.
Oh how fickle is the Invisible Hand that pushes and prongs us through the life’s great adventures.
Blimey.
Town and Gown fiscal relations are restored with news of the £2,200 raised at November’s dinner at the Nottage, and now handed over as a bursary to five grateful local Wivenhoe students.
Broomgrove Infants updates on p.28 with reports of the Royal Wedding celebrations; Broomgrove Juniors explain more about the Outside / In project with Slack Space in Colchester.
Celebrations also at Millfields - a fond farewell to Angela Eglington after twenty-five years of teaching, as well as the school’s very own 30th birthday.
WivSoc rightfully reflects on the success of the riverbank clean up, with seventy volunteers stepping forward to help clean up the Colne. The sad winding up of the Wivenhoe Youth Theatre is lamented, with more positive news coming from the Colne School Choir’s recent performance in Wivenhoe.
Councillor Sinclair reflects upon his past year of civic service wearing the gold chain on p.30:
“I would have like to have seen a healthy election this year as we are entitled to 13 Councillors. Sadly there were only eleven candidates, hence no WTC election.”
Plus:
“A planning application has been lodged to demolish the St John Ambulance Hall for replacement with a privately owned project. I am part of a project to save the building. A group of people have come together, with funds, to keep it as a usable community facility.”
Mayor Needham writes on p.30 about the challenges that lay ahead for his administration:
“The proposed medical centre, a future for the former police station; reaching a satisfactory conclusion to the planning gains associated with the Cook’s Yard development and keeping an eye on the gains that maybe derived from any further development.”
The local politicos were caught cold ahead of publication deadlines. Columns from Essex County Councillor Julie Young, Colchester Borough Councillors Steve Ford and Mark Cory, were all penned before the re-election of the latter two.
Great fun to watch from the sidelines, mind.
On the sporting front and Wivenhoe Tennis Club has a call for new members; Andrew Nightingale, the Chair of the Wivenhoe and District Sporting Facilities Trust is also asking for help - financial help - for Broad Lane. Anymore updates on the mystery Mr X and his millions?
And to finish on some hyperlocal happiness - Wivenhoe Helping Hands publishes a rather humble piece, explaining more about the volunteer work of this organisation and how it is genuinely helping folk around the town.
Wivenhoe News is sold at the Co-op, Crossways, the Post Office, Bryans Newsagents and the lovely Wivenhoe Bookshop.
To the Wivenhoe Pier on Thursday afternoon for the grand civic opening of our latest tourist attraction. Except the grand civic opening took place over Thursday lunchtime, the tourist attraction is more geared towards locals and we aren’t calling it a pier.
Whoops.
To Wivenhoe Jetty then on Thursday, to politely ask the very good Mr Mayor if he would mind awfully re-creating the photo opportunity from an hour earlier. The plan was of course to video the official opening; I thought I was pushing my luck slightly to ask the chained up town civic elders to run through their pomp and pageantry once again.
The jetty really is rather ace. I understand that it has been something of local political hot potato (geddin there!) with regards health and safety, access and official openings etc. But all of that is now in the past, and with perfect early summer timing, Wivenhoe has a pier!
Um, I mean jetty.
Hurrah!
High tide on Thursday was conveniently arranged to coincide with the opening - or was it the other way round? Either way, it really was rather wonderful to stroll out at high tide and look upstream towards the town from a new perspective.
A beautiful barge sailed through the barrier and past my vantage point, shortly after the re-staging of the civic pleasantries. I was able to greet a grand Wivenhoe HELLOOOO!!! to the skipper, shortly before he took a swift starbound to avoid the local nutter.
The new public space is a little barren, but that’s not the point. My hope is that it will be used and adapted by locals to become something of a genuine community meeting point.
Garden space is short in supply down towards the front. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if folk thought nothing of just pulling up their deck chairs on a summer’s evening and shared some social time together. A stiff G & T would of course help, but just don’t overlook the various H & S notices.
I think that just about covers me…
Plus there’s also the corporate plug for Taylor Wimpey, the developer of Cook’s Shipyard which has very kindly donated £1,000 towards the upkeep of the swimming pool at Broomgrove School. It is no coincidence in the charity of choice and the NO SWIMMING signs that decorate the jetty.
I’m personally looking forward to the Kiss Me Quick hats appearing along the pier / jetty. That’s something I certainly won’t be late for.
