Helping Old Friends provides new companionship service
For many elderly people, living alone is an isolating experience. One which can have a detrimental effect on their mental and physical health. But help is at hand, thanks to a new organisation – Helping Old Friends.
Based in West Swindon and covering the whole of the surrounding Swindon area, Helping Old Friends offers friendship and companionship to older people living alone. And practical help too.
‘We realised there was a need for a service providing, above all, companionship to people who, find themselves living alone and isolated,’ said founder Katrina Simms. Katrina has more than 25 years’ experience working in the elderly care sector.
Katrina Simms
Meeting a need
We realised there was a need for a service providing, above all, companionship to people who, find themselves living alone and isolated,’ said founder Katrina Simms. Katrina has more than 25 years’ experience working in the elderly care sector.
Helping Old Friends also gives peace of mind to families who may not be able to visit as often as they would like. As well as providing home visits, the company can install equipment, with different levels of monitoring.
‘The equipment is Internet of Things enabled and reports to a dashboard, flagging up any out-of-the-ordinary events, so we can step in to help fast’.
Katrina is now looking for more companions to join. They need no experience and they don’t deliver any personal care or assist with medication. They do though need their own vehicle.
‘We’re looking for caring and compassionate people with a wealth of life experiences and skills to join us, who can relate to the ageing process. No experience necessary but lots of heart required.’
To find out more
For more information about Helping Old Friends – whether you are an elderly person, or a family member looking for help, or you’re interested in becoming a companion – call 01793 550895.
Absinthe – La fée Verte Known often in literature as la fée verte (the green fairy), this most potent of libations has associations with the French post impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. And The Tuppenny in Swindon’s Old Town it seems.
Absinthe fountain in The Tuppenny in Old Town in Swindon
What is Absinthe?
Absinthe is a grain alcohol of Swiss origin. It’s made by macerating many herbs and spices, including fennel, anise, and wormwood. The first two give absinthe its characteristic licorice taste. While the wormwood makes it bitter in taste. It’s also what gives the spirit its famed mystique and jade-green hue.
The stuff of legend
Asthis article from Liquor.Comstates, hovering between the legends of hallucinations and madness associated with the green fairy, there is an important and historic spirit. One that suffered a 100 year ban!
Banned?! How so?
Enjoying huge popularity in the 19th century, both America and chunks of Europe banned it until not that long back. It’s a complex story and this article gives the whole story but it’s one with more relation to history than science. Almost everyone in the cool gang between 1850 and 1900 drank the stuff. It was quite the latest thing and had a very high alcohol content. Thus it often got the blame for the frequent bouts of drunkenness and the intermittent bouts of delirium and even death.
The drink became more popular and with it the abuse of it increased. At length the association grew in the minds of society between absinthe and general alcoholism and degeneracy. It even got the blame, from a French psychiatrist, Dr Valentin Magnan, for the collapse of French culture. Magnan gave wormwood to a dog and watched it bark at a brick wall for thirty minutes. And thus lay the root of the myth that the green fairy causes hallucinations.
Cutting short a very long story, the Temperance movement added Mangan’s evidence to their narrative and advocated banning absinthe. Thus the early 1900s saw the start of a ban on the drink that lasted over 100 years.
In short, it involves a slow drip of water into a stemmed glass holding the spirit – often over a sugar cube held on a special perforated spoon. During this process the spirit becomes louche – cloudy and opaque.
OVER 300 YOUNG PERFORMERS PRESENT THEIR ‘ACTS OF KINDNESS’ PRODUCTION THIS WEEKEND
One of the South West’s leading performing arts companies for children and young people is releasing a live-stream film featuring thirty acts of kindness. All taken from images, poems, music and stories they’ve gathered during the pandemic.
Fi Da Silva Adams, Founder of Revolution Performing Arts (RPA), based in Swindon, said: “This is the first time we have ever done something like this. Our film, Acts of Kindness, will be live-streamed at 6pm on Saturday June 12. It features around 300 talented young people.’
From four to fourteen
The youngsters, from as young as four up to aged seventeen, will cover all aspects of the performance from:
1. Singing 2. Song writing 3. Dancing 4. Acting 5. Make-up and costume and getting involved in the technical side of film making.
Local film maker, Henry Meredith and his team from OT House are filming the acts of kindness pieces and facilitating the live-stream.
A difficult year
Two 14 year old boys, David Hunt and William Cottell, are studying the techie side of theatre alongside OT House and assisting with lighting and sound.
In a year when official work experience is difficult to come by, these young people are travelling to venues throughout Swindon, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire to be assistant technicians in this unique experience.
Other young participants of the live-stream film have written their own songs, laid down their own soundtracks created their own choreography. They’ve also:
written and directed their own theatre pieces
adapted to new technologies,
mastered circus theatre skills and …
… found real resilience in making changes for Covid-secure ways to be expressive in both physical and visual ways.
Some of the acts of kindness featured are:
special anniversary meals
NHS workers and other events or actions brought to light during a time of darkness.
The youngsters are portraying them all via songs, drama and dance. They use them as a stimulus for the young performers to ‘magically’ turn into their own superheroes!
The RPA circus theatre arts group are creating their own performance work with the same stimulus. The media make up & costume team have been providing mood boards to the RPA leaders and helping with costume requirements. They’ve also given advice on make up for film, which is very different to r live theatre.
Recording started last month. And the young people have taken part in 29 filming sessions all over the RPA area and with one completed on Zoom. There have been approximately 50 hours of filming involving four film makers, four technicians and fifteen RPA leaders.
Making possible the filming and live-streaming of Acts of Kindness is a £25,000 grant from the government’s culture recovery fund.
The live-stream starts at 6pm on Saturday 12th June and costs £11.37 per family (includes booking fee and a copy of the recording).
Meeting the Great Bustard. Giant of Salisbury Plain by Rebecca Davies BSc (Hons).
Introduction
Meeting the Great Bustard This is the Wiltshire flag:
The green and white stripes represent the chalk downland, and the segmented circle, henge monuments. But the bird is a strange creature; it is a big, powerful legged avian. It may be a fabulous Heraldic bird. But then again, it may actually exist. This is Otis tarda: the Great Bustard.
The name `Bustard` is derived from the Latin, Avis Tarda, (Slow bird). You’ll find Great Bustards in a scattered belt from Spain through to Asia.
The woodcut you see below is by Thomas Bewick (1753-1828).
They prefer running to flying. But they certainly can fly even though they are the worlds heaviest flying bird. Bustards have been measured at over 20kg.
Great Bustard (Otis tarda) Salisbury Plain part of a reintroduction project with birds imported under DEFRA licence from Russia.
A collective noun
A group of Great Bustards is known as a Drove. This may contain from 20-40 birds. They eat pretty much anything they can pick up, from beans and grapes to insects and small mice. Bustards attract and mate during a process known as a lek. The male bustard chooses his ground and fluffs out his white under feathers until he looks like a big pompom.
The mating ritual
Later on the females will show an interest in the male’s big dance. Female Bustards are much smaller than the males. Their hein plumage is much more cryptic.
Bustards do not pair as such but the female will visit several males before she chooses one. They mate and disperse to nest and the cock takes no further part in the proceedings.
Nesting habits
Bustards are ground nesting birds. She does not lay many eggs, two being the average clutch. This is a problem if she has nested in a crop with an early harvest date. If harvesting machinery comes around she will sit rigid and be destroyed by the machinery along with her eggs. This is a double disaster, eggs can be replaced but not adult females. Hence, Bustard conservation hinges around making sure she has a safe place to raise her family in. It must also be fairly secure against predators.
After a month the eggs hatch. The chicks are beautifully mottled. They are precocious little creatures and can run around soon. However they are dependent on their mother to teach them what they can eat.
The bustard in Britain
Great bustards have a close association with sheep farming. Yet they seem to have an association with areas of mixed agricultural activity these days. This distinct bird is part of British culture.
The bustard features in heraldry. It is also the symbol of the Wiltshire branch of the Guides.
Cambridge County council coat of arms
There are two pubs going by the name of the Great Bustard – one indeed upon Salisbury plain. The other a coaching inn near Shrewton on the old Devizes to Salisbury road but it closed some years ago
As the famed bird of Wiltshire, the Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural History Magazine printed several accounts of the last of these birds in the county. Most of these were memories of downsmen and shepherds encountering the increasingly scarce birds in their youth.
Agricultural changes got the blame for the bustard’s decline. But invariably the last specimens fell prey to collectors. One such being ahapless female who, in 1871, became the last bustard served up at a feast. This particular bird’s skin is now stuffed and on display in Salisbury museum.
The Re-Introduction of the Great Bustard
In 2004, after an over 150 year absence, the Great Bustard saw introducing back into this country. This is David Waters pet project. He encountered bustards on birdwatching tours in the ex-Soviet Union in the 1990s.
My visit
I was fortunate enough to get a chance to see the reserve and (hopefully) the birds at the end of Covid lockdown in May of 2021. Isn’t it exciting to get out and about again?
I travelled to some place on Salisbury plain – I can’t quite identify the location of. Anywhere south of Pewsey is terra incognita to me. A land of rolling patchwork fields, thatched cottages interspersed with gentle river valleys and the odd tank crossing sign.
Meeting with David on the farm we set off along the byway in the project Land Rover. He explained that the Bustards don’t like to see people as they’re shy but aren’t t bothered by vehicles or horses. As David explained, pretty much all land in Britain has been under human influence for a very long time. With my experience of archaeology in some very remote areas, I could not help but agree with that.
At length we got to the hide.
Examining the reserve
Then we settled to examine the reserve. An area planted variably. The reserve has an area surrounded by a fox and badger proof fence. (But stoats and birds of prey can still get in) The bustards can go out, and indeed most hens nest outside the reserve. And there they are. What is that fawn blotch? This is the male bustard. Isn’t he huge?
Which is the best I could do even with a good zoom and anti-shake camera. The bird was on the other side of the valley! Getting close to a wild bustard is not an easy task.
David had his very powerful monocular which gave a good view of the male. You could see his moustache blow in the breeze. I was also shown the nesting hen. She was almost impossible to see even when she put up her head to peer around. An impossible shot for my camera.
Most downland birds are in decline in this country. Not here! We saw ravens, yellowhammers, stonechats, red tailed kite and a quail, I also saw a Roe deer and a Hare. This land is full of wildlife as well as being busy with agriculture and abundant archaeological remains, all less than a kilometre away from one of the roads of Salisbury Plain, and noisy artillery.
Conclusion
According to DEFRA bustards are not a native species! What have we been talking about all this article? Here is a bird that is exotic…yet very British.
The project has been successful, and now these birds are striking awe into the people of Wiltshire again. And the Heraldic bird is no longer a mystery.
Many thanks to David Waters for taking the time to show me his birds.
A Swindon Oasis SOS People of Swindon, please come down to the front of the Oasis Leisure Centre on Saturday 19th June from 2pm, to protest to help save our treasured Oasis Leisure Centre complex.
It would be great to have a fantastic turnout to show the town’s decision maker’s that the people of Swindon demand the Oasis be refurbished and reopened as soon as possible, NOT demolished and replaced.
The people of Swindon will not accept the demolition of our famous landmark. It is a place that our children and families heavily used and enjoyed. We must all stand up if we want to preserve it for our future generations. This is the last chance to do so. So come on Swindon! We must save the Oasis NOW before it is too late and past the point of no return. It is part of Swindon’s heritage and identity.
Let’s have some Oasis fun
We hope to have some fun at the protest – please design your own Save the Oasis banners, flags and placards.
If you want, why not come down with beach and pool inflatables, or wear sports kit etc? Bring all your family and friends, spread the word and share this event.
We will get the media involved so the Oasis issue continues to get national attention. We want the Council to fully understand that Swindon wants the Oasis refurbished and made viable in its current iconic form. The Oasis is irreplaceable! We will also be playing Oasis music outside the Oasis, as a reminder of the building’s significance to produce some atmosphere, along with a megaphone and a large campaign flag.
Support from Acorn
The protest has the support of local campaign group Swindon Acorn, who will also be there. We are now at a critical stage of the campaign, and we must keep our foot on the pedal.
We need your support and we look forward to seeing you all outside the front of the Oasis on Saturday, 19th June from 2pm.
What’s the story morning glory?
The much loved Oasis Leisure Centre, which opened in 1976, has suffered neglected and poor maintenance for years. Swindon Borough Council had a maintenance backlog dating back to 2011 when it rented it out for 99 years to property developer Seven Capital. Seven charged Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) high rent that made the Centre unviable for GLL so it handed back its lease to Seven in spring 2021. SBC does not seem to have a take-back clause in its 99 year lease to Seven.
They then outsourced the Oasis to property developer Seven Capital, charging GLL high rent and making the centre unviable, so that they had to give up the Oasis.
The current Oasis closure is not down to COVID-19. Covid has been used as a contributory excuse to get rid of the Oasis. It is claimed that the iconic dome has reached the end of its life, but was fitted with replacement panels in 2015.
The significance of the Oasis
The Oasis, is of cultural and architectural significance to Swindon. It;s the last remaining example of its unique type in the UK. The others have been demolished already.
Historic England is expected to announce its decision by the end of June 2021. We’ll know then whether the Oasis gets ‘Listed Building’ status which may be some help in saving it. Clearly no one wants the Oasis to become another neglected Mechanics’ Institute, Locarno Corn Exchange or perhaps Milton Road Baths.
Swindon is a continuously growing town, and has been left with a gaping hole without the Oasis. It needs the Oasis as an accessible, affordable, exciting leisure pool with dry-side sports and cultural events alongside.
The Oasis is not only a Swimming Pool. It is – or it was – a beating heart of Swindon.
The last of a typology
The Oasis, which is of cultural and architectural significance, is the last of its typology. A listing application with Historic England is nearing the final stages, and we should know by the end of June if it becomes a listed building. Seven Capital want to knock down the Oasis and build a fresh new centre. However the Oasis is an iconic building, It is only 45 years old, which is nothing when you compare it to the Milton Road Swimming Baths.
Swindon is a rapidly growing town, and has been left with a gaping hole without the Oasis. It needs the Oasis more than ever. The Oasis is more than a swimming pool – it’s also an events and concert venue. People travel from miles around to visit the facility – from places like Bristol, Oxford and Cheltenham.
