MANAGER OF SWINDON NIGHT SHELTER LOOKS FORWARD TO A NEW ‘NORMAL’ SUPPORTING THE HOMELESS
New Swindon Night Shelter Manager IAN McCarthy, Swindon Night Shelter’s new manager, is looking forward to getting opened up. He’s keen to get going to support those who are homeless, sleeping rough or vulnerably housed across the town.
The 49-year-old, who lives with his family in North Swindon, took on the role of manager of the charity in the middle of the pandemic this year. At that time staff, volunteers and supporters had to ‘flex’ their services to support the vulnerable in the community. In the main through the delivery of donated fresh food produce. But also allowing a reduced number of homeless guests into the day centre, The Haven.
Now Swindon Night Shelter, and in particular, its premises The Haven on Queen’s Drive, is looking forward to supporting more people as restrictions ease.
Exciting times ahead
This is an exciting time for me, staff and our volunteers as we look to offer more support to those who need us in Swindon. We’re hoping to reconnect with guests who we’ve been unable to see during lockdown. And also to support those who we have yet to meet or who are in housing difficulty now,’ Ian said.
We’ve already started classes in cookery, woodworking and gardening. And we want to offer more of these activities this summer supporting more people. These activities also help with the maintenance of our buildings as well as offering skills to our guests. It’s amazing what comes from these classes. Often guests rediscover a former passion for cookery for example. Or they start to gain confidence from something as simple as gardening.
We’re also busy rebuilding our acquaintance with other organisations and agencies who supported our guests before the pandemic. We are hoping to reopen our Friday Night Shelter at St Mary’s Church – in September we hope. There, rough sleepers can come along for a bed for the night. They can also have a hot meal and pick up some clothes in an atmosphere of respect.’
A new challenge for Ian
In early 2020, After a 30-year career working in the training division for Nat West, Ian took redundancy. He then went in search of a new challenge. A committed Christian, he volunteered for the Swindon Night Shelter whilst looking for his next role.
‘I was keen to explore new areas of employment and a new challenge. My preference was something supporting the local community and Swindon Night Shelter offered all this and so much more. I started volunteering at the beginning of 2020 and so enjoyed the challenge of working with our guests. It’s wonderful hearing their life stories and then being able to try and offer some practical support to move them forward.
‘Part way through lockdown in 2020 an opportunity came about to become a full-time member of staff. And I can say that I have enjoyed it. ‘I’m excited, optimistic and realistic about the difference we can make to those in Swindon who find themselves homeless or under threat of homelessness.’
At present, Swindon Night Shelter runs The Haven Day Centre on Queen’s Drive. It’s open daily for the homeless and those whose housing places them in a vulnerable position. It’s a place where they can relax and spend some time off the streets in a welcoming and safe environment. They are also supported with job searches, benefit queries and access to other professional agencies. Not to mention enjoying a hot meal and access to shower facilities and washer drier machines for their clothes. We also supply surplus food to over 200 people each week.
The work of Swindon Night Shelter
The work of Swindon Night Shelter is reliant on raising funds from several sources. This includes its charity shop ‘The Hub’ on Clive Parade along with a temporary pop-up shop run from Freshbrook Church.
Other services coming onstream during 2021 include table-top sales. For more information about Swindon Night Shelter visit https://www.swindonnightshelter.uk
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.
