Frozen at the cemetery

This pool at Keele Cemetery was still frozen (at least, apart from the edges) as I passed it today. Curious: as most of the snow is now gone, apart from some dirty clumps lying by roadsides. I really must brush up on my physics and discover why it remains frozen even now.

Keele Cemetery is very new; and the building in the background, which looks like a library … well... is, really!  Being all modern, it contains Newcastle Borough’s main burials-history research study-area, a community meeting room for the village (!), and offices of course – as well as the usual.
Seems a far cry from the Victorian cemeteries - where a Gothic-looking chapel/gatehouse might be the only structure apart from the graves.

Bolt brings it home

Jamaican flags were in evidence as I passed the NORSACA community centre in Joiners Square. Were they there for Jamaican Independence Day (on 6th August) or showing support for Usain Bolt's attempt to win Olympic gold again?
As it turned out - both.

I was invited in to share (we hoped) in the great man's triumph. A big screen had been set up for the occasion - and sure enough, he didn't let us down: Usain ran the most explosive race.
We celebrated with Jamaican patties & chips.

Secret judges survey villages

Small and large villages in Staffordshire are holding their collective breath, knowing that secret judging of them is going on. The judges of the Best Kept Village competition have already been making their invisible way round the county for a month - but there's another four weeks of judging to go...

Shorts rule for Jubilee

At last the sun shone for this four-day Queen's Jubilee holiday. I guess it was nice too that, after two days of rain, it shone for the 'people's day' when most street-parties are taking place.

Here in Stoke Town, the London Road Festival (organised by SWOCA) was a really community affair, with people from the surrounding terraced houses converging on the patch of grass in their midst for some ice-creams, music and kids' games.

I was a bit doubtful about the idea of wearing shorts - but this guy proved us all wrong, as it stayed fine all afternoon. He had faith!

Link: Stoke West & Oakhill Community Association (SWOCA)

A true speciality bakery

Fradswell Community Bakehouse is not like any other bakery. Its total stock when it opens is usually about, er, ten loaves (though it’s considerably fewer when the doors close).
And it’s only open two hours a week… and it’s sited in a village hall!

The fact is that this is just one part of a community initiative in this tiny village to bring the local residents together. The village has no pub or shop – and the church is well outside the settlement – so the village hall is about the one place where everybody can meet each other.
But one has to have a reason to get together; and Barry (on the right in this photo) dreamt up this wheeze. The sales from the speciality breads not only support a simultaneous coffee morning but make a tidy profit for the fund-raising too.
And, yes, the villagers do turn up.

Oh – the bread? It’s incredible. Home-baked, and delicious. I bought three loaves: they taste better than cake.
They have pasties too. To die for.

Link:  Fradswell Community Bakehouse 

This photo is related to the 'Theme Day' on the International City Daily Portal. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Freedom for, er, Mercia

The 'Acting Witan of Mercia' group seem to have been quiet for a while, which is a shame. This eccentric body wants independence for the area covered by the Anglo-Saxon, Dark Ages kingdom of Mercia (which had Staffordshire at its centre), and a return to greener, more agrarian ideas.

They were very vociferous last year (when the photo above was taken), when the recently-discovered treasure trove, the 'Staffordshire Hoard' - which dates back to Mercian times -, was in the news a lot.
I thought they might re-surface this summer, as the Hoard is now on a major tour across the county's main towns - but no, and their website is silent.

Anglo-Saxon White Dragon

I suppose their chances of success, are, er, slim, but they are a bit of fun.
One of the aspects of their manifesto, written by Philip Snow and Jeff Kent, who are in the photo, is that they wish to substitute the present church system with an order of priestesses. This certainly works for me.

They draw on a lot of the myths of the past. The famous Saxon 'White Dragon' symbol - sometimes known as the Worm or Wyrm - was adopted by them.
Bram Stoker, the writer of Dracula, even had this dragon, which, yes, is legless, come back into existence (in the Staffordshire Peak District of all places!!!) in his novel The Lair Of The White Worm.

It's all fun-times, living in Staffordshire...

Links: Acting Witan of Mercia / Staffordshire Hoard on tour / Anglo-Saxon Mercia

History for all

Community history days are fun occasions, when folk donate their old photos and old documents of a place, and then the rest of the district comes along and remininisces - or stares in fascination. They are useful to the local historian too, as a lot of identification of scenes from the past goes on.

Older people explain to younger what was where, and who did what - and so on - much to the young people's surprise. "Did that really happen here?" they seem to wonder.

This one took place in Draycott Church (in Draycott-in-the-Moors, that is. There are two Draycotts in Staffordshire). A great way to use a church, incidentally.

Refugee Week celebration

It's Refugee Week, and in Shelton (in the city of Stoke-on-Trent), The Shelton Women’s Drop In Group were celebrating it with a tea-and-scones morning. Some forty or so people - some of them refugees or asylum-seekers themselves, some of them supporters - turned up for the event in the meeting-room at St John's. A clown was on hand to entertain.

Funding cuts mean that the support-group for refugees at St John's is now run on a string and a prayer, by volunteers - but they seem strong.

Links: Refugee Week