ASIAN VOICE JULY 2009-07-13

If Autumn be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness then summer is surely the time of fetes, fairs and festivals.
No honest MP considers a June or July weekend complete without at least a dozen such occasions and he or she will stagger back home on Sunday evening replete of tombolas, raffles, “beat the goalie” competitions and bearing enough home made jam to feed a fair sized nation.
An MP may have – typically – between thirty and forty primary schools, half a dozen high schools, a score of Scout and Guide Groups and a fair clutch of places of worship in their constituency.
In June and July every single one will have some sort of a fair or fete and to these must be added the carnivals, melas and typical civic duties revolving around anniversaries, unveilings or awards.
Each and every occasion will see the MP once but the MP will see every one of them over the weekends and it can become a little confusing.
Heaven help the Honourable Member who announces to the massed membership of the St.Raphael’s Parent Teacher Association that he is delighted to be here at St.Gregory’s. Other small errors creep in and I was severely upbraided – whilst unveiling as plaque in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of three times Wimbledon winner Fred Perry for mentioning local sporting heroes such as Andrew Strauss and Peter Crouch without realising that M.J.Brearley or Middlesex and England was also an Ealing boy. How I could have forgotten the author of that thunderous triple century against Northern Zone in Peshawar during the 1966/67 U25s tour is inexplicable and inexcusable but pales against the awful error that I committed last week.
Dashing off a few hundred words for the “Guardian” newspaper (a poor provincial substitute for Asian Voice”) I made passing reference to Peter Sallis – the actor who played Clegg (the character in “Last of the Summer Wine” not the faintly risible leader of the Liberal Democrats) – and meant to refer to him as “the great Peter Sallis” of “Wallace and Grommit” fame.
Some damnable gremlin crept into the system and my words emerged as “the late Peter Sallis”.
Little did I know that Peter Sallis (very much alive and thankfully so) is massively popular among the “Guardian” readership and I was almost swept under by the tidal wave of fury from his friends and fans for suggesting that their hero was no more.
I telephoned to his agent in an attempt to discover the address to which a grovelling apology could be sent but was told that Mr.Sallis was rather distressed as some beastly MP had said that he was dead. I wisely hung up the telephone.
Now, with fevered brow and sunburnt pate soothed by unguents I can sit back and contemplate the error of my ways.
I can also recall the wonderful weeks of summer madness and reflect on the eternal verity that every MP will complain of the festival season but that none of us would change it for all the tea in Whitehall.

Steve Pound says a fond “Farwell” to Thelma

Steve Pound MP lends his voice in appreciation for the work Thelma Cox, Headteacher of Featherstone High School, who retired after 17 years successful service at the school.

Thelma has led a dedicated team of teachers, who together have this year achieved the schools highest number of GCSE Passes and has also had a ringing endorsement from OFSTED that FeatherstoneHigh is an outstanding school as well as outstanding facilities and teaching.

Steve Pound at MeadowHouse Garden Party

And The Winning Ticket Is…

Steve Pound supported the GARDEN PARTY run by Meadow House Hospice in Southall on Saturday 13^th June, where he also helped in drawing the Raffle Prizes.

 

Meadow House Hospice is a palliative care organisation, who raise funds to give their clients a more comfortable end to their lives.

Buy a Brick for Meadow House

 

The annual Garden Party was arranged and executed in style by the volunteers and is a perfect example of community and Hospice staff working well together.

 

 

Meadow House said, “A very big thank you to all who attended the Garden Party and to Mr Stephen Pound who supported the event. We raised £1750 to date and the money is trickling in so a very big THANK YOU.”

Play the video for more photos

Steve Pound’s Reviews 2

St.Mary’s Players May 2009-05-26

Never does a true Hanwellian step with lighter tread and more hopeful heart than when bound for another presentation by the professional amateurs who seek mutual support in what the world now knows as the St.Mary’s Players. Thus it was on a balmy May evening that your correspondent, fired by the keenest anticipation, made his way to the Church Hall that was once rebuilt after enemy action and which now plays host to the community servants, not all on community service, who make up the finest theatrical troupe ever to have graced this particular area of North Hanwell.

Steve Pound’s Reviews 1

WHO KILLED THE HOTEL MANAGER ?

This was a new departure for the St.Mary’s Players – but not from the outer limits of theatrical acceptability as regular admirers were reassured to learn.

Having utterly destroyed the thespian traditions of the art during their last presentation the Marians were bound by the terms of their community payback sentence to produce a well crafted and challenging piece of theatre to delight the cognoscenti of North Hanwell and they so nearly achieved it on March 28th.

In at the deep end

Book review for Tribune magazine – Great Lengths by Dr Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis

There is nothing shallow about this magnificent book which pays tribute to that most glorious aspect of civic life – the public indoor swimming bath.