Looking back through the archives of The Keswick Reminder from around this week 20, 30 and 40 years ago.
20 years ago
Long-serving councillors step down
Three of the longest serving members of Keswick Town Council are not seeking re-election in May, in addition to the Clerk, Mrs Jean Airey, who announced her wish to retire at the end of May some months ago.
Mrs Maysie McCambridge, Stephen Hogarth and Sean Crawford have all given distinguished service to the town they say they feel the time is right to make way for younger people, while Mrs Airey has appealed to anyone in Keswick who feels they could make a valuable contribution to offer themselves for election.
Mr Hogarth is a member of an old Keswick family. He joined the former Keswick Urban District Council in 1954 and later served as one of the town’s councillors on Allerdale District Council. He has held the office of Town Mayor on three occasions.
Councillor Sean Crawford is a former headmaster of Lairthwaite secondary school, before it was joined with Keswick School in 1980. He was co-opted to the Town Council in 1976 and has been Mayor twice. For the past eight years he has chaired the committee of Trustees who are responsible for managing Keswick’s parks.
Mrs McCambridge joined the town council in 1998 and she is also a past Mayor who has given selflessly of her time and efforts on behalf of Keswick. She and her late husband, Tom, worked for many years for the youth of the town and district.
New post for Keswick police officer
Keswick Police Sergeant Craig Smith has been looking back at a very positive and enjoyable four years’ service in the town. He will be taking up a new post as Ports Co-ordinator for Cumbria, responsible for security at ports, with effect from March 10th. This is a brand new post.
He began his police service in Carlisle and was promoted to Workington in 1998; prior to coming to Keswick in January the following year. He says: “The period spent working in Keswick has been the highlight of my career, both in terms of the people I have worked with and the support of the town and the surrounding district.”
Councillors left out of decision making
Keswick town councillors are annoyed that they appear to have been left out of the key decision-making process for the town’s showpiece pedestrian scheme in the Market Square area.
Last week Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was in Keswick to view the scheme which is currently taking shape around the town’s well known landmark, the Moot Hall. But councillors claim they are being side-lined as far as further decisions on pedestrianisation are concerned. Decisions, they say, are being made by county council officers without any reference to people in the town and they have asked for an early meeting of the Keswick and District Area Action Plan traffic management advisory group.
Councillor Roger Purkiss says: “The town council has been ignored, just cut out of the loop.
This is the centrepiece of our town, but it seems decisions are being made and we know nothing about them.”
30 years ago
Former club for sale
The Hollies, High Street, is up for sale and the future of Keswick RAFA club is uncertain. A spokesman for the North West area of the RAFA says they are waiting to hear from local estate agents of any interest in the purchase of the property.
Once a private house and later one of the properties used during the war by St. Katharine’s College from Liverpool, it has in recent years been the headquarters of the local branch of the RAFA and the home of the Keswick RAFA club.
The club was closed last year. In addition to this use it has also served many sections of the local community as a place where meetings and functions were held.
RAFA Area Director Ken Hollands has said it would be pleasing if the property was sold as a community centre for Keswick, and if the Town Council took it over he added that the Keswick Branch of the RAFA would be the first to rent a room and use it for functions.
Suggestions that the roof of the property is in poor order have been circulating. However, Mr Hollands said the building was weatherproof and being looked after, although he agreed that any building not in use would deteriorate. The premises belong, through the local branch which still exists, to the Association and represent a charitable asset.
Dining in New York …the Keswick way!
Peter Myers’ shop in New York is in the news again, this time in Wednesday’s edition of the Daily Express in an article describing the eating requirements of Rolling Stone Keith Richards.
Staying at the Mayflower in Manhattan his room service requirement consisted of essentially British food – Scotch eggs, Cornish pasties, steak and kidney pies, sausage rolls and pork pies, all from Peter Myers’ shop.
Peter trained as a butcher in his grandfather’s shop in Station Street, Keswick later owned by his father. He now owns a Cumbrian food shop in New York where he makes Cumberland sausage, etc., and where he can supply Christmas Cakes from Brysons and other local Cumberland produce.
St. Kentigern’s “topped out”
The “topping out” ceremony on the new St. Kentigern’s infants and nursery school building in Trinity Way took place last Friday. It was marked in a rather unusual way — by the placing of a Christmas tree on the topmost part of the building.
Apparently the idea of putting a Christmas tree on the roof of a newly constructed building comes from the continent and it was not inappropriate here where, although Christmas is two months behind us, the town is surrounded by snow-covered mountains.
The ceremony marked the completion of the large green slate roof which has one of the largest spans of slate in the North of England.
St. Kentigern’s is expected to be a “show school” for infants schools when it is completed later this year. It is anticipated that work will be completed by June ready to receive the first group of children in September, while the three existing first schools – Brigham, Crosthwaite and St. John’s – are due to close.
40 years ago
R.A.F.A. annual dinner
The part played by the Keswick Branch of the Royal Air Forces Association in the life of the town was one of the factors behind the tremendous support they received, Allerdale Council vice-chairman Mr. William Relph said at Friday’s annual dinner at Moota.
Mr. Relph said the Branch had continued to flourish to its present day proud status, but when one looked at the role of the Branch and Club in the town it was understandable why they had so much support.
Once again the Wings Appeal increased, last year to over £10,000 and the local Battle of Britain effort produced another record, the second highest sum in the North West area at nearly £1,400.
“It is totally remarkable that in such a small town you are able to go on increasing these figures year by year,” he said.
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,— May I please comment on your editorial in last week’s Reminder?
It is regrettable, as you say, that the women at Greenham Common should have broken the law, albeit by the technical offence of breaking the peace. These women have created a focal point for the very real anxiety felt by millions of people in this country and Europe because of the proposal to site Cruise missiles under American control at Greenham Common and elsewhere in Britain and Europe. The introduction of Pershing II missiles in Germany in addition to Cruise missiles will bring the danger of accidental nuclear war even closer, because the short delivery time of six minutes from Germany to the Soviet Union will force the Soviet Union to use an automatic “launch on warning” system.
Three coaches of women from Cumbria were among the 30,000 women at Greenham Common on December 12th. It was a very peaceful and orderly occasion, but in future such an event will have to break the law because Newbury District Council are changing their commons bye laws to deny right of access to the common land to everyone.
Women, especially those who are mothers and grandmothers, share a continuing anxiety about a future overshadowed by the threat of nuclear war. These anxieties are buried, as they are too painful to contemplate in our daily lives. We should be grateful to the Greenham Common women for witnessing to them on our behalf.
Yours sincerely,
JOAN V. NEWTON.
Briar Rigg,
Keswick.
February 28th, 1983.
The previous week: When a Keswick vicar stood down after 33 years
