Help put friends back in touch

I WOULD like to get in touch with Sue Pearson, an old friend who used to work at Boots, in Hounslow East, as it was then known, about 40 years ago.

If you are able to help could you please email me at jgerardg@hotmail.co.uk or call 07709 592 392.

GERARD GUILDHARRY

Dawnay Road, Earlsfield

Far from ideal for sex entertainment

AS CHURCH leaders in Hounslow we note with concern the licence application for a sexual entertainment venue for premises on Hounslow High Street.

While opposing the application on principle, we believe the High Street to be a particularly inappropriate location for such a venue.

As the council’s own draft policy on sex entertainment establishments recognises: “Applications will not normally be granted where the premises are located: near places of worship, community facilities or public buildings; near schools, youth clubs, leisure and recreational establishments; near any other similar premises directed at, or primarily used by children or families.”

The proposed location (236a) is on a high street that is generally full of families, children and young people, and is also close to Holy Trinity Church, Montague Hall, the library and the Treaty Centre.

We are also concerned about the potential impact of such a venue on anti-social behaviour and crime, and wonder what the police’s view might be on this?

We understand the borough’s Community Safety Partnership is soon to publish a Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy (in response to the government document Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls).

It would be difficult to reconcile the granting of this licence with the principle of upholding female dignity and safety that we assume underpins this strategy.

Finally, we wonder how a sex entertainment venue fits in with the council’s renewed vision for the redevelopment of the High Street, as an ‘attractive, friendly and safe place for everyone’? With the aim of making this a reality, we would urge the council not to grant this licence.

CHURCH LEADERS IN HOUNSLOW

Alan Crabtree, secretary, Emmanuel Baptist Church Hounslow; Rev Canon Dr Malcolm Herbert, vicar, Holy Trinity with St Paul and St Mary Hounslow; Rev Andrew Heron and Captain Alan Dodd CA, co-pastors, Hounslow Evangelical Church; Rev Viv Randles, minister, Hounslow United Reformed Church; Rev Ron Hollands, minister, Hounslow West Evangelical Church; Maf and Sue Cavill, leaders, Maswell Park Church

Parenting class voucher is a joke

What a joke the latest government scheme is – a £100 parenting class voucher from Boots.

On June 1, 2012, I’ll reach my 80th birthday. I believe the £400 fuel allowance was reduced to £300 for OAPs this winter. Years ago I remember, there was no government money for our first daughter and 8/- per week for our second daughter, so seemingly us old timers had a pretty raw deal.

Five years Army service during the war, 1942 to 1946 on peanuts, plus a demob suit and £70 and find yourself a job lad!

Mr Cameron and crew are forever learning lessons from events that are frequently brought about by people of their own ilk.

How can the private sector sort out the mess that is our country: overweight public sector?

I retired a sick man. Through overwork with a £13-a-week private pension and usefully assisted my ex-prisoner of war in Japan brother and other family members in need of care and help during my retirement years.

No cost to her majesty’s government – am I a fool or have I lived a useful life?

Health problems now beset me and I miss my loved ones. But I still say thank you to the very rich folk that give work to the poor.

A necessary evil may be the more money you’ve got, the longer you must last.

GEORGE VINCENT

Syon Lane, Isleworth

Story evoked so many memories

OH WHAT a wave of nostalgia swept before me when I read Wendy Taylor’s account of her childhood in Fern Lane.

I was born in Finsbury Park in 1938 but was adopted and taken to live in No 1 Hadley Gardens in a newly built house that my father bought for the princely sum of £250.

It’s hard to believe.

I had friends like John Meads, the Turvey brothers and my best mate Bob Cook who I still contact.

There was another friend, John Mirams, who also lived in Fern Lane and another, Ian John Lake, whose father I believe was a police officer.

I also remember the parade of shops in Crosslands Avenue. I did a paper round for Tauntons and a milk round with Wilsons’s Dairy in Norwood Road.

But I also remember those air raids and being rushed into the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden (after the war my father converted it into a fish pond).

There was also the horrible drone of the Doodle Bug and the anxiety when the engine stopped, knowing full well some poor soul was going to cop it (as my dear beloved mother would say).

I once watched a dog fight high in the skies whilst out shopping at the Co-op in Heston and the cheer that went up when one enemy plane broke off with smoke billowing from its engine.

There was also the Spitfire or Hurricane that crashed into the side of Grange Farm in North Hyde Lane where the M4 now passes through.

And we must not forget the plane, I believe a bomber, which crashed into the side of a house at the junction of North Hyde and Fern Lane.

Fortunately the lady of the house was a few doors up having a cuppa with a neighbour.

I could go on recalling those days, but alas I finish on a sad note.

A lad Brian Hathaway was killed when an anti-aircraft shell misfired and plunged through the roof of his parents’ house and he died instantly.

MR R MATTHEWS

New Chapel Square

Feltham