As I said on twitter: it's a fooking tragedy, the only banks that are expanding are food banks

Our conservative constituency MP commending our local foodbank.

[u''This is a great example of the Big Society in action.''[/u

[urlhttp://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Emergency-parcels-help-struggling-families-food/story-13319675-detail/story.html[/url

Mind you, the same MP mistakenly thought the [iBig Society[/i also involved having his driveway tarmacced for free by local council workers.

[urlhttp://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/MP-s-road-fixed-free-council-contractors/story-12806549-detail/story.html[/url

He was wrong, and had it all ripped up.







The MP's Mrs was not a happy bunny.



[urlhttp://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Road-row-mess-left-8211-MP-s-wife/story-12889084-detail/story.html[/url

ah yes, halcyon days. summers lasting 8 months, snow at xmas and all that. you could leave your front door open, 'we were poor but we were 'appy', *wipes a tear*

of course you didn't remember, it was 40 years ago, you were a child and it's not something people enjoy talking about. but i bet it was there.

then the parents will just have to get up a little earlier and use some of the child benefit that they get to give the poor little tykes a bowl of cereal. what is it these days? £20 a week for the first sprog then £15 a week for the rest?

Is this the best you've got? Really?




You really have no idea what a breakfast club is for do you.

if the general standard is 'what we need is home insulators to save the economy', then it doesn't really have to be much better than that, does it?

they're so parents don't have to worry about feeding their kids in a morning, all for a small fee. not so different from the 'elevenses club' at my step daughters school, where the poor, starving little urchins who are now emaciated after eating breakfast a whole hour or so before hand at 'breakfast club' can get some life preserving toast, all for a small fee.

I was right, you have no clue what they are for.

Before the [ighost town[/i it became.

A little seaside coastal resort heaving with holidaymakers, caravan sites full to bursting, pubs with music filling the high street, amusement arcades and the constant clanking of pennies and pinballs.

Frolicing at the outdoor council swimming pool in the hazy summer of '76 (now sadly cemented over, and built upon).
You should have seen the ladybird invasion of that that summer samwire.



Donkeys and sandcastles on the beach.

A thronging market and the constant aroma of frying fish and chips.

T'was a different world, halcyon days indeed, never to return.
Pass the hankie mate.



n.b
You are indeed correct.
The doors on our council estate home were very rarely locked.

yes, i heard your mam often left her front door open.

Usually her back door(s).
She was anal retentive.

aye,as an ex Merchant Seaman, "Arbroath Annie" was legendary on the east coast....

then what are they for oh wise one?

She had the tatt's to prove it.

cheap foreign travel.

Blimey WZ, I could be your old man !!!

are you fair haired, good looking, intelligent and about 40 with the hint of a Norfolk accent, by any chance ?

I expect a cheap holiday in Croatia at least !

I'm no turkey plucker.



Just found a picture of my old pool, long since gone.
Spent all my time there in the 70's. Couldn't afford a pass but we used to scale the 6ft wall (very high when you're only eight) out the back.



Wonder if Coddy ever gave it a go on his ventures to Wiv?

was the wall to keep people out or to stop them escaping ?

if it's anything like Gt Yarmouth in the 60s bathing was in about -20° in the middle of august with a howling gale....aahh, happy days ?

It was Withernsea mate, not Berlin.

I've pi[is[/ised in there may a time mate. I was also a regular a Trailer Park on a weekend, usually to be found legless in Neptune Club or puking outside the chippie.

It's so WORKING parents can drop their kids off early at school and still get to WORK on time.

As a kid, I lived on Longhill and went to school at Villa Place. Prior to infants, I was at Villa Place nursery (free at that time). My old lady worked at Northern Dairies down Campbell St so I used to get the bus with her and hang around the dairy 'til school started. It was great fun, skylarking, trapping longtails and fetching the bread cake order from the coffee shop. I can't imagine any workplace allowing a 3-11 year old to hang around for an hour before the school gates opened now.

My mam went back to work because we needed the money. The one thing that we did have was a 2-week holiday in Jersey or Guernsey every year (simply because that was the furthest that my old man's rail pass would take us). We didn't get a telly until I was about eight years old and I was probably around ten when we got a fridge and 13 before we had a phone installed.

The nursery element was state provided, so that women could return to work. We now have a ludicrous situation where pre-school care is costing upwards of £1400 per month so some difficult choices are required before any woman returns to work. If they stay at home, they invariably receive some form of benefit, tax credits etc. and there is some financial help with the provision of pre-school care. So once more, the state is doling out money to go into the wallets of private enterprise.

We should seriously look at the Danish model of one year post-natal maternity leave followed by four years of state-subsidised and regulated pre-school care. We now have this government proposing relaxing the restrictions on childminders, so we'll probably end up back with the baby factories so prevalent in Victorian times

There's the related issue of why we seem so insistent on children starting at school as early as possible. Ut's later in some Continental countries (see Germany as an example)( and doesn't seem to leave them with an uneducated populace.

It's even more ridiculous setting fiev year olds homework. I heard one teacher commenting that it was obvious that some parents either completed the homework or had a great deal of influence over it. All it meant was she had to work harder with those whose parents couldn't be bothered. But it does beg the question: what are they really trying to achieve?

My understanding is that there's a general belief that, if we don't seem to be doing as well educationally as we should (and mostly, by comparison with other countries), then the solution is just to start them earlier and make them do homework etc earlier.

Yep. Or to add more to the curriculum. In my opinion kids already do too much homework. They should be out playing with their friends not doing hours of homework every day. Also the curriculum is packed far too full and so doesn't allow teachers or schools the freedom to deviate slightly away from it to expand on certain things or to do other things like sport or trips to places.