2 February 2004

The News from East Anglia

The headline in the EAST ANGLIAN DAILY TIMES (www.eadt.co.uk) newspaper read “Hunting Ban Will Ruin Us”.  The picture below the headlines showed several women in New Zealand style brown wax coats and hats holding up “No Ban” signs.  They weren’t talking about shooting deer or turkeys or squirrels.

Thousands of hunt supporters, hunters of foxes that is, appeared at a big farm near here to protest the governments promise to ban fox hunting.  Their goal was to sign pledges to support a campaign of civil disobedience against any plan to outlaw fox hunting.  They say they are trying to defend their lifestyle.  Many said they are prepared to go to jail by continuing to ride their horses, and run their dogs to hunt down foxes.

The next page’s headline read, “Fill her up please, a century on; Hoping for a Guinness Record place”.  The picture showed old Howard Watts, the owner of Riddelsdell’s garage in nearby Boxford leaning up against a Range Rover.  He says motor heritage experts believe his workshop and garage are probably the oldest in Europe.

Now that’s news around here.  Most of us buy our “petrol” at Riddelsdell’s garage.  I had no idea that place started fixing farm machinery, carts, bikes and traction engines in 1900.  They didn’t actually start selling petrol until about 1917 when “it was dispensed in gallon cans because there were no pumps”.

The neighboring city of Ipswich has a rising crime rate.  I don’t think that is really news to any of us who have shopped in the downtown area.  Of course most of the crime seems to be done by drunks to drunks after 1 in the morning.  Ipswich is the big shopping area for us country folks so I am relieved to know that the rising crime seems to be in areas I don’t normally visit.

Among the news of where to get your flu shot, and expansion plans for the Ipswich farmer’s market, the real news is carefully buried.  “Hopes for an end to postal pay dispute fade” is buried inside the newspaper, but this is big news here.  We haven’t mailed anything for over a week because mailboxes were sealed shut to prevent more mail from piling up in storage.  Next the firefighters and the Heathrow Airport baggage handlers planned to go out on strike.

 “Nappy Shop” is the next headline.  “A one-stop nappy shop is to be created by a Suffolk-based group which is concerned about the impact on the environment of the use of disposable nappies – materials which often end up being dumped at landfill sites.  The Ipswich Real Nappy (baby diapers) Network has already helped more than 200 parents to switch from disposable to cloth nappies – benefiting the environment and, financially the parents.  The group holds regular monthly meetings where parents and “carers” can meet in relaxed surroundings.

Not a word about the war in Iraq.  Not a word about who is running for president in the US…that is old news this week. 

Apparently that’s all the news that’s fit to print from East Anglia, the backwoods region of Suffolk County England.  Now you know.