Bill Cawley's blog

There was an interesting article in the Observer yesterday on the north south divide in the economy. In effect the piece by Ruth Sunderland was a damming indictment of the industrial policy of successive governments since Thatcher and the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector.

It’s been a good weekend for Staffordshire in terms of positive media coverage. I had heard some weeks ago that the Guardian were doing a feature on Leek in the section called Lets move to… the journalist who wrote the piece was very much impressed by the town citing the countryside as being great for walking. The strapline for the article was Britains answer to the Alps.

It is coming up to 25 years since the end of the miners strike and there is a special question time event being held at the beginning of next month. I was having a sort out at home and came across a couple of letters I wrote that bought to mind my involvement in the strike at least from the City Council angle and helped to bring to mind a personal memoir of the events of quarter of a century ago.

This is a story of two towns. One I left at the age of 10 and the other that has been my home for the last 16 years. I have a memory of being about 6 and looking across the road at Campbell Pace at thinking how modern and busy Campbell Place in the centre of Stoke seemed to be. I stood at the same spot last Thursday. It was an appalling vista. Woolworth’s was closed, as was Ethel Austin. A shoe shop was empty, as was a Subway sandwich bar.

Its probably not a good idea to write something when you are annoyed; but perhaps there are occasions when you should not allow things to fester and to use the Wildean aphorism that there are times when it is more than a public duty to speak one’s mind- it becomes an absolute pleasure.

The Sentinel carried an article today on the damage done in a Forsbrook Children’s play area by someone who used part of the equipment to exercise his bull terrier after bite marks were found on a rubber seat. A few weeks ago the local newspaper in Macclesfield also reported damage done to trees in a local park by bull terriers biting on to branches.

The only time I came across the leader of the BNP was following the 2006 City Council Elections when I was helping out Jean Bowers in Birches Head. I went to the Wheatsheaf Pub in Stoke afterwards before the count with my brother. The pub was full of BNP supporters who were expecting big gains in the elections- they were to be disappointed. Sitting at a table enjoying a meal was the leader of the BNP surrounded by muscular, shaven headed men in suits. Griffin was eating a curry.

Today I drove past the Mosque in Regent Rd, Hanley. The green dome was glinting in the winter sunshine. It was here a few weeks ago that a former City Councillor Jenny Holdcroft held a demonstration holding up a placard denouncing Islam as being Un English. Another mosque in the City was daubed with paint on the day of the EDL demonstration. The allegation of Ms Holdcroft that Islam is alien is a view shared by many people in the UK.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the freeing of Nelson Mandela. In the group were Pollsmoor Prison to meet Mandela and walk the last yards to fredom was her old friend, confidante, mentor and fellow prisonner Walter Sisulu. Sisulu was a Freeman of Stoke and the campaign to make him so is outlined in a piece I wrote a few years ago for a writing competition sponsored by the Commonwealth Institute.

The Job Centre is a 100 years old this month. The Observer had a feature on this auspicous anniversary last week. The piece mentioned the role that Winston Churchil the then Liberal President of the Board of Trade had in founding the Labour Exchange as it was then called although the history of the Job Centre/ Labour Exchange goes back further than that.