THIS is a Ringmaster message from Thames Valley Police. On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, between 07:40hrs & 12:30hrs, a White Compass Liberte Caravan was stolen from a property in Thame Road, Chinnor. A White Ford Transit van was seen towing the caravan.
If you have any information relating to this message, please call the police on 08458 505 505 and quote URN 596 of 01/12/09.
OXFORDSHIRE County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service is urging residents to put fire safety at the top of their Christmas list this year.
Government figures reveal that during the month of December, approximately 25 people a day across England are either killed or injured in accidental house fires.
Risk Reduction manager, Mike Bingham, said: “Christmas is a time for having fun – however it?s also a time when extra alcohol is consumed and fire hazards are introduced into the home such as Christmas lights and candles in close proximity to flammable Christmas decorations and parcels. By following some simple safety tips the risk of a house fire can be greatly reduced.”
Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Safer and Stronger Communities, Judith Heathcoat, added: “We really want people to think seriously about fire safety to make this a Christmas to remember for all the right reasons.
“There is always a greater risk of becoming distracted during times of celebration and it’s very important that people are aware of the need for extra vigilance.”
CHRISTMAS SAFETY TIPS
Buy British Standard fairy lights
Place candles in holders away from curtains
As most fires start in the kitchen – never leave your cooking unattended;
Always ensure cigarettes are completely extinguished
Remember the risk of accidents is far greater after consuming any amount of alcohol
General fire safety checks:
Check the battery in your smoke alarm; test your smoke alarm weekly and change the battery yearly
Plan ahead and have an escape plan for the family in the event of a fire
Check the fuses in all plugs are the right size for the appliance
Ensure all lights are turned off and candles extinguished before you go to bed or go out
Check elderly relatives and neighbours are fire safe; ensure they have a working smoke alarm
A PLANNING decision on a controversial proposal to build new, affordable homes in Park Terrace, Thame, has been deferred until after a site visit by district councillors.
An Oxford-based housing association is seeking planning permission from South Oxfordshire District Council to build six, two-bed affordable homes in Station Yard, Park Terrace. The yard is currently owned by SODC and used as a car park by residents and by the Thame Service Station next door.
Thame Town Council’s Planning Committee has recommended refusal of the application on the grounds of:
1. Traffic generation, parking and safety
2. Over-development
3. Noise generation
4. Potential loss of employment at Thame Service Station.
Planning officers however, support the development.
The site visit will take place on Monday, December 14, 2009, to assess the impact of the proposal on the residents of Park Terrace, prior to a meeting of the district council’s planning committee two days later.
SEE FULL DETAILS OF THE APPLICATION by pasting:
SODC P09/E0846 into your browser.
Photo: Station Yard, Park Terrace, Thame, Courtesy of Coleman Hicks Partnership
WE may have over a hundred TV channels, but the Victorians had seven hundred different varieties of pear. Almost all of them are now unobtainable, except by some rare fluke.
A few weeks ago, such a fluke happened to me; I went to stay with an old friend and discovered that behind his house was a neglected orchard in which three ancient pear trees were laden with fruit. The apple and plum trees had long ago fallen into decay, but pear trees can live and go on producing fruit for up to two hundred years. These venerable trees, overgrown, unpruned, and unruly, were weighted down with their bronze treasure, and more of it lay all around in the long grass. The pears were oddities by modern standards, funny shapes and sizes, but absolutely scrumptious.
When I last went to the Farmers? Market here in Headington, I was pleased to see pears, but disappointed that they were the same variety stocked by a supermarkets everywhere, the Conference. The reason this has become almost the only variety of pear available on the British market is that it?s very disease-resistant and reliable, cropping every year at the same time. The fruits can be picked while hard and transported. These are great virtues from the point of view of the commercial grower, but what about taste? The flavour of Conference is rather bland and insipid compared to that of older favourites, such as the Bergamotte Esperen or Doyenne du Comice. It is also liable to be a bit mushy in texture.
The older pears the Victorians knew had a range of amazing flavours, some of them like pineapple or muscatel grapes, some sharp and crisp, some perfumed like rose-water. They could be rather small or very big and unwieldy. Not all of them were white inside – they might be pink or yellowish – and some of them had amazing names like Worcester Black or Vicar of Winkfield. They are juicy, drippy and slurpy, and almost nothing you do to them in my opinion really improves on the raw thing. If you are determined to cook dessert pears they go rather well mixed with apples in an Eve?s Pudding, spiced with cloves, cinnamon and powdered ginger. To be a little more decadent, lace them with chestnut liqueur.
The sad fact is that nearly half of Britain’s pear orchards have been destroyed since 1970. So we need to bring back the pear in the English garden, something worth doing if only for its lovely blossom. Go to a garden centre or search the internet: there are plenty of businesses here and there that can supply you with pear trees including a few unusual old varieties. I found a business in Wales that is selling two rare types of ?Heritage? pears, Snowdon Queen and Penrhyn Castle, and I hope that other nurseries will follow suit. As a result of cunning grafting, pear trees can be full-size, dwarf or even small enough to grow in a pot on the patio. Pollination is less of a problem than you might think.
Pear trees need a suitable pollination partner to make them fertile, but experienced nurserymen know that the bees can cross-pollinate them up to a far greater distance than any other kind of fruit, sometimes several miles. So it is quite possible for a single pear tree to have fruit if there is another pear tree anywhere in the neighbourhood. If you want to make sure, plant two or even three, and if you haven?t got room, you can get a ?dual? pear tree, with two different varieties grafted onto a single trunk. These will happily pollinate each other and give you two different sorts of pear side by side.
I always wondered why it was that in the Twelve Days of Christmas, the first gift and most memorable gift was a partridge in a pear tree. Why a pear tree? What was the association between pears and December? In fact, different varieties of pear ripen at different times of year. Some produce fruit in the Spring, others in the summer or autumn and many of the prized older varieties in the middle of winter. The Beurre d?Aremberg, for instance, a French variety, ripens in December to January, so it would be just right for a Christmas feast. The best orchards were planted with a range of pears for different seasons, so that people could have fruit all the year round. The problem of storage was thus completely avoided. You just left them on the tree, right through the freezing winter months, to be picked and eaten long after all the other fruit were finished and forgotten.
As for the partridge, that is a bird which once provided food in the middle of winter too. Under the Normans, game-birds were reserved for the nobles, and it was illegal for mere commoners to eat them, so in the song it is a symbol of luxury. But the partridge is now a threatened species in England. It has almost entirely vanished in Ireland and here it is in serious danger, as its habitats are destroyed year by year. Most of the partridges we have left are the French red-legged ones, while the native grey depends for survival on people breeding it to shoot. The numbers are down to a fraction of what we had only a generation ago. If you want to help the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust with their partridge-count scheme, you could ring 01425 652381. Of course, you have to know what a partridge looks like, first. And you are certainly very unlikely to see one in a pear tree.
IMAGE: Courtesy of www.egreenway.com
SOUTH Oxfordshire District Council is this year offering a text reminder service to residents for Christmas bin collections.
The council is also offering residents an email reminder service about changes to bin collections over the Christmas period.
This year collections will change between Saturday 19 December, 2009 and Saturday, 9 January, 2010. For some residents collections will be earlier than usual in the run up to Christmas and a few days later afterwards.
To sign up for a reminder, residents simply need to text the word ?waste? and their normal collection day to 07797 870370 and they will receive a reminder the day before their collection. Residents can also register for an email alert through its website www.southoxon.gov.uk/christmas
The council is also reminding residents that if they find themselves with extra recycling that won?t fit in their green bin they can put it in clear sacks, plastic bags or cardboard boxes and leave it by the side of their recycling bin for collection. Residents will also shortly receive a Christmas information leaflet with details of the changed collections.
David Dodds, Cabinet member for waste services, said:
“We know changes to collection days can cause confusion for some residents. This year, we wanted to remove that worry by offering residents an easy-to-use text and email reminder service. It?s simple and will help to remind residents when to put their bins out for collection.
“By visiting our website, residents can also look up their collection day, the changes taking place over Christmas, and whether they?ll be on a recycling or rubbish week.”
IMAGE: Courtesy of Mansfield District Council
HUNDREDS of people from the Thame area will flow to London on Saturday, 05/12/09, to take part in a massive human wave to call for action on climate change ahead of crunch talks at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Transition Thame and District is calling on the community to join them in London to take part in The Wave, being billed as the UK’s biggest ever Climate Change march.
Coaches will be leaving Haddenham, Thame, Long Crendon and Chinnor at:
THAME Scouts will once again be offering a Christmas card collection service for the elderly and the disabled of Thame and Moreton.
Special boxes have been placed around the town in the library, the Thame Gazette office, The Chocolate Box newsagents and the town hall, from where the scouts will collect the cards and, with their parents, distribute them.
Assistant Scout leader, Shelagh Hutson, said: “It’s the same service that has been being made available to the elderly and the disabled for the past 25 years.
“The scouts will be collecting the cards on December 4 and we will then turn the Scout hut into a large Christmas sorting office!”
In addition to this charitable service, the Scouts Christmas Bazaar will take place on Saturday, November 28. There will be refreshments, games, tombola and much more, and father Christmas will be paying a visit to the Scout Headquarters on Southern Road, Thame. Admission charge 30p.
THAME Town Council has been awarded Five Stars in the RoSPA Play Area Site Awards, for the recently refurbished South Pole on the Southern Road Recreation area.
RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents), assessed the South Pole play area at Southern Road Recreation Ground for ambience, for facilities (from toddlers to teenagers) and for the site itself and South Pole ticked every single box.
In their comments, the judges said: “This well-managed site offers excellent play value and accessibility. It scores very high marks in all categories. Congratulations are due to all who were involved in its development.”
South Pole play area opened in December, 2008 and has proved hugely popular with all age groups. It had to be closed and resurfaced recently at the expense of the Contractor, when the surface began to break up.
Photo: Flash back to December 2008 when the South Pole was officially opened by the then Mayor or Thame, Donald Butler
A PLANNED Thame Youth Memorial has moved closer to becoming a reality this week, with the launch of a design competition for the Memorial itself.
Thame Town Council have completed work on the Memorial Gardens by installing new fencing, paving, benches and planting, and the efforts to raise funds for the installation of a permanent Memorial are now gathering pace.
The final form of the Memorial is open to ideas and suggestions from the local community and a design brief is now available to anyone, amateurs and professionals alike, who would like to submit a proposal. Without wishing to constrain imaginative ideas, it had to be recognised that the site is within a conservation area and that any construction must be in keeping with its surroundings and the two other memorials (War Memorial and Pearce Memorial) in the immediate vicinity, so minimum criteria have been laid down as a guide.
The design brief can be downloaded from the Trust’s web site at LINK HERE
and is also available in hard copy from Thame Town Hall. The competition is open until 28 March 2010 and then the designs submitted will be on display at Thame Town Hall and at Thame Museum, inviting further input from the community. The Memorial Trustees will finally select 4 – 6 designs and refer to professionals to work up into functional designs and costings.
The objective is that a Memorial should be in place by Summer 2011 but, in the meantime, the Gardens will be formally dedicated as a place of remembrance and reflection for those who died too young, The ‘Lost Youth of Thame’, at a ceremony on Sunday January 3, 2010.
FIRE FIGHTERS based in Thame were out and about for most of the afternoon and evening last Friday, and through the generosity of the townspeople raised