I dropped in to chat with Valery Stepney and Ruth Armstrong, the stalwarts who administer and coordinate this volunteer service. The Luncheon Club is partially self-sustaining, from weekly contributions (£5.50 for the hot meal) by the luncheon guests, and partly…
Category: Services
Neighbourly half-Wednesdays at the Chemist
Back in early August of last year, a sign suddenly appeared at the chemist: This Business is Under New Management, as of 1st August. And yet Claire Jackson, pharmacist over at least the past decade and so well-respected for her…
Care award at Thornley Leazes . . . apprentice sought
It’s just down the Peth and up from Bridge End, but as Linda Charlton, manager of Residential Care, says, sometimes it feels like Thornley Leazes is a million miles away from the buzz and activity of the village centre. I’m…
Ponderings of a Youth Worker . . .
Julie Humes, Youth Project Coordinator in Allendale, writes: Someone asked me the other day: “How long have you been doing youth club and why do you do it?” … I had to stop and think about it. I’ve done this…
Higher Ground for all . . .
I was right about the provenance of the name of this exciting Social Enterprise (it comes from a song) — just wrong about which one! Not Joe Cocker’s ‘Lord lift us up where we belong’ from ‘An Officer and a…
“Waste not, want not”
When our daughter was growing up, just at the point of beginning school, I often took her out on a ‘special adventure’ — it was only when she was well into talking with her new school friends that she discovered…
MarketPlace: 3 in one!
It’s a Visitor Information Point It’s a Post Office with Money Machine I was just chatting with a good friend about the heroic stint Elsie Archer put in, maybe a decade ago now, when the Post Office was between owners…
Bin Day
Maybe this diary entry should be filed under the category, ‘Rural Life is Not Really That Easy’. The bin men (and they are, always, men) drive over the Sparty Lea bridge, and collect the garbage from the bins that local…
Behold: beauty and loveliness, naturally
Anna Stonehouse’s lovely establishment, the salon called Natural Beauty, faces into Allendale’s Market Square. I’ve heard that men are welcome within, but those of my generation are possibly not completely persuaded, though they might, just, indulge in a little skin…
The bus service . . . on strike or not?
In deeply rural areas like Allendale and the East Allen Valley, the only transport that links isolated hamlets with the town (Hexham and then Newcastle upon Tyne) is the bus. We’re fortunate to have a regular and useful service, though…