Greetham, Stretton, Pickworth, Thistleton and Clipsham Posters

Guest post  from Helen Pender

**What Helen has failed to mention here is this woman was very well spoken caked in expensive make up and intoxicated, leaving the Co-op and making her way to her little smart black car with another two bottles. She finished the conversation by saying she felt very sorry for Con. Weirs Wife. The Lady I am told gives very good book lectures when sober she never gave me her name pity.....
Greetham, Stretton, Pickworth, Thistleton and Clipsham
prospective candidate, Martin Brookes, in Greetham, Stretton, Clipsham, Pickworth and Thistleton. We motored up there on several occasions and found posters strewn in public places, one within yards of Roger Begy’s home on Greetham High Street. The most vile accusations were thrown at Martin Brookes throughout the campaign. One would have thought this was not a very clever thing to do in a two horse race. Wouldn’t one?

At a planning meeting 48 hours before the election Martin Brookes was able to ask Mr Begy why he hadn’t taken steps to distance himself from these posters. What was Begy’s reply? ‘I don’t read your blog.’ A classic example of a non sequitur!

The first posters were black and white, stapled or drawing pinned to bus stops, wooden poles, fences and most worrying of all in the official Parish notice board in Clipsham. At Clipsham, on the first occasion we spotted the notice, we thought we might remove it. But this is an official Parish notice board. We decided instead to track down the Parish Clerk and found the Parish Clerk for Clipsham mowing his lawn. We took him to his notice board. He rapidly read the poster and asked whether any of the accusations were true, picking out one particular accusation. I must commend the Parish Clerk for his speed-reading of a document he said he’d not seen before. No doubt Clipsham have a very able and erudite public servant in their midst. What a treasure he must be.

As usual Martin Brookes *wittered on at length in a convoluted explanation. Eventually I summed up more succinctly and the Parish Clerk said ‘Well I don’t understand it. There are a lot of funny things going on.’ I am not sure but did I sense a degree of disappointment in the Parish Clerk’s face when I offered my explanation?
*have you met Helen or read her blogs :-)

We were satisfied that no more posters would appear in the Official Parish notice board in Clipsham. How wrong we were. New coloured posters slightly amended were issued this week and wonder of wonders there, skewed with just one drawing pin, in the official Clipsham Parish notice board was a new poster! This new poster, presumably in a vicarious distancing of Roger Begy from the poster, proclaimed: “This poster produced by ‘The Friends of Greetham Ward’. It is NOT produced by the RCC, OTC, The Conservatives. The Cabbie nor any individual Society thus accused by Mr Bookes to date.” Well that certainly makes it clear who produced it. Doesn’t it?

However my congratulations go to a user of one of the bus stops in Greetham who had torn down the leaflet. This was found flapping in the hedge at the first bus stop in Greetham. A deep thank you goes to the upright citizen whose sense of fair play led him/her to tear this poster down.

BBC Radio Leicester appeared at the Count in Oakham on 6th May. I bumped into them as they returned from a coffee break and showed them one of the latest anonymous leaflets, which Martin Brookes had removed and cut out his photograph, using the top part as his own election poster. The reporter immediately said ‘Are you Helen?’ Hardly anyone reads my blog, she had clearly been briefed by someone. Who had briefed her and why? She wasn’t prepared to say.

She asked for a copy, so I went to the library and, only having a 20p piece made two copies. One of which I handed to BBC Radio Leicester. They opened the boot of their radio car and fiddled with a couple of switches, turning off their equipment as one reporter sat reading the leaflet in the back of her radio car. The mike was placed in the boot, but I was not interviewed. Despite this I began to suspect that I was being surreptitiously recorded. Isn’t it amazing how paranoid one can become when faced with an anonymous campaign?

They asked who was behind this campaign. My reply was that I didn’t know but it was funny that the poster had been issued in an area in which there were only two candidates. They asked whom I might suspect. I pointed out that these people hide behind their anonymity, but said that they behaved like terrorist cells, the campaign is coordinated and yet each anonymous cell appears to be acting autonomously and separately.

What I didn’t say was that living through this onslaught of anonymous tweets, blogs, postings and posters is a little like living in a third world country with a despotic and dubious band of autocrats determined to silence any voice of opposition. Shenanigans in the Kingdom of Swaziland sometimes pale into insignificance beside the Kingdom of Rutland.

Like my childhood home, Rutland appears determined to silence any opposition. In Swaziland the opposition is regularly locked up and false accusations levelled at political opponents. The newspapers in Swaziland are prevented from reporting anything but censored news. Whereas in Rutland…

Rumour has it that the new editor of one of our local newspapers is a Conservative who tried to stand for election on RCC but was prevented from doing so since she had only just moved back into the area and did not satisfy the residential requirements for prospective candidates. If what Gene Plews tells me is true, this is only interesting as a litmus test of the political allegiance of our local press.

The only independent and free press would seem to be our blogs. At least one of which has been hacked.** A local lady I bumped into recently said: ‘You have to stop otherwise they will destroy you. Your blogs and your emails will be changed. You just can’t win.’

The problem as I see it is – if I stop they will just grind me into the ground silently. Whether I blog and use email or take a vow of omerta, I will be silenced. Better by far to go out attempting, however vainly, to speak out, than to be silenced by fear of intimidation, which will continue come what may.

In the face of a despotic regime one should always struggle, however vainly, to speak out before one segues into oblivion. In the despotic Democratic Republic of Rutland let’s hope that we can find others with the courage to ensure that eventually the miscreants are traced and brought to justice.

Pickworth Rutland County Council Independent Candidate Martin Brookes Greetham Ward Election May 5th 2011

Pickworth Rutland County Council Independent Candidate.

Please Vote For change on May 5th 2011

Independent Candidate Martin Brookes

My aim is to promote integrity and gain public confidence in Rutland County Council.

If elected, I will work full time for the benefit of the residents of the ward.

I have no money or hold any vested interests and would work hard for the benefit of all the community.

It was a pleasure to meet and talk to so many nice residents in Greetham.

I met and chatted with a couple of residents of Thistleton.

I look forward to canvassing all the villages very soon.

Quite a few residents have said they do not know their current ward Councillor.

Your current ward councillor is.

Mr Roger B Begy (Conservative) - GREETHAM WARD  (Leader of the Council)

 

May 5th 2011

If your not on the electoral register you need

to apply for registration.

The deadline for registering to vote in time for the

local elections in England on 5th May 2011 is Thursday

14th April 2011.  You can find out more about who

can register and application forms at

www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

 Published by Martin Brookes 13 Willow Crescent Oakham Rutland LE15 6EQ

Greetham Ward of the County of Rutland Nomination Vote May 5th 2011 Election Candidate, Rutland County Council

Today I was nominated by a Greetham resident to stand for Election
as a Independent Unitary Councillor for Greetham Ward of the county of Rutland.

The nomination was quickly seconded and assented by a further eight residents of Greetham, who I thank.

The ward includes:

Clipsham
Greetham
Pickworth
Stretton and
Thistleton.

Out of the twelve homes I visited, I was only rejected by two. One because the resident maybe nominating a friend across the road. Another said he could not sign anything and I must be a very brave person to stand against Roger Begy, I can't imagine why?

I am happy to accept the nomination as a Independent Candidate, my aim is to promote integrity and gain public confidence in Rutland County Council.

If elected I will work full time for the benefit of the residents of the ward.

I have no money or hold any vested interests and would work hard for the benefit of all the community.

It was a pleasure to meet and talk to so many nice residents in Greetham today.

I met and chatted with a couple of residents of Thistleton.

I look forward to canvassing all the villages very soon.

The current ward Councillor is

Mr Roger B Begy (Conservative) - GREETHAM WARD  (Leader of the Council)

 May 5th 2011

If your not on the electoral register you need

to apply for registration.

The deadline for registering to vote in time for the

local elections in England on 5th May 2011 is Thursday

14th April 2011.  You can find out more about who

can register and application forms at

www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

 Published by Martin Brookes 13 Willow Crescent Oakham Rutland LE15 6EQ

Pickworth Village Rutland Photographs

Pickworth Village Rutland Photographs

Wild Flowers

Gated

Pickworth

A nice stone building with two brick extensions left and right, 

interesting planning approval.

British Telecommunications Telephone Kiosk

 

Elizabeth R Coronation 1953

Millennium 2000 Awards For All

 

 Font

Church of All Saints is a grade II listed building in Pickworth

 

 

Daffodils and Horses 

 

Queen Victoria Coat Arms

Jesus Christ Stained Glass

 

John Clare Pickworth Rutland

Pickworth in the county of Rutland

In the 13th century Pickworth was quite a substantial village, but by the end of the 14th century it was almost non-existent. It now comprises a small church, a disused Methodist chapel, a few large houses and a couple of rows of terraced and council houses,

At the southern boundary of the village is a crossroads leading to Great Casterton about three miles to the south, the A1 road at Tickencote Warren to the west, Lincolnshire Gate and Castle Bytham to the north and an unmaintained track to Ryhall Heath to the east.

The current church, All Saints, was built in 1821 and lies to the west of the village. Maps previously showed the spire of the demolished church under the name Mockbeggar to the west of the current village site.

The remains of the old medieval village lie mainly to the west of the current village centre in an area referred to as Top Pickworth. The only visible remains, other than earthworks, is a stone arch.

Just to the west of the village lie the remains of a lime kiln. In 1817 this was the workplace of local poet John Clare. About two miles south-east is Walk Farm, formerly known as Walkherd Lodge, which was the home of Martha "Patty" Turner, who became John Clare's wife. Both the lime kiln and Walk Farm featured in a television documentary that was made about the poet in the late 1960s.

About two miles to the west of the village is the site of the Battle of Losecote Field in 1470. It has been claimed that the village was depopulated as a result of the fighting.

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I Am
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;

And yet I am! and live with shadows tost



Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--

Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.



I long for scenes where man has never trod;

A place where woman never smil'd or wept;

There to abide with my creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below--above the vaulted sky.



John Clare


John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets. His biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare

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