Pensford Memories

'Culvery' by Tim Veater

Down dusty track of memory I strolled,

Enveloped by the ancient wood and years,

A fallen Oak, felled by the wind, its age revealed,

Where severed by a no-doubt noisy saw.

To right steep bank of Hornbeam, Ash and Beech,

Escarpment-saved from plough and sheep,

Survival from a pre-historic past,

Gazed on by mediaeval serfs entranced.

To left, the somnambulant stream,

Pursues its silent course, almost imperceptibly it flows

From distant limestone hills to far off sea,

Undisturbed by dancing gnats or flitting birds.

Overhung with Alder, its banks the home of Voles,

It timelessly meanders, mile after mile,

Its dark mysterious purpose, here on this bend,

In private view, I gaze upon, exposed.

At the gate, under the dark canopy of leaves,

The sun-lit meadow is revealed, stretching away.

Buttery yellow from its carpet of Celandines,

Sun-kissed Buttercups and white laced Cow Parsley.

Awaiting the rasp of tongue and swish of tail

That only contented cows and avian choir provide,

To complete this bucolic scene,

Which just for a still moment, I imbibe.

Artistic eyes, poetic seam, that here finds verse,

Mesmerically I recall the dream,

An act of drama sixty-six years afore

The world with all its horrors intervened.

The summer day Steve Perry called and asked me out,

And here we rolled about the clay,

Enacting adult worlds of life and death,

Quite unaware that this would be,

The last time we would play.

(+My Parents Maurice and Bessy lie in the Publow grave yard and my Grandparents, Arthur and Lydia, in Pensford's, plus many other names of relations and village characters, still fresh in the memory+)

Walking in Pensford Village, a designated Conservation Area in England, 4K HDR by Walking Citizen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw3WFe2Xd94

Tribute to Acker bilk, publow, North Somerset, uk by Days gone by

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ir4NWRpAUw

Acker Bilk - World Famous Musician - Famous Graves by 'Unusual Things'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_kmgvMnO8

DJI Spark Drone view of Publow and Pensford

Dave Woods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY83Vjd6UHU

All Saints church,Publow, North Somerset, UK (history in description)

Days gone by

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq8FklluuPo

The village of Publow in Somerset

west country scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3srqZf3C_k

Preserving Pensford – 150 years of standing tall

National Highways

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C_egzO7cL4

Pensford part 1

west country scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFG8qzP42kM

Pensford part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5snvh0F40

Duke Visits Flood Disaster Town; And Scavengers At Dump (1968)

British Pathé

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhUmqRcZGag

Re. Sewage Pollution

Tim Veater

Alison King It may be undesireable and unlawful, but it's a basic misunderstanding to see it as a POLICING matter. It's the Environment Agency and LA's that are tasked with enforcing the relevant legislation, not the police unless individual crime is involved. One of the problems with current policing policy, is that it has got away from its basic function of 'law and order', entering instead into all the topical 'isms'. See what a mess this has led the Scottish Government into. And as to Labour necessarily doing better you only have to look at the Metropolis to disprove that one. The 'Crime Commisioner' idea was imported from America and was a costly replacement for a perfectly good system. It demonstrates the damage political meddling for the sake of it can do. It pretends to subject the police to democratic control, when in fact it does the opposite, making them more subject to political control, which of course is not the same thing. Meanwhile drug dealers go about their business unmolested, shop-lifters go unchallenged and knife crime and burglary are rife. In this context I think a prospective Crime Commissioner opining on sewage pollution just about sums up the problem.

I agree. It's part of the much longer and wider issue of 'polluting' humans generally, which is always proportional to the number of us and the way we act and manage the issue. It is a product of industrialisation and social progress, made both better and worse by politically, the way we chose to deal with it. The moment humans chose to dispose of human waste in drains with water, it solved one problem but created another, in that all conduits eventually end up in rivers or seas, just as all roads lead to Rome. As soon as humans thought it necessary to have water on tap, bath every night and use gallons in washing machinery, it created both supply and disposal issues with a huge effect on the environment, namely reservoirs and sewage works. Every time we build a new house to solve one problem - unmet demand - it creates many more. The same applies to the political solutions: From the 'eighties' in particular, government hit upon 'privatisation' - transferring public responsibilities to private entities - as the magical solution to every problem - but we can now see its pitfalls and limitations. It runs on debt and the need to reward the capitalist funder. So instead of investment, dividends and ultimately pollution - whenever it rains heavily and even, in some cases, when it doesn't. If there are no dividends, the share price plummets and the company becomes insolvent, so increased charges to fill the gap. If the income stream dries up (forgive the pun) the company goes bust and the government is forced to pick up the pieces, proving it wasn't such a good idea after all. In summation this is why the prospective Crime Commissioner's little diatribe was so naive and irrelevant!