April 2024 website edition

I try very hard to avoid what I see as bad news on the pages of the Clarion, but there are times when I just don’t manage it. It would be so much better to emphasise the positives you’ll find on this edition’s pages, such as the Neighbourhood Development Scheme being accepted by the County authority, Broome Park Farm B&B winning awards again or the Childe Endowment Trust inviting students to apply for grants to extend their studies. We have a great deal to be grateful for.

But the absence of a basic facility like the Post Office, which most of us see as a public service, but missing from our town for months with no information heard about solving the problem, is enough to make me and a lot of other residents angry. It’s quite bad enough when shop premises are closed and the logos of the marketing group leave their inviting sign still hanging there to invite us in. Don’t these companies have management staff responsible for seeing that closures are properly handled and the group names removed?

To crown this sad situation we have the veil of secrecy that surrounds the conduct of the Horizon affair and the treatment of innocent Sub Post-Masters being slowly lifted. Not unlike an Agatha Christie tale, but totally lacking humour, honesty or any trace of regret. I was explaining the situation to my sister, a long term resident in California, and she was utterly shocked that her native land, so long seen as an example of good behaviour, should have allowed such a situation to go on for so long. It takes a great deal to make me admit to being ashamed of the country I love, but now I have experienced it. My apologies for writing this; it gave me no pleasure at all.

Jim Reynolds