©Kirton News 2016

The Editors Letter

Well, we had guts enough to go against our ‘Masters’ and take a step towards true democracy - if those at the top can’t still wiggle out of it!

What we need now is to grow our home industries and get back to exporting. And, take a serious look at what we have, already established, in the ‘Commonwealth’ - largely ignored since the 1980’s - Apartheid and all that.

The front cover this month illustrates two aspects of local industry. One, the skeleton of a new car dealership being built on Wash Road; the other of a once busy food processing unit now being demolished for... guess what... more houses.

Being only a simple chap I would then question the logic of taking up, what is generally recognized locally as some of the finest and most productive arable land in the area to put a few Jags on (providing a few jobs) and demolishing a (relatively) efficient produce factory which used to employ hundreds. But I guess that’s why I’m here typing this rubbish and not a ‘Captain of Industry’.

Can we - and in fact shouldn’t we - have some of the money in the pot thrown at this area to help revitalize industry and provide regular, long term, sustainable employment? It seems that now, since the ‘tragic’ events of June 23rd the Government have actuallt realized there is life outside the M25 (for ‘life’ read ‘votes’) and are talking again of breathing life into the North and North East.

So what about a bit nearer to home? Are we in the East not worthy?

How are local kids going to earn the money to afford any of these properties being built in and around Kirton. I know full well that my two children, in their mid to late 20s’, will struggle to rent, let alone buy a home if they want to stay local. But why stay?

I walked through the village today (as I do almost every day) but purposely looking around and remembering just what was here when the memsahib and I moved in thirty three years ago. It’s a sorry tale.

Apart from the obvious empty shops and near closures there seem to be no spirit to the place anymore. No soul.

Plenty of new bricks and shiny front doors with plenty of people being determined to stay inside their fortresses; only venturing out for a few steps to the security of their motor cars. To shop at Tesco or Sainsbury (other megalomaniac consumer outlets are available). I dunno! Why do I bother?

Because I still have faith in people’s spirit. I know getting together on a local level can be so rewarding and really make a difference.

To quote a line spoken by Stephen Hawking and performed by Pink Floyd... ‘all we have to do is keep talking’.

Sam

Kirton Booming
or Busted?

Richard’s Sky Dive
for the Woods