Locals know how best to run national parks
The church of St Michael de Rupe at Brentor in Dartmoor National Park, Devon
Credit: russgallery images
SIR – Seventy years ago, the first English national parks were set up. The Government recently said that they represented one of the most outstanding environmental achievements of the past 100 years.
Since 1995, the national park authorities have been independent statutory bodies, with a majority of local councillors on their boards. However, according to documents leaked to the BBC’s
Countryfile programme (shown March 28), the Government now plans to bring all the functions and responsibilities of the protected landscapes into a single organisational structure, effectively a new national quango.
LOOKING GOOD: Restoration experts Cedric Charleof and Luke Jordan
BARNARD Castle’s Pittuck Mural has been fully restored – and will be on view when St Mary’s Parish Hall reopens next month.
Restoration experts Luke Jordan and Cedric Charleof worked throughout the Covid-19 lockdown to restore the artwork, which was painted by former Barnard Castle School art teacher Douglas Pittuck onto the east wall of the parish hall in 1959.
A campaign to raise cash for the mural’s restoration began two years ago after it had become damaged by water seeping through the wall and roof.
The experts completed their work last week.
A SCHOOL’S combined cadet force is celebrating after three of its company were recruited to assist the Queen’s representative in County Durham. Barnard Castle School students Colour Sergeant Kieran Bleasby, 17, Regimental Sergeant Major Hamish McAllister and Company Sergeant Major Ted Hamilton, both 18, will accompany Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of County Durham Sue Snowdon over the coming year in a variety of duties. At the end of last year, the trio were rewarded for their Combined Cadet Force efforts by being named Master Cadets. The Lord-Lieutenant appoints a number of cadets each year, from across the Lieutenancy area, who assist her when she is carrying out her duties, including meeting visiting members of the Royal Family and presenting honours and awards on behalf of Her Majesty.
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ONE of the first employees to work at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Ulverston has died at the age of 93. Alec Murray Swann died peacefully at Furness General Hospital after his health began to fade earlier in the year. He was one of the first GSK employees to transfer from the company’s site at Barnard Castle when the plant in Ulverston opened in 1948. He and wife Helen, known as Nora, bought a plot of a land and designed and built a new family home in which they and children Sara, Paul and Fiona could begin a new life. Mr Swann was born in Barnard Castle in 1927. His father served as a batman (personal aide) for one of the Queen Mother’s brothers during the First World War, and later became her personal chauffeur.