MY local in Parliament, Strangers’ Bar, reopens in June. I might have to take off July.
YOU can bet your last pound the Tories wouldn’t be restoring votes to wealthy ex-pats and tax exiles who’ve lived abroad more than 15 years if they were likely to support Labour. Let’s follow the foreign money...into Conservative Party coffers.
NOT long ago it would have been unimaginable a Pope would visit the battle-scarred Iraqi city of Mosul.
It was the core of Islamic State’s rule, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the Caliphate.
Where not going along with ISIS could cost you your head, let alone being a Christian leader. Even with thousands of troops securing his visit, the Pope is still in grave danger.
Whether the trip will have a longterm positive effect is hard to tell.
But surely it will serve as a defiant gesture against those who want ISIS to raise its evil head again. However, coalition commanders are braced for more pro-Iranian militia attacks.
JAMES Bulger’s mum has told of her pride that his three siblings have spoken out.
Brother Michael, 27, and half brothers Thomas, 22, and Leon, 21, also feature in
Channel 5’s Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger.
Denise Fergus said of seeing her boys on screen: “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard them say how they felt.”
YOU can take the lass out of Cas, but you can’t take Cas out of the lass.
Let me introduce Mrs Hilda Boxshall, nee Frobisher, who is 95 (and three quarters), and writes to me about her childhood in pre-war Castleford in West Yorkshire: “I was born in my grandma’s two-up, two-down with outside midden, in May 1925. At age five, I went to Pontefract Road infants’ school.
“A year later, we moved to 3 Lane Ends, Whitwood Mere. Up to age nine, I went to the old school in the Potteries, then to the lovely new school at Lane Ends.
“Dad was a miner at Wheldale colliery but was on the dole.”
Her family moved south to find work, and in 1941 Hilda was lucky to survive a Luftwaffe bomb dropped in her West
London street – while asleep in her Anderson shelter.
Frobisher is an historic name. Sir Martin founded my grammar school in Normanton in West Yorkshire.
She continues: “There were quite a lot of ‘Frobbys’ in Castleford when I was growing up.
“Dad had three brothers and two sisters. I have a large book about Martin. He wasn’t a nice chap in his private life. I have a Frobisher coat of arms, and there is a window in Altofts church to celebrate him. My cousin Maggie, a maiden lady who lived in Airedale, was approached by the clergy to subscribe. She wasn’t interested. I can’t say I blame her.
“We had a posser, only ours was a copper one, and our mangle had wooden rollers. It was big and sat in the back garden. I used to love turning the handle.”
They don’t make ’em like Hilda any more. Thank you for sharing those memories, Mrs B.