Senedd praise for valley darts star
PONTYBEREM’S Jonny Clayton has been praised in the Senedd for winning his first televised singles darts title.
Mid and West MS Helen Mary Jones said: “I would like to congratulate Pontyberem’s Jonny Clayton on winning his first individual televised darts title.”
The 46-year-old Welshman fought back from 5-3 down to beat Mervyn King 11-8 in the Masters final in Milton Keynes.
He is considering quitting work as a Carmarthenshire Council plasterer to concentrate on his darts.
Jonny has previously recently described darts as his ‘hobby.’
The regional MS added: “The community of Pontyberem is rightly proud of this citizen of the Gwendraeth Valley. His stunning achievement has inspired council leader Emlyn Dole and local poet Aneirin Karadog to write limericks and poetry to celebrate his win
“Emlyn has said what an honour it is to have a
world champion council’s payroll.”
Cllr Dole said: “As with any member of staff representing their country in elite sports, we have given Jonny our full support to ensure he can work his day job as well as having the time to train and compete.”
Helen Mary Jones added: “I suspect that Emlyn will now be considering, after this latest win, whether the council could offer Jonny a sabbatical to pursue his darts career full time.” on the
WHILE Wales remains in lockdown and with winter weather continuing to bite, the prospect of getting outdoors to enjoy the world may seem a little slim.
However, the Carmarthenshire Water Safety Partnership (CWSP) is gearing up to help the public and arm them with information to keep them safe around water as we move towards a brighter spring and summer, with people aiming to spend more time outside as life hopefully returns to normal as the number of people vaccinated against Covid-19 continues at pace.
People will naturally want to ‘get out there,’ perhaps more so than ever following a year of lockdowns.
CWSP looks at preventative measures to inform people of the dangers of water and also issues surrounding mental heath and water-related incidents.
The approach is threefold, with the addition of efforts to provide state-ofthe-art lifebuoys in key areas across Carmarthenshire – some have already been placed but the project remains a long-term one.
Rob Bamforth, outreach consultant for CWSP, said the messages around water safety remain the same heading towards the warmer months.
The advice would be timely if lockdowns are eased and people are able to return to beaches and the coastal delights West Wales offers.
Mr Bamforth said: “I think what we could see similar to last year is more people having staycations and, therefore, more people coming to the coastal towns and villages in the area.
“So the key messages of staying safe and knowing the surroundings are just as important.”
Youngsters will be eager to venture out during good weather over school holidays, subject to their return to classrooms in the coming months.
Beaches such as Llansteffan, Pendine, Cefn Sidan at Pembrey and Llanelli’s Sandy Water Park, Dafen Lakes and Swiss Valley reservoir, which is undergoing a major revamp, are all havens for groups of youngsters and families.
Mr Bamforth, who has been involved with the Ferryside Lifeboat on the River Towy estuary for several years, said: “If you look at Carmarthenshire, it is walkers and people visiting the beaches that become most susceptible to risks around water.
“There are far more dangerous things than going for a walk along the coast, such as tombstoning or rock climbing on the coast, which is more of a Pembrokeshire activity.
“However, it’s a simple miscalculation of the tide or venturing out too far that gets people caught out and suddenly in need of rescue.”
That is where the CWSP’S efforts of signs and information through leaflets comes in – and much of it is now online due to the pandemic.
In partnership with Water Safety Wales, there is also a Wales Drowning Prevention Strategy which was launched in December last year.
This takes a similar approach to what CWSP has already been doing to get information and advice out to people.
Mr Bamforth said: “While there is a lot of information out there from the RNLI about what to do if you find yourself in the water, in danger, the CWSP is very much about prevention, arming people with safety knowledge and steps to take to hopefully avoid getting into difficulty in water.”
Turning to some simple points everyone should take on board before heading to the coast or any body of water, be it a lake or river, Mr Bamforth said: “To youngsters who will, of course, want to get out to these places with friends, we say to go as a group, never alone, and always tell someone where you are going.
“If possible have a responsible adult there, too, but be sensible and don’t take risks around water, that’s the overriding message.”
Of course, there is another aspect of water safety which has had the spotlight shone on it in
“
To youngsters who will, of course, want to get out to these places with friends, we say to go as a group, never alone, and always tell someone where you are going. If possible have a responsible adult there, too, but be sensible and don’t take risks around water, that’s the overriding message. Rob Bamforth, outreach
consultant for CWSP
recent years and mental health.
Currently, CWSP is linking in with mental health charities to help raise that is awareness of self-harm.
The CWSP is producing leaflets to signpost people and families to mental waterrelated health organisations and to help recognise the signs of mental illness and behaviour.
Mr Bamforth has sat on the board of trustees with West Wales Action for Mental Health (WWAMH) for a number of years and it is that experience he is now feeding into the work of the CWSP – it is very much a two-way flow of information and collaboration.
As well as lifebuoys, new signs were announced last year that will have numbers for Samaritans and the mental health support line for Wales CALL (Community Advice and Listening Line).
The hope is to have a number of them placed around the county.
Local Mind groups in Carmarthen, Llanelli, Pembrokeshire and Aberystwyth are also closely tied to the work being done, along with mental health charity Hafal.
CWSP has also worked with families across the area who have lost loved ones to water death and they are helping to break the stigma of mental health and get people and families talking about issues.
Mr Bamforth added: “The families have given us their stories on loss and that resonates with people and we hope others.”
Among new initiatives being looked at are placing signs with messages of support and reassurance at water edges, so that if people are feeling low these messages can hopefully help them see some light, very much in the way we have seen the simple messages of ‘be kind’ in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Bamforth said: “While having signs with important rescue and emergency information is crucial, equally important are those which help signpost people to avenues of mental health help and offer some words of encouragement.
“That’s the aim of the next steps we are taking, and we are having meetings with several mental health groups virtually at the moment.
“We have the Ripples advice checklist which we have developed to help people recognise mental health issues in themselves and also importantly it can help that their friends and families can recognise signs too.”
The Ripples advice from CWSP is:
R – Reach out to those who might be overly quiet I – Identify anyone appearing overwhelmed
P – Pause to engage in conversation
P – Promote self-care and support ideas
L – Listen with interest and without being dismissive
E – Encourage further talk, getting help, finding support
– Stay in touch and in contact with those who can help.
What is clear in all the work done by CWSP is that one death is one too many, and prevention and education around water safety is at the forefront of everything they do.
In six years it has spearheaded efforts all over the area, and hopefully will continue to do so for many years.
A CHINESE takeaway owner from Carmarthen will have her first book published this month.
Julie Ma won popular daytime TV couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s Search For A Bestseller book competition last year.
She scooped the prize for her book Happy Families, a fictional story about three generations of a Chinese family.
Born and raised in Carmarthen, Julie’s grandfather arrived in Wales from China in the 1920s.
Her parents set up a Chinese takeaway in the 1970s and she took over the business with her brother in 2008.
The family ran a Chinese laundry before diversifying into opening a takeaway.
Her love of reading and writing emerged from school and a local bookshop called Derrick Williams, which closed many years ago.
Julie said: “It was school and the encouragement of reading and writing that sparked my interest and despite a few different jobs over the years, it was a passion always there.”
Indeed, Julie graduated with a drama degree from Aberystwyth University and initially worked as a postal sorter at the Royal Mail sorting office in Pensarn, Carmarthen.
This was followed by temping, call centre work and a fashion company before taking the helm at the family takeaway.
Speaking about winning the competition and being just days away from the book being published, Julie said: “It’s great. When I entered I didn’t expect to win and was ready for rejection.
“But secretly I was hoping Richard and Judy would enjoy hearing about the folk in the Chinese takeaway and the quirky town they live in. And they did. It was unusual to have to send the completed manuscript in for the competition as normally it’s a shorter selection.
“This story has been knocking around with me for the past eight years so it was more or less done.”
Speaking ahead of the book hitting the shelves, she said: “I would like everybody to read my book but especially anyone who has ever been in a shop and given a thought to the other life led by the person serving them.
“Everybody has something more to them than being the woman behind the counter in Next or the man on the till in Aldi, or even the girl whose serving you a Chinese takeaway!”
The book, while fiction, has its roots and inspiration in Carmarthen.
Julie said: “It’s a madeup story but draws upon Carmarthen as it’s a town full of characters, so people locally will definitely be able to pick out things and perhaps places within the book.”
Richard Madeley said: “We thought Happy Families was great, absolutely bloody great. It’s a wonderful story and she is such a talented, funny writer. We think this has real appeal to a wide audience and are thrilled to choose it as the winner. Julie Ma is a rare find.”
Jon Elek, fiction publisher for Welbeck Publishing Group, said: “From its waggish first page to its perfect ending, Happy Families was the bright shining star among the 900 submissions we received for the competition.
“Julie Ma’s story of three generations of a Chinese immigrant family in rural Wales was a joy to read.
“It is sad, funny, moving, and draws you into the lives of these fantastic characters who are all involved in one way or another with the running of a Chinese takeaway in a small town.
“To me it had the charm of The Rosie Project, the warmth of The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, and the magic of Gavin And Stacey.”
Happy Families is published on February 18 by Welbeck.
PLANS have been lodged for innovative eco-friendly homes on the edge of Llandeilo.
However concerns have been raised over flood risks to the proposed land.
The eight homes are earmarked for land behind The Torbay Inn in Heol Cennen, Ffairfach, just south of Llandeilo.
Pictured above is a general design of how the homes may look, although the final external finish is to be decided upon, subject to planning permission.
Applicant Ian Lewis wants to build the homes on the plot of land, which is 3,000 sqm in size, and beyond the land is the railway line and Afon Cennen river.
An outline planning application has been submitted to Carmarthenshire Council.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has flagged concerns with the county council’s planning department over the land in question being “highly vulnerable” to flooding.
NRW refers to Welsh Government technical advice notices (TAN), specifically TAN15, and argues that the land falls within the flood risk classification of Zone C2 “areas of the floodplain without significant flood defence infrastructure.” Welsh Government advice states any granting of planning permissions within high flood risk areas would have to be justified by a local authority.
In a letter to Carmarthenshire Council sent at the end of January, NRW said: “We would advise that your authority should refuse the planning application on planning policy grounds.”
NRW said its response was only an interim one and that a full response to the application would be completed in due course.
Turning to the plans for the homes, if given the go ahead, they would be able to generate more electricity than its occupants will use.
They would design of the Solcer House follow the innovative at Stormy
Down near Bridgend which was built in 2015.
Six years ago, the Solcer House was Wales’s first low-cost ‘energy positive’ house, which can generate more heat and electricity than it uses over a year and was designed and built by the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University.
Like the Solcer House, the new Ffairfach homes will incorporate features that collect and store thermal and electrical energy, meaning that the householders living in them could generate more electricity than they actually use and could have free heat and lighting.
The plans will be discussed soon by Carmarthenshire Council planning committee.
IT IS a failure of society that people do not feel able to talk about mental health issues, Love Island star and newly-appointed UK Government adviser Dr Alex George has said.
The A&E doctor, who appeared on the ITV reality programme in 2018, has been appointed as a youth mental health ambassador.
Dr George, from Carmarthen, has been campaigning for better support following the death of his younger brother, Llyr, last year.
The 19-year-old, who was due to attend medical school, took his own life in July after suffering mental health issues.
Dr George told Prime Minister Boris Johnson he wants people to be more aware of their mental health and how to protect it.
“When things go wrong – as they do in life, we can’t put cotton wool around people, we can’t prevent bad things happening in the world – if we can give people that toolkit so that when things go wrong they know how to look after themselves, they know who to go Dr George said.
“I lost my brother in the summer, he was 19, about to go to medical school and we were incredibly proud of him as a family, and sadly he took his own life, and I think the pressures of this pandemic played a big part.”
Dr George added: “I want to live in a world where people feel they can speak about their mental health, the same way as to,” their said.
As an A&E medic, Dr George said he often sees people struggling with their mental health, who only talk about it for the first time after ending up in hospital.
“That’s really sad, it’s almost a failure, in some ways, of society that that person couldn’t speak to a loved one or a friend or a GP before they ended up in that position.” physical health,” he