Complete admiration for small army of volunteers
LITTER is an issue for all of us.
It spoils our environment, and costs us as taxpayers to tidy up after people who are too lazy, or too ignorant, to bin their rubbish or take it home with them.
In my ward of Llannon we are often left picking up fast food cartons thrown on to our roadside verges, and I know this is a county-wide problem.
But while I cannot fathom the mindset of the litter louts, what I do have is complete admiration for the small army of volunteers that clean their communities as part of our Pride In Your Patch project.
Week in, week out, we have groups of volunteers armed with litter pickers and high-vis vests trooping up and down our streets, patrolling our parks and collecting from our beaches.
For them, it’s a rewarding task, and I thank them whole-heartedly for everything they do to help Carmarthenshire clean.
It’s a way for them to meet new friends, earn Time Credits and get involved in their communities.
But isn’t it a shame that their efforts are necessary – we’ve got far better ways we’d like to be spending council resources and there are many more important ways our hard-working volunteers could be spending their time.
If you would like to know more about Pride In Your Patch, look it up on the council’s website – it’s a fantastic scheme.
CI’M beginning to think it is possible to have “too much of a good thing”, when the “good thing” in question is a 51-year old television situation comedy once regarded as a classic, but having been re-created, restaged and re-imagined so many times since it ended, even its most loyal fans must think: “Enough!”
Dad’s Army began its nineyear, 80-episode run on BBC One so long ago (July 1968) the first two series were in black and white!
Younger readers, ask your parents . . .
Between that first episode and the final one broadcast in November 1977, a successful feature film spin-off was released in 1971 and in 1975 a stage version was written by the series creators Jimmy Perry and David Croft, featuring the original cast performing songs and comedy routines.
It played to packed audiences in the West End from October 1975 to February 1976 before touring theatres around the UK later that year, and the public clamoured to see their comedy heroes in the flesh.
When the TV series finished and the actors and writers moved on to other projects, it wasn’t a case of “At ease men! The war is over. You’ve all been de-mobbed!”
Because Dad’s Army continues to march on and on – and I don’t just mean the BBC2 Saturday evening repeats that have been running for decades.
In 2007 and 2009 a whole
new bunch of actors appeared in a stage tour based around three old episodes “stitched” together, and in 2016 a new Dad’s Army movie was released (escaped?) to mostly less-thanfavourable reviews. And now in 2019, the Gold Channel have re-made three 50-year-old “lost” episodes of Dad’s Army with a new cast.
If these three shows do well, some bright spark at the BBC might consider re-making all 80 episodes. To which I would say, in the languid style of Sergeant Wilson in the original show (played by John Le Mesurier): “Do you really think that’s wise?”
Put that light out!