Running club’s big wedding celebration, missing post, and a new old name for club
ACOMMUNITY running club took a break from chasing PBs and medals as it celebrated its first club wedding.
Shinfield Running Club’s Darcie Goulding and Phil
West tied the knot at Stokes Barn Farm Wokingham, in a ceremony which featured multiple fellow athletes.
The newly-weds first met in 2021 with both looking for training partners ahead of their London Marathon attempts.
Phil said: “It was incredible, just the perfect day. The venue was amazing and Darcie looked absolutely stunning. We had a small crowd of 60 people attend, 10 of which were from the club.”
The special day was preceded by a unique, but fitting, proposal last year when Phil decided to get down on one knee at the finish line of the London Marathon.
“My mum was out supporting me and had the ring at the 25.5-mile mark,” he explained. “To be honest, I was panicking a little bit because I couldn’t see her.”
Phil did eventually pick her out with 600m to go and grabbed the ring before heading down The Mall.
Ofcom was investigating Royal Mail as scores of complaints about a lack of deliveries in Woodley and Earley.
Royal Mail is required to deliver at least 93% of first class mail within one working day, and 98.5% of second class mail within three working days. But readers have been inundated us with emails and social media messages saying they are going days without anything and then receiving a glut in one go.
This means that urgent hospital appointments are missed, bills remain unpaid, and birthday cards arrive well after the special day. In one case, a resident missed the grace period for challenging a parking fine, meaning instead of paying the discounted rate, they had to fork out the full fee.
Reading East MP Matt Rodda, whose constituency includes Woodley and Earley, says he has also received comments from affected residents wanting a solution.
“I have raised concerns about the reliability of the post with the Royal Mail and I also spoke in a debate in Parliament about this important issue.”
Royal Mail says that vacancies have been causing the problems, and the situation is starting to get better on a weekly basis.
With the festive rush around the corner, it was expected that more posties will be doing the rounds, and service should get back to normal. We’re still waiting.
A Woodley man won a competition for the largest pumpkin – with his entry weighing in at a staggering 896lbs (771 kgs). Amazingly, this massive fruit was the third-best of this year’s crop grown by Curtis Leach.
What he described as his “personal best” effort, weighing what he hopes will be close to 1,700 lbs (771 kgs), is set to be entered into a competition in Southampton.
Curtis won the weigh-in at Wargrave Nursery Plant Centre in what he said was a good year.
A famous name from the past could soon be reappearing in non-league football.
Wokingham Town Football Club, which was formed in
1875, disappeared in 2004 following a merger with Emmbrook Sports to form Wokingham & Emmbrook Football Club.
An indicative vote by members at the annual general meeting of Wokingham & Emmbrook FC showed unanimous support for the move.
Steve Williams, chairman of Wokingham & Emmbrook FC, told Wokingham Today: “Next season will mark the 150th anniversary of the formation of Wokingham Town Football Club, so we feel now is as good a time as any.”