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Thursday 29th August 2024 – Walk – Mobberley
Members of the Knutsford Rex Probus Walking Group did a circular 4.5mile walk around Mobberley utilising the massive tunnel under the airport runway which gives passage to the River Bollin together with the airport emergency service vehicles. Afterwards it would have been rude for the group not to pop into the wonderful Railway Inn for lunch and a nice refreshment!
Thursday 22nd August – Club Meeting – speaker, Bill Durose. who gave a talk ‘Being 16 in the 1960s’
Bill started by suggesting that, although it was up to 64 years ago and all of us experienced the era, we didn’t actually feel old in our minds! However our bodies didn’t tell the same story with feelings of stiffness, muscle weakness and a degree of difficulty remembering things.
When Bill retired he resolved to stay active and joined lots of groups to stimulate his mind and body. He recalled his own experience of the early 1960s where the local Youth Clubs held an important part of teenage life. It was here that popular culture became influenced by music styles from America and particularly by Rock ‘n’ Roll. Bill picked up his guitar and burst into renditions of Cliff Richard’s ‘Living Doll’ and ‘Travellin’ Light’ after which he listed many of the things we took for granted back then.
With another rendition, this time Lonnie Donegan’s ‘My old man’s a Dustman’, he drew interesting comparisons between Rubbish collections then and now, together with trips to the Family Doctor.
Bill went through each year of the 60s decade reminding us of memorable highlights featuring the Russian, Yuri Gagarin, being the first man in space and then up to 1969 with the moon landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11. For Bill, and many of our members agreed, he suggested it must have been one of the most interesting times in our recent history.
Thursday 15th August 2024 – Walk – Delamere Forest
The Walking Group set off for Delamere Forest for a 5 mile amble firstly along the Sandstone Trail and then a circular return via an anti-clockwise route around Blakemere. The highlight of the walk was the magnificent panorama from Old Pale Hill Heights where they viewed the Liverpool Cathedrals, the Dee Bridge, the newish Mersey Crossing Bridge, the Pennine Hills, Stanlow and Weston Point. The walk was followed by an excellent lunch at the Carriers Inn, Hatchmere.
Thursday 8th August 2024 – Club Meeting – Speaker, Dr. Karen Castle who gave a talk, “How I ended up in prison”.
Karen began by sharing her early ambitions to join our Military. She left school and did nursing training eventually graduating as a qualified SRN and a move to work in the Casualty department of Leyton Hospital at Crewe.
During her hospital work she treated an army officer who persuaded Karen to follow her dream and apply for the Military. At a careers convention she took the initial steps at what she thought was an Army Careers stand but later on, after some confusion or information sharing, she was invited to an interview for Her Majesty’s Prison Service at HMP Stafford.
After much detailed questioning she was invited to the next stage where she had to take steps to enhance her ‘stature’ due to a requirement for candidates to be a 5ft 4inches tall. She was offered a career with HMP and went for training at the HMP training college at Wakefield. There was some inference detailing an experiment where female prison officers might subdue the aggressive behaviour of the male inmates and particularly focussing on officers with medical training. Her first proper posting would be at Norwich Prison, a large establishment with a formidable hospital wing but rather outdated having been built in Victorian times.
Karen went through a expansive list of equipment and techniques for prisoner control including Riot Management, Hostage Negotiation, Drugs Management and Reporting to Courts of Justice.
Karen told a great story about a particular prisoner, Paul Bint, who was incarcerated for illegally posing as a Doctor and Surgeon. After doing time he disappeared off the radar before being re-arrested at Manchester Airport for working as an airline pilot without having any qualifications. Evidently he is now on the ‘Speaker Circuit’ posing as Kier Starmer? Another interesting inmate was a man who had identified as ‘Edward Windsor’ of Sandringham having changed his name by Deed Poll but turned out to be a former Valet and proved himself to be a model prisoner.
Thursday 1st August 2024 – Walk – Upper Poynton
On a pleasant day Knutsford Rex Probus Club Walking Group tackled a wonderful country walk around the upper Poynton mining area taking in the Macclesfield Canal towpath, the Middleton Way, the Coppice woodland and eventually passing the Anson Engine Museum before finishing at the Boar’s Head pub for a lovely lunch.