Clilheroe 422324 (Editorial), 422323 (Advertising), Burnley 422331 (Classified) 2 Clitheroe Advertiser STimes, Thursday, February 28th,2008


INSIDE YOUR CLITHiROE ADVERTISER AND TIMES


B Valley Matters..............................6,7 3 Village News..............................15,16 3 Letters......................................... 8,14 iWeekendpius........................... 23,24 3 Memory Lane................................18 3 Family Notices..........................20,21 3 Readersplus....................................19 3 Motors Today ................................25 3 Sport......................................... 46-48


AT A GLANCE... New jazz venues - page 23


‘Inspired’ Barrow woman - page 4 Booths chairman responds - page 8 Pendle Court problems - page 14


INFORMATION


Duly cheniisi: Lloyds Pharmacy, 5 Church Street, Clitheroe: Sunday, noon to 1 p.m. Police: 01200 443344. Fire: In emergency 999 and ask for fire service. EIccIricily: 0800 1954141. Gas: 0800 111999. Water: 0845 4G2200. Councils: Ribble Valley Borough Council, Clitheroe 425111. Clitheroe Town Council, 424722. Hospitals: Royal Blackburn Royal Hospital: 01254 263555. Airedale General Hospital, Steeton: 01535 652511. Clitheroe Community Hospital: 427311. Alcohol Inforniation Centre: 01282 416655. Aidsline: 01282 831101 (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.). Domestic Violence Helpline: 01282 422024. Cruse Bereavement Care: Ribble Valley 01200 429346. Environmental Agency: Emergencies - 0800 807060. Drugs: Local confidential advice and information line: 01200 444484. National: 0800 776600. Kibble Valley Talking Newspaper: 01200 428604. Samaritans: 01254 662424. Monthly Volunteer Helpline: 01200 422721. Lancashire Rural Stress Network: 01200 427771. QUEST (specialist smoking cessation service): 01254 358095. Ribble Valley Citizens’ Advice Bureau: 01200 428966.


CONTACT US! News: 01200 422324


Advertising: 01200 422323 Classified: 01282 422331 Family Notices and Photo Orders: 01282 478134 Fax: 01200443467 editor e-mail: vivien.mcath@castlancsnew.s.co.uk news editor e-mail: duncan.smith@eastlancsnews.co.uk sports editor e-mail: cdward.Ice@eastlancsnews.co.uk


News online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week al


www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk WEATHER


DUNSOP BRIDGE 0


CHIPPING I ^ 3 ' O ' LANGHO ■


CLITHEROE B HWHALLEY


■ READ' ■ BURNLEY DM m > ^ O ' ACCRINGTON


WEEKEND WEATHER: There will be sunny inter­ vals on Saturday and light showers on Sunday, with temperatures oh both days around 9°C.


SUNRISE: 7-01 a.m. SUNSET: 5-40 p.m. LIGHTING UP TIME: 5-10 p.m.


I SLAIDBURN ~ www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk Clitheroe 422324 (Editorial), 422323 (Advertising), Burnley 422331 (Classified)


Speeders-we are watching!


SPEEDING motorists watch out - little cops in Sabden are about! Dressed in fluorescent jackets and


armed with a laser gun. Years 3 and 4 pupils from Sabden Primary School have joined forces with police in a bid to stop irresponsible drivers zipping through the village. In an education exercise which began


a month ago, the youngsters are working alongside Sabden’s Community Beat Manager, PC Paul Sherratt, stopping motorists exceeding the 30 m.p.h. speed limit in parts of the village and giving them the opportunity to justify their actions. PC Sherratt said the initiative is aimed


at educating drivers about the dangers of speeding and how it can endanger the lives of pedestrians. He commented: “When someone is spotted driving too fast they are stopped


and given a ‘telling off’ in front of the


children. “The idea is not to make the motorists


feel guilty, but it’s to make them realise that they were exceeding the speed limit and putting lives at risk. It is just raising awareness about the dangers of speeding. “It seems the initiative has already


made a difference as drivers are begin­ ning to slow down. “The other week we managed to stop


10 motorists in the space of two hours travelling at speeds of 35 m.p.h. and over. Six of those were people from the \nllage and two of them complain about speed­ ing all the time!” He went on to say: “This experiment


is also useful for the children. They are enjoying helping the police and catching the fast drivers, but are also collecting data to analyse when back in the class­ room.”


Ex-CRGS student in Greenpeace plane demo


A CLIMATE campaigner who climbed on top of an aeroplane at Heathrow on Monday is a former Valley school pupil. Thirty-year-old Sarah Shoraka was


one of four volunteers who got on to the British Airways passenger jet after it parked at the airport’s Terminal One. . After an hour-long protest the former


pupil of St Leonard’s CE Primary School in Langho and Clitheroe Royal Grammar School was arrested. She has been bailed to return to the airport’s police station on April 30th. Speaking about her involvement in


what Sarah described as “non-violent direct action”, she said: “Monday’s event was to do with climate change. BAA want to build a new runway as part of an airport expansion which will mean Heathrow will almost double in size. “The reason we were there is that sci­


entists have said we have 100 months to get carbon emissions down or we will face a catastrophe. “The plane we got on to had flown


Pendle Club latest results


SOLO whist winners at the Pendle Club were: K. Hold­ en, P. Holding, B. Wood. New members welcome


every Monday at 7 p.m. Bridge winners a t the


Pendle Club were Mrs Mur- ial Wilson, Mrs Marilyn Wood, Mrs Doris Farnsworth, Mrs Eva Velvick. New members welcome


every Monday at 1-30 p.m. Domino winners: joint.!,


E Giles and J. Pye; joint 3, R. Barker, G. Berry and J. Thomber. New members welcome


every Friday at 7 p.m. Sequence dancing is held


every Tuesday at 7-30 p.m. and line dancing every Thursday at 1-30 p.m.


down from Manchester and there are 32 of these flights every day and you can do that journey in two hours by train. The expansion is being built on unnec­ essary flights. Aviation is the fastest growing source of climate change pollu­ tion. “The consultation ended yesterday


about Heathrow, but that is not the end for us at all. We will continue to cam­ paign and if necessary we will be there to put a spanner in the works through the law, through direct action, every way we can. We are not going to give up.” After leaving the Ribble Valley when


she was 18, Sarah - who has worked for Greenpeace for the past five years - studied English Literature at Universi­ ty College London, before working on a programme in connection with the Lon­ don School of Economics aimed at encouraging A-Level students to apply to university. She got involved with Greenpeace through voluntary work.


® WE are about to launch our biggest ever read­ ership survey.


We will be asking you, our customers and read­


ers, what you like and dislike about your weekly Clhheroe Advertiser and Times. Our comprehensive survey will be available in-


paper, on-line and in local outlet?. There will be prizes to be won in a free draw and, by taking part, you could help lo shape the face of the newspaper throughout the coming years. Keep an eye on our website: www.clilheroead-


vertiscr.co.uk to take part there, and make sure you reserve your copy of the newspaper in the next coming weeks.


WINNERS


Clitheroe Bridge Club a t


Clitheroe Bridge Club on Monday evening were: NS Adrian Norris and William Norris, Chris Pollard and Janet Bailey. EW Geoff Wharfe and Kath Thompson, Doreen


Taxpayers’ fury over bins policy


Responding to the alle­ “The borough council


has adopted a very pru­ dent policy and it should not be undermined by certain people’s unwill­ ingness to cooperate and put themselves out a lit­ tle bit.” Trials of the three-tier


waste collection system - involving weekly house­ hold waste pick-ups and fortnightly recyclable rounds - have so far proved successful in the Ribble Valley. Wheelie bins first


rolled on to the streets of the borough in March 2006, when residents in 11 local villages waved goodbye to their black bin bags as they embraced the new £lm. service. The second phase


again saw up to three 140-litre wheelie bins arriving on the doorsteps of a further 7,500 proper­ ties in the Ribble Valley in October last year. The final phase of the


wheeled bin service will be rolled out in May to the remaining 12,000 properties in the bor­ ough. The new collection


scheme is designed to ensure householders recy­ cle more waste and means refuse crews are no longer allowed to collect rubbish th a t has been dumped away from the collection points. However, according to


a report discussed a t a Special Policy and Finance Committee meeting on February 12th, around £50,000 is being spent over an eight- month period to employ additional men and to hire a smaller bin wagon to provide the interim service.


gations, the council’s d eputy leader Coun. Richard Sherras, s a id ^ ^ “Despite careful p la r iW ning, problems peculiar to specific properties or groups of properties arose that could not have been anticipated. “Special measures have


been put in place to ensure refuse is collected from these properties while solutions to the problems are sought and th e properties can be integrated into the three- stream waste collection system. “This is exactly how


the problems encoun­ tered in the earlier phas­ es of the roll out were dealt with. Indeed, some properties with fairly intractab le problems from the earlier phases are st il l receiving the interim service. “We hope to learn from


these situ a t io n s and avoid similar problems for the final phase of the roll out, which will also include rural areas. It is likely th a t collection problems may also arise in this phase and if so they will be resolved in the same way. “Ribble Valley has the


largest geographical area and by far the sparsest population in Lancashire, creating problems on a scale and of a nature not experienced by other Lancashire authorities. “We hope to have


resolved all these issues by the completion of the scheme this summer and thus have achieved our aim to have all properties on a three-stream waste collection system.” • Coun. Michael Ran-


son, the leader of the council, was unavailable for comment this week.


Q u a k e h i t s V a l le y


THE biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years appeared to pass largely unnoticed in the Ribble Valley. The earthquake,


which measured 5.3 on the Richter Scale and was centred near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire,


struck just before 1a.m. yesterday. Homes were shaken in


Blake and Kath Higson. Cn Thursday evening


winners were: NS Pat Ward and Roy Ward, Moira Philips and Michael Jeffery. EW Ernest Crmand and Sue Johnson, Use Park and Kath Higson. CP


Newcastle, London, Manchester, the Mid­ lands, Norfolk, parts of Wales and also Yorkshire - with a 19-year-old man from South Yorkshire suffering a broken pelvis when masonry from a


chimney fell into his house. Yet in the Ribble Val- ' ley it seems that only a


small number of people who were already awake felt the tremors. Cne young mum, who


was feeding her baby in Clitheroe, reported feel­ ing her bedroom “shak- ing”.


However, a snnkesmaiwB


for Clitheroe Police and ' another for Ribble Val­ ley Borough Council each said they had received no calls from concerned householders. It was a similar story here at the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, where not a single phone call or e-mail about the earthquake had been received by the time we went to press.


I


www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk


LATEST LOCAL NEWS & SPORT [ 24 hours a day, 7 days a w eeFlog on to


Clitheroe Advertiser & Times, Thursday, February 28th, 2008 3


Ribble Valley Explorer 2008 out now and online as an e-mag on...


www.clitheroeadverliser.co.uk your town www.ciitheroeadvertiser.co.uk


Appalling’ bad management of cash sees bank man jailed


A BANK manager who resorted to fraud after getting himself into a financial mess has been jailed


for 20 months. Mark Gidlow (46), of Brownlow


Street, Clitheroe, stole from his employers, Barclays, and his other victims were his in-laws and a fellow bank worker. Cver a four-and-a-half year period


the offences involved a total of just over £61,000. Preston Crown Court heard on


Tuesday that Gidlow had previously risen to become branch manager at Barclays in Burnley. He had carried out his crimes after running up tens of thousands of pounds of debts. Handing down the jail term. Judge


Edward Slinger told Gidlow: “There were disgraceful breaches of trust. You had a front of respectability, experience and absolute honesty. Peo­ ple trusted you and you quite deliber­ ately let them down and extracted money from them. “Someone who is in a position of


trust, in which you have been, who has carried out complex frauds involving different victims, must know that immediate custodial sen­ tences have to be passed.” Gidlow, a former vice-chairman of


Clitheroe FC, had previously pleaded guilty to four thefts and three offences of obtaining money by deception, which covered a period from the end of December 2000 to May 2005. The Crown's case was that he had


got involved in a series of elaborate thefts and deceptions, breaching trust in three regards. The first was regard­ ing his parents-in-law, Kenneth and Nola Croft, the second a bank worker, Nicola Holly, who he had been involved with training, and the third was as a bank manager for Barclays. Mr Francis McEntee (prosecuting)


said the defendant had persuaded the people to invest significant sums. Gid­ low had forged banking correspon­ dence and other business receipts. The defendant had married his


wife, Angela, in 1985, but there was no evidence of an extravagant lifestyle. In June 2005 she was shocked to discover their home was being repossessed. In police interview Gidlow spoke of


having run up £40,000 in credit card debts alone. His in-laws had been a financially secure couple who careful­ ly managed their money. Gidlow had taken out a total of six loans from Barclays using their details.


He gave them advice over the


years, specifically telling them not to squander capital, bu t th a t they should invest for the long term. He persuaded the Crofts to invest £18,800 in what he called a low risk, easy access account. That was paid directly into an account held by Gid­ low. The subsequent revelation of what happened caused the couple stress and worry, said the prosecution. Another victim, Nicola Holly had


been a cashier at Barclays in Decem­ ber 2004, when Gidlow was branch manager at Burnley. He trained her. He spoke about a football coaching


business called Unique Technique, indicating that he and his sister bad invested thousands of pounds in-it. She went on to hand over moneyas an investment. Gidlow took her to a football training session and there was a meeting with well-known foot­ balling figures. Mr McEntee told the court: “The


deception was th a t they were involved in the business. Their names had been included on business head­ ed receipts handed over to her when she paid money.” The business had then not been


properly set up and the two foot­ balling figures - described by the


judge as respected and wholly honest people - had no idea the woman had been persuaded to join in the invest­ ment and put money forward. Her money went on to be passed to a mys­ terious man who had a background in Dubai. Prior to his offences Gidlow was a


man of good character. The court was told he had repaid nearly half the money involved. Mr Mark Stuart (defending) said it


was a very sad case for a number of reasons. “He got himself into a complete


and utter mess. This was not a man or a family who were living the high life, or an extravagant life. He had worked for Baraclays for 20 years, since the age of 16, and was an exem­ plary employee.” Gidlow had been earning around


£25,000 a year. He had been able to make ends meet for a long period of time. He carried out something of a financial “juggling exercise” .and started to develop what later turned out to be diabetes. He came to a position where he was


unable to juggle the finances and had debts of up to £40,000. ’ Gidlow should have swallowed his pride and asked for help, said Mr Stu­


Edward hits a musical high note


A MUSCIAL high note has been reached by Valley school boy Edward Percival. The Bolton-by-Bowland youngster has


accepted a place in the Under-lls section of the National Orchestra of Great Britain. Edward, who goes to school in Gig- gleswick, has played the trombone for


the past three years. According to his mother, Hilary, he set


his heart on learning the brass instru­ ment after seeing Slaidburn Silver Band in action. Said Mrs Percival: “He chose to play the trombone because he saw the band playing when he was three and said he wanted to play that one pointing to the troriibone. Every time he saw a trom- Mione he said he wanted to play one.”


d jn Edward, who passed his Grade Three ^^rombone exam with distinction, plays with Slaidburn Silver Band. As well as playing piano, edward is preparing to take his Grade Three violin exam. After successfully auditioning for the.


national orchestra last year at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manches­ ter, 10-year-old Edward is looking for­ ward to taking up his place. He said: “ I t is the most fantastic


r;


opportunity with music I have had so far. I am looking forward to taking up my


place with the NCO because I love play­ ing my instrument and it will be great to make new friends who love music too.” ©Every year the National Children’s


Orchestra auditons more th an 800 youngsters for its five orchestras. All are aged between seven and 14 and if suc­ cessful receive tuition on residential courses and perform in a concert at the end of their course. This year is NCO’s 30th anniversary -


the milestone is being celebrated with a £500,000 appeal to ensure the charity continues into the future. And the high­ light of the year ivill be a gala concert on August 31st when all five orchestras will perform at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Our photograph shows Edward Perci­


val, a member of Slaidburn Silver Band and the Under-lls National Orchestra of Great Britain. (T240208/4)


art. “He took a series of financial decisions, dishonest and honest. In doing so he was just postponing the inevitable of everything coming crashing down around his ears. I t was a monthly fight effectively to service which debt and a t which particular stage.” The defendant was said to have


repaid £22,000 of the £38,000 given him by his in-laws. Mr Stuart said Gidlow had seen


very large deals involving professional organisations and professional clubs which had been run by a man claim­ ing to be from the Middle East. Money was given to that man, whom he had met at professional football grounds, but the man then disap­ peared. The man had offered him a potential quick return. As a result of the offences, Gidlow


was said to have lost his job, his home, his marriage and his good name. Mr Stuart added: “He did not deliberately set out to abuse his posi­ tion of trust. “I t came about through the most


appalling mismanagement of his own finances and the way he tried to get out of it. His thinking was far from straight at the time.”


^ Redrooms^


Free plan & design


Top quality design & build Full installation service Supply only available |


.written details on request Rossendate


Subject lo status, m Eli-


Quality Design Realistic Prices


Rossenrfafe Interiors is pari ofJ&J Ormerod pic Kitchen & Bedroom Manufacturers


.SIBBISiSi. ill


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25