The Fight for Berry Hill

An article by Cllr Terry Crowe

As everyone is well aware by now, British Coal have submitted a planning application to extract 1.25 Million tonnes of coal from Berry Hill, by opencast methods, which in my own view would take up to ten years. The working site would be up to four hundred acres, and would destroy the quality of life for years to come for the people of Stoke-on-Trent, and in particular, the residents of Eaton Park, Berry Hill, Bentilee, Bucknall, Joiner’s Square, and large parts of Fenton.

The dirt, dust and noise that is unavoidably generated by this kind of operation cannot help but have a detrimental effect on our health and environmental well-being. British Coal say they will put in screening mounds to protect the people from the visual view of the site and also the dust. As far as the visual views is concerned, people will not be looking down into the workings, but at a big dirty hill, instead of the beautiful scenery they have at the present time. The dust will just rise over these mounds and drop over a wider area, which will be a particular problem to the residents of Bentilee, as one of these proposed so called screening mounds will run the length of Dividy Road.

The noise that would be coming off the site is another major contribution to the destruction of our quality of life. The machinery needed for the operations are noisy enough alone, but on top of that there will be blasting day-in and day-out. British Coal say that the noise from the blastings would be kept to reasonable levels but will not tell us what they consider reasonable levels.

I do not believe it is possible for them to control the explosions to that extent, because they will not know how much explosive they will have to use at any one time. Obviously, the more they use the bigger the explosion will be, and lots more dust will be thrown up to land over the surrounding areas.
Lastly, but not least, I would draw attention to the wildlife that would be destroyed by the workings. At the present time we have hawks, long eared owls, hares, rabbits, foxes, and many other kinds of animal life, as well as many kinds of plant life that, if lost to the area, would be unlikely ever to return.

There are many other reasons why British Coal should never have even considered such operations in an area like Berry Hill, but to list them would take up far more space in this magazine than we have. I would urge you all to oppose this scheme wherever and whenever possible, and tell British Coal to keep out of Stoke-on-Trent. We have a beautiful, clean city here and will not go back to the dirty city of years ago, for the sake of making a profit. I ask anyone wanting to protect our area from this attack to contact the Berry Hill Action Committee, who will be glad of any offers of help.

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Editor’s Note: The campaign against opencast mining on Berry Hill was successful, thanks to the hard work and commitment of the Berry Hill Action Committeee and local residents in opposing British Coal’s applications.

Copyright The Bentilean, 1990, 1999, 2016

The Secret Service Poet

Shhhh! If my appearance surprise you
Whatever you do, don’t show it.
Because I’m working undercover as….
….a Secret Sevice Poet!

Aye, I know you’ve never heard of us
We don’t leak like M.I.6.
An’ we don’t go advertising ourselves
Like them-there private dicks.

Nah, for with dangerous felons we have to deal
And murderous platinum blondes;
I tell yer, it’d scare the living daylights out of
That-there Jimmy Bond!

For however dark and black the night
We have to stalk the roughest roads
Sneaking up behind said felons and…
…recite them awful odes! {like this one}

And should they turn and blatantly sneer
We give them a comtemptuous sniff {sniff}
And then we get really nasty and…
….recite them Kipling’s IF.

Take, for example, my last case
Which concerned a Peter Prose
A foul and unwashed fellow
Who smelt (unlike a rose)

And who each day murdered our language
With purple prose and pun
For he was that foulest of creatures:
…a journalist, for The Sun!!!

And so he had to be punished
And my duty was crystal clear
I had to eschew all mercy and….
…..sing into his ear!

And so when he begged for pity
I just laughed my cruel laugh (ha-ha, hah!)
And told him I was Licensed to Shrill
Cause I was double-O, two and a half.

Yes, you should have seen his horrified face
Cause my cruelty did shock him
But still, just in case it didn’t work
I took me gun…and shot him!

Poem by John Steele

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Copyright John Steele 1999, 2020

Confessions of an Op Knocks Failure

There can’t be many people who don’t know the successes of Stoke-on-Trent — like Jackie Trent & Terri Wade — but what about the miserable failures? Like poet-author, and editor of “The Bentilean”, John Steele…..or is it?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why the blummin’ heck am I going to audition for “Opportunity Knocks”? Such were my thoughts as the coach drew ever closer to Manchester.

I remember the trailers: “Send a SAE for an application form, to try out for the next series of Opportunity Knocks”. I remember being pig-sick of trying to overcome my hatred of writing long enough to make it as a writer. I remember the Bright Idea: send for a form and see if I can make it as a male Pam Ayres.

Afterall, what has she got going for her? A pretty face? A funny accent? A cute smile? Awful poems? Well, I’m not Bad Looking. Born and raised in the Potteries I must have a funny accent to half the nation. My cheeks dimple when I smile broadly. And I write awful poems! got everything, right?

Wrong!! I hate cameras, I almost have a coronary reading my stuff out at the local WEA Writer’s Workshop, and the only time I’ve been on a stage was as a dwarf in Infant’s School. And then it occurs to me: if I’m halfway successful at this ‘male Pam Ayres’ lark, I’d be right back behind my typewriter trying to bash out a bookful of blummin’ poems!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!!! (As they say in Bella magazine).

And the venue did little to calm me down. Big as a mountain on the outside (to a poor lad from Stoke), the Sashas Hotel was even bigger inside. And what greeted me as I walked through the doors? Lifesize stuffed animals! A polar bear, tiger, and stag to be exact. Jeez! I thought, I hope this isn’t the audience. It wasn’t. They were worse.

After having my Polaroid taken by a stick-insect wearing glasses, I was shown through double-doors, stauncly withstanding several hundred decibels of Rock Music, and into what I could only assume was a converted aircraft hangar, half-crammed with fellow starlets/loonies.

The ‘Why?s’ started buzzing round my head again, as I took a seat next to two singer-guitarist who called themselves “Just Variety”, and a fellow in a magicians cloak sitting next to another fellow sporting a wild, white wig, fishnet stockings, and a green leotard. For a moment I almost forgot that too-soon I would have to go out in front of these weirdos and make an even bigger eejit out of myself.

We were all crowded down one end of the hall, on three rows of chairs, some leaning on the back wall, some crowded up the sides, but all behind a long row of tables, seating soundman, small close circuit video camera, the producer, and several whose function I couldn’t discern. The stage was just a rectangle of floor, lit by four blinding TV lights, with not even any ‘wings’ to have yourself a quiet nervous breakdown in before going on. It was worse than a vindaloo and beans.

A hour and ten minutes of watching singers, dancers, and musicians, who were all far too good for my liking, and it was my turn. Thanks to my late arrival in Manchester I had missed my official time and had been sitting there hating every good act lest I should suddenly have to follow it, and praying when a stand-up comic went down like a lead life-jacket that I’d be next. I wasn’t. Not until some blond, middle-aged woman came over to me and said, “Richard” (for I’d called myself Richard Mears), “you’re on next. After this act, just make your way down the other side of the hall, and the stage manager will show you to your spot.”

Suddenly I wanted my mummy, and all to soon was given the choice of a hand-held or free-standing microphone instead. “Wait for your cue,” I was told. It came, I started, and another lead life-jacket hit the ocean floor.

Consistent to the end, I’d chosen to do “The Secret Service Poet”, which cries out at every line to be performed, and merely recited it. Worse still, it starts “Shhh! If my appearance surprises you, whatever you do don’t show it” and I was the most sensibly dressed person there! (All dressed in my black theatre front-of-house vol-ing clothes and a borrowed bright red bow tie) And then the poem was evidentally too short, as I had to tell them that I’d finished!!

Arrrrrrrrrghh!!! {again}

Still, I’d done it. Me, who’d never performed since the age of seven. And when I’d announced I’d finished, I had even been given a round of applause at least on par with my fellow failure, the comedian. And not a single thrown tomato! And when I retook my seat, I was in such a good mood I even spoke to somebody!!

What’s that you ask? Would I ever do it again? No. No…no…no…and a thousand, million, zillion times maybe.

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©John Steele 1991, 2011, 2016

End of Forever

Lyric by Worzel

Oh Welcome To My Chamber,
The Horrors Lie Inside.
Welcome To My Nightmare,
But Who Will Be Your Guide?

Walking Through The Darkness,
Then Blinded By The Light.
Standing In Total Bewilderment,
Astounded By The Sight.

Is This The End?
End Of Forever.
Is This The End Of Forever?

What You See Before You
Is Nothing But The Truth.
You See An Old Man Trembling,
It’s You, You’ve Lost Your Youth.

You See Your Execution,
You See Yourself Lie Dead.
You See Yourself Drawn And Quartered,
You See Them Lose Your Head.

You See Them Carry Your Coffin,
You See Them Dig Your Grave.
You See Them Slowly Lower You,
And On Your Tombstone Engrave:

HE WAS A MAN LIKE MANY.
BUT HE TAMPERED ONCE TOO MUCH.
AND LIKE MANY OTHER MEN HE.
ENDED LIFE AS SUCH.

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016

Ode to Bentilee

Poem by Barbara Jones

On top of Bentilee I stand
Surveying green and pleasant land
Humanity is heaving here
A lot of things that I hold dear.

The old folk in the pension queue
Who smile and ask me “How are you?”
Where people chat and pass the time
For the shop to open dead on nine.

The jumble sales, the late night shops
To get the things that you forgot
The Doctor’s and the Volunteers
Whose work goes on throughout the year.

The councillors, the CAB
Those who help the likes of me
The chip van, and the garden club
The library, the centre hub.

The playscheme, and the Willfield site
The disco on a Thursday night
The churches and the works they do
To make life easier for you.

But most of all the people here
That all these workers serve
They’re what make our Bentilee
The greatest place on Earth.

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016

The Countryside in February

Article by Kevin Strider

In “The good old days” Candlemass Day, 2nd February, was counted as the mid-point of Winter, more cold weather was to come and the animals still had half the farmer’s hay store left, enought to see them through the season.
During this month, if the weather is mild, and the ground is not frozen solid, this is the opportune time to sow the wheat and barley.

The ground must be fertilised as well, of course, and this is done with a mixture of dung and straw. The fertilizer provides the young leaves, of the wheat and barley, with necessary nitrogen that they need for healthy green leaves.

ANIMALS TO WATCH OUT FOR

GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. This beautiful bird can be located by the sound of its distinctive tapping away at trees. This tap-tap-tap, is quite rapid and loud and can be heard throughout the months February – April. The tapping is actually a territorial warning to other birds, but it is also used to dig out and feed on the grubs and other insects that live in the tree.

TAWNY OWL. Probably one of the more familiar birds of our woods and forrests. its familiar “to-whit to-whoo” call is unmistakeable. Actually the call doesn’t come from the one bird alone but is two separate calls from the male and female. It is a nocturnal bird, (it hunts at night), but if forced by harsh conditions and a shortage of food, it will also hunt by day.

KESTREL. This bird is becoming well established in our countryside. It can be seen hovering in the air, waiting for its next meal. Like the tawny owl it is a bird of prey and feeds on small mammals that are found in the grass far below.

MOLE. Everybody knows the tell-tale signs of a mole, that unmistakeable mound of earth called a molehill that is the excavation of a mole’s burrow. Moles live a solitary life, scouting the tunnels of their homes for worms, and only pair-up in the mating season.

WINTER GNAT. This insect, that doesn’t bite, looks like a small crane fly (daddy-long legs). It can be seen dancing in swarms on wintery afternoons, it can also be spotted after a snowfall.

DUNNOCK. This is a fairly common bird and a small ground feeder. It has a wren like call, that is heard between February and July.

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016
Please note: Kevin was still using the name Kevin Griffith when this was written but I have changed it here to avoid confusion.

Hot Tips for Cold Weather

Hat Tip{s}

Always wear a hat (or head scarf), when venturing out on cold, cold days. And if you don’t have one (and the budget will stretch that far), buy one! {But not like the one pictured here!!!)

Take a tip from tramps

If after doing the usual stuff of heating only one room, blocking draughts, and having plenty of hot drinks and meals, you still feel the chill, try sticking newspaper under your clothing. Paper (of any kind) is a great heat retainer.

Foiling heat loss

Aluminium cooking foil placed behind radiators will reduce heat loss through outside walls, significantly.

Self-care for Colds and ‘Bugs’

1. Stay in! Bed, preferably. The body needs as much rest as possible to fight infection, but if this is not possible, at least get an early night.
2. For sore throats, gargle with a solution of either salt or cider vinegar (2 teaspoons to half a cup in either case).
3. Vitamin C. Whether you swear by it, or at it, plenty of this can do no harm. Either as tablets, oranges, orange juice, grapes or other fresh fruit.
4. Medicated sweets can soothe a sore throat, but (if expense is a problem) ordinary boiled sweets are a good substitute.
5. Avoid alcohol. It may give you a ‘warm feeling’ but it actually reduces your resistance to infection, and makes you more susceptable to the cold.

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016
At last! An editorial piece that doesn’t seem to have gone out of date.

Posted in Article, Editorial | Tagged 1992, Mini--Mag Issue 2, Page 4 | Leave a comment

News n Views – Mini-Mag Issue 2

Posted on October 23, 2016 by John

News n Views….News n Views….News n Views….

PENSIONER’S POETIC PLEA
FOR RIGHT TO DIGNITY

When the chairman of Age Concern, Sir Roy Griffins, came to visit the Bentilee Volunteers’ group B.E.S.T. (Bentilee Exchange Skills Together), local pensioner Mrs. Irene Harper-Smith handed him a poetic plea to give to Chancellor Rt. Hon. Norman Lamont.

The poem, called simply “Aggravation”, outlines her heartfelt plea for pensioners to be able to spend their last years in dignity and not have to wade through government bureacracy, or wait on government charity, for every penny they get.

Mentioned in the Sentinel’s reporting of Sir Roy’s visit, the poem is here printed in full — Another Bentilean Exclusive!

Aggravation

Wouldn’t it be simpler to pay a decent pension
Instead of sending papers too numerous to mention
Information on the telly and piles behind the door
Inquire and there’s no answers, it goes on forevermore
We get older by the minute — are we jamming up the works
Waiting every April for another little perk
It never solves the problems or keeps up with inflation
Is it the intention to decimate a nation
Surely we have the right to
Be
To spend the last years with
Dignity

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016

Posted in Editorial, Poetry | Tagged 1992, Irene Smith, Mini--Mag Issue 2, Page 3 | Leave a comment

The Day IT Landed ?

Posted on October 23, 2016 by John

Article by John Steele

IF YOU THOUGHT that UFOs were things only pilots, ‘nuts’, or Americans saw — on lonely, untravelled roads — think again! For on September 2nd, 1967, at least eight people (two women and six children) saw something in the Bentilee sky which could only be described as ‘unEarthly’….

It all began just after 9pm when a group of children were playing outside a house on Beverley Drive, opposite Wendling Close, when one of them noticed a strange, brightly glowing object in the night sky.

“There’s a flying saucer!” shouted one of them, a David McCue. And then the first of the two women came onto the scene.

“Look at that thing in the sky!” shouted a Mrs Stevenson to her neighbour, Mrs Bowen.

The object travelled above the rooftops, over the Close, towards the fields behind. Said Mrs Stevenson, in an interview with UFO researchers Stanway & Pace afterwards, “It was a scarlet glow and dome-shaped…. It was like a wind when it came over but there was no sound.”

According to the author of the book “UFO: Flying Saucers Over Britain” (Robert Chapman, Mayflower Paperbacks 1974/75) — from which most of this information has been gleaned — all the eye-witnesses were agreed about the general shape of the object: dull, orange-coloured disc with a dome that glowed such an intensely bright red that, according to Mrs Stevenson, the entire field “looked as though it was on fire — like a bonfire.”

Running toward the spot where the UFO was thought to have landed, the children and two women (the latter now with the protection of a dog) were prevented from getting too close because of marshy ground. Fear, though, slowly overcame curiosity, and the women turned back to call the police.

Unfortunately, when they arrived, the object had gone, ‘hedge-hopping from one field to the next, before “going out”‘. The subsequent police search proved fruitless, and they gave up, according to the book, “laughing and joking about the whole business”. But as they left a man called out from an upper window saying he could see a bright yellowy light rising from the fields. Later the police agreed they’d seen the light, but said it had “gone out as they turned to look at it”, and dismissed it as probably just a car headlight.

Researchers returning six months later though concluded that indeed an object had been seen, by multiple eye-witnesses, that the object had caused the on-lookers fear and anxiety, and that all who’d seen it were agreed that it was something “completely unknown in their experience and could not be explained.”

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016

Posted in Article | Tagged 1992, John Steele, Mini--Mag Issue 2, Page 2 | Leave a comment

News & Editorial

Posted on October 23, 2016 by John

The Bentilean mini-mag No. 2

3rd February, 1992

LOCAL SHOP’S
PLEDGE
LIFELINE FOR
HOUSEBOUND

EIGHT OUT OF THE ELEVEN major local food shops have pledged a lifeline delivery service for the housebound and elderly in the cold weather.

Said the manager of Devonshire Square’s Kwik Save superstore, “I don’t know what the policy of Kwik Save’s as an whole, but as long as I’m the manager, we’ll be happy to deliver [in such circumstances].”

The other shops echoed similar sentiments — with some adding that they provided the service as part of the Bentilee Volunteers’ Winter Warmers scheme.

Editorial: Mini-mag’s ‘Tragedy of Errors’

When I took this mini-mag to be photocopied last Friday,
I thought “Great! Finished at last, on time, and with no mistakes!!”

Wrong. Finished on time, with one mistake and two omissions —
Arrrrrrgh!!! (as I say elsewhere.)

So here it is, three days later, but absolutely, indisputable,
error-free! (But don’t quote me.)

JS — The Bent’ Ed’

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Copyright The Bentilean 1999, 2016

Posted in Editorial | Tagged 1992, Mini--Mag Issue 2, Page 1 | Leave a comment

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