Editor's blog: Campaigners show their passion
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The end of another busy week nears with the
silly season and bank holidays well and truly behind us. A week ago
I attended a lavish end of season dinner hosted by Lashings at the
Marylebone Cricket Club (aka Lord’s). As I surveyed the array of
world class players mingling with the hundreds of supporters and
sponsors bedecked in dinner suits and fabulous dresses I thought
how remarkable that all this emanates from a bar-restaurant up
Lower Stone Street back in Maidstone.
We now know that Maidstone United shareholder
Oliver Ash has take ultimate control of the club from Paul
Bowden-Brown. Hopefully that secures its future, in the short to
medium at least, but wouldn’t have been interesting to see David
Folb bring his Lashings philosophy and business dynamism to the
town’s football club?
To Invicta Barracks on Tuesday for the annual
Beating Retreat hosted by 36 Engineers. Last year’s event became a
victim of the weather and we all had to huddle in the large
stairwell area of the officers’ mess to hear a curtailed
performance from the Band of the Corps of the Royal Engineer. No
problems this time around as we were treated to a glorious late
summer evening so my only very minor complaint was that the music
started too late, resulting in the excellent musicians marching in
near pitch darkness towards the end. Otherwise a thoroughly
enjoyable evening and while Chatham House rules tend to apply at
these things I will reveal that our commanding officer Lt Simon
Hulme is a very keen runner. Perhaps obsessively so, suggested one
or two of his colleagues. Consequently, “we do a lot of running”,
bemoaned one officer.
We expected Thursday night’s meeting on
maternity and children’s services to be a well attended and lively
affair and we weren’t disappointed on either front. In fact it was
probably even more impassioned than we had predicted. It didn’t
take long to warm up, thanks mainly to chairman John Warnett
inviting NHS bosses to address the meeting first. James Thallon,
West Kent medical director, got people’s temperatures up by
suggesting that they would not have proposed the changes if they
thought any patient would be put at increased risk and that he
believed this “from the bottom of his heart”. A spokesman from the
ambulance service stated that average journey times between
Maidstone and Pembury hospitals was 24 minutes. Maidstone
councillor Annabelle Blackmore countered this by saying actual
transfer times would be nearer an hour.
Local GP Paul Hobday was on fantastic form and
formed a great partnership with the more measured but no less
powerful tones of consultant Jonathan Goodman. Both dismantled
virtually every statement put forward by the NHS bosses. In the
event, in term of the argument and debate, it was a resounding
victory for the protesters. We understand a video of the
meeting will be sent to health secretary Andrew Lansley -
let's hope he watches it.
Friday, September 10 2010
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