NWN-291020

NEWBURYNEWS LETTERS

Thursday, October 29, 2020 16

Newbury Weekly News

Your views POST : Newspaper House, Faraday Road, Newbury, RG14 2AD EMAIL editor@newburynews.co.uk talk to us Email letters to editor@newburynews.co.uk with your full name, a terrestrial address and daytime phone number. DEADLINE: MONDAY NOON

Counciml uststepinto fundfreeschooml eals THIS My Newbury photograph of a rainbow over Northbrook Street was taken by Claire Staples on Sunday. Why not take some inspiration from this and send the Newbury Weekly News and Newburytoday some of your photographs? They can be of anything – your garden, country walks or what your family is doing together during the coronavirus crisis in and around West Berkshire. If you have a picture that you would like to submit for consideration, please send it to dan.cooper@newburynews.co.uk Alternatively, send it to our twitter account @newburytoday using #MyNewbury, but please remember to let us know where the picture was taken and, crucially, by whom. It may then be published online on www.newburytoday.co.uk , or in the Newbury Weekly News , the Newbury and Thatcham Advertiser and our Facebook page. 3,539. That’s the number of children that our Conservative MP Laura Farris decided to let down when she voted against free school meals over the holidays. 3,539. That’s the number of children who face going hungry over the holidays through no fault of their own. That’s the number of children who face being held back and disadvantaged by the decision of our national Government. I think that decision is a disgrace. I am calling on our Conservative executive of our local council to step in where our national Government failed and step up to fund the free school meals for the 3,539 children in West Berkshire who are at risk of going hungry over the school holidays. No child in our day and age should be hungry. No child has made that choice, but our Government and our MP have. If you feel the same, speak up and make yourself heard. STUART GOURLEY Speen Splitting 50 per cent of our food bills in Cornwall with the Chancellor accentuated the delights of a stone fired pizza in Padstow. That our local MP voted against providing the poorest children in our region with a basic level of sustenance over their forthcoming holidays, while her party funded excess calories on my holiday now leaves more than a nasty taste in my mouth. Prior to the Covid health emergency, and Government-induced economic crisis, obesity amongst children was seen as a public health emergency. One assumes starving children whose parents have just been made redundant is one way of solving this problem. What do our public health professionals and the catastrophically hopeless Matt Hancock expect them to eat? Cake. CHRIS GABRIEL Bartlemy Road Newbury

MPshouldreconsider hervoteonfreemeals

CHRISTIAVNiewpoint ThedodgyGPSmarathon

TributetoworkofWarGraveCs ommission

Hypocrisoyvermoney formealsforchildren help the poorest in our society. If the motion is brought to the House again I sincerely hope that Laura Farris will reconsider her vote. TERESA DAWES Trent Crescent Thatcham ONE can’t help but note that our MP voted to stop the extra meals for children. In the same way we cannot help but If aid is so accessible, as our MP says it is, then why this week was the West Berks Food Bank appealing for basic items such as instant mash and baked beans? What a contrast to what our MPs were being offered in the House of Commons at the same time last week. Take a look at their generously subsided menu in the Members’ Dining Room. These meals are subsided by the taxpayer. I think the public would far rather ON a six-monthly basis a group from the Hungerford branch of the Royal British Legion visit our town’s cemetery to clean the 13 Commonwealth War Grave headstones and place RBL wooden crosses on the graves. I would like to place on record the excellent work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. All the 13 graves, some going back to 1915, have excellent headstones. There are some which have recently been replaced. I think that it is right and proper to pay tribute to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for the way in which

I HOPE Laura Farris, our MP, in light of the public response, has reflected on her decision to vote against giving meal vouchers to children on free school dinners to use during the holidays. This Government has repeatedly claimed to be committed to reducing child poverty and yet has rejected one of the simplest and quickest remedies to prevent children being hungry. Holiday hunger, an issue before Covid struck, has not been addressed by this Government. Laura Farris argues that the Government has made ample provision to the local authority to provide for families who find themselves in need at this time. However, we all know how much red tape there is in being able to access such funding and the time it can take when often the need is urgent and immediate. As a teacher in this authority for 25 years I know that many parents struggle financially and often go without sufficient food themselves in order to feed their children as well as clothe them and pay the rent. Their lives are a day-to-day struggle at the best of times, but the holidays can be a strain too much. Why is it deemed right to give children a free school meal on school days but not during the holidays? Some children have been sent home to self isolate after there has been a Covid positive test in school. These numbers may well increase during the winter and what happens then to the children amongst them who are on free school meals? The easiest and quickest solution is for the schools to be in a position to issue the meal vouchers to children self isolating and at the end of each term. It is difficult to understand the decision to deny giving the poorest children in our society extra support at this time, particularly as it is such a paltry amount.

I AM one of those people who love the idea of running a marathon, but don’t actually want to put myself through it. I have deep respect for anyone who completes one. Recently, 38,000 took part in the Virtual London Marathon. A phone app tracked their efforts by GPS, so they could confirm they had completed the 26.2 miles. For one woman, though, it didn’t work out quite like that. Unfortunately, the GPS on the app didn’t work properly, so it kept losing her position. By the time it finally registered her time, she had actually walked 49 miles. No wonder she was a bit tired when she got home. It’s often said that life is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s full of ups and downs, joys as well as sorrows. And, like having a dodgy GPS signal, it’s sometimes hard to know how you’re really doing or where you are on the route. It’s easy to feel a bit lost sometimes. As a Christian, though, I know that I’m never out of God’s sight. He sees all that I am; I am constantly in his view. The world wasn’t created and then left to run itself; God doesn’t just sit back and watch things unfold, detached from it all. God is intimately, wonderfully, mysteriously at times, involved in his world. The world is sustained by him; and loved by him. God is big enough to run the universe, and to care individually about you and me. He promises to be with those who trust him and call out to him. He longs for people to know him and receive his saving love through his Son, Jesus Christ. And his GPS never fails. In fact, we could say He works with a different kind of GPS – God’s Promised Salvation. REV JULIAN GADSBY Priest in Charge – Bucklebury, Bradfield and Stanford Dingley Pointsof contact- NewburyNewsLtd Address:NewspapeHrouseF, aradayRoad,Newbuyr, Berks,RG142AD MANAGINGDIRECTORJ:amesGurney (01635)886701,email:james.gunrey@newbuyrnews.co.uk EDITOR:AndyMurrill (01635)886625,email:editor@newbuyrnews.co.uk NEWSEDITOR:DanCooper (01635)886627,emailnewsdesk@newbyunrews.co.uk CHIEFREPORTER:JohnGarvey

they commemorate soldiers, sailors and airmen who died in the service of their country, some over 100 years ago, in such an excellent manner. JOHN PARRY Chairman of Hungerford Branch Royal British Legion note the time that West Berkshire councillor Steve Masters has spent so much time trying to protect trees, such as the 250-year-old pear tree reduced to twigs. Perhaps if we cancelled HS2 we could stop children going hungry in the UK? We have the money to subsidise restaurants and pubs earlier, but not for children. Meanwhile, in the Members’ Dining Room at the House Of Commons you can get chargrilled rib eye steak, with hand cut chips, tomato, mushroom and Bearnaise sauce for £9.19 followed candied figs, whipped cheesecake, crisp meringue for £2.71. Yummy, you can smell the hypocrisy all the way up to Scotland. IAN HALL Ashampstead

Dotheyexpecpt oor childrentoeatcake?

DURING the summer holidays our family were delighted to partake of the extremely generous Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

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My Newbury – in pictures

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