The Apology from The Editor, & Chairman of SCARS
On behalf of SCARS, I must apologise for our failure to produce any Issues
of CUTTINGS since last Autumn.
As some of you are aware, I am now the Vicar of St Mary’s Church, Lower
Ince, Wigan. The move from Warrington, where I had been for seventeen years,
was looked forward to with some trepidation. Even though the time had come
for me to move on, and even though I was very much looking forward to
starting a new phase of my life and ministry, I quickly found, as the move
approached, that people are right when they describe changing jobs as
traumatic, and moving home as traumatic - and I was doing both at the same
time.
Simply put, the preparations for the move, the aftermath of it, the work of
getting started in a totally different situation, all combined to leave me
in a spin. Extra-parochial activities, of which SCARS is but a part for me,
had to be left on tick-over, and could certainly not be given more time
than ever before.
However, nothing happens in isolation. At the same time as my own schedule
came under intense pressure, other events were turning the screw. The
Housing Association whose Board I sit on has required more meetings in the
past six months, and two people upon whom SCARS, and CUTTINGS, has come to
depend heavily,were unable, for different reasons, to participate as much
as they had before - Richard Chester-Browne has been quite ill (though now,
happily, very much back into the swing of things), and Peter Keen, who
actually did most of the work of Editing CUTTINGS, has been, like many
teachers, facing growing demands on his out-of-school time. There simply
hasn’t been the material, or the people with time enough, to get CUTTINGS
into print during the past six months.
At the AGM, George Bruce came forward with an offer to enter what material
there was onto computer discs, which would at least give me the basis of a
Newsletter. Unfortunately, snags arose over the incompatiblity of programs,
further delaying things.
At last, though, as you can see, we have managed to begin to get sorted out.
I thought there would be no opportunity to include illustrations in this
Issue, however, I’ve ended up with pages to fill, so there are some, but
not intergrated into the text. I have had to squeeze publication into a
hectic schedule in the Parish. For the rest of the world, the end of June
means up to three weeks until the Schools’ Summer Holidays - but not in
Wigan. Here they still have Wakes Weeks which begin in early July - making
June the end-of-term month for Parish activities - the Walking Day, Summer
Fair, Confirmations - and the first weeks of the holidays the opportunity
for Parish Holidays (I’m taking a group from Preston Brook round to Wigan
Pier).
All this only demonstrates how much we need extra people to contribute to
CUTTINGS. If the material is there, it is relatively easy to produce a
Newsletter. If the whole Issue has to be originated without assistance by
the Production Team, delays are inevitable. We hope it will be possible to
produce CUTTINGS regularly from now on - but could you help us, please?
Canal Cuttings Issue 3.4 Index
David@SCARS.demon.co.uk
http://www.blacksheep.org/canals
Web Edition Edited by Phil Long
(http://www.geocities.com/broadway/1701/index.html)