28 April 2021

Editor: Sally Bundock Dear All In this issue: What’s New We are all now moving forward hopefully to branches being able to meet up again. Please do forgive me including the news item on page 4 but it is to serve as a reminder that we are not out of the woods yet by any means, so we still

need to take. Because things are opening up or will be from June onwards I just wanted to let you know that regrettably this publication will have to be less

frequent, as I will have to spend more of my time visiting branches and trying to open up new ones. On the plus side, it will be good to meet up with folk again.

I would like to use this space to remind you about our Facebook page. Many of you I know already participate but if you have not tried it yet then the invitation is

there for you. Also, may I remind everyone that the Conference event is planned

for October in Manchester and I hope to see many of you there.

As you may have guessed I have a special interest in saving our planet and its flora and fauna. I’m continuing to promote my book Daniel’s Magic Tree to support Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital and was able to send £100 to them last week so thanks to those of you who have already purchased the book to help me

with this. If you would like now to support with future donations, please just visit

the Amazon website to buy the book.

And finally, the answers to last issue’s quiz. 1. Nicola Sturgeon 2. Ed Milliband

3. Boris Johnson 4. Nigel Farage 5. Nick Clegg 6. Donald Trump.

Update on Live Talks Remember folks. Registration is pretty easy - please just visit

www.mirthy.co.uk/NHSRF and you will just need to enter your name and your

email address for the talk you wish to register for and then you will receive an email from Alex with a link to click at the start of the talk. Live chat starts just after 10.45am with the talk starting at 11am. This together with the Q&A session makes an enjoyable experience. Remember replays are available on demand. Assuming a member registers for a talk they will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the talk live. This same link can be used for 7 days to

watch a replay of the talk on demand.

Details of the next talk are shown on page 6.letter. The next 4 talks planned are: 4 May – 10.45am Endangered Wildlife and Conservation – Shelly Lozano 18 May – 10.45am Eyam: The Plague Village – Chris Green 1 June – 10.45am Under the influence – Andy Smith 15 June – 10.45am Tommy Cooper – Steve Short Page 1 of 6

Dad, are we pyromaniacs? Yes, we arson.

What do you call a pig with laryngitis? Disgruntled. Some lovely puns from Monica Sado, Why do bees stay in their hives during winter? Swarm. Brent Branch If you’re bad at haggling, you’ll end up paying the price.

Just so everyone’s clear, I’m going to put my glasses on.

A commander walks into a bar and orders everyone around.

I lost my job as a stage designer. I left without making a scene.

Never buy flowers from a monk. Only you can prevent florist friars.

How much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced? A buccaneer.

I once worked at a cheap pizza shop to get by. I kneaded the dough.

My friends and I have named our band ‘Duvet’. It’s a cover band.

Dear All I lost my girlfriend’s audiobook, and now I’ll never hear the end of it.

Please be Whyadvised is ‘dark’ that spelledall employees with a planningk and not to c? dash Because through you thecan’t snow see in athe one dark.-horse open sleigh, going over the fields and laughing all the way, are required to undergo a Risk Assessment addressing the safety of open sleighs. TheWhy assessment is it unwise must to share also yourconsider secrets whether with ait clock?is appropriate Well, time to willuse tell.only one horse for such a venture, particularly where there are multiple passengers. Please note that permission must also be obtained in writing from landownersWhen I toldbefore my their contractor fields mayI didn’t be entered.want carpeted To avoid steps, offending they gave those me not a blank participating stare. in celebrations, we request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance.

Bono and The Edge walk into a Dublin bar and the bartender says, “Oh no, not U2 again.”

Prison is just one word to you, but for some people, it’s a whole sentence.

On this day by Susan Gunning, The Royal Marsden Branch

Births: 1442 Edward IV, King of England 1461-1483 1758 James Monroe, 5th President of USA 1908 Oskar Schindler, German industrialist who saved many Jews from the Holocaust

1916 Ferruccio Lamborghini, car designer

1922 Alistair MacLean, novelist

Deaths: 1865 Samuel Cunard, founder of Cunard shipping line

1945 Benito Mussolini, Italian Dictator 1992 Francis Bacon, Painter 28th

Events: 1770 James Cook lands at Botany Bay, Australia April 1789 Mutiny on HMS Bounty 1892 First performance of ‘Carnival Overture’ by Antonin Dvorak 1923 Opening of Wembley Stadium 1935 Opening of Moscow’s underground railway 1937 First commercial flight across the Pacific 1965 Debut performance by Luciano Pavarotti, La Scala, Milan

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The was formed

at the end of the First World War.

Steve Greaves recounts the history of the RAF and its development links with

Cambridge. Sir with Alex Henshaw 1942. Picture: Imperial War Museum. For more than 100 years the Royal Air Force has Another RAF link to Cambridge is Marshalls played a crucial role in the defence of Britain and of Newmarket Road, Cambridge who have enjoyed a British military interests abroad and for most of that hard-won contract to service RAF planes for many time people in Cambridgeshire have been closely years, working more recently on the Lockheed C-130 involved with development and maintenance of the Hercules transport aircraft which are often seen service aircraft. gracing the skies over Cambridge.

From the early days of the RAF story Marshalls, one of the largest employers in Cambridgeshire has played a significant part in its Cambridge, were also heavily involved in developing history and one of the many famous names to and maintaining the Vickers Valiant aircraft which emerge from this close association was was part of Britain’s V-Force bomber command Cambridgeshire man Alex Henshaw, who was born in during the Cold War years, the others being the in 1912 and became a flying legend Vulcan and the Victor. Development and during the Second World War. maintenance were not the only roles performed by Marshalls during the RAF’s Second World War duties: Mr. Henshaw was originally a prizewinning their flying training organisation had at one point racing pilot but during the War he became one of around 180 aircraft, mostly Tiger Moths and the RAF’s leading test pilots and is said to have Magisters, and a maximum of 240 pupils at one tested up to 10% of all Spitfires and Seafires time. The company trained more than 20,000 pilots including 20 aircraft in one day, mostly in foggy and instructors for the war, of which 700 were conditions. He would also demonstrate the Spitfire trained before the Battle of Britain. to visiting dignitaries, such as Sir Winston Churchill, and once flew the length of Broad Street in at low level to demonstrate its capabilities. He is also the only pilot known to have performed a barrel roll in a Lancaster bomber, a feat that was considered by some to be reckless or impossible due to the aircraft’s size and relatively modest performance. Mr Henshaw, who died in Newmarket in

2007 aged 94, considered enlisting in the Royal Air Force at the start of the Second World War, but instead he became a test pilot for Vickers Armstrong. He subsequently took the rank Work taking place on Valiant aircraft at of sergeant pilot to fly a fully armed Spitfire to Marshalls of Cambridge. defend the factory, if needed, although he was never Picture: Marshalls, Cambridge called upon to fly in combat. Contd. overleaf

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The RAF was formed on April 1st1918 when King George V signed a Royal decree which announced the arrival of the Royal Air Force, formed by merging the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal

Flying Corps. Its arrival on the world stage saw it become the first, and thus the oldest and largest, independent air force to operate separately from control by either the Army or the Navy.

The RAF story actually begins in Bristol when A Box Kite aircraft, one of the first to be built in the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company quantity and a forerunner to the earliest RAF

developed and built their Bristol Box Kite machine in training planes.

July 1910. It sold for £1,000 and 78 were built, but

with no way of defending themselves they were One of its most famous success stories was mostly used for observation and training. of course the triumphant Spitfire, which played such a

Things changed when designer decisive part in the Battle of Britain. The plane was

Roy Chadwick began work with Alliott Verdon-Roe developed from a prototype designed by Reginald

(later universally known as Aviation) and by Mitchell, who originally named his plane the Shrew. The name proved a duff one and failed to impress 1918 he was their chief designer. His work was RAF observers, one of whom said it did not inspire critical to the development of RAF planes throughout th fear in the minds of our enemies. “It doesn’t have the 20 Century and his designs included the enough spit and fire,” he said. From this casual Lancaster for World War II and the later Vulcan V bomber which was used during the throwaway comment came the name synonymous with the Battle of Britain. Falklands war to attack the airfield at Port Stanley in

1982.

Throughout its history the RAF has been at the

forefront of aeroplane design but strangely enough it Original research and presentation done by aero was still using the Gloster Gladiator bi-plane as a enthusiast David Taylor, a Cambridge born fighter in 1940 before it was retired as the service’s amateur historian and speaker.

last bi-plane.

BBC Breakfast – 21 April 2021

Prof Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol and a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), was speaking on BBC Breakfast a little earlier.

He says the prime minister is right to say the UK will see a further wave of Covid-19 cases.

"The models that we've seen on JCVI clearly point to a summer surge in cases as the lockdown is relaxed, because there are still many people in the adult population who've not been immunised and who will therefore start to transmit the infection between each other," he says.

Prof Finn says there is "quite a wide range of uncertainty" over how big the wave will be "because it depends on how quickly the vaccine roll out continues forward, the supplies of vaccine and so on, and how many people come forward to receive vaccination, and also it depends on how people behave as the lockdown is gradually relaxed".

He adds: "The sense that the problem is all over, I'm afraid, is a flawed one, we're still in a vulnerable situation, and there are still significant numbers of people who potentially could be harmed by this infection if this happens."

Page 4 of 6

This is my story during Covid and Lockdown

The Future’s in your Hands

Selvamalar Ratnasingam (aka Ratna) South West Branch

I believe these five

areas are where

most changes have

been made to help

everyone cope.

1. The NHS: this is a free service for all. The NHS has made changes to work practices so that the hospitals can cope with the volume of incoming admissions. All staff had to be fitted with special protective gear in order to attend to the needs of their patients. Treatment and management have changed so much that the workload for the staff increased rapidly leaving them very tired. Their work must somehow be recognised and appreciated by all.

2. World: the world and its economy have also been greatly affected by this pandemic and has taken many people out of the global workforce. Travel has also been affected for many but thankfully there are now new ways for all to keep in touch with family and friends during the lockdowns.

3. Digital: learning how to work in a new world. Resilience and digital fluency are now conceded to be the two most important skills needed in the pandemic era.

4. Banks: All banks have also taken quickly to new methods of working. Provision has been made by friendly bank staff to teach customers how to cope and deal with all banking issues, in a new way.

5. Life: The way of life has changed not just for me but for all, especially senior citizens. The young can learn to adjust quickly but the older generation do need a longer time to adjust to new ways. It is great that there are communities who put on shows, talks, webinars doing craft work and so on to keep us active and in touch, at least virtually for now.

That is why my story started with the saying ‘the future’s in your hands’. It is what one makes of life and of the situation at hand that will give one the mental and physical abilities to succeed and come out of the lockdown and continue with the new world, life changes from then on.

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EAT SUSTAINABLY Good News in my Inbox Will you help to save our planet? Members’ Emails Dear Sally READ THE LIVING PLANET REPORT

This link is to an amazing rendition of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of The latest in WWF’s flagship research Man’s Desiring in a Japanese forest. I saved it from my series, the Living Planet Report, shows FB and thought it might work for electronic versions of letter. https://fb.watch/4T-e-Qv4hb/ (click to watch) that the size of our planet’s wildlife populations have now plummeted by All best wishes 68% since 1970 – and there are no signs Julia Mitchell that this downward trend is slowing. Huntingdon Branch ---ooo--- If the global economy had shrunk by this

Dear Sally much it would be like wiping the top 10 largest economies off the map. I think we are likely to have a full house when we meet Populations of birds, mammals, fish, in June everyone is keen to come back. plants and insects across the world are The link system we set up with each Committee member teetering on the brink. And we have got contacting a small number of members on a regular to this point even faster than we had basis has seemed to work well and I think has helped to dared fear. get to know each other better too. However, to meet in

person will be really good. It has never been more clear, the natural Best wishes world is in freefall.

Joan Walker Royal Berkshire Branch

Next On-line Talk – 4 May

Joan Endangered Wildlife and Conservation

Shelley Lozano

A talk about big cats, endangered wildlife and conservation issues. Shelley is passionate about big cats and wildlife and talks about a number of endangered species, along with some interesting animal facts. Illustrated with beautiful photographs she’s taken on her travels around the world, this is an interesting, informative and educational talk that raises awareness about some of the world’s most endangered wildlife and the threats they face.

Shelley shares her journey and experiences, photos and unique video clips of some of the animals she has encountered, rescue shelters she has visited, and projects she has been involved with over the years in her effort to raise awareness and funds for various wildlife charities.

And finally, keep well everyone. If you would like to contribute to the next issue or you know of anyone who would like to be added to the mailing list or sent a hard copy then please do make contact via phone 07960 425956 or email [email protected]

Sally Bundock Development Officer Page 6 of 6