March-April 2021
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MARCH • APRIL 2021 Bengeo Magazine SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF BENGEO, CHAPMORE END AND TONWELL BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 PAGE 2 BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 Bengeo Parish Magazine and Community News Contents Local services adverts 2, 4 and 16 BNAP and Covid Brief 5 Jedidiah and Future Hope 6–7 Help for Families 8 Cook at Home 9 Looking after the River Beane 10–11 Peter Ruffles 100 years as a Councillor and Arts Trail 12–13 Knitting for the Lister, Christmas Quiz Answers, Children’s Society 14 Bengeo Lives; ‘Kenneth’ Mansfield 15 Tonwell School News 17 Bengeo School News 18 Mill Mead School News 19 Duncombe School News 21 Photo: Pam Thain. A Word from the Rectory 22–23 Another month of lockdown has passed and we Church Services 23 have seen more community support for vulnerable Prayers for November and December 24 families and restaurants and pubs adapting to the Contacts Page 25 new conditions by offering meals to cook at home or delivering takeaways. Editorial Team Carrie Bone writes about the Jedidiah charity, Items for the magazine should be sent to started by Bengeo resident Cynthia Stroud, which [email protected] has gone from strength to strength during Copy dates for 2021 lockdown and is delivering vital food boxes to Items should be sent by the middle of the month families as far away as Enfield. Karen and Adam at preceding publication. the White Lion and those at Hertfood are offering Advertising much needed food to families in the area. People Please address all advertising enquiries to have been supporting these ventures with offers of [email protected] produce, groceries and donations. Distribution Bengeo: Pam Martin Street-based social media groups are helping the Tonwell: Pat Lavis housebound and those who find it difficult to get The magazine can be delivered to your door for a out to local shops and now that the Co-op has been subscription of £6.00 per year. Contact Pam Martin, phone closed for refurbishment, the shop has organised a 01992 422441, to ask about obtaining the magazine. collection service for those who cannot easily get to Individual issue: £1.00. shops at a distance. Cheques payable to: ‘Bengeo Magazine’ or pay by BACS There are some good things to come out of Covid! to Bengeo Magazine, 20-05-73, 53580091. 6 issues per year: January/February; March/April; The Editorial Team May/June; July/August; September/October; November/December. Front cover photograph: The magazine is printed by MSPC Ltd, Unit 10, A foretaste of Spring – bluebells in St John’s Wood, Hartham View Industrial Estate, Hartham Lane, Bengeo Hertford, Hertfordshire SG14 1QN. PAGE 3 BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 Local Services PAGE 4 BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 Moving towards a referendum on the Bengeo Neighbourhood Area Plan Great news on the Neighbourhood Plan responses to planning Neighbourhood Plan! application include those for the proposed The independent development of three new homes off Port Hill, and a examination of the Plan proposal to extend a listed building on Port Hill. (by a Chartered Town These, and all the Neighbourhood Plan responses to Planner) concluded in planning applications, can be viewed on the Love December 2020. In his Bengeo website. report, the Examiner Another update on the Neighbourhood Plan will be recommended that, given in the next edition of the Bengeo Magazine. subject to his Brenda Heninghem amendments, the Plan could proceed to public referendum. COVID-19 vaccination update The Neighbourhood Plan has planning policies on The four surgeries of Hanscombe House, New local green spaces, important views, nature River Health [Castlegate and Church Street conservation, air quality, community and cultural branches], Wallace House and Watton Place facilities, important buildings, sustainable travel, and Clinic have some advice for your vaccination at residential and commercial development. All the Hertford Theatre for those in the relevant policies have been the subject of extensive groups who have been invited to attend. community consultation as well as scrutiny by Arrive on time – you do not need to come early! relevant public bodies and organisations. We will only allow the person who is having the The Examiner agreed with the community’s vaccination into the Theatre, unless they need a proposal to give additional protection to eight local primary carer. This is to keep infection risk to a green spaces, including Millmead Park, a section of minimum. Bengeo Field, St Leonard’s Garden, and the former Parking is at St Andrew’s car park; people with a railway line near Port Vale. He also agreed with the disabled badge can park either there or on the proposal to give additional protection to eight yellow lines outside the Theatre. important views, including several across Bengeo Field and Hartham Common, as well as the view Please do not attend if you feel unwell on the across Beane Marshes from Beane Road bridge. day. Contact the surgery to say you are unwell Eighteen out of the twenty planning policies and check if you can still attend. proposed by the community were approved by the DO NOT come for your vaccination if you are Examiner (with some amendments). The Plan can be displaying Covid-like symptoms – a high viewed on www.lovebengeo.org.uk/blog. Regular temperature; a new continuous cough and/or a Neighbourhood Plan updates are also available on loss of smell. Ring 111 or go to 111.nhs.uk. Also the ‘Love Bengeo’ Facebook and Twitter pages. cancel your appointment. Hopefully, the referendum, scheduled for the 6th You must, of course, wear a face mask and keep May, will go ahead. If we vote in favour of the 2 metres apart. Neighbourhood Plan, it will mean that the planning No appointment, no vaccination. We use every policies will be given equal weight in planning single dose of vaccine each day. In the unlikely decisions to the policies in the East Herts District event there are a few vaccines left at the end of Plan. If the referendum is delayed, the the day, patients who are next on the list are Neighbourhood Plan can still be given significant contacted and asked to come to the Theatre for weight in decision-making on planning applications their vaccination. that are relevant to the policies within it. Recent PAGE 5 BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 Before last year, Bengeo Resident, 38 year old parcel came to mind, as she didn't want to Cynthia Stroud hadn’t worked in charity before, disappear. working as a baker at her cake shop, Pretty The food parcels she gave had a good reaction, Gorgeous Cake Company and appearing on BBC2 receiving notes of appreciation. and the Food Network as a TV food judge. From there, Cynthia looked for others who needed Since then, she has embarked on a mission to feed feeding and got in touch with local schools to ask if the hungry and her charity, Jedidiah, has been they had children who needed a food parcel, and expanding at a rapid rate. from the reaction of what started as a one off with It started in January 2020 when she began 100 families, made clear this wasn't the case. volunteering at the YMCA Peartree to help the “It became clear the need was there, so I did it again, homeless, after approaching them initially to run although I was struggling financially as my cake cookery classes once a week, “not just to feed them, business and all income was on hold; it was test of but to teach them” she says. faith to do this,” she says. “I knew I had to feed people but didn’t know how.’ Cynthia tells of families reaching out in desperation she adds. to schools, with some head teachers paying for Every Friday, she would show them how to cook groceries out of their own pockets and realised the and also eat with them, but when the pandemic need was greater than she first perceived. struck and the country went into lockdown the “What if I need the money myself?” she asked visits took a hit, from there the idea of a food herself, but she says God wanted her to do it again, PAGE 6 BENGEO PARISH MAGAZINE AND COMMUNITY NEWS | MARCH • APRIL 2021 and by the end of September there were 165 “God keeps meeting what we need, it was a families signed up. When the schools went back, it challenge of faith, I had 80% of what I had left, exploded further and continued to grow every income vanished with pandemic and this is what week. God wanted me to do, I felt sick and cried when I In January the most recent lockdown brought on spent the money,” she says. another 1200 families, with numbers now at almost Cynthia recognises that it is important for people 3500 families being fed every fortnight and who may be in need to remain anonymous, the extended out into Enfield. schools act as a veil between them and the charity. With a growing number of food parcels to package, Cynthia doesn’t expect demand for the food parcels it became clear that the operation would need to to end any time soon, expecting 9-12 months for the move to bigger premises, having been operating economy to right itself. out of Bengeo Club, and taking over the whole Not matter what area people are living in, there will place. be families that need the support.