Their timing needs perfecting, but such is life. The rain was unhelpful for the South of England Show, and the Wivelsfield Church Fete held at Ote Hall on Saturday, could have done without the morning rain and force 8 gale blowing. On the plus side, the crops are having a jolly good soaking, so badly needed.
The D-Day commemorations recalling the events which took place 75 years ago were deeply moving.
The veterans who attended, now in their 90s, are part of an extraordinary generation of soldiers, sailors and airmen who responded to the ‘call to arms’ when they went to war, defending King and country, and the wider world.
They came from across the globe, from all walks of life, and came as one brotherhood. They put down the tools of their trades, and picked up arms to protect their loved ones, and the sovereignty of their nations.
Many had been part of the War effort since 1939. Their final battle was to free the French from the oppression and savagery of the German invasion, and the liberation of Europe. Too many perished, some returned deeply scarred.
It is fitting that we continue to remember and thank those who came to fight for our freedom, independence, sovereignty and future generations.
How depressing to read reports that many of today’s obese teenagers show the same signs of heart risk as older adults. Their arteries are already stiffened, and it is likely that they will experience heart disease at an early age.
During the war years and afterwards when food was rationed, few people died of illnesses associated with overeating and becoming overweight or obese. Diets were frugal as often the shelves were empty, and sugar a lurking poison, was scarce.
The comparison between then and now are stark. We are reminded how hard it was for mothers to feed their families, and their men folk were away at War, many never to return.
There was little money, and a scarcity of food compared with today’s overflowing supermarket shelves, multitude of food banks, state aid and shocking mountains of wasted food. Our mothers and grandmothers who lived through those years could teach us all a thing or two.
It is worth noting that after the War and into the 1950s, 60s and 70s, families spent 30 per cent of weekly income on food; today that figure is less than 10 per cent.
Today the result of a plentiful supply of cheap mass produced and over processed food, is a population engulfed by an epidemic of people of all ages who are overweight, obese and inactive. An escalating problem resulting in many dying relatively young.
The government seems unable to grasp how best to deal with this mounting problem. Healthy eating and more exercise must be encouraged to curb this plague costing multiple lives, and the National Health Service £billions. It would be revolutionary, divisive and unpopular but could food rationing be the answer?
Ian Birrell has reported on famine in East Africa and poverty on three continents. He was commissioned by the Mail on Sunday to see if starving children really do stalk the streets of the UK as stated by the UN’s Special Rapporteur, Dame Emma Thompson and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He has found that the definition of ‘food insecurity’ is very elastic, stretching from grinding starvation through to simply eating too few vegetables.
The figure of 2.5 million children living in ‘food insecure’ households relies on questionable 2014 data – yet was used by the Food Foundation report recently launched by Dame Emma Thompson, who attacked ‘positively Dickensian’ levels of child poverty.
Ian Birrell’s conclusion is that these and other reports are little more than politically motivated fiction.
here to edit.