Andy Murray’s Wimbledon tennis win, King’s Lynn Festival, Springwood High School, RAF Marham: Lynn News lookback
Here’s the weekly nostalgia round-up, Tuesday, July 25:
Cast members of Armadadrama, which traced events leading up to the attempted Spanish invasion and the great sea battle, are pictured backstage before the show’s first performance at Lynn Arts Centre in July 1989.
The children’s musical drama, with its young performers from West Norfolk schools, featured in the King’s Lynn Festival programme. Steering a course through a virtually unknown and potentially perilous musical was no easy matter, but the young crew made a “spirited and plucky fist of it” said the Lynn News’ reviewer. Photo: MLNF-896108
On this week: July 23–29, 2013:
RAF Marham’s 31 Squadron has returned to West Norfolk after an 18-week deployment to Afghanistan. The Tornado squadron flew hundreds of vital missions and personnel also made good use of their off-duty time raising money for Scotty’s Little Soldiers and the Norfolk Hospice Tapping House. Wing Commander Rich Yates, the squadron’s commanding officer, said the squadron, also known as Goldstars, had made a tangible contribution to enabling the ongoing and successful transition towards the Afghan forces taking full responsibility for security. It has also been announced that 2016 will see RAF Marham become the new home of the famous Dambusters 617 Squadron which is currently based at Lossiemouth in Scotland.
Grasstrack racing in a West Norfolk field kick-started Martin Brundle’s career and set him on the path to Formula One fame. It also fuelled a lifelong passion for the fast cars that have turned him first into a motor racing celebrity in grand prix and then into a TV pundit and commentator. All this and more are detailed in The Martin Brundle Scrapbook, which was launched at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Part biography and part autobiography it tracks his days as a car crazy child to the highs and lows of Formula One racing, good decisions, bad decisions and lost opportunities.
Lynn police are stepping up their patrols of no alcohol zones in the town in a bid to crack down on drinking in public places over the summer. Police community support officers (PCSOs) will be working a different shift pattern during the summer break to increase cover at peak times. Officers will have increased late shifts, working beyond midnight to continue to enforce the designated no alcohol zones in the majority of the town centre and The Walks.
The inaugural Springfest for Year 8 students at Lynn’s Springwood High School has now finished. It was the culmination of the Endeavour programme, a series of nine challenges designed to raise engagement and achievement amongst the children, while encouraging them to go outside their natural comfort zone. More than 90 per cent of the year group were successful in completing the scheme.
An appeal has been made for the return of a bird table stolen from the back garden of a property in Railway Road, Downham. The owner has had it for 16 years and believes it must have been taken away in a car as it is about six foot tall and made of rustic poles and a slate roof, making it extremely heavy.
Ten cars have been damaged by vandals during the last month in incidents reported in Gaywood and Lynn. Some cars have been scratched and others have had wing mirrors damaged. Police are linking some of the attacks in the wrecking spree which have occurred in Eastgate, Goodwins Road and York Road, New Road and Field Lane.
Expansion plans are being made at the Bridge for Heroes contact centre in South Clough Lane, Lynn, which means vital support could be given to hundreds more service personnel. The military charity runs its operations from the upper floor at the centre and during the autumn it could take on the ground floor as well. It provides a lifeline to veterans and serving troops who are suffering from post-traumatic stress, and in May alone there were 350 appointments.
Hundreds of families in Lynn and surrounding villages could face court action after falling behind with rent due to the “bedroom tax”. West Norfolk’s largest social housing provider, Freebridge Community Housing, has 350 tenants who it believes have been forced into debt because of the “tax” which cuts housing benefits for those deemed to have spare bedrooms.
Tennis continues to go from strength to strength in West Norfolk and, with Andy Murray’s Wimbledon success, it is hoped that all the courts across West Norfolk will be full this summer. In June alone more than 200 children aged eight and nine took part in the West Norfolk Tennis Tournament over a week, with the finals held at KES, then a week later 80 children from Years 7, 8 and 9 represented the area at the School Games in Norwich.
