New Freemen Sworn In!

At the Wellington Hotel – Hale Village, on Thursday 29th January the Freemen of Hale, held their Annual Court, Dinner and Swearing in Ceremony of New Freemen of Hale and Hale Bank! Guests included on the evening, The Mayor of Halton-Cllr Kath Loftus, The Deputy Lord Mayor of Liverpool Mr Mike Storey, along with several local villagers at the invitaion of Freemen.

The following gentlemen of Hale and Hale Bank were Sworn in/made Freemen, by the Lord Mayor of Hale, Mr Peter Kelly:

Mr Terence Colquitt.
Mr Thomas Gallagher.
Mr David Kay.
Mr William Stephens.
Mr Ian Trimble.
Mr Tony Wright.

Diggin’ About

Well,, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been stretching me’ legs a bit and going for a walk around the park and the back of the old Warren etc.. There’s not been much happening in the village to write about, so that’s why the blog entries have been thin on the ground.
Now and again numerous things catch my eye, while out, such as people freely walking and letting their hounds crap all over Dave Harrisons Fields between the Ice House and the Cricket pitch, along with the odd dirt-bike track spotted through the woods up to the Ice House (where’s Mrs Evans with her whistle-when you need her),,, but 99% of the time that is all the action there is in that area!?
Today (Wednesday 28th Jan) I went for a walk, through the park. First port of call was to see how the lads are getting on with the improvements such as the playground, as usual, they were busy with all sorts of things from erecting the new equipment, to levelling off the ground and pathways. While having a chinwag to one of them,, I noticed a gentleman over by the new dog walking area acting odd. I then noticed he was metal-detecting.. So,, knowing me,, owt to do with this sort of thing, especially in the park,, I wandered over.. I thought he must have found something by now, he had,, musket balls and plenty of them too. While talking to this friendly chap for around 10 to 15 minutes he continued to scan the ground with his detector, the next thing, it started beeping again, after a few minutes of removing the earth,, he found an old Coco Cola can.. The next thing,, it beeped again, so he started the process of filtering the soil from around the item,, it was another musket ball, this time it was in a rougher state than the others. We banded a couple of possibilities around of their origin and then it dawned on me,, these musket balls could be from the re-enactment during the 2000-Millennium Carnival, when we had all the soldiers dressed up in Civil war uniform and camped out in tents etc.. We then joked,, “what a load of balls”, he could have found something more interesting or of historical value from the Hall in it’s hey-days!? -:) -:)
Anyway,, I left this chap detecting away – and carried on with me’ walk. I walked from the old cricket pitch down past the Warren to the stream, using the permissive footpaths.. It was nice to see that the daffs and Bluebells are starting to show, no doubt people will be picking them soon once they are out?
Not connected with the musket balls but with me’ walks,, I have been waying up the land around the old tennis courts and Hale Hall ruins-down to the ladypool brook, along with trying to mentally place and remember were certain old trees are and rhododendron bushes remain etc.. Why?…… Well,, quite odd this, but do read on.. For the last 12 months or more I have been attempting to make a diorama of Hale Hall and it’s surroundings, from borrowing images off Larry and Peter, old photo’s off locals and a map drawn free-hand by Arnold Cox, this diorama thingy is starting to take shape now.. So far I have actually, to some standard, constructed the entire Hale Hall in 00 scale(Hornby size)! This idea was born out of curiosity from images on the village website and wondering what a 3D model would look like. After a false start, Peter Hatton kindly let me borrow a scale plan he had drawn up,, around 35/40 years ago of the South Front of the Hall while it was still standing – that use to face the river. From this,, I have managed to work off it and get a near to scale model of the Hall it’ self… Larry Morgan let me have an old map of Lancashire on cd-rom that you can zoom into. This map thing actually lets you zoom in that close to Hale,, you can zoom in, to the parkland and buildings of the Hall,, it even has trees marked on it!
So far, after 2 or 3 month break from it,, the Hall is constructed and now I am working on the landscape along with were Mal lives at Hale Hall Gardens and Cerri in old Mrs Evans cottage-Orchard Dell..
So in more ways than one,, there’s a bit of digging been going on around the parkland!? -:)
Watch this space as they say…

EasyJet Add 9 New Routes From UK Airports

EasyJet announced January 6th that it will launch nine new routes from UK regional airports this summer. As part of the expansion, it will base an additional aircraft at Liverpool Airport from June 1 and at Manchester Airport from August 4.

The new routes, start dates, days of operation, are as follows:

Newcastle to Malta, 2 April, Monday, Friday.
Bristol to Corfu, 22 May, Monday.
Bristol to Bastia, 24 May, Sunday.
Liverpool to Dubrovnik, 2 June, Tuesday, Friday, Sunday.
Liverpool to Naples, 1 June, Monday, Wednesday.
Liverpool to Bordeaux, 2 June, Tuesday, Thursday, Sat.
Manchester to Corfu, 4 May 09 (7 August 09), Monday (Monday, Friday).
Manchester to Athens, 1 August, Wednesday, Sat.
Manchester to Bastia, 9 August, Sunday.