Hustings - the Candidates and Climate Change

 Obviously Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, the Green candidate, had a lot to say on this issue, including pointing out that the Greens have been talking about this for the past fifty years, and the main parties are only now starting to think seriously about it.  She talked about giving rivers legal rights, in the same way that businesses have them now [this has been done successfully in other parts of the world].  Also on the subject of legislation, she mentioned the Rights of Nature Act, which would restore 30% of our land and water back to nature.  There is also a need for research and development funding, and she was appreciative of citizen science, and the need to talk to the people who are actually studying the problems.

David Chadwick for the Lib Dems approached the theme from a farming point of view, talking about more subsidies to encourage farmers to work with nature, and the need to work with farmers.  The Liberal Democrats want to achieve Net Zero by 2045, as the time for action is running out.

Matthew Dorrance, for Labour, mentioned the Australian Food Deal, agreed by the government after Brexit, which is worrying local farmers.  They believe their prices will be undercut by the deal.  He also talked about ensuring that 50% of food bought by the public sector should be from local sources.

Fay Jones, for the Conservatives, described their policy of lengthening the deadlines to act on the climate crisis as "pragmatic".  This would include replacing boilers in homes, and older cars.  She talked about the need to bring climate deniers along with the changes that are necessary by education - Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal agreed with this, and thought that presenting the facts about climate change in a rational way would change hearts and minds.

On the subject of the River Wye, Fay Jones talked about the work she has been doing on cross-border co-operation between the different agencies and authorities involved.  One of the big problems for the River Wye is the phosphate pollution from intensive chicken farming, and she mentioned a pilot scheme on a farm near Builth Wells.  The chicken manure is fed to flies, which are then ground up to make animal food. 

Matthew Dorrance welcomed the announcement of bathing status for the Warren.  He also talked about enforcing tough measures against polluters, and taking away bonuses from the people in the companies responsible for pollution.

David Chadwick said that Ofwat needs 60 extra staff as an emergency measure, and 240 more staff for the agency to work properly to protect rivers.  He also wanted to see representatives from environmental groups sitting on the directors' boards of water companies.

Most people seemed to be against wind turbines, apart from Labour, which has a policy of encouraging offshore wind farms.

All the candidates were concentrating on local solutions to the climate crisis, so none of them really answered the question from  Françoise and Pierre quoting the UN and pointing out that global warming is already heading for 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial norm, and the next eighteen months are crucial for our response to that.  Drastic measures need to be taken, and that means a lot more than trying to educate climate deniers or encouraging sustainable farming.

Hustings - the Candidates and the Benefits System

 There were two main topics that came up in the question session, and rather than plod through the questions one by one, I thought I'd do a general round up of the points that came up.

Fay Jones, for the Conservatives, was working hard to make people believe that people who need benefits are going to be safe in the hands of a future Conservative government.  She mentioned a new payment, energy support payments for people who need to use more electricity than normal (or gas, I suppose), and she also said that the Conservatives have no intention of abolishing PIP, the payment to help disabled people.  She claimed that the Tories have compassion in mind when it comes to benefits and they believe in supporting people in difficult times.*

Matthew Dorrance, for Labour, said that the bedroom tax is a problem for families, and talked about reducing energy bills by a Labour government setting up a new renewable energy company.  Later he talked about the need for a proper living wage.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, for the Greens, talked about her time volunteering at the Citizens' Advice Bureau, and seeing the sort of problems people are facing from that perspective.

The erosion of public services over the last fourteen years was a running theme, as was the increase in the number of food banks.  Matthew Dorrance pointed out that work is no longer a route out of poverty, and there are working people who are forced to use food banks.

The candidates also talked quite a bit about the NHS.  One of Matthew Dorrance's previous jobs was as a care assistant, so he's seen the system from the inside.  He said that health and social care need to be linked.  

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal also said that a more holistic approach was needed, with health and with the benefit system.  She was worried about the way contracts were handed out in the NHS, the recent scandals around PPE during the pandemic, and the increase in privatisation in the health care sector.

David Chadwick for the Liberal Democrats wanted to see more generous benefits, and more money for carers.  He had ideas about how to fund that, involving a wealth tax and a windfall tax on big corporations.

Fay Jones said that funding for the NHS in Wales was a matter for the Welsh government, but wanted to see the systems of record-keeping harmonised across the border for patients who need healthcare in both systems.

Tomorrow, I'm going to cover what was said about the climate crisis and nature, which was the other main topic of the evening.

*[I'm sorry - I'm really trying hard to be objective and report on what the candidates said, but I'm amazed that Fay Jones was able to say this with a straight face.  'Compassion' is the last word I'd associate with the Tory benefit system.]

Hustings at the Globe

 It was a very interesting evening at the Globe last night.  The hall was packed, and fifteen people had asked written questions before the session started.  There wasn't time to get through them all, even though the session ran over time by half an hour.

There are eight candidates for the new constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, but only four of them were able to make it.  Some of the others sent letters of apology, which were available to see at the back of the hall.  I didn't manage to see any of them, because there was quite a crush.

Present on stage were Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, for the Green Party

                                    David Chadwick, Lib Dem

                                    Fay Jones, Conservative

                                    Matthew Dorrance, Labour

The ones who couldn't make it were Emily Durrant- Munro, for Plaid Cymru, Jonathan Harrington for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Adam Hill for Reform and Lady Lily the Pink for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Fay Jones, the Conservative who has been our MP for the last four and a half years, said she was disappointed that the Reform candidate hadn't turned up, because the audience might hate him slightly more than they'd hate her!

Each candidate gave a three minute presentation on what their party stands for, followed by the question session.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal spoke about the nature and climate crisis, and tackling pollution, but also local facilities like libraries and sports facilities.  The Green Party wants to increase Universal Credit, abolish the third child cap on benefits, provide food for school children even during the holidays, improve disability benefits, fund the NHS properly and abolish the right to buy council houses so that more social housing is available.

David Chadwick started with the need to beat the Tories.  He also mentioned the climate, stopping pollution in our rivers, and concern over cuts to public services and the NHS.  The Liberal Democrats would fund public services by raising tax on the wealthy and big business.  He also talked about the need to abide by International Law.

Fay Jones talked about her accomplishments while in office, such as obtaining funding for the Judge's Lodging in Presteigne, Talgarth's Victorian school and the New Radnor Arms at New Radnor.  She identified access to banking services as a problem, and talked about the problems with the River Wye as a cross-border problem, involving several different agencies, which she has been working with.  She is against wind farms.

Matthew Dorrance greeted the audience in Welsh, and emphasised that he is a local boy born and bred, and the amount of experience he has already in serving the local area.  He is the Deputy Leader of Powys County Council, and has been responsible for the council house building scheme across Powys.  He wants to increase the living wage and have a child poverty taskforce.

Matthew Dorrance also mentioned the new part of the Brecon and Radnor constituency - there are seventeen thousand voters in the Upper Swansea Valley, and historically that area has voted most for Plaid Cymru, which should make for an interesting election in an area which has traditionally swung between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.

During the questions, we learned a lot about each candidate's background.  David Chadwick was paralysed for three months, so has personal experience of the disability system, which he wants to be more generous.  His mum was a single parent from Maesteg, so he grew up hearing about the closure of the local mines.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal is trained as a lawyer.  Her family is Sikh, and she also has a lot of experience volunteering locally for the Citizen's Advice Bureau, and working as a substitute teacher in local schools.

Matthew Dorrance's father was a Grenadier Guard, and his mum was a dinner lady, and he said something about doing things to help military veterans that I wasn't quite fast enough to write down, during his work with the County Council.  He's also a friend of the First Minister of Wales, Vaughan Gething.

Fay Jones has a background with the National Farmers' Union, which is why she wanted to represent a rural constituency.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about some of the issues that were raised by the questions from the audience.

Bohemian Folk

 

A new shop opposite the Butter Market .  This shop replaces Pili Pala, which has fluttered away to pastures new.

Morris Dancers

 It was about 9.30pm last night when I heard the accordian.  I looked out of my window to see Foxwhelp Morris dancers performing at the Clock Tower.  (I did take a photo, but it was horrendously blurry).

They did one dance with hankies and two dances with sticks, and finished off at about 10pm.

Before that they had been dancing round the town - in front of Kilvert's and in the Town Square, so they must have been a bit tired by the time they got to the Clock Tower.  

It was a hot evening, and it would have been far too hot to dance during the day!

While they were dancing, a vintage car drove past - it was a maroon open top car, maybe from the 1930s?  I don't know what make it was because I was viewing it from above!

On the Riverside

 I was invited out for coffee on Saturday at the Bean Box - the garden is absolutely gorgeous at the moment.

As I arrived, I met the organisers of the Park Run just packing up.  They run from 9am every Saturday, around the Warren and along the Riverside Path.

Meanwhile, a chap at another table showed me a photo of the new sculpture down on the Riverside Path (the old one, like the heron, has gone missing).  So I went along to have a look myself:

Hustings for the General Election

 The Globe will be hosting hustings on Thursday 27th June from 7pm to 8pm.

The attending candidates will each give a three minute presentation, and will then be available to take questions.  If any member of the audience wishes to ask a question, they will be accepted in written form from 6pm to ensure inclusion.

As the boundaries of the constituency have changed, this is now the Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe constituency

Bear!

 

I wasn't expecting to meet a bear when I went to work today!

This is one of Danny Thomas's chainsaw carvings.

U-turn for the Warren

Over the past couple of years, there has been an application for the River Wye at the Warren to be granted bathing water status, which would mean that the water has to be tested regularly for pollution.  Just recently, the final decision was made by the Welsh government to refuse bathing status for the Warren, which was a great disappointment to the people who had been working hard to try to make it happen.

However, the decision has now been reversed, and the Warren will be granted bathing status after all.

This means that the water in the river will be regularly tested, and swimmers and other users of the river will be informed if there are any issues.  The Welsh government will also have to take steps to deal with any pollution problems that arise.

There are still concerns that the numbers of people using the Warren may have an impact on wildlife in the area - but pollution in the river also has a negative impact on wildlife, and the new status for the area will hopefully improve matters.

Red Indigo

 The staff of the Cinema Bookshop had a celebration meal at Red Indigo last night.

We sat out on the verandah at the back, which has marvellous views over the garden and across the Wye Valley - it looked gorgeous in the evening sunlight.

The food was excellent too - I had the chat starter and rogan josh main course, and we all shared rice and garlic and coriander naan breads, finishing off with liqueur coffees.

New Bench

 

A new bench has been installed at the top of the car park, commemorating the Falklands War.

More Balsam Bashing

 There will be another Balsam Bash tomorrow - Sunday 16th June, from 11am.  

As usual, volunteers should meet at the car park at the Warren, wearing sensible clothes.

Crowdfunder for Stolen Heron

 https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/replace-the-stolen-heron

There is now a crowdfunder to raise money to replace the chainsaw carving of the heron which was stolen from the Riverside Path.

Interesting Customers

 One of the fun things about working in a bookshop is that you meet such interesting people, though I'd already seen the first couple I met this morning wandering around town last night, looking for a place to eat.  Tomatitos was packed out, so I suggested the Three Tuns.  This morning they said they'd had an excellent meal there.

Then there were the ladies on a coach trip who wanted directions to St Mary's Church.  They live with a lady (I think it must be some sort of sheltered accommodation) who used to live in Hay, and she had been telling them all about Father Richard, who has just retired.  "She says that he plays the organ for horror films, in the church!" they said, which is absolutely true - his events at Hay Festival this year were sold out again.  So they wanted to see where he played, and the wonderful organ in the church.  And it turned out that I know the lady who had told them about this, from the time when she lived in Hay - in fact, I met her last week in the town square when she was making a return visit here.

Another lady on the same coach trip bought a book on making rag rugs by Jenni Stuart-Anderson.  I learned to make rag rugs at one of her workshops in Hay, so we had a nice chat about that.

Busy Saturday

 There's a lot happening on Saturday 15th June.

The Globe is holding a Well Being and Craft Fair during the day, and North Books has a talk at 4pm.  Richard King is in conversation with Jude Rogers about his new book Travels over Feeling, which is a biography of musician Arthur Russell.  The talk is free and is part of the Independant Bookshop Week celebrations.

Also at the Globe, on Thursday 13th June at 6.30pm, there's a new regular event called Burgers and Board Games.  Have a burger at the restaurant, and either bring your own board game or play one that is already provided.

Update: Not such a busy Saturday after all - the Well Being and Craft Fair has had the date changed to 6th July.  This is to co-incide with Hay Pride Day, and will be raising money for Hay Pride.  Also at the Globe on that day, people will be gathering for the Pride procession through town at 11.30am, and there will be a DJ in the evening to round the celebrations off.

April Ashley Exhibition

 Hay Castle has a new exhibition in their art gallery, celebrating the life of April Ashley.  She lived in Hay for several years during the 1980s and was a friend of Richard Booth.

She was also a campaigner for trans rights in her later life.

Apparently, when she left Hendre in Bear Street, where she had been living, she left a lot of stuff behind - some of that, including fabulous clothing and a pink wardrobe, forms part of the exhibition.  There's also a giant mirror in the shape of her face, and a timeline of her life, including a TV clip talking about the gender reassignment surgery she had - I think she was only the ninth patient of the surgeon she went to.

Outside the main gallery there are also some photos of Boo La Croux, the local Herefordshire drag queen who organises Hereford and Hay Pride celebrations (otherwise known as farmer Dean Goodwin-Evans), taken by local photographer Billie Charity.

There are also some LGBT+ themed books for sale - I picked up a copy of A Little Gay History of Wales, which looks interesting.

New Post Box Topper

 

All the tents for Hay Festival are coming down, including the one on top of the post box.

The new topper celebrates Hay Football Club.

The lady who knits these has been put forward for a PAVO Volunteer of the Year award.

Balsam Bash

 There will be a Balsam Bash, to clear invasive Himalayan balsam, on Sunday 9th June from 11am.  Volunteers should turn up at the car park at the top of the Warren, wearing long trousers, sensible shoes or wellies, and gloves.

It's usually a fun morning - it's just a pity that the balsam can only be pulled on one side of the river.

D-Day

 

No beacon (maybe that's tonight, somewhere else) but a dignified short commemoration, with George the Town Cryer giving a short overview of what happened on D-Day, Kelvyn playing the last post, one of the Sea Cadets reading the Remembrance Day extracts (the "They Shall Not Grow Old" poem), and Simon the piper playing a lament in the first of his five appearances at D-Day commemorations across the county.

I'm not sure what the Ukranian chap in the orange juice stall thought of it all, though he was very quiet and respectful.

D-Day Commemorations

 It's the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings tomorrow, and there will be a commemoration on the Castle Steps at 9am, introduced by George the Town Cryer, with the Last Post and a piper's lament.  There will also be the lighting of a beacon and the reading of a tribute, followed by a 2 minute silence, and banners paraded from the British Legion, Sea Cadets and others.

Then at 10am, they are doing it again at Llowes, and at 11am at Talgarth.

Events at the Festival

 I'm sorry to have missed Dame Judi Dench reciting Shakespeare, or Miriam Margolyes, or so many other events over the last week (not to mention the Alt Hay events in the Parish Hall - I just didn't have the energy to go out in the evenings!)

But I did manage to see two very good events.  The first was Maggie Aderin-Pocock talking about her new book about looking at constellations, with a bit about her work around the world at big telescopes, and a bit about her childhood running up to the top of her block of flats to look at the moon.  I loved the way she described watching the Clangers as being a 'gateway drug' to Star Trek - and now she's appeared, in puppet form, in the modern re-make of the Clangers, and she got to visit the set and hold the soup dragon in her hands!

The other event was Robin Wall Kimmerer, talking about her book Braiding Sweetgrass, her new book Gathering Moss, and her upcoming book Service Berry.  She was in conversation with James Rebanks - and now I'll have to look out for his books, too.  He has a sheep farm where he practices regenerative agriculture - they talked a bit about listening to the plants on the land, and the plants will tell you what they need to thrive. 

One of the examples was a field of grass that was being overgrown with thistles.  Normal farming practice is to poison the thistles, or cut them, but they only grow in large numbers where the grass has been nibbled down to nothing and has a weak root system - encourage the grass (stop over grazing) and encourage biodiversity with wild flowers and different grass species, and the thistles won't get such a hold on the field to begin with.

If they wanted to send the audience away with one thought - and it was a sold out event in the Global Stage, which is one of the biggest stages - it was probably "Photosynthesis is the answer".  It may be a boring thing that you learn at school and then forget about, but it is vital to life on Earth.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Potawatomi tribe, and she talked about their Creation myth, in which Skywoman falls to Earth, which was covered with water, where the animals that lived in the water brought earth up for her to live on, and she scattered the seeds of all the good plants from the branch of the tree that she had brought down with her.  It's a story about gift giving and love, in contrast to the story of Adam and Eve where humans have dominion over the animals.  She said that we, as a species, need to get back to that mind set of love and reciprocity with the natural world.  One of her examples was the traditional indigenous Three Sisters planting scheme, where corn provides something for the bean plant to grow up, and squash leaves cover the ground and keep the roots moist - this way of planting provides more food than three separate monocultures.

Modern industrial farming breaks up the process of growing into separate bits, when it would be better if the different processes were integrated - and there are no consequences to the separate actions, which leads to problems further down the line.

There were a couple of interesting questions at the end, too.  One was about the Welsh government policy of putting aside 10% of farmland for nature - James answered this one, by saying that some parts of farms are uneconomic in the current climate, and it is possible to do this with those parts of the farm that are losing money, but he said we also have to look at the bigger picture, where supermarkets have enormous power, and that we need better regulation and a fairer pricing structure to benefit the farmers who are struggling.

Another questioner asked if it wasn't a good thing for there to be more CO2 in the atmosphere, because didn't it make plants grow faster and be greener?  Robin said that CO2 is not the only thing to consider - plants also need nitrogen and phosphorus and other elements, and those things have to be in balance.  CO2 is pumped into some commercial greenhouses to make the plants grow quicker, but this is not necessarily a good thing.

Another thought for the audience to take away with them was how to do practical things to save the planet.  "Sometimes you've got to make a ruckus," Robin said - and sometimes you have to burn something down to get something better in its place.  Also, she said that we are all given a gift, and it's up to us to find out the best way to use that - whether it's picking out what we can do from one of those books with a title like "100 Ways to Save the Planet" or something else - find what you love, and do that.

Second Saturday of the Festival

 I booked an event for 5.30pm, but the rest of the day I had at leisure.

The Saturday Market was in the square and the Buttermarket and Cheese Market, with the usual range of really nice stalls with good quality produce.  Tucked into a corner was the Jump4Timbuktu stall, fund raising.  The biggest problem for Timbuktu at the moment is the influx of refugees from surrounding conflicts, and our local group tries to send them about £500 a month to help.

At lunchtime, I headed up to the Festival site, at about the same time as the Free Palestine protesters, who were walking along the road with banners flying and a police escort.

I wanted to try the momo dumplings from the Tastes of Tibet stall in the food tent, and they were delicious.

Later, I met Mike Eccles outside the Oxfam stall.  He's been networking like mad recently.  He said: "I don't believe in coincidences, but...."

He's been wanting to meet Jane Davidson - she's the Pro-Vice Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity St David, and she has been a minister for education and the environment in the Welsh government.  Mike talked to her briefly on a Zoom meeting, and sent her details of what is happening with self-sufficiency and resilience in Hay (based on the big meeting he organised in January), and the following week he found himself sharing a platform with her at a meeting, where he was able to talk about what is happening in Hay and chat with her further.

He also met the Commissioner for Future Generations for the Welsh Government, and the Deputy Commissioner for Future Generations in charge of Health at another meeting, and they are both very interested in what people in Hay want to do, especially the Mental Well-Being Initiative.

He also decided to get to the Festival site by horse-drawn (grass-powered!) taxi, and the lady driving the cart said that she would let him ride for half-price if he promised to go and give a talk to the sustainability group that she's involved in!

Meanwhile, with his HOWLs hat on, he has been organising a fund raising gig for the library in September, with a group called The Breaks.

Stolen heron

 One of the carvings on the sculpture trail along the riverside path has been stolen.

This is what it looks like:

and this is what the stump looks like now: