A special 'Thank You' presentation took place at the Town Council Chambers on Monday, 18th September to mark the retirement of Dr. Clive Hartshorn. The Mayor of Ross-on-Wye, Councillor Phil Cutter presented a cheque for £900.00 to Dr. Hartshorn on behalf of patients at Alton Street Surgery. Dr. Hartshorn had completed over thirty years as a local GP

Local High School teachers, Paul Deneen and Gwynneth Gill had co-ordinated the collection and presentation and they paid tribute to Dr. Hartshorn's professionalism, dedication, commitment and kindness and wished him well for his retirement. They also took the opportunity of thanking everyone who had made a contribution towards the collection and to the Nationwide Building Society staff for their help and assistance.

In the photo, at Monday's cheque presentation are John Greer, Roz Hartshorn, Gwyneth Gill, Phil Cutter, Dr. Clive Hartshorn, Sheila Russell. Celia Glover, Sylvia Greer and Paul Deneen.

Staff and pupils of Goodrich Primary School were filmed on Tuesday, 12th September by 'Teacher's TV', which is available to view on the Freeview channels and also on-line. The film being made is about healthy school lunches, for which Goodrich Primary is renowned. Pictured below are Teacher's TV Sound engineer, Oliver Rotchell, Cameraman, Chris Polding filming Emily Watson, James Greene, Nichola Burns and Nellie Owens.

Also pictured below are Jessica Brain-Smith, Scott Brooks-Thornett and Rachel Chaimberlain by a new bridge over the school's eco-pond, which was built by parents during the school's summer break.

Lovers of lyrics, odes and sonnets met at Ross Library on Thursday, 14th September for an evening with the lively and exciting poet, John Siddeque. John brought insight, humour and emotion to his exploration of different ways of looking at poetry. His infectious love and knowledge of poetry of all kinds helped the large Ross audience to decide what to read next and he also revealed some of his own favourite poems.

'People have generally been taught with the wrong approach to poetry. They believe they are not clever enough to read it,' said John. 'Poets could help broaden poetry's appeal by concentrating on making their work clearer, not clever. I like telling the truth about things.'

In the photo below, John can be seen on Thursday with librarian Anne-Marie Dossett (left) and Brenda Read-Brown who is Herefordshire's Reader and Literature Development Officer.

A room, institutional and unforgiving. The walls are painted in two-tone pallid colours. Not the sort of place you would want to visit voluntarily. There is, however, something not quite right as everything is just a little distorted. The room contains a table and two chairs. Into this room are brought three people.

In the first act we meet Mother and hear her story and how she came to be in the ice cream parlour at the end of the pier. She has no idea where she is or why she is there. In the second act we meet Toni Vittorio the Italian owner of the ice cream parlour at the end of the pier. As with Mother, Toni can only guess where he is. In the last act we meet Boffin. Boffin knows exactly where he is and why he is there. He has designed a machine... a special machine.

Questioning the three are a series of Hosts. It goes without saying that each character has a special story to tell. The qualities that underpin this play are the sense of mystery and maintenance of tension, which last right up to the last line of dialogue.

Resonant Frequency will be performed at the Phoenix Theatre nightly from Saturday 30th September to Saturday 7th October inclusive. Tickets cost £6.00 and are available from the Phoenix Theatre Box Office or Ross Heritage Centre. For further info, please call 01989 564570 (10:30 - 12:30) or 01432 260675 (10:30 - 16:30).

Following the information supplied by Nigel Heins of the Hereford Times, which was published in the 23 August edition of Wyenot News in response to a letter from Phil Wheeldon, I am pleased to say that Nigel has now been able to send a higher resolution copy of his article, which appeared in the Hereford Times on 5th August 2004 about the sad story of Harry St. Hellier Evans, who died whilst saving his son. Phil Wheeldon asked for information on the lone memorial cross at Backney and Nigel's article covers the story in detail.

Thank you to both Nigel Heins and to the Hereford Times for allowing reproduction on Wyenot News and for going to the trouble of sorting out a higher resolution copy. Due to a difference in our computer software, I have still had to print the article and scan again, so reproduction quality here is still not as good as the original sent in but it is now readable.

When Old Cryptonians turned up at Ross Sports Centre on Saturday afternoon and saw fifteen Rugby Players warming up in bright pink shirts they must have thought someone was having a laugh. However, the new look Ross Rugby Seconds, as pretty as they looked meant business and went on to win 20 points to ten.

Continued . . .

Ross Rugby Club 2nd XV Vs Old Cryptonians - Saturday, 16th September 2006.

The Ross Captain, Slim Sadler gathered the boys together on Saturday and gave them some encouraging words which inspired them to a great performance. The game started slowly, with basic errors on both sides but you could tell from the start Ross forwards were going to dominate. With Paul Phipps and David Cook propping and Andrew Lovering hooking, backed up by Slim and Neil Ward, Paul Haywood and James Windridge flanking with Richard Russell at No 8 they were putting in some awesome scrummages, which allowed the backs to run at the Old Crypts time after time.

The first Try for Ross was a brilliant solo effort. South African Baz Parker picked up in his own 22 and ran the full length of the pitch, riding three tackles on the way to score. The ever-reliable boot of Owen James converted to make it seven nil.

Shortly afterwards, the Ross backs were caught napping and were punished when Old Crypts took a quick penalty using the scissor move and went over the Ross line to score. They missed the conversion. Ross forwards were soon back on the trail however, with some dogged performances from Haywood, Ward and Russell. With a mighty push forward Ross forced the Old Crypts to make mistakes and were awarded a penalty for their efforts. This was successfully converted with a beautifully struck effort from James to make the half time score 10 -5.

The second half was again dominated by Ross but Ross could have scored a lot more freely than they did due to fundamental errors. Against the run of play Old Crypts somehow managed to get over the Ross try line to level the score 10 - 10 but again they missed the conversion. From then on Ross didn't look back, spending a lot of time in the oppositions half. Any chance Old Crypts had of breaking through the Ross defence was broken with some big tackles from Matt Taylor and Marcus Russell.

An injury to Paul Heywood saw the introduction of the awesome Donkey Davies and his presence alone lifted the confidence of the team. It was his breakaway that set Baz Parker up to score in the corner for his second try of the game. With Ross now in full flow, with good driving forwards play and some excellent handling from the Ross Backs, it was no surprise when Ross scored another try. Donkey broke through again to set up Baz Parker, who scored his hat trick, making it 20 points to 10.

Some special mention must be made of Andrew Lovering playing his first game in four years and young Sam Griffiths at scrum half, who unfortunately for Ross is leaving to go to University. All in all it was a great team effort with man of the match going to the South African Baz Parker for his hat trick of tries.

Ross Rugby Club would like to thank Jo at the Drop In for the kind donation of their beautiful pink shirts. Just remember folks Pink Rules OK!

The phrase 'a game of two halves' must have been coined with the Ross / Cainscross encounter in mind. During a whirlwind first half on Saturday, Ross blew Cainscross away with a great example of fast well executed rugby and by half time this Junior Vase Cup match was over as a contest. Cainscross rallied in the second half, however Ross were comfortable 40-7 winners at the final whistle.

Ross were ahead within two minutes of the kick off. The ball was turned over in midfield and was quickly moved to the right where Alistair Rees cut inside the Cainscross defence to score. Chris Gage converted and Ross were 7-0 up. Ross were certainly quicker in thought and deed, winning quick ball and constantly probing the Cainscross defence. On the rare occasions that Cainscross had the ball, the Ross blue and white defensive wall was quickly up to snuff out any thoughts Cainscross had of attacking.

Ross's second score came on the quarter hour mark. Again quick ruck ball had sucked in the Cainscross defence and created space out wide where Gavin Oates took the scoring pass, taking Ross 12-0 to the good. With Ross in total control the only way Cainscross could stem the tide was through infringing and Chris Gage punished them three times during the half taking Ross 21-0 ahead after twenty minutes. The second quarter went the way of the first, the Ross forwards were now in complete control and with Andy Hunt delivering quick quality ball to Chay Brine, the tries continued to come. First Craig Creed went over on the left closely following by a Chris Gage try then as the half came to a close Huw Bellamy concluded a point a minute, taking Ross 40-0 up at half time.

With such a lead Ross took the foot off the pedal in the second half as Cainscross tried to salvage something from the game. However the Ross defence was breached only once and Ross ran out comfortable winners 40-7.

Ross return to league action next Saturday, playing away at Westbury-on-Severn with a 3pm kick off.

Paul Haley

This dog was seen wandering in Hill Street at around 1.45 PM on Sunday, 17th September and later in Broad Street. It was seen walking past the finders' (Sean and Rachel) house in Kyrle Street several times later in the afternoon and it also took a wander through the Red Meadow Car Park. When it passed Sean and Rachel's house for the fourth time Rachel managed to entice it in with some ham and reported the find to the Police who suggested taking it to the station in Ross, where they have kennels.

'Apart from being ravenous, he seemed quite healthy and very friendly,' said Sean. 'We had a few games with the dog before feeding and watering him and taking him to the Police station.'

The dog is male, appears to be a Beagle cross, and had the number '17' tattooed in it's right ear, and the word 'RHOS' in it's left ear.

As of today, Tuesday at 8:50 pm, the dog is in kennels but has not been claimed, so if you are looking for your lost dog, please contact the local dog warden.

I'm late again publishing last month's visitor figures. Sorry about that but it is difficult keeping up with everything at the moment.

On the average day in August, 1,119 people viewed 4,963 pages of Wyenot.com. The most visited pages were the 'Home' page, followed as expected during the tourist season by 'Accommodation', followed by 'Wyenot News'.

It was another very busy month due to people seeking accommodation but I am expecting this type of visitor to drop off for the next few months. As always during the autumn and winter months, visitors to the web site looking for holiday information fall, leaving the regular readers of the weekly news to clock the figures up.

Statistics that the server log does not show:
Due to lack of time, I don't get much inclination to cook for myself and during August, I ate at the Cantilupe Cafe 21 times; at Morrisons a further 6 times and I have kept the Maltesers factory in business! They may need to make redundancies during the October as local news declines during this period. I also ate one Kebab and one Singapore Chow Mein from various takeaway establishments. Not forgetting one beautiful Sunday lunch with Joyce - for which I am extremely grateful, one meal out on Russell's 21st birthday, several lots of sandwiches from the WRVS shop at Cheltenham General Hospital and a few buffet lunches whilst photographing events. I did cook some toast on one occasion (I was dining with Tina at the time)!

Ross-on-Wye Weather Station is located by the tennis courts and bowling green at 'Crossfields' and is one of the important stations around the country which regularly sends data to the Meteorological Office. This is why Ross-on-Wye is sometimes mentioned on the BBC weather reports. It is currently still a manually monitored station and readings are taken twice per day by husband and wife team, June and Rex Swallow.

If you have a local news item or story of local interest which you would like to appear on Wyenot News you are very welcome to submit it by email, telephone or by post.

Please advise as early as possible if you would like me to photograph your local event so that I can put it in my diary. This service is offered strictly on a first come, first served basis.

Many Wyenot News photographs appear in various local newspapers and magazines. This does not imply that Wyenot News or any other part of this web site belongs to those publications. Wyenot News is a totally independent news magazine.

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