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Down the Rabbit Hole?

As a child, my world included a map of Cheshire which was shaped like a teapot, and a book called ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which told of a dormouse asleep in a teapot.

The book was written by Lewis Carroll, who was born in Cheshire in 1832. When the book was published, in 1865, the author was a mathematics teacher at Oxford University.

Alice’s adventures were in a Wonderland under the ground. I don’t know whether Lewis Carroll would be aware of the amount of salt being taken from below the Cheshire County of that time.

By the time I read about Alice, there were problems above ground, caused by land, including houses, subsiding into holes left by the removal of salt in great quantities.

Last winter, lorries queued for hours on the local roads, waiting to obtain precious salt required to keep main roads nationally free of ice. Of course, the modern salt extraction methods leave no holes underground. Also, many of the previous areas of subsidence are now peaceful lakes or flashes, with varied rare, exotic birds visiting occasionally.

Some of the larger mines have been used for storage, as they are so dry and are at constant temperature. Gas storage was very controversial, perhaps so much so that there is less awareness of the archives also stored underground. Like the salt, those archives are mainly irreplaceable.

At the same time as Lewis Carroll was writing about Alice’s adventures, there were developments in the transportation of salt to the various places where it was needed in many manufacturing processes.

Our local ‘Salt Line’ Railway in now mainly a leisure walkway. Foden lorries became known all over the world, along with those from ERF. The Sandbach Sound is carried everywhere by Foden’s Brass band these days, despite the closure of both ERF and Foden factories. Perhaps the remaining part of the old ‘Salt Line’ railway, the part between Sandbach and Northwich, could be re-opened to provide a more environmentally acceptable link in the delivery of salt for icy roads across the country.

My childhood ‘Teapot’ map of Cheshire has also changed shape recently. Two separate Councils are required to decide on the Planning Applications for two waste disposal incinerators., which are only a few miles apart.

Alice could possibly walk between the two sites along the underground passageways left from salt extraction.

The Oxford Children’s Book of Famous People states: ‘Carroll’s story books are sort of adventure stories, but they do not unfold like ordinary stories.
Sometimes one thing will turn into another, as if in a dream, while at other times the people in the book seem to be moving about in a game, the rules of which are never quite clear.’

Just a thought !

Mary Garratt (Mrs)
7th April 2010

Park but no Park?

When my children were young, I would often say, ‘Come on, we’ll go shopping & then you can have some time to play on the swings in the park’.

No doubt this was ‘bribery’, as they hated shopping but loved to spend time in the park with their friends.

My Mum used to say, ‘History repeats itself’. Our daughter and our grandson walk to their local park to meet their friends. I joined them as soon as I could walk that far, after my hip replacement operation. Mind you, the little outdoor café area was a big attraction. Their cakes were enough of a ‘bribe’ for me.

Young Sam loves swimming – so much so, that a recent mention of going swimming that morning was enough to have him rush to the front door, ready to go! His Mum suggested that pyjamas were not really the best option for the journey & that perhaps he’d agree to getting dressed for the day first. (It was only breakfast time.)

Mike used to take our children swimming at the local swimming baths, wherever we lived at the time. This was mainly at the leisure centre in Sandbach.

As a teenager I used to travel by bus to the Flag Lane Swimming Baths in Crewe, as there was no ‘baths’ in Sandbach at that time.

Previously, Mum had told us of her swimming times at ‘The Dingle’ . It seems the lake there was what we would probably call ‘A Water Park’ or a ‘Leisure Centre’, as it had boats, as well as walks round the pool, behind Sandbach Park.

In more recent times, Mum had still enjoyed her weekly swim with her childhood friends. This was at the Open-Air pool in Nantwich.

I’m pleased to read, in the local newspapers, that Sam is young enough, & Mike is old enough (!) to enjoy free swimming in Sandbach at present. I wonder which of them will swim at the 2012 London Olympics?

These days I don’t enjoy swimming, but I still love to ‘shop till I drop’. The shopping may be in Sandbach, or in other fairly local towns. Sometimes we pay for parking, often it’s free. Other friends shop in Sandbach by using the ‘Town Bus Services’, which are almost door-to door. Those buses allow us to make much longer journeys.: When we stepped off ‘our’ bus in Nantwich, there was another service ready to go on to Whitchurch.

Meanwhile: Car Parking Charges are being debated, locally and nationally, at the same time as consultations are in progress about improvements to Sandbach Park.

Our Sam is not yet two years old. He likes to shop – so many buttons to press nowadays(!) – and I’m sure he’ll want to go on the swings and roundabouts in the park, once that project is completed.

Hopefully ‘History will repeat itself’, so that our Grandson will enjoy coming with me to shop in Sandbach and play on the Park.

M Garratt
20/12/09

From the Mouths of Babes?

For the last few years I have taken great delight in chatting to some very young members of our family.

Times change, and these babies live a distance away, so we don’t see them often enough. However, I do have time to watch and listen, as they try to tell me something.

At other stages in life, increasing problems with hearing, strokes or illness can make verbal communication difficult.

I’ve noticed that one of the last memories to disappear is that for music. My young friends enjoy their nursery rhymes, especially those where they can join in with the actions.

Would it be possible to develop a sign language which is based on what babies already know, and which could be used and understood by everyone?

Just a thought.

Mary Garratt
20 July 2009

Mary’s Musings : Just a Thought!

Earlier in the week, I wrote on a greeting card, “Sometimes I sit and dream. Sometimes I just sit.”

Today I was sitting for nearly two hours, trying to use my schoolgirl sewing skills to repair a favourite garment. I have always tried to do so, but often the pile of mending built up while I was ‘too busy’ to do it.

While sitting today, I thought, “Isaac Newton is supposed to have been sitting under an apple tree when he had the thought which changed the world.” That was the ideas of the Laws of Gravity and Motion, as a result of thinking about why the apple fell as it did.

Legend has it also , that the favourite drink, of tea, was discovered when someone was sitting under a tree. Leaves from that tree fell into a bowl of boiling water which he was drinking from at the time,

Many of us remember more about the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, from the wonderful Bayeux Tapestry than from the details of the Battle of Hastings .

The stitching of that tapestry must have involved many people working together , and possibly sitting chatting as they sewed.

As a child, I often watched Mum sit to darn socks, or knit a jumper, or create a new dress for me – all at the end of a day of housework, with no labour-saving devices.

That must have been very tiring, and yet, perhaps it was more satisfying to have a reason to take ‘time to think and be’, while creating something useful, rather than expecting to be ‘relaxed’ and ’entertained’ in an evening.

Just a thought!

Mary Garratt
14 June 2009

Sandbach Voices Concert

‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ ? – To Be Taken With A Pinch Of Salt?

In an age where we are surrounded by media promises of cures for almost every medical complaint, it is perhaps time for me to consider the relevance of ‘The Old Wives’ Tales’ in the 21st Century.

As teenagers we were given our polio vaccine on a lump of sugar. The vaccine itself was a wonder drug. Iron lungs became unnecessary and polio has been eradicated in many parts of the world. A routine ‘few drops on the tongue’ was often the preferred method of administering the vaccine in later years. Other immunisations, for babies in particular, still had to involve injections. The babies cried!

Recently I read that research has shown, ‘Babies do feel pain, so a sweet item given at the same time as an injection, helps their whole system to cope’.

Mary Poppins knew that. My Mum knew that. Every baby’s Mum knows that.

When I first started to suffer panic attacks, I had never even heard of them. All I knew was the dreadful feeling of fear and anxiety with no apparent cause. At last I managed to talk to a friend about the problem. After explaining about the use of adrenalin in the body, the friend advised a quick self-help treatment; a spoonful of sugar!

Sportsmen and students have long used sugar in some form as a quick energy boost, but diabetics know that they need to be careful about having sugar. In my case, a cup of tea with sugar in is fine occasionally, whereas fruit is only a very special treat.

Fads and fashions change nearly as often in diets as in clothes. Mum used to say that any food was fine in moderation, and that even water was a poison in excess.

‘A cuppa and a chat’ with friends has long been one of my favourite pastimes. It is surprising how often we can solve the most difficult problems in our lives – with or without sugar in the tea.

We may also decide that the latest media scare-story about sugar and other foods should be ‘taken with a pinch of salt’.

Mary Garratt
February 2009