The real tragedy, however, is the state of the graves of those six men and nine boys who perished in the tragedy, epitomised in the image of the grave of Arthur John Tabrett.

A relative of one of the navy cadets who perished is trying to raise awareness of the tragedy, which has been sadly forgotten down the generations, and set up a Facebook group to remember it.

Through a third-party site (the Kent History Forum), I came across the details of this tragedy (though I had been aware of it for many years thanks to my grandparents) and, with permission from the relative, set up a petition to Medway Council on the subject.

Medway is rich in history, yet, sadly, much of it goes unrecognised – and, thus, forgotten. Remember Jezreel’s Tower? Maybe you only remember the road name!

The petition calls on Medway Council to repair the graves of those who tragically lost their lives – and to create a lasting memorial to the tragedy.

Please sign the petition and support this important cause before another moment in Medway’s history is lost forever.

Related posts

1. Friday, November 7, 2008 – Part 1
2. Friday, November 7, 2008 – Part 2
3. Looking after number one

In particular, the leading Labour blogger in Medway, Tristan Osborne, has been spewing his bile about Ashcroft’s funding of Tory posters in his new locale of Chatham.

However, the Labour candidate for Luton and Wayfield has clearly not read the latest party donation reports, which show how little Lord Ashcroft has donated to the Conservative Party when you look at received Party donations overall.

Or how trade union funding – often without members’ knowledge or consent – is all that stands between Labour and bankruptcy.

Nor has Osborne examined his own Party’s non-dom donors, who have donated a total of over 6 million pounds compared to Ashcroft’s 5 million pounds.

There was once an unwritten convention that politicians avoided attacking their opponents’ donations lest they opened a horrific can of worms.

Perhaps party-affiated bloggers using these figures for party political point-scoring should follow suit, if only to save themselves the embarassmet of realising, quite publicly, that their party is not whiter-than-white either!

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1. Damping Down
2. Twydall has no deprivation
3. Labour fails Medway residents

Cllr Mike O’Brien, a Conservative, has written a letter in today’s Medway Messenger, saying that the proposed crossing near Guardian Court and Pump Lane would be “vitally necessary for both the residents … and many hundreds of pupils attending Rainham Mark”.

Guardian Court residents have previously signed a petition to Medway Council calling for a crossing, with support from their local councillors.

In response to this, the road safety manager wrote to residents asking for their views and Cllr O’Brien is now “urg[ing] residents to respond and support the scheme”.

Related posts

1. When did that happen … and why?
2. Cllr O’Brien congratulates Medway’s exam winners
3. Friday, June 1, 2007

Unfortunately, my neglect in ensuring that I went into the public gallery with a fully-charged BlackBerry put pay to that idea, and I had to stop live tweeting the meeting.

I did, however, continue to write down my would-be tweets until the meeting conclusion at (the rather sensible time of) 22:03, and for your information and delight, I post below how my twitter feed would have run last night, from start to finish, had my BlackBerry been alive to tell the tale.

RT @simonwakeman off to full council budget meeting at Medway tonight – hope not as late as last full council which finished early hours of friday morning

Conservatives – propose 0% increase in members’ allowances.

Labour – criticising pleasure flights at Rochester Airport.

Independent members passing Jelly Babies between themselves. Wonder if they would pass a couple this way…

Why is the Council website costing £250,000? I wouldn’t pay £25,000 for that abberation – over any timescale!

@CllrMikeOBrien on top form again.

Sorry folks, battery bout to die. No more live meeting tweets.

From this point, all “tweets” are from their paper notes

Liberals against supporting hard-pressed motorists with free Christmas parking.

Labour cllr being so rude: “all you people over there”. They have names, you know!

Before a “freedom pass” were introduced, surely bus services and routes should be improved to an acceptable 21st Century standard?

Haven’t been to budget meeting for 3 years – now I remember why. Uber-divisive with no consensus whatsoever. Massive shame.

Unusual amount of councillors taking a “loo break” during Cllr Juby’s speech. Listening to it, I can see why they might.

Cllrs Jarrett & Griffiths already put forward 2 of Cllr Juby’s 3 amendments. Just parking permit freezes to go.

Oooh, more Jelly Babies have surfaced! I’m over here…

Cllr Jarrett to accept amendment. Cllr Filmer: “pleasure to have in writing that Liberals want to increase enforcement in Gillingham”.

Cllr Juby only meant extra enforcement where residents want it. That makes more sense for a Liberal…

Cllr Tony Goulden giving a more balanced commentary on the budget as the group “without Perspective Parliamentary Candidates”.

Cllr Val Goulden looks very shocked at what her husband is saying. Looks like they’re going to be having words later…

Cllr Brice speaking in support of Conservative budget: “it is the electorate who will judge us … for doing the right thing”.

Cllr @Mark_Reckless also on excellent form: “for every £1 Hackney has, we have 25p to spend”. We have a much larger population than Hackney.

Went outside to make a phone call and ran into the smell of tobacco from a cllr and her sneaky fag. Why do you have to be so tempting…?!

Cllr Brake: did Cllr Griffiths speak against airport because his group colleagues live in the flight path?

Cllr Chishti is talking about “champagne socialism”. Cllr Griffiths making a serous point of order: “I’m teetotal”.

Cllr Rodney Chambers talking about the Cadet 150 and supporting armed forces and their cadets. I’ll hold you to that, Cllr Chambers!!!

Cllr Brice votes for Conservative budget. Other Indies & Liberals abstain (strange, that!). Labour, as usual, against doing the right thing.

Meeting closes at 22:03. As the Mayor walks past, I bet he’s thinking “thank God it didn’t go on as long as last time!”.

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1. Call to abolish yellow bus scheme met with shock
2. Twydall has no deprivation
3. This hypocrisy is almost laughable

Two weeks ago, AlanWCollins revealed that 54 ten and eleven year-olds have fallen pregnant since 2002 and also that 300 girls aged 13 and under fall pregnant every year.

Today’s revelations were contained within statistics revealed by the Office of National Statistics, with both the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Department for Health claiming that they showed successful investment in various programs.

The DCSF, in particular, was claiming that teenage pregnancy rates are at their lowest for over 20 years.

Public Health Minister Gillian Merron said that “[i]t’s very encouraging to see that the teenage conception rate fell in 2008. The Government invested an additional £26.8 million on promoting contraception last year and these figures show that our investment in this, and other measures, is paying off .”

However, AlanWCollins can today highlight today that the data presented for Medway shows little change on either the number of the rate of teenage girls falling pregnant.

Firstly, as graph A (below) shows, there has been a minimal steady increase in the number of girls falling pregnant in Medway, with 6 more girls falling pregnant in 2008 than in 2001.

Graph B (below) also shows a minimal average increase in the rate of teenage pregnancies in Medway between 2001 and 2008, with the data being presented as the number of girls per 1000 who have fallen pregnant.

It should also be noted that the statistics on graph B are representative of pregnancies in girls aged between 15 and 18. The rate of pregnancy in girls below the age of 15 has not been disclosed, suggesting a possible cover-up of more damning statistics.

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1. Labour’s biggest failure: the 15 ten (and 39 eleven) year-olds who have fallen pregnant
2. ACPO Statistics: November 2007 to January 2008
3. RMGS ranked third in Medway for 07 GCSEs

The Medway Towns are fortunate enough to be served by three local newspaper groups: Kent Regional News & Media (News), The KM Group (Medway Extra, Medway Messenger) and KOS Media (Kent on Saturday, Kent on Sunday, Yourmedway).

All of Medway’s local newspapers are informative, reasonably balanced and fulfil their role of holding elected officials to account wonderfully. It would be shameful to allow any of these titles to disappear from local newsagents.

The Conservative Party is campaigning to save local papers, such as those in Medway, after they have been hit hard by a big decline in advertising revenues and competition from the Internet, with two key proposals:

1. The Government should relax the merger regulations that prevent consolidation between papers.
2. The media ownership rules that prevent local newspapers expanding into other media platforms such as local television and local radio must be relaxed.

The Labour Government is looking into the first proposal, but it simply does not go far enough to protect local papers and local jobs.

Only the Conservatives’ proposals will go any considerable way to ensuring that your local paper won’t be disappearing from your local newsagent.

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3. Save the Great British Pub

AlanWCollins

In this first stage, I am using a Facebook group and a Google Docs survey to gather support, opinions and contributions to the Campaign Against Rip-off Parking in Medway (catchy title!).

Before I continue further, I should like to stress that this is an independent campaign, which places no blame at the feet of any individual person or political party and believes that a cross-party plan is the best hope for Medway motorists.

So where did this all start? Well, admittedly, it started by signing my name against a petition being organised by Labour councillors (presented at the last meeting of Medway Council by Cllr Vince Maple) – urging the council to change the charging end time for the Riverside car park to 7pm as opposed to 10pm.

That was last month. Today I decided to launch a Facebook group to try to get wider awareness and support for the issue – by making the same statement, but for all council car parks: Medway Council should stop charging us to park our cars after 7pm. (I do not believe residential parking times should be changed as they have (mostly) been decided upon logically).

With plans and possibilities for potential protest(s) floating in my mind, and in a further attempt to receive ideas from other opponents of the present system, I created a survey (using Google Docs) to gauge opinions and for people to offer their ideas. Please feel free to take the survey here. No confidential information will be asked for.

For the moment, I am going to remain tight-lipped about exactly what is going to happen once I have received all the responses. However, I will collate them and produce a report based upon their outcome, with recommendations which will be presented to Medway Council, Medway’s 55 councillors and the local media, as well as being presented here.

It may not be scientific, but it will go a considerable way to addressing the failures of the current parking system.

I am hoping that this will not descend into another political attack campaign, but instead yield positive results to produce a positive plan for a positive way forward.

So please get involved and help shape what I hope will be one of the most effective Medway-wide campaigns in recent years.

Related posts

1. Survey reveals perception of Smart Car ‘potentially endangering’ public safety
2. Parking restrictions in Twydall Green
3. Round-up of the Medway Messenger’s main stories

In addition, 39 eleven year-olds have been found to be expecting in the same period of time, and 300 girls of or under the age of thirteen fall pregnant every year.

The Sun also states that ‘[t]he true number of children who fall pregnant could be even higher as there is no way of adding illegal abortions and miscarriages to the data’.

Disgusting statistics showing that at least 15 primary school children have fallen pregnant will shock and sicken many readers, especially as probably around 20 of the eleven year-olds will also have been in primary school at the time they fell pregnant.

The culture of sex bred in this country – particularly through films and TV programmes like E4’s Skins – has led to an encouragement – a pressure, even – for girls to start having sex earlier and earlier in life, leading to the vile revelation that 23 under-age girls fall pregnant every day.

The Sun revealed the facts after a Freedom of Information request – also stating that 268 12 year-olds, 2,527 13 year-olds, 14, 777 14 year-olds and 45,861 15 year-olds have fallen pregnant since 2002.

Government statistics have also revealed that 60% of those who have fallen pregnant under-age have an abortion.

As Sun doctor Carol Cooper said, ‘[these] girls are still children.The average pre-teen knows nothing about mothering – she still needs it herself’.

Despite reportedly pouring millions of pounds into schemes to tackle the problem, the figures released on Monday represent this Labour government’s biggest failure.

There is no easy answer to solving this problem, but already millions of pounds of our money have been wasted whilst the teenage pregnancy rate has risen – and something drastically needs to be done.

These girls are ruining their lives by falling pregnant before they have even left school, and often struggle to cope with bringing up their child – especially after most fathers have decided they wish to have nothing to do with them.

It is disgustingly ironic, but perhaps the person doing most to try to highlight and resolve the issue is chat show host Jeremy Kyle.

Drastic action is needed to be taken by this government – and fast – before it’s too late!

Related posts

1. Teenage pregnancy rates virtually unchanged in Medway
2. Lower the voting age to 16? Don’t make me spew…
3. All children should be made to wear poppies

Whichever you choose to believe, it is clear to me that the Labour MP for Gillingham and Rainham, Paul Clark, has lost touch with his constituents after his expenses claims were revealed.

In the independent report by Sir Thomas Legg, it was stated of Mr Clark that: “[i]n default of evidence to support payments for mortgage interest of ?11,750.35 for 2008-09, I must regard these payments as having been invalid. Accordingly my recommendation is that Mr Clark should repay the whole of this sum”.

Mr Clark responded, via press release, on his website, essentially saying that he will not be paying back the money he overclaimed.

Unsurprisingly, and rather justly, Mr Clark’s behaviour and attitude has been .met with disgust, with opposition candidates and activists, divided by party, yet united by indignation.

Residents in Gillingham and Rainha.m will feel the same – and with only a few months until he is likely to be voted out of a job, is showing disgraceful disrespect to his employers.

Mr Clark is showing exactly why we need a change in British politics – before people are put off permanently.

He needs to pay back the money, before his days in Parliament are up – which will not be long:

People in Gillingham and Rainham have lost trust and faith in their MP!

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1. Will Paul Clark be standing in Gillingham next time round?
2. Is Mr Clark having a few problems?
3. Clark will fight Gillingham and Rainham at the next election

Last week I went on yet another rant about the Chatham World Heritage Partnership, who seem to be hell-bent on bulldozing their way through anything they desire to get their own way.

The truth behind their twisted plans came out following a meeting of the Partnership aimed at new “ambassadors”, in which officers continued to express their desire to evict the Air Cadets, despite the fact that it is not the Council’s land.

It took a long time for anyone from the Partnership or Medway Council to privately admit that they do not own the land, and indeed are still publicly silent on this matter.

1039 (Gillingham) Squadron Air Cadets was founded in 1942 with the same aim as every other Air Training Corps squadron: “to prepare young men for entry to the RAF”. After the war (in 1946) the squadron, like many others, was disbanded, yet re-formed in 1950 and has continued ever since (although their aims have moved away from being a recruiting agent for the MOD). More information on their history can be found on their website.

For most of their existence, the Air Cadets have occupied the building at the bottom of Marlborough Road, and, whilst the road layout and local area has changed throughout the decades, the Air Cadets have continually maintained a single purpose building, with regular inspections to ensure it remains safe and viable.

Throughout the years, hundreds of cadets have come and gone (including myself), but the building, which was also once home to the Gillingham Girls’ Venture Corps (if you remember back to this post last June and this associated news clipping from c. 1974), and the organisation has remained.

Sharing a new building with other youth/community organisations is not an option. At present the facilities enjoyed include classrooms, offices, a reasonable-sized parade ground and ample off-road parking (when inconsiderate morons are not parking on the double yellow lines right in front of the gates!). If a new building were to be considered, it would need to be solely for the Air Cadets – anything else will effectively signal the end of the squadron, and almost seventy years of history!

Perhaps, before I wrap this post up, I should declare, at this point, two further interests in the building:

1. One of the girls in the Gillingham Girls’ Venture Corps news clipping is my mother, another an auntie (although I shall not be pointing out who they are in the photograph!); and
2. The present Commanding Officer of 1039 (Gillingham) Squadron has been in the organisation since he was 1969, and at Gillingham Squadron between 1969 and c. 1987, then from 2000 to the present day. He is also my father.

It should further be noted, however, that none of the above mentioned people have coerced, or even merely asked, me to write this (or any previous Cadet-related) article. Everything written on this website is my own personal opinion, and I take every care to distance myself from other organisations – particularly non-political organisations such as the Air Cadet Organisation – in the process of blogging.

I was an Air Cadet for six-and-a-half years, a fact which I have never made a secret of. Perhaps that makes me biased. Now, for the time being at least, I am on the outside looking in, and gauging a more balanced perspective, and understanding from the public’s point of view – and discovering how many people genuinely agree with me.

Back to the original point, though. In that last article, I mentioned that:

[T]he land the Air Cadets occupy is currently held by the MOD (or one of its derivatives – I haven’t got the money to check the Land Registry details – yet!).

Well, I have since been in possession of a copy (though, not an “official” copy, but valid for research purposes nonetheless) of the Title from the Land Registry, which is being kept on file by myself for future reference and which has been made available to the staff at 1039 (Gillingham) Squadron, which states quite clearly that the registered proprietor is (effectively) the MOD.

Of course the current Secretary of State for Defence is the Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP (yes, that is the relevance of the photograph), who would be about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest if the situation ever arose that the cadets needed him onside. Happily, however, it seems as though his days are numbered.

It useful, though, to know at the outset of any campaign who your friends are and who your enemies are – advice which will be forwarded on to the Air Cadets should the need arise.

Already some local politicians have shown which side they will be backing should the necessity arise (and should it arise during their tenure in local politics) – and I can promise you that they are not likely to admit in public what has been revealed (either directly, or indirectly) in private (but then, to coin a phrase from Channel 4’s recent docudrama Mo – if you want a friend in politics, buy a dog!).

Party politics aside for the moment (as any campaign run by, or on behalf of, the Air Cadets would be above party politics), I can promise that if anyone (politician or council bigwig alike) wishes to side with the Partnership and oppose the retention of such a valuable youth organisation, this blog will fight you all the way.

If, on the other hand, you wish to support the Air Cadets and their continued success, this blog will welcome you with open arms.

The choice, as they say, is yours!

Related posts

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2. Remembering the Falklands Few
3. The day I (almost) regained faith in the Partnership