November 2023

Thoughts from Sandie

I’d like to start by thanking Ron who recently attended the Stone Festival and Carnival disbursement meeting, he gave a wonderful overview of the club and what it means to him and received a cheque on behalf of the club for £250.

The generosity of people we know is astounding, three of my husband’s colleagues at Man United have given us a £40 donation and three tubs of sweets. Thank you.

All the volunteers are busy planning and organising our Christmas party. I think we may get a visit from the big

Thoughts from the 80's part 2, what a decade….

1985 – Live Aid.
Founded Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, Live Aid was a benefit concert for famine relief in Ethiopia held simultaneously at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and Wembley Stadium in London. Acts included Sting, Phil Collins, U2, Dire Straits, David Bowie, The Who, and Queen. The concert raised over £100 million.
1986 – Major Industries Privatised.
A major goal of the Thatcher government was to privatise many industries that had been nationalised early in the 20th Century. Amongst the industries that went private included British Gas, British Airways, Rolls-Royce, and Council houses. The privatisation was pushed aggressively by the Tories, who relied on their majority to accomplish their political goals.
1987 – Margaret Thatcher wins third General Election.
In perhaps what was a reality check, the Conservative Party lost 21 seats in Parliament after the 1987 Election. While still enough to give Margaret Thatcher another go at Prime Minister, nothing would be the same. Pushback against privatisation led them to pursue other issues and individual agendas, and was arguably the beginning of the end for Thatcher’s premiership.
1988 – Liberal Democratic Party is formed.
Alliance between the Liberal Party and the Socialist Democratic Party had been around since the 70’s but had failed to achieve its goal of supplanting Labour as the UK’s other major political party. In response to the election, the two merged to become the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, eventually known as the Liberal Democratic Party (or Lib Dems).
1989 – Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
Arguably the most significant technological advance of the 20th Century, the world wide web (or the Web as we know it today), was the creation of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The first public web pages appeared only four years later and has revolutionised our world today.