What a Difference a Decade Makes

Someone recently suggested I should change my blog strapline to The Man Who Gets About A Bit. They've formed the impression I spend my time flitting about the country - one minute in Oldham, the next in North Yorkshire and then, at the blink of an eye, in County Durham. Gallivanting is, I think, the term that has been used.

It's true, I do like to put myself about. It's one of the things that divides Mrs Blunt and I, she much preferring to spend her time around the hearth at home. As I travel the land, I try to stay alert to the changes that have occurred in places I used to know.

So, as I found myself (unexpectedly) in Daventry, Northants earlier today, I was able to reflect on how a decade had taken its toll on a town that - when I first knew it - was in something of a crisis. Well known high street shops had deserted the place in droves, leaving a phalanx of charity shops and run-down pubs in their train, fighting a desperate rear-guard action against out-of-town shopping centres.

Well, I was in for quite a surprise. Daventry has re-asserted itself. The pubs are smarter, the shops more varied and bustling, and there's even a very nice Costa Coffee shop that's opened up.

When I first visited Daventry back in the early 1990's, it was at the invitation of a group of locals who were trying to stop their local Health Authority closing down the much-loved Danetre Hospital. They'd heard from somewhere that the power of Bill Blunt's pen could cause bureaucrats to quake in their comfortable, leather office chairs, and wondered if I could help them out.

My initial assessment was bleak. The NHS managers seemed intent on closing the place and flogging off the land for housing development - a fashionable way of generating revenue at the time. If that happened, the opportunity would be lost forever for future developments, and it would be another nail in the coffin for the town.

My time with the group was brief - enough, however, to organise a lobby of local councillors, MPs and health service officials, produce a few well-aimed newsletters and organise a march through the town against the proposed cuts in services. Victory in the first battle was hard won, but sweet when it came: we commissioned an independent report on the health needs of the town, and argued that the Health Authority needed to carry out their own 'health needs assessment' for the local population. They eventually agreed to do just that. I was satisfied, at the time, that my work was done.

What a pleasure, then, to see today that (all these years later) the Danetre Hospital had not only survived closure, but had been augmented with the opening, late last year, of a brand new community hospital on the same site. This, on the land that would otherwise have fallen to housing development.

There will be some readers of my blog who think that old Bill Blunt spends his time wittering on about meat pies, prostitution in Oldham, MP3 players and Walthamstow Dog Track statistics. If that's what they want to think, that's fine by me. But they'd better take note: Bill's still got his quill, and it's ready for sharpening whenever the occasion arises.

That's Better, Tommy!

Ever since my debut on the blogosphere, I have had in mind that my pitch here should look a little more like a newspaper, the better to reflect my past life as a journalist and commentator in the press.

Of course, as I have absolutely no technical proficiency, and rely very much on my kind friend, Thomas Hamburger Jnr to host this blog, I am also, by default, reliant on his decisions when it comes to layout.

Anyway, I am pleased to report that, over a couple of pints last night I was able to outline to Thomas how I thought my blog should look. After all, if I'm getting all these visitors dropping in to read about mp3 players, prostitution in Oldham and Walthamstow Dogs, they deserve to think they've found someone of some substance - something my previous (rather washed-out) blog struggled to portray.

This is much better, Tommy - well done! I wonder what my reader thinks, though?

The Searchers

I've had a report in from Jasper about How People Find Your Blog. I thought, at first, he'd been asking my readers for their opinions about the blog, which would have been interesting.



Instead, he presented me with a statistical digest, culled from something called Statcounter, which made interesting (and sometimes frankly bizarre) reading.

According to Jasper, my humble blog comes out at No 1 on Google for people who search for stats for walthamstow dogs. I know I mentioned Walthamstow Dog Track on an earlier posting, and I am sure I must have used the word 'stats' here and there since I made my debut on the blogosphere all those weeks ago. But it left me wondering whether the poor visitor who chanced upon my blog after his (or her) Google search really imagines that I am the world's foremost authority on dog racing statistics for the north east London venue?

More alarmingly, I discovered that I am ranked at No 2 on Google for a search on Oldham prostitution - this, apparently, on the basis of some comment or other I made about a Waterloo Street massage parlour I was vaguely aware of some thirty-odd years ago.

I was less surprised to learn that I am a world expert on the prolectrix 1gb mp3 player, (at least according to the Romanians) and I hope whoever visited the blog to find out my views on it were satisfied with my opinion.

As I read more of the details, I will let you know of any other surprises in the small print. Until then, I can only offer my apologies to those who have come to read my thoughts thinking, perhaps, that I am some sort of guru on dog racing, tarts and mp3 players.

I was very, very drunk....

I understand that the Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP has now written to all those who petitioned him for the early release of the 1911 UK census.

It will come as no surprise to those who know me that Bill Blunt did not lend his signature to that particular campaign. So far as I am concerned, those who completed the census did so in the firm belief that the information they submitted would be safe from prying eyes for 100 years.

My great aunt Dorothea was a prominent member of the Suffragette movement. As I understand it, family lore has it that she spent the evening of Sunday, 2 April 1911 in a Soho speakeasy. This has since been confirmed by no other authority than Wikipedia, who report that:

The Women's Freedom League, a suffragette organisation campaigning for female suffrage in the United Kingdom, organised a boycott of the 1911 census, and women were encouraged to go to all-night parties or to stay at friends' houses in order to avoid completing the census.

As far as I'm concerned, that's her business. And for once, I'm glad to say, HM Gov seem to support my view.

Here's what Tony Blair had to say:

It is for this reason that there is a policy of a 100-year delay before releasing the personal data in the census. The purpose is to minimise the risk of embarrassment both to those living and to their immediate descendants.

I for one don't wish to know what Great Aunt Dorothea got up to in Soho, on that steamy, sultry night in April 1911.

And I can't think why anyone else might want to, either.

In truth, the risk of embarrassing any one of the 42 million people who were enumerated in 1911 is just too great.

Let's just let it lie.

Heaven is a Door in Waterloo Street

It's quite some time since I wrote a regular column for the fledgling Oldham Athletic FC fanzine, Beyond the Bolundary. I was sad to learn of its demise since, in its hey-day, BTB rocked the very foundations of the football establishment.

I am nevertheless proud of my own, minor contribution to what one critic once described as 'poetry in print'.

Although it is some years since my family lived in Oldham, I have fond memories of the place, notwithstanding that, at the time, it was ruled by the kind of 'Old' Labour Party mafia that might have even embarassed Pol Pot's regime.

So, I was naturally delighted to stumble across a 'blog' penned by a true Oldhamer. Reading it brought back happy recollections of the time I caught a famous Oldham footballer 'straightening his tie' in a Waterloo Street doorway. I was never able to write about it, you understand: not for me, the sensationalist kiss-and-tell tabloid tales. His secret was safe with me and, I am pleased to report, Mrs Blunt never got wind of it, either.

Anyway, I trust you will enjoy Crofty's most estimable Blog. I would have been proud to have a writer of his calibre working alongside me on any one of the numerous publications I have contributed to.

Well done, that man!