Letters - Ratley-born man sends thanks for 40 years of Banbury news from Mexico

Just to say thank you for your news. My family on the distaff side was from the Stratford-upon-Avon area, taken in its widest meaning. I was born in Ratley, Edge Hill, where my father was a tenant farmer.

There are, I'm sure, many Bishop families who won't know me, but Alfred Bishop once farmed at Galley Hill, up above Brailes and my brother Simon was born in Sutton under Brailes, just below the Churchyard. My mother was Barbara Kenyon (born Barbara Elizabeth Bishop). Alfred Bishop later farmed at the Rough farm, Alscot and Andrew Bishop his son farmed up above at Beecham farm.

So I am in Mexico. I've been here forty years or more but your newspaper has given me a window into where we came from. Thank you again and to all those Bishops in your area, greetings from a distant relative.

Wishing you and your readers my best wishes for 2023. And thank you all.

Roger Kenyon, via email.

The government seems intent to introduce legislation that would enforce minimum staffing levels for essential services that are due to take industrial action.

This will have the effect of forcing workers to cross picket lines against their will, or face dismissal.

Most of these changes to legislation are being made under the pretence of public safety. Instead they are just designed to remove the workers’ right to withdraw their labour.

If minimum staffing levels are to be applied, perhaps they should apply every day and not just when there is industrial action. Then perhaps we could expect to be seen in a timely manner by ambulances and when sat in A&E.

It’s staff shortages that are causing concerns for public safety; not workers engaged in lawful industrial action. Treating the workers as assets rather than as serfs would go some way to address it.

The right to take part in peaceful protest has been part and parcel of living in a modern democracy for many years now. The erosion of your rights is the only capital this defunct government has left after 13 years of misrule. Fight for them or lose them

Simon Garrett, Banbury

Well done you for featuring the BID team and applauding their efforts in organising the Victorian Market.

That was a most impressive venture and showed Banbury what can be done with effort and imagination.

I thought at the time that the town council seemed to be getting all the credit for that weekend, whereas, anyone who took notice will have realised, it was a co-operative effort with BID.

Let us hope that the team get the renewal of their mandate in February and move on to more projects to increase the footfall in the town centre.

There are entrepreneurs out there – all that is needed is the footfall and the economic circumstances to encourage them to open up new retail ventures, or other community activities.

The Banbury Civic Society has been anxious for the past three or four months that with the apparent demise of the Town Centre Partnership Committee there has been no official body committed to ‘pump-priming’ local effort to do what BID has now done – shown what is possible.

There are too many empty shop units in the town and Castle Quay – the reasons are well known – but relocating the County Library (when will that happen?) and the provision of fun attractions for the younger residents would generate extra footfall and the rest will follow.

Peter Monk, via email

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