Good served with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese on top, and accompanied by crusty bread. This is a substantial soup, good for a light lunch or supper.

Ingredients
700g asparagus, roughly chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced into centimetre cubes
1 medium onion, diced
1 vegetable or chicken stock cube
1 litre water
level tsp each of salt and ground black pepper
1.5 glasses white wine
bunch watercress
100ml double cream
50g butter

Method
1 Fry asparagus, potato and onion in butter for 2 minutes, stirring regularly.
2 Turn up heat to full and add white wine and stock cube
3 When stock cube has dissolved, add water and seasoning. Bring to boil and simmer for 45 minutes.
4 Add cress and cream. Blend thoroughly. Serve immediately.

Weavers Restaurant, Hadleigh

The following other biographies to be published in September would appear to be of good quality and worth recommending.

Large format paperback edition of this superb and masterly best-selling biography which covers not only Rembrandt the man and his works, but provides a strong evocation of the historical context. Now at a more acceptable price and with some 349 illustrations.

A celebration of some of the leading figures he has met in his sixty years of journalism, who he considers to have made the world a better or more interesting place.

At last available in U.K. A telling biography of the late writer of the famous nautical fiction books, who was a very private and difficult man, as well as being a popular and gifted author. Essential reading for his many fans, written by an expert on the genre, and based on interviews with family, friends and colleagues. Because of demand this book was imported from the U.S.A. when it was published there.

From a wonderful woman who has done it all, from being expelled from school age 16 to winning the Whitbread Round-the-World Cup to MBE, Sportswoman of the year, record breaker and now motherhood. She reveals her reasons for taking on such extreme challenges, and discusses her most recent adventure into single parenthood. A courageous and inspiring book.

Paperback edition of Dava Sobel’s follow-up to Longitude, telling the story of one of history’s most important scientists, and explaining the importance of his relationship with his illegitimate daughter, Virginia, who was a great source of strength during his most difficult years. A compelling narrative which successfully intertwines the lives of Galileo and Virginia with the wider struggle to reconcile the disparate goals of science and religion in renaissance Italy.

Autobiography of the lead singer from Boyzone who from humble beginnings in Dublin has gone on to a remarkable career, and still only 23!!

A hilarious, revealing and desperately sad, autobiography of one of Britain’s most successful stars. Remember him as accident-prone Frank Spencer and other outstanding performances in Hello Dolly! And The Phantom of the Opera, to name but a few.

‘Our Love Affair with the Lawn’. Love it or hate it, most of us have to mow the lawn relentlessly every summer, particularly if it is a wet one. This book traces the history of lawns from the time of Henry III to the present day. Tom Fort also includes guidance on creating the perfect lawn. Fascinating book on what some may think a mundane subject, but a great gift to the ‘lawn mower’ in your family, just so he or she doesn’t think they can forget their duties during the winter!

He also brought two small plants, and the resulting trees were named Wellingtonias after the Duke of Wellington who had died in 1852.

There was suddenly a mania for planting such trees, usually singly, in the fifties. One year old seedlings sold for two guineas each and were planted in great estates, suburban lawns, parks, avenues…everywhere, and grew well at two feet a year.

One such was planted in what was then the private garden of East House and it is now a huge tree, although not as big as some of its family, the largest being 300 feet tall and 70 feet in girth and will probably continue to grow for many years.

These trees can live for up to 3,400 years, relying in their native home on abundant water from snow, sometimes twenty feet of it. Their lower branches slope downwards so that snow slides easily to the ground. These lower branches are gradually sloughed off while the others contribute to the overall cone shape of the tree.

One such downward sweeping branch remains on the tree near East House.

Wellingtonias seem indestructible. Their spongy bark, two feet thick on some old trees, is apparently immune to disease and pests and resists damage by fire and storm. They are self-pollinating and the resulting egg-shaped cones, as many as 400 on a single branch, carry the small seeds which may remain in the cone for thirty years in California, many fewer in this country. Only seeds from trees 150 to 200 years old are fertile.

The astonishing size of sequoias provoked idiot behaviour among some Europeans who first saw them. Although their timber is soft and brittle, not much use, some ancient giants were felled and used as play tunnels. In the twenties only one fifth of the cut timber was used. Fortunately this wonderful family of trees is now protected by the creation of the Sequoia National Park.

The Wellingtonia in the old East House garden is still a juvenile and may continue to grow for three hundred years!

If you have an interest in any Hadleigh tree, please let us know. Ring either 01473 822269 or 01473 823659 for Gwen Dunn or Ann Stephenson.

At the beginning of the 20^th century Britain was considered to be a Christian country, but sadly this no longer applies at the beginning of the 21^st century. Obviously the expression ‘Christian country’ did not mean that all the citizens of that country were practising Christians, but rather that the majority of its citizens respected and accepted the basic ethical and moral standards of the Christian religion even if they were not regular church attenders themselves.

Today our country is regarded as being multi-cultural and multi-faith as regards its religious position, but some would argue that as less than 10% of the population attend a place of worship the Christian faith has very little relevance or impact in the life of our nation today, and consequently it would be no great loss if all the churches eventually closed. Those who think like this are failing to recognise how great a contribution Christianity has made to society in earlier centuries, and that it is still playing an important role today. For instance, our nation’s constitution embodies Christian ethics and its laws are based on the moral teachings of Christ – ‘Do unto others as you would have others do to you’ – thus providing a just and sound foundation on which to build a stable and law-abiding society.

I believe that it is no mere coincidence that, as we have observed a decline in church attendance by adults and in Sunday School attendance by children in recent years, we have seen a corresponding increase in crime and lawlessness.

We are living in an age when people have become ‘lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God’, and more intent on gaining material wealth and possessions than obeying the Word of God.

Consequently we have produced a society lacking in Christian ideals. Small wonder, then, that we see an increase in acts of robbery, violence, road rage, soccer hooliganism, drug addiction, suicide, shop lifting and fraudulent DSS benefit claims costing the government (and ultimately all taxpayers) millions of pounds per annum. If we abandon the Christian faith as a nation we will find our living standards will not improve but rather deteriorate for the reasons given in the preceding sentence.

The Christian Church may be going through a period of decline but it will never be defeated and will triumph ultimately over all its enemies – we have the assurance of Christ’s promise on that.

Colin Wright

Hadleigh Garden Club meets on 13^th September for its Members Show. Visitors are welcome to come along and meet us and see what members have grown. If you come please make it 8pm or later as us till then people will be busy setting up our little show.

The rainfall at Kersey for July totalled 66mm (2.6"). This compares with 45mm (1.8") last year, and 29mm (1.1") in 1998. So July at Kersey was rather damp.

So far this year to the end of July we have had just over 13.25 compared with 13" last year, and 13.8" in 1998. So the total this year is now very normal, but the distribution between the months has been rather different.

In July the highest temperature was 26 Cel (79F), and the lowest 6 Cel (43F), both measured in shade. This was cooler than last year.

I am trying to reduce the amount of work that my garden requires. One of the ways of doing this is to grow more shrubs and perennials and less annuals. Therefore it was totally illogical to visit Thompson and Morgan’s Open Weekend, which is trying to show you what a wonderful display one can get with Annuals which need to be raised from seed each year.

However I went, and as usual the Show borders were magnificent, and the Trial Beds interesting. The Trial Beds are interesting because:

a) They contain some new varieties that will be on offer next year.
b) They are not being grown in the best of conditions. The trial field is pretty exposed, and they do not get watered. If a plant does well under these conditions, it will virtually certainly do well in your garden.

In the show beds the Impatiens and the Petunias were magnificent and demonstrated what great Summer Bedding and Basket plants the modern varieties are. In Hadleigh have a look at the display in "The George" courtyard.

The blue Laurentia which was launched 2 or 3 years ago as the new basket plant, had clearly not liked our Summer this year. Conversely Gazanias (a beautiful African dwarf daisy with striking colours) seemed to have done well even in the Trial Beds. I think that this is the plant which will lead me astray from growing less annuals next year.

On the fruit and vegetable side things have gone quite well this summer. The exceptions have been my courgettes, which were not impressed with our July weather, and have only recently got into full production, and an outbreak of potato blight, which also infected one group of my outdoor tomatoes. To me this is an annoying inconvenience, but it does make one think how dreadful it must have been for the Irish in the years when it wiped out the potato crop on which they were depending for winter food.

September is the time to buy bulbs. A garden can never have too many of them. They can be planted between deciduous (leaf losing) shrubs, and under fruit trees. In these positions they can be left undisturbed for two or three years until they become overcrowded and need to be thinned out and the soil enriched a bit. They then give you a great Spring display, and by the time the shrubs and fruit trees come into leaf they will be over and dying back.

This approach works well with daffodils, crocus, and grape hyacinths, but it will not work with most tulips, which are best used in formal beds. The exceptions are the small species (wild type) tulips which provided they are planted deep (5 or 6") will last several years.

In buying bulbs try and make sure that you are buying bulbs that have been raised commercially and not lifted from the wild.

John Rye

We’re all still busy organising events and collecting all that dosh!

There will be plenty of events to get stuck into in the next few months, so keep your eyes peeled and your ears pinned back for our posters, and HYPE members around the town. Remember, if you don’t talk to us about what you’d like to see and do in Hadleigh, how are we going to know who to cater our events towards? We are not mind readers, though it would be quite interesting if we were!!

The holiday season is drawing to a close, summer holidays are more or less over and it’s back to school, college, sixth form and work for most of us. So what sort of summer did you have? Where did you go on holiday? Did you see all your friends practically every day? I know for a fact that for some of you out there it’s been a long summer waiting for either ‘A’ level or GCSE results. I hope everyone got what grades they were after and are settling well into a new college, workplace or uni!!

How would you rate your summer holds. What could have been done to make it better? Especially if you stayed in Hadleigh, were you bored? If so, what did you really want to do, but couldn’t? Let us know pronto – we want to do something about it!!

THESE FEATURES WILL RELATE TO THE ISSUES COMMONLY FACED BY THE YOUTH OF TODAY.

It’s hard to know where to start. Let’s face it, we’ve all been subjected to name calling and teasing at some odd occasion, but when its more than the odd comment and starts to grow, when does it become bullying? There is a certain stigma concerning this problem, and we are told that the usual answer is to ignore it and not to let it get you down.

But this is not the best advice, and definitely not helpful. I know – we’ve been there, reduced to tears and asking "Why me?"

What happens to start this chain of events? I think I am justified in saying it’s down to petty jealousy in most cases; that the person being teased has got something which the ‘bully’ hasn’t. But not all cases are this simple, and a prime example is being teased for being intelligent and achieving at school, or being prepared to show your individuality and not following the crowd.

Basically it’s down to the bullies’ insecurities and lack of confidence to be their own person. They try to detract from themselves and put it onto others. This happens outside and in school, i.e. it also causes embarrassment in a class situation when the person can feel depressed about speaking up or answering in class discussions. Playtime can become a nightmare by trying to ‘avoid’ the bully in the playground and all too often there is less adult supervision, so there is more opportunity for the bully to inflict his/her insults and comments, BUT it’s definitely not a crime to be "brainy" or individual and work hard at school, because more often than not your hard work will pay off come results time!!

Bullying is about power, and can present itself in many ways, emotionally and physically. Both can be just as detrimental as the other in ways of effects on the victim. But what do YOU classify as bullying? Who is to blame? No one deserves to be bullied – do you share that view? I asked a few of you on my travels around Hadleigh what you thought:

"Bullying can be something which is hard to explain. I think it’s when someone is deliberately hurting you, physically or mentally or both. It’s about control. But I do think there is a fine line between disliking someone because they get on your nerves and bullying them. But it affects different people in different ways." Sarah Kerry, 14, Hadleigh.

"Bullying is when people have a control over someone in a nasty way. It’s about making themselves feel better by hurting someone else. The victim feels distressed and upset. No one deserves to be bullied, but people may bring it on themselves in many different ways – showing off, being big headed etc. But no one’s perfect so we should try and get on despite any differences." Naomi Holland, 14, Elmsett.

But what if it is happening to you? What can you do to break out of the isolation? Simple – tell someone! It’s no good bottling it up inside and crying into your pillow or teddy. The problem won’t go away like that. Tell your best mate, a teacher you trust, anyone who will take you seriously and take action to deal with your problem with discretion. The worst thing to discover is that the options you’re faced with is to sort it out for yourself or leave. Believe me, that was the option faced by a good friend of mine, and it was only sorted out through support of friends and the form tutor and it took time.

It boiled down to a bad case of jealousy on the bullies part, which was pathetically displayed. These matters should be taken very seriously. Not only is it a violation of the Basic Human Rights Declaration, it can cause a multitude of problems for the unwilling victim – neuroticism, depression, schoolwork may suffer, it can make a person desperate for a way out. BUT……..

You can even call into ‘The Cellar’ and talk confidentially to one of the youth workers. It’s confidential and there is even a free cup of coffee!! But the sooner you start talking, then the sooner it’ll get sorted!! Naomi and Kate

Farming in the good old days
Horses walking up and down,
Ploughing furrows day by day
Men just earning half a crown.

After then the corn was drilled
Working through till nearly dark,
Farmers shouting ‘Come on man,
You just have no time to shirk’.

Tea in a bottle wrapped in a sock
That was all the drink men had.
To eat they had a loaf of bread
With an ounce of cheese, ah times were bad.

Harvest time comes round again
Binders throwing out the sheaves
Mind the thistles, turn down your sleeves.

Rabbits running for dear life,
Boys with sticks and men with gun.
I suppose for some those days
It was just a bit of fun.

Rows and rows of stack of corn
Harvested from every field.
Farmers looking on with pride
Boasting how much their crops had yield.

Thrashing time has come again
Covering you with dust and dirt.
So the men kept on and on
Their names were Joe and John and Bill and Bert.

Some of the farmers were not too bad
And brought the men some beer,
So to these poor old working chaps
Must have brought a bit of cheer.

Some farmers paid a bonus
If one worked over time.
You had to pay the rent that way
Which took away the shine.

But when the harvesting was done
A harvest supper is what men had.
They so enjoyed this once a year
But some next day felt really bad.

They sang old songs and ate and drank,
Some had a glass of sherry.
Oh, yes they all enjoyed that night
And a few got really merry.

Will the men who drive the combines
Round and round the fields today,
Have memories to tell their children.
Not very much I’d say.

We are told it’s no good looking back
On things that used to be,
I’m sure that memories still linger on
In many minds you will agree.

The harvest home of God will come
And after toil and care,
With joy untold your sheaves of gold
Will all be gathered there.

May we, the angels reaping o’er
Stand at the last accepted
Christ golden sheaves for evermore
To garners bright elected.

Jerry Bruckheimer turned big time car thief? In fact, the biggest criminal act within Gone in 60 seconds is the failure of a realisation of a highly-intriguing concept with great potential that has been fatally undermined. Indeed, this is not the first time Gone in 60 has appeared on our screens. It’s previous incarnation, as Henry B Halicki’s 1974 cult classic of the same name, was filled with all the action that a car smash could provide. For the producer of such efforts as The Rock and Armageddon, this should be something that cinemagoers would be happy to take off his hands.

In a most simplistic form, the plot revolves around a group of car thieves who attempt to steal fifty cars in one night, but because of the misguided view that a character with anything less than entirely honourable intentions can endear themselves to the average audience, the plot has been hopelessly re-worked, and it is in finding a justification for this motivation from which the downfall of this rendition begins – a poorly-judged decision from Bruckheimer.

To elaborate somewhat further, Kip Raines (Giovanni Ribisi), the inexperienced brother of the legendary car thief Memphis Raines (Nicholas Cage), has bungled the theft of a car which was part of a consignment bound for Raymond Calitri (Christopher Ecclestone), a guy who’s definitely without a sense of humour. Not very happy at losing his latest shipment, he decrees to Memphis that he must steal the fifty prestige cars within the four days, or he will take the life of his younger brother in revenge.

Unable to reverse the situation and portray their pursuers as villainous, the introduction of a third party to the fray (Calitri) by the producer is a desperate measure, but of a list of props including a veritable Noah’s Ark of Ferraris and other autos, perhaps the worst act of heresy for any car lover is not their theft (there is hardly any mention of the skills which they use) or defacement, but the fact that we are barely allowed to view them ourselves, and for the most part they are simply called out two by two – save for the final car chase featuring a Shelby Mustang, which is hardly the pinnacle of man’s relationship with the automobile. In trying to please everybody this film struggles to retain an entertainment value which is of the lowest denomination.

Vinnie Jones makes his second film experience after his debut in Lock, stock and two smoking barrels. He plays Bullet-tooth Tony. Essentially, his highly memorable role in lock, stock was not wholly due to any undiscovered acting prowess, but of an exceptional piece of casting from Guy Richie, who, aware of our perceived image of Jones, cast him as Big Chris, knowing the ferocious reputation that preceded him would extend to the screen.

The entire film very much belongs to Cage and his co-star Angelina Jolie, who plays Sway, a fellow car thief and Cage’s love interest. Perhaps the most inexplicable of the characters, Raines professes his love of fast cars throughout the film, yet fails to feel any regret of the transitory role he is playing in their destruction, his fleeting experiences of driving them and any condemnation of the privileged few who can own them.

The only situation in which he comes close is in the studio-sanctioned love scene, performed while waiting for two lovers to turn their attention elsewhere, in order that they may relieve them of their car.

Separated by the windows of their apartment, Raines and Sway silently contemplate their shallow existence as thieves before losing everyone in a proliferation of ‘car speak’.

When you’re having fun you don’t often think about your hearing. But if you’ve ever been to a concert, a club, at the car races or shooting trap and the first thing you do when you get in your car is turn the radio up, you need to consider using hearing protection. For all types of hearing protection, the latest hearing aids and all your hearing requirements please contact Karen Finch, R.H.A.D., M.S.H.A.A., qualified hearing aid audiologist, The Hearing Care Centre, Tel: 0800 0962637

Part II
Noise induced hearing loss typically occurs gradually and without pain. Often by the time a person realises that there may be a problem, it is too late. But there are early warning signs. If you experience any of the following symptoms, have your hearing tested by Karen Finch R.H.A.D., M.S.H.A.A., a qualified hearing aid audiologist.

Be aware of the warning signs for hearing loss
If you have control of the volume, turn it down; if you don’t wear hearing protection. There are many options available today to meet specific needs and uses for hearing protection; from products designed to give as much ambient noise protection as possible, to hearing protection devices designed specifically for performing musicians.

Twenty years ago no one wore bicycle helmets, now it’s rare when you see someone riding without one. Concrete hasn’t gotten harder in the last two decades, people have become much more educated about the risks involved and the dangers they face should they be involved in an accident. It’s a noisy world out there. With the information and resources available today, positive steps can be taken to reduce the occurrence of noise induced hearing loss.

For those members of the community who are of the generation where noise has already affected their ability to hear, don’t suffer in silence. The latest second generation digital hearing aids can improve speech understanding considerably. These items are complex and require expert fitting and be part of a rehabilitation programme.