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Charity - FORT The speaker for our first meeting was from the charity we are supporting this year which is FORT (Friends of Radiotherapy Trust). This Trust provides equipment and amenities for treatment of in-patients and out-patients attending the department to supplement and complement those provided by the NHS. Money already raised has been spent on refurbishment and equipment, the aim being to give effective treatment with understanding in comfortable surroundings. The Rainbow Suite has been opened to provide complementary therapies such as reflexology and aromatheraphy and money is required for this. The Radiotherapy Department covers a large area from Fareham to West Sussex and includes Petersfield. Fleet Street Unfortunately Mr Taylor was unable to give his talk on the Warrior, but luckily we were able to get another speaker at short notice. Mrs Bowman came to talk about her days in Fleet Street in the fifties when she started as a messenger in the postal department of the Express newspaper. The Express started in 1900 and some years later, when it was in financial trouble, was bought by Max Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook, who made it profitable. London was very different in the fifties, the city did not have the traffic congestion it has today, few people owned cars and workers commuted to work on buses or the underground. There were no computers and reporters typed their news stories on typewriters. Mrs Bowman remembered Giles, the cartoonist, who was with the newspaper for many years, perhaps one of his best known characters was Grandma, a battleaxe usually wielding an umbrella. He had a pig farm in East Anglia and was a friend of Lord Beaverbrook and often went sailing with him. In Canada Lord Beaverbrook was in a lift and offered the bell boy a tip, the boy refused the tip but asked him for a job. He was offered a job and in later years rose to a high managerial position in the company. Years ago the general public obtained the news through newspapers or the radio, whereas today most people watch the news programmes on television. Mrs Bowman felt nowadays newspapers try to find sensational headlines to attract readers. Margaret Deal |
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page last updated 25 OCTOBER 2001 |
