There are a number of very important issues for Kent and in particular East Kent that arose over the past week and has come as a shock to many, the shock being that we have a government and two political parties that have had to face
reality and permit the building of new nuclear power stations and a new
coal burning power station at Richborough . Over the next weeks and
months we are going to hear all the reasons why they should not be
built and few reasons why they should.
There is a question of security, it is so easy for terrorists to attack them and blow them up though the two nuclear power stations in Kent have avoided that problem as have the several dozen that receive little mention along the French Channel coastline. The problem is we are all going to glow in the dark and
we are going to contaminate this green and pleasant land.
True, but we have been contaminating this green and pleasant land for several centuries and only recently have we started to do something about it and both nuclear and coal burning power stations could be the answer in reducing contamination.
The human is very selective in what he wants to believe and will ignore the biggest polluter of this green and pleasant land, the motorcar. Not far from where I live are members of Save The Earth running round in vehicles that should have been scrapped thirty years ago, have protested at the closure of a petrol station and signed a petition for the extension of an airport runway. They have also expressed concern that an Indian Industrialist has designed a car for £1,000 so there will be several billion new motor cars polluting the atmosphere on the Asian cotenant. How dare they, they should stick to natural forms of transport that they have used for thousands of years, next the Chinese will be building this car for its people.
The motor car has scared our countryside, fills our town with noxious gasses, and has been damaging the environment for over one-hundred years and we insist it stays. Has killed and is killing thousands of people each year by accident and respiratory diseases. Cigarettes were once thought to be the biggest killer it must now be the car. In the 1950s when nearly everyone smoked, when the world was full of coal burning power stations every few miles and there were few cars on the road there were few children suffering from Asthma
today every other kid has a respiratory problem or allege yet no one has said ban the combustion/ compression engine it is killing our kids.
God forbid that we show that much concern for our children, how would we shop, how would we get around, how would we survive? They did it once, they walked, caught buses and trains or stayed at home and made sure they knew what there kids were doing.
What we did with the motor car was make new laws to improve it because it was and has become an intrinsic part of our lives, and we will go on improving the motor car until we find a new fuel or cheaper way to power it. We should have done the same with nuclear and coal power, we should have kept building power stations and improving the technology until we had systems that produced little pollution and were relatively safe.
The problem is that we are now about fifty years behind as we squandered precious recourses such as natural gas and oil. We can afford to invest money in coal and nuclear technologies as they appear to be cheaper on a pound per kilowatt investment bases than the land hungry windmills. But I imagine that we are going to have people protesting, laying in the roads and climbing trees. If we do not resolve the power problem quickly we will all be back in the trees
It appears the Telegraph has death on the mind or there is very little interesting news to report from around the world. We do not need too much convincing that we are not only running out of space to build new homes we are also running out of space to bury the dead.
The Victorians recognised this problem and began building crematoriums the most majestic of these I believe to be the North London Crematorium at Golders Green. I say that because the majority of my ancestors from the past one-hundred years are scattered there as are some of the most famous British people. The Victorians’ thought that it would be a little like a library or block of flats with row upon row of shelves and cubby holes were we could store our loved ones ashes. Regrettably, they ran out of space.
A similar problem has occurred in churches and the graveyards have run out of space. The Church has now agreed to woodland burials and have, in some areas, consecrated the ground for Christian burial. This was a very urgent matter as many towns in England no longer had space to bury the dead.
There has been some concern that the Church of England, having had difficulty managing and caring for graves near churches will find it even more difficult to care for woodland graves that may be some distance from a church. The Church of England dismiss this though have made it know that there will be no gravestones only biodegradable wooden plaques; they have also suggested that a tree be planted with the body.
Tree and body planting would probably be more acceptable to many than heating and lighting the crematorium. Folkestone Magazine would like to take that a little further and suggest the burial be handled by the family and a tree chopped down and hollowed out and used as a coffin. The bark, branches and chippings could be put to one side for Indian Funerals. A woodland funeral could become a regular event for families bringing them back together. The celebrity chefs could show us how to prepare backed potatoes in their jackets, hot roast chestnuts and mulled wine for the winter and light smoked salmon salads using woodland herbs for the warmer days.
Do you remember Major Malcolm Nicolson 0f the Folkestone Pipe Band of the same name. We want to write about the Major for our Folkestone People section. Though we have found several articles relating to the Major and his wife we really would like a personal view and photographs. Please email if you can help
