In our regular On This Week column, we look back through the pages of the Lynn News from April 1 – 6, 2005 as well as a picture from April 1992...
Methodists at Terrington St Clement were able to celebrate Easter in their new church. It was perfect timing for the congregation, which has waited for six months for the £200,000 building to be completed, as the church was officially handed over in time for Easter Sunday services. About 30 people attended the first service at 8.30am which was followed by an Easter breakfast, then there was as turnout of around 80 people for the 10.30am worship conducted by Superintendent Minister, the Rev Alan Thorpe. Before the early service, a cross made of wood from the old building was carried into the new church and it will be hung on the front wall.
Hunstanton has had a £95,000 brighten-up boost with £20,000 of the cash to be spent on its Anglia in Bloom bid. The town will be vying to be crowned one of East Anglia’s top coastal resorts, thanks to the cash injection from West Norfolk Council. The town has entered Anglia in Bloom for the first time in the category for a coastal resort with a population less than 35,000 and plans are already being put together to make sure Hunstanton is in top condition for judging in July. A dedicated working party of town councillors and representatives from local groups has been set up.
Up to half the cost of a £15.5 million marina planned for Lynn’s Boal Quay could be covered by European funding. Euro MP for the East of England, Richard Howitt, said up to £8 million may be made available for the marina, but application has to be made by the end of September. Mr Howitt visited the planned marina site at the Nar Loop off Boal Quay, with prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour, Damien Welfare, and met houseboat owner Mrs Carole Bowes and Nar Ouse Regeneration Area consultative group member, Mr Roger Turff to look round the proposed area.
Furniture retailer Reeds, which was once dubbed the “Harrods of The Fens”, has announced it is to close after nearly 100 years of trading and making 25 staff redundant. This follows the collapse of a deal which owner Jeffrey Read had hoped would guarantee the Downham shop’s long term future. The shop, which has a turnover of around £2 million a year, was opened during the reign of Edward VII, and when Horatio Nelson was a child in West Norfolk he lived in the top part of the building.
West Norfolk is clearly the place to be for retired folk – with both Lynn and Fakenham in the national top ten for pensioners. Lynn comes in at number three in a major poll commissioned by Yours magazine, which claims the town is the tops when it comes to waiting lists for knee replacements and the fact that the land is flat with beautiful countryside. The national retirement study saw 60 retirement destinations across the country visited and readers put Fakenham at number six, with the town highly rated because it has a “beautiful walking area”, its market and, of course, the horse racing.
A dog owner narrowly escaped death when he tried to rescue his pet from the path of an oncoming train. The West Norfolk man was struck by a Lynn-bound train near West Winch after the dog had strayed on to the line. He attempted an heroic rescue, but when trying to scramble away he was struck by a glancing blow and suffered arm injuries and was taken to Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital; the dog escaped unharmed. The track was closed for around two hours and train operator WAGN had to set up a replacement bus service between Lynn and Downham.
Ram-raiders used a stolen 4x4 Mitsubishi Shogun to smash through the front of a Dersingham store and drag out a cash machine. Police are now appealing for information after this second raid on Thaxter’s Spar Shop in Hunstanton Road this year – and the fifth ram-raid in West Norfolk in the last six months. The raiders abandoned the Shogun, leaving its engine still running, at the scene and made off with the cash machine in another vehicle. The Shogun had been stolen in the Barton Bendish area a few days earlier.
Lifeboat volunteers wasted more than an hour searching for a man who was already safe and well. The rescuers were called out to find a kite surfer who had been reported as missing off the coast at Old Hunstanton. But “thoughtless” beach-goers forgot to tell the RNLI he was actually back on dry land.