From the pages of the Down Recorder, October 14, 1992

From the pages of the Down Recorder, October 14, 1992

12 October 2022

DOWN – Hospital campaigners are today appealing to the residents of Down to help establish a fighting fund.

And the Down Recorder is throwing its weight behind the drive to raise cash for the hospitals campaign.

The Down Community Health Committee estimates that £50,000 will be needed to challenge an Eastern Health Board decision to run down the Downpatrick hospitals, and they hope to have that amount in the coffers by the time the board delivers its verdict in January.

A special appeal account has been opened at the TSB in Downpatrick and the funds drive was given a kick start this week with a lodgement of £1,200.

The cash was raised by Mr Sean Mahon, of the Saintfield firm, Shawson Supply. Mr Mahon approached many of his business contacts in the rest of Northern Ireland and England for a donation and most firms sent £100 each.

Mr Mahon is a member of the community health committee’s fund-raising group and at the launch of the appeal this week he said: “I know it’s not a good time to be asking people to donate money, but I don’t think there is a man, woman or child in the district who can afford not to contribute.

“We may be living in difficult economic times, but I would hope that everyone will think of ways in which they can help to raise money for the hospitals. It is absolutely vital.”

INCH – One of Down District’s most important historical sites could be put at risk by a major rally in Downpatrick later this month, it has been claimed.

The medieval Inch Abbey site on the banks of the Quoile River could suffer because of a national rally being organised by the Northern Ireland Council for Metal Detecting.

The organisers of the rally, which is being held in the Abbey Lodge Hotel on October 24, have said that metal detector enthusiasts will have the opportunity to work on “prime detecting land” adjacent to the hotel, a stance that has shocked a Down councillor.

Councillor Albert Colmer, has angrily condemned the NICMD for planning to use land near the historic Inch Abbey site for metal detecting, and for publicising the event in the latest edition of the magazine Treasure Hunting.

According to the magazine the rally will be in aid of charity and hopes to raise several hundred pounds for Leukaemia Research and the Northern Ireland Council for Action Fund.

Mr Colmer, a founder member of the Locale Historical Society and past chairman of the Federation for Ulster Local Studies, has claimed that the implications of the rally appear to be that Inch island is a “site ripe for the pickings”.

STRANGFORD – A renewed bid to replace derelict warehouses in Strangford with a luxury waterside housing development is expected to be made in the next few months, it has been revealed.

The site of the former Elliott’s warehouses, situated close to the harbour, is to be put on the market within the next fortnight.

The site, which comes complete with outline planning permission for a small development of eight to nine dwellings, has been the cause of past controversy.

A previous scheme for a three-storey apartment complex was shelved several years ago following objections from local residents.

The selling agents are Alexander, Reid and Frazer, of Downpatrick, who envisage a scheme comprising a mixture of two-storey houses and apartments.

Even with the depressed state of the property market, the agents are anticipating that the site will be snapped up quickly.

BALLYNAHINCH – Roads chiefs have refuted claims that the introduction of car parking charges in Ballynahinch has resulted in a downturn in the fortunes of the town’s Wellworths supermarket.

The DoE Roads Service has said the levying of charges in Lisburn Street car park cannot be blamed for what has been described as a dramatic slump in sales at the Wellworths store.

The DoE statement comes days after Wellworths management warned staff will have to be laid off unless there is a sharp improvement in turnover.

The company has written to the Department asking for the charges to be suspended or at least altered to enable shoppers some free parking.

One of the town’s biggest employers, Wellworths, currently has just over 100 full and part-time staff.

The charges, which were introduced a month ago, cover part of the large car park at the rear of the Lisburn Street supermarket and Windmill Street car park.

Mr Stan King, financial director of F A Wellworths, said the store is going through one of its worst periods since it opened three years ago.

DOWNPATRICK – One of the best-known members of staff at the Downpatrick Maternity Hospital has retired after a remarkable 38 years in the nursing profession.

Sister Bridie McKervey has been caring for new-born babies and their mothers in Downpatrick since moving to the area 14 years ago.

Drawn to midwifery because it offered the “brighter side of nursing,” she began her professional life as a trainee at the Belfast City Hospital in 1954, and after qualifying she went to work in the hospital’s Jubilee Maternity Ward.

After staffing at Jubilee for over two years, Bridie obtained a sister’s post, and a short while later she took a break from her career to have some practical first-hand experience of birth – she had three children of her own.

Re-entering the profession, Bridie became a community midwife in East Belfast and Castlereagh before her family moved to live in Downpatrick.

She then took up a post in Hardy Greer House, the former maternity unit on Downpatrick’s Strangford Road, and when the new Maternity Hospital was opened on the Ardglass Road in September 1981 she made the move to the new premises.

ARDGLASS – A meeting at an Ardglass housing estate later this week will attempt to unearth who is responsible for a section of land which has been used as a dump.

Residents at the Seaview estate, off the Strangford Road, claim the area is a death-trap for children and have called on Down Council to send a representative to the meeting.

Mr Paddy Connor, chairman of the Seaview Residents Association, said rubble removed from houses during a renovation programme several years ago was dumped at the rear of a number of homes.

A representative from McGrady Bros, the firm which carried out the renovation work, will also be in attendance at this week’s meeting, in a bid to have the matter resolved.

Mr Connor said that “exhaustive attempts” to discover who was responsible for the land in question had proved fruitless.

“No one seems to care about the danger to the children living in the estate. This issue has dragged on for a number of years and it is time to have it sorted once and for all, before someone is seriously injured or maimed for life,” he declared.

NEWCASTLE – Newcastle author Martin Waddell is on course for a record-breaking third win in the UK’s biggest prize for children’s fiction.

Martin, who won the coveted Smarties Prize in 1988 and 1991, has been named once again in the short-list of contenders for the prestigious award.

The prolific author of over 80 books, Martin’s best-selling children’s story, Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear?, earned him his first Smarties Award back in 1988. The popular picture book also went on to win another prize – the Kate Greenaway Medal – and has since been translated into dozens of languages.

Martin did it again last year when another of his picture books for children, Farmer Duck, was again judged the winner at the awards ceremony in London.