From the pages of the Down Recorder, November 3, 1993

From the pages of the Down Recorder, November 3, 1993

8 November 2023

DOWNPATRICK – A Downpatrick war veteran has urged the Housing Executive to find him a new home before he “dies in squalor”.

Seventy eight year-old Bertie Young says the Executive has blocked his attempts to move from his flat at McLean House in the Meadowlands estate to a pensioner’s bungalow in Bridge Street.

Mr Young, who suffers from a severe bowel complaint, lives on a daily diet of boiled eggs and tea and claims that if he is not helped soon, he will be found dead.

So desperate is he to move that he has even contemplated changing his religion in the hope that either the Executive or Social Services officials will help him.

The pensioner also suffers from regular dizzy spells and a kidney complaint and says that he needs to get out of the “ice-box” he is living in before it kills him.

Some family relations live in the Bridge Street area and Mr Young claims he was promised a move there several weeks ago.

NEWCASTLE – With many areas of the province still in the grip of fear following the murder of 23 people in eight days, three Newcastle mothers have got together and organised a candlelit vigil for peace in the town.

It will be held this Friday evening at 6.30pm outside the Northern Ireland Electricity showroom at Main Street.

The mothers, Valarie Miles, secretary of the Newcastle PACE group, Anne Carr, of Women Together for Peace, and Vicki Neeson, say the event has been organised simply to give the whole community an opportunity to unite in their expression of sympathy and compassion.

“So many families have been so tragically bereaved over the past few weeks and throughout the past 25 years,” said one of the mothers.

“The peace vigil has been organised to pray for the injured and their families and to call for an immediate cessation of violence of all sectarian violence.”

CLOUGH – Ambulance service chiefs have given the go-ahead for the establishment of a new ‘outpost’ at Clough in a bid to halve response times to Newcastle and Castlewellan.

The one-ambulance station will be located within the village boundary and will mean an additional ambulance crew being drafted into the area during the busy daytime hours.

Senior ambulance officials visited the village on Monday to finalise a site, and the new base, which will consist of a portacabin and a hardened surface for parking, could be on operation by Christmas, depending on the receipt of planning permission.

However, local hospitals campaigners have registered their concern that the move could pre-empt the Eastern Health Board’s decision, due later this month, on the future of acute services at the Downpatrick hospitals.

The head of the Trade Union Hospitals Co-Ordinating Committee, Mr Raymond Blaney, explained that the Clough ambulance outpost was one option to a downgraded Downe Hospital which has been mooted in Eastern Health Board circles since the original proposal to remove acute services was unveiled.

BALLEE – There’s sadness in the Connolly home at Ballee today as demolition of their 200 year-old cottage is due to begin – but there’s happiness that the nearby red telephone kiosk will remain ‘for the foreseeable future’.

For more than ten years 28 year-old Martin Connolly and his mother, Mary, have been seeking improvement grant for their dwelling at 39 Ballyhossett Road.

Eventually, they were offered replacement grant, which requires demolition of the family home, in which ancestors traded as cobblers.

Today, as their dish aerial gives them satellite television, they find it hard to understand why they are not allowed to modernise their old home without pulling it down.

“We are sorry about that,” says Martin, who works at the nearby Maxwell stables, “but what else can we do if we want a modern home?”

The Connollys take pride in having an old red phone kiosk close to their front door. They plan to take care of it during the demolition and rebuilding.

DOWNPATRICK – They’re young, they’re tough and they’re on the trail of British titles.

Who are they? Five young members of Downpatrick Codo-Kwai Judo Club, who have been selected to represent Northern Ireland in this weekend’s British Championships at Crystal Palace.

Louise Trainor, Shauneen McCaffrey, Sarah Martin, Jerome Doyle and Ryan Polly earned their places in the team after good performances in the recent NI Junior Closed Championship.

And according to coach George Cromie, they have a good chance of coming back from London with some medals.

ARDGLASS – Furious members of the action committee set up to fight plans to close Ardview House in Ardglass, have accused a local councillor of attempting to “undermine their campaign”.

Last week, Mr Dermot Curran vowed that the home would not close and revealed that he had drawn up an alternative plan for the complex.

But his comments annoyed action committee members and Ardview residents who voiced their anger during a meeting in the home last Wednesday evening.

Dr Michael Healy said the action committee wanted Ardview retained as it was and would accept nothing less

“Any alternative plan for the future use of Ardview House can only mean that many of you here tonight will not be around in future,” he told residents.

“Mr Curran is an experienced councillor and should know better. It would appear that he is confused about the present situation. He has taken the rug from under our feet and I totally condemn whatever his alternative plan may be.”

Dr Healy said the councillor’s comments “made a mockery” of the attempts of the action committee to keep hte home open and claimed the timing was “ridiculous”.

BALLYCRUTTLE – Ballycruttle residents are up in arms about a Housing Executive septic tank which they say regularly overflows, leaving them unable to flush lavatories.

One man complained that the executive “does not seem to care”, saying his family, including five children, had no toilet facilities because the tank was overflowing again on Thursday.

He also described hygiene around the tank, situated close to his St Joseph’s Park home, as “absolutely diabolical” due to the regular spills.

“I rang the Downpatrick office and gave them an hour to come out”, he said on Friday morning. “I’m looking out the window now and the contractor has just arrived to empty it.”

“This has happened a number of times and it’s getting beyond a joke,” he continued, slamming the Housing Executive for putting up a new fence and gate around the tank which was too small to keep his children away from the potential hazard.

“The service to it is absolutely diabolical, I could guarantee that one month from today, it will be as bad,” he claimed.

Forming part of the sewage system for the private houses at St Joseph’s Park, the tank is owned and operated by the Housing Executive. The resident slammed the contractor-system of emptying as too haphazard.

DOWNPATRICK – Vandals responsible for desecrating several graves in the grounds of Down Parish Church last week have been described as “uncaring and thoughtless”.

The graveyard was targeted sometime between last Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning when flowers were scattered over a pathway and an 18th century headstone smashed.

The attack has been condemned by the church’s rector, Canon Mervyn Dickson, who said the incident had “upset quite a number of people”.