Editorial

As I prepare this piece for the September issue, the major news item remains the two missing girls from Soham...

Hello again,

As I prepare this piece for the September issue, the major news item remains the two missing girls from Soham. This morning the Cambridgeshire police confirmed that the two, so-called, graves in Newmarket were not connected with the girls, which in itself, is something of a relief. Unfortunately, for the families concerned, it is only a marginal relief and they must be torturing themselves with thoughts of just what their beautiful daughters are enduring. Let us all pray that the sad event will soon reach a satisfactory conclusion. Everyone I have spoken to in the Stoke Ferry area has expressed their heartfelt concern and then assured me that they have become even more protective of their own children. What a shame it is that we have to place such restrictions on the young for their own safety? These restrictions are a far cry from my own boyhood days when I roamed the countryside, unattended and unsupervised, for hours without the slightest fear of attack or abduction. But then, we didn't lock our doors at night in those days!

But to more pleasant things. Readers will see elsewhere in this issue the Calling Notice for the Village Pump AGM. This will be held on Wednesday 25th September in the Stoke Ferry Community Centre at 7.30 p.m. A nibbles and wine party will follow the event, so do please try and join us. Under our Constitution, it is stated that: the Village Pump shall be managed by a Committee of not exceeding eight and not less than four members from the Wissey Community, elected at the Annual General Meeting. Officers shall be appointed by the Committee at its first meeting after the AGM. Proposers of new committee members should note the restriction that only those who live within the Wissey Community (as defined on the front cover of each Pump issue) are eligible for election to the Village Pump committee. Forms to enable proposals for new members to be submitted are included elsewhere in this edition of the Pump.

This AGM marks my second anniversary as Editor of our Community Magazine. It has been a pleasant task made easier by the help and co-operation of our major subscribers. The quality of the Village Pump is entirely in your hands; you provide the articles, the jokes and debates, which I then use to fill an ever-increasing number of pages. I would love to see more contributors; we would be hard pushed if we lost our four main stalwarts of Ron Watts, Graham Forster, Janet Tilburn and Les Lawrence. So come on all you budding authors; give it a try. You don't have to be a William Shakespeare; if you have something to say scribble it on a piece of paper and pass it to me. I will do the rest.

I hope to see many of you on the 25th September and to have the opportunity to introduce our contributors to one another, in some cases for the first time.

Ray Thompson