2005: another place

This is the last day of 2005 - Hogmanay looms. There are many reasons not to be cheerful about this year. Was it too much to hope that the Tsunami, New Orleans under water and ever more compelling science would create the tipping point from denial to urgency in facing up to climate change? Or do we need even more dramatic disasters?

There are always reasons to be cheerful as well. For most people in the UK life is comfortable, business as usual is fine and never before in the history of the world have people had so much freedom and choice. But things are not always what they seem and there is growing evidence that more stuff does not equal more happiness.

These pictures start with a day to remember - the start of the installation of Antony Gormley's installation - Another Place - on Crosby Beach on Merseyside. One hundred life sized figures gaze out at another place: thrilling. And instantly popular with local people as well as the thousands who visit. Art!

goodbye doctor john

Bollington had two icons - White Nancy the folly (in the picture) that presides over our town and - until today - Dr. John Coope. Dr John died peacefully on Christmas day - he was theatrical to the end! In a magnificent Dickensian moment, the Bollington Brass band serenaded him with "in the Bleak Midwinter" at his window just before he died.

Dr. John - as he was universally known - will be remembered as a distinguished GP, author, conductor, puppeteer, arts entrepreneur, creator of the Bollington Festival, Bollington Arts Centre and many other local societies that make this small town on the edge of the Pennines, an exceptional place.

He was spectacular living proof of the power of leadership to reverse the fortunes of what in the sixties had been a declining place like so many other towns that had developed around cotton; of the power of creativity and the arts to enrich lives; of the reality that here in what is sometimes known as Happy Valley there certainly is a sense of identity and community.

Goodbye Dr. John and thanks

random personal memory - one of my first Bollington Festival Committee meetings, new to the town and with a lot to learn, two Dr. John quotes:
"We don't do VAT in Bollington" and
"What Bollington does today Macclesfield does tomorrow".

For an obituary visit www.happy-valley.org.uk/