April 2008 Archives
Belfast Lough Sailability: putting the ability into sailing
If you were
in or around the Carrickfergus town hall on Tuesday, April 9th you
may have noticed a little sailing boat.
This is one of Belfast Lough Sailability’s access dinghies. Belfast
Lough Sailability gives an opportunity to people with disabilities to try their
hand at sailing. Their special access
dinghies are so stable it is virtually impossible to overturn them.
The group has been operating since 2002. It
has two 19foot Squib dinghies and three access dinghies in its fleet. Two of
these were acquired just before Christmas 2007.
The access dinghy is designed to accommodate
any disabled person. The boat is lifted
in and out of the water after each session. Sailors sit low in the centre of
the boat rather than by leaning over the side. A donation from Comic Relief and
continuing support from the Northern Ireland RYA enabled the group to buy the
two most recent acquisitions.
I spoke to Bill Foster, the Chairman of
Belfast Lough Sailability last week.
He’s very ambitious. He is already talking about raising a team for the
Paralympics in 2012.
Bill sails despite his blindness. As he puts
on his welcome letter on the group’s website:
‘I had been sailing about ten years when I
discovered I was losing my sight, what a blow; but I was determined to carry on
as long as I could. Then I discovered that there were blind people out sailing,
I was not alone. There were other daft people like myself out there. Then I
discovered that there are lots of disabled people who have sailed as
individuals. There are people with limbs missing, spinal problems, learning
difficulties, blind people the list is endless. If you have the will to try you
probably will succeed.’
The group is keen to gain new members. Now that we are well and truly into Spring
and what we hope will be calmer weather, they hope to be out on the lough every
chance they get. If you’ve ever fancied a life on the ocean wave, but ruled
yourself out because of injury or disability you can think again. There’s a place for you with Belfast Lough
Sailability. Between Easter and the end
of September, you can see the brightly coloured sails every Sunday between
10:00am and 2:00pm around the ramp opposite the Carrick marina building.
Find out more by checking out www.belfastloughsailability.org.uk,
by email to info@belfastloughsailability.org.uk,
or by old fashioned snail mail to Mrs Rosy Meadow, Honorary Secretary,Belfast
Lough Sailability, Carrickfergus Waterfront, The Marina, 3 Rodgers Quay,
Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, BT38 8BE.
9 Firth Road
Troon
Over the Easter weekend I had to attend a family wedding in the delightful Ayrshire town of Troon. The wedding took place in a very swanky big house hotel. It was all very nice but very much out of my price bracket. When I discovered some six months ago that my niece's wedding was going to be on Good Friday I set about finding somewhere pleasant and affordable to stay.
Easter 2008 came unusually early. The weather in Troon was very bright and sunny but absolutely perishing! Just to add to the variety, a massive squall of heavy rain or even hailstones passed through at irregular intervals. I've no idea what the temperature was but the constant northerly wind really chilled me to the bone.
I travelled over on the excellent Stena Line Rail and Sail deal. Unfortunately, the high winds delayed the sailing, so I was a good two and a half hours late arriving at the guest house, Unlike another ferry company that abandoned me in Larne late one night last August, Stena Line put on a bus to take up to Ayr railway station those passengers who would otherwise have been stranded in Stranraer as the train did not wait for the ferry. Top marks to Stena.
I phoned ahead to let the guesthouse know that I was likely to be late. It wasn't a problem to the helpful proprietor Carol who was able to give me helpful advice on the train timetable from Ayr to Troon.
Fiirth Road is in the quiet residential area of Barassie close to the north beach. It is a five-minute walk fro0m Barassie train station and 20 minutes' walk from the centre of town. It is only another couple of minutes away from the long north beach with a clear view of the Isle of Arran.
My room was a well-equipped double room. The huge king-sized bed had a good firm mattress. There was a fine double wardrobe, with lots of drawer space; two fine comfortable armchairs; a big television set and a bedside radio alarm clock. Most welcome to me arriving so late was a full kettle, milk and teabags and some delicious Tunnock's wafers! Heavenly!
Carol was able to recommend some of Troon's finer features when she served me with breakfast the next morning. When you've had one of her full Scottish breakfasts to start your day you'll be well set up for most of the day.
The off-season price was a very reasonable £50.00 for my two-night stay. if you are ever in Troon don't just rush through it to other places. It's a fine wee town with lots to do and see. If you're a golfer it's probably the next best thing to Paradise for you. If you do decide to stay in Troon for a day or two, do check out the Rosedale. You won't regret it. See here for details.
MICHAEL CLAYTON
Certificate: 15 Running time:119 minutes
Director: Tony Gilroy
MICHAEL CLAYTON passed me by completely when it received its cinema release last September. I never read or heard anything about it so I had absolutely no preconceptions at all when I received this review DVD. This has to be one of George Clooney's tightest roles for quite some time. Gone is the humour and fun of the highly acclaimed Oh Brother Where are Thou?
Clayton (Clooney) is a complex, flawed character. He works to clean up other people's messes for a huge New York law firm on the brink of a takeover bid. 'I'm not a miracle worker. I'm a janitor.' Clayton runs into a whole bunch of trouble when manic depressive Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson in a tremendous scene-stealing role) - a senior litigating partner in the firm - cracks up. Arthur has been handling a litigation case for a huge chemical corporation when he discovers that United Northfield's weedkiller kills people too. He rejects his former career of 'scheming, stalling and screaming' on behalf of his corporate client when he sees the effects of its products on a young girl from rural Wisconsin. Clayton tries to rein his friend back in line. At the same time, he is deep in debt, trying desperately to raise cash to bail out his no-good alcoholic junkie brother, Timmy.
While this is going on, his ambitious opposite number in the chemical company is also desperately trying to contain the Arthur problem. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) has to go to whatever lengths she can to stop him from rocking the boat and costing her company millions of dollars. Karen is circumspect about what she wants done about Arthur but the two men she employs have no limits. Then she runs up against Clayton as he seeks to pick up his old friend's trail and see where he intended to go with it. Clayton doesn't realise it but the two goons are also on his trail. Watching these two guys at work really chills the blood.
If you're looking for an action-packed thrill-a-minute blockbuster, you'll likely be disappointed. This a complex, thoughtful movie. Pay attention or you'll miss something but at least with the DVD you can check back at crucial points in the gripping narrative.
Michael Clayton examines the choices we each have to make and the consequences of our actions through clever use of flashback over a five-day period. Karen's road to self-destruction began gradually as she got deeper into her bad initial choice. Clayton's path can take him either way. Right to the end, this compelling movie leaves us wondering. Will he do the right thing or will he too fall by the wayside?
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Certificate: PG
Director: Howard Hawks
“You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.” SLIM
Eighteen-year old Lauren Bacall hit the ground running with her sizzling debut role as Slim in this compelling wartime drama. The star, Humphrey Bogart, fell head over heels in love with Bacall on the set of To Have and Have Not and no wonder; she stole every scene she was in with her performance. Bogart and Bacall soon married and remained happy together until his untimely death in 1957. To Have and Have Not was the first of four films in which the couple starred together. Only The Big Sleep managed to rekindle the same smouldering atmosphere.
Captain Harry 'Steve' Morgan (Bogart) runs a small boat for hire out of Vichy controlled Martinique during the Second World War. The war is bad for business in the small Caribbean island. After one customer refuses to pay, Morgan and his amiable alcoholic sidekick Eddie (Walter Houston) are forced to take on a job transporting a wounded resistance fighter to the island. This wanted man is on the run from the Nazis. Running through all this high drama is Morgan's tempestuous relationship with Slim; an attractive American nightclub singer and Resistance sympathiser.
This was Bacall's first film role. It became one of Bogart's most celebrated movies largely because of his on and offscreen relationship with his future wife. It's one to watch again and again. Look out for Hoagy Carmichael as the pianist in the club where Slim sings and Morgan hangs out. This magnificent Howard Hawk classic is regularly repeated on the TCM channel and is available as a Warner Brothers DVD with some terrific extras.
This David Ker seems to have been quite a philanthropist as well as a major businessman in the town. He paid to build a schoolhouse close to his harbour to accommodate the children of his employees. The Whitehead National School opened on March 1st 1857 with 18 male and 12 female pupils.
Mr O'Donnell has quite obviously a great affection for Whitehead that just spills out all over this copiously illustrated book. This is a real labour of love. I found it hard to sit down and read it from cover to cover. I much preferred dipping into individual sections where I found much to whet my appetite. I loved the 1944 story of the local boys who stopped a train by pelting the engine driver and his foreman with apples after scrumping them from a local orchard. The lads ended up in the Petty Sessions court where they were each fined 40 shillings for their part in this escapade.
Mr O'Donnell overlooks no part of town life. You can read potted histories of all the local churches; the importance of the railway line to the town; hotels, the cinema and all the various sports clubs and associations.
Two organisations prominent a century ago caught my attention: the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Irish Women's Suffrage Federation. Whitehead had been visited by militant suffragist campaigners who spoke to packed halls in the town. One militant local suffragist was Madame Charlotte Despard. The sister of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord French; Madame Despard was an ardent Sinn Féiner and social reformer. This unlikely upper class republican died in 1939 at the age of 95 after falling downstairs in her Donegall Avenue home.
The Ulster Covenant was signed in Whitehead in St Patrick's parochial hall. In the next year a UVF company was formed in the town, attached to the Carrickfergus battalion of the Central Antrim Regiment. Whitehead and Islandmagee Volunteers took a full part in arming Ulster when the gunrunning vessel the Clyde Valley (alias Mountjoy) landed guns in Larne in April 1914. Once armed, the local volunteers would practice the use of bayonets and rifles on the golf course.
When the Great War broke out in August 1914 these men enlisted in the British army. Seventeen young men from the town never came back. Their names appear on the town's war memorial.
No feature of town life is overlooked in this fascinating book. It has me spellbound. I intend to come back to this wonderful book again in a future Kerr's Corner.
