12 OCTOBER 2006

Many people who have been through the trauma of marital separation and divorce will know only too well of the inefficiency and inaccessibility of the Child Support Agency (CSA). 
Failures to obtain information or action from the CSA are one of the most frequent reasons for visits to my constituency surgeries. Early on in my work as an MP I was so appalled by these difficulties that I met the Minister then responsible to express my concerns. I have had a second meeting more recently with the current Minister. Because of interventions by many MPs, at last the Government has acted.

The Countryside Alliance is again this year running a national competition to find the UK's Best Rural Retailers in four categories: 
     Local Food Retailer; 
          Best Village Shop / Post Office; 
               Best Diversification and 
                    Best Traditional Business. 
Nomination forms and details can be obtained from www.bestruralretailer.co.uk or telephone number: 020 7840 9200.

The popular annual charity concerts, Music for You, celebrated their 25th Anniversary last Saturday. Since 1982 these concerts, organised by a small team led by Terry Wilcox, have raised the staggering sum of £126,050 for charities including Cancer Research, Kemp Hospice and the Hospital League of Friends. Many of the same musicians have performed year after year. This year's concert was opened by the brilliant Stourport-on-Severn Brass Band whose sublime rendering of Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, so well known as a choral work, was a first for me. Then old favourites, the Kidderminster Male Choir, regaled us with a varied programme including the vocal gymnastics of Alexander's Ragtime Band. After the interval we heard the West Midlands Light Orchestra and the Wyre Forest Symphony Orchestra.
Both orchestras, I think, have performed splendidly at every concert since 1982. We were especially delighted to hear regular performers Claire Worboys, charmingly pregnant and Jonathan Darby, her husband, sing in turn appropriately, "It could happen to you" followed by, "How to handle a woman". The finale as usual included the foot-tapping Fantasia on British Sea Songs, Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. The combined orchestras, choir, Tim Morris on the organ and soloists were joined by special request for her return visit by Britannia-clad Margaret Peters and we were allowed to join in to contribute to the magnificent, roof-raising music that concluded this Wyre Forest tradition for another year.

RT

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