  Willie Fixit 1962 - Artist Bill Holroyd. Artwork courtesy of D C Thomson & Co Ltd. Article first published by Best of British Magazine in 2008
When you find yourself grinning at the wry humour of Alf Wit, Plum McDuff or Ding Dong Belle, it’s hard to imagine their creator fighting for survival on the beaches of Dunkirk. But, at 21 years of age, that’s exactly what Bill Holroyd was doing. Dodging a snowstorm of bullets and with blood pumping from a shrapnel wound in his nose, Bill struggled bravely and selflessly to get those pals more badly injured than himself aboard a vessel back to Blighty and safety. The boat almost left without him, but when a mate on board yelled that Bill might also like to return to England in one piece, a last-minute leap secured him a place with those he’d helped to save. But Salford boys are tough, and Salford boys born into large families during the early 1900s had to be particularly tough. Bill Holroyd was born on 21st March 1919, the third eldest of seven surviving children. Like all his brothers and sisters, Bill had a natural flair for art. A talented child-artist, he won a scholarship to study at Salford Art School. There, he met another talented artist, Ken Reid of Fudge the Elf and Roger the Dodger fame, who quickly became his best friend and would also become his brother-in-law. In 1937, Bill secured his first job working in the art department of an advertising agency in Manchester. But, despite having the chance to do a job he loved, Bill didn’t easily tolerate being shut up in a studio. He wanted to see the world, so joined the Royal Artillery. Unfortunately, 1939 saw the onset of the Second World War – hence Bill’s first precarious visit abroad. Following his journey back to Blighty, Bill found himself hospitalised in Liverpool - too close to Salford for temptation! He absconded from hospital in the hope of seeing his family - but an encounter with the Redcaps saw a speedy end to that adventure. In September 1941, whilst billeted on a farm in Ballysnodd, Northern Ireland, he met his future wife, Elizabeth (Betty) Girvan. Betty fondly recalls noticing Bill singing in a chorus of some twelve soldiers at a concert - wearing a cowboy hat and playing a ukulele. “He looks a nice lad,” she whispered to her friend. But a week later, she was astounded to find him sitting on her garden fence. “He asked me how old I was and I said, ‘Nineteen,’ because I thought he looked so young.” Bill couldn’t believe the coincidence – he was just nineteen, too! The fact that the happy couple started out by fibbing to each other wasn’t a bad omen, however. Their marriage took place only five months later and lasted until Bill’s death in February 2000 – just days before their 58th wedding anniversary. Betty describes a wedding day spent in and out of Police barracks trying to organise her passport to visit the Holroyd clan in Salford. After the wedding, the couple did manage to visit England briefly – but only when Bill was posted there did England finally become home. At least for a short while. Soon after being demobbed, Bill joined the Hornsey Art College in London, where he remained until starting work with Gaumont British as an animator. Although working full time to keep a wife, two young sons, Wee Bill and Holven, and a daughter, Colleen, Bill still found time to send freelance scripts off to various publishing houses. In October 1950, he landed a full-time position with the publishers D. C. Thomson and moved to Arbroath in Scotland - a town familiar to him from his army days. The family lived there until Bill bought a boat, the Duchess of Down, in which they sailed back to Ireland and a stunning home in Ballygally Bay. Tracy J Holroyd, Cert Ed, BA(Hons) - Member of the Society of Authors Author of: Children's History of Manchester Children's History of Lancashire Co-author of: The Perfect Pair: The Enchanted Mirror The Perfect Pair: The Mirror Cracks The Perfect Pair: Shards from the Mirror Belinda Fellgate: HellCat Belinda Fellgate: The Kiss of Flauros
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  Since the 1990s the heat in the oceans has taken off as the amount of fossil fuel combustion has more than quadrupled. Image credit: Kevin Trenberth First published on January 23, 2021 in The Life Slant by Dr. Reese Halter The year 2020 set another horrible heat record in the oceans, which make up 99 percent of the planet’s biosphere, or, where life can exist. Many billions of our brethren and sistren, the animals, are already dead. It’s simply too hot. The ocean heat is in lockstep with burning fossil fuels and wood pellets. In 2020, the world’s oceans absorbed the equivalent heat to dropping 10 Hiroshima atom bombs every second of the year (20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 {sextillion} joules). Allow me to remind you that the oceans drive Earth’s climate. Hence we are amid a worsening man-made climate crisis. It is never just about humans though. We share this glorious blue planet with a couple of million other life forms. All life is interrelated and we need everything that is left, alive. Fossil fuel and wood pellet combustion heat is stoking the man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction. The Arctic is parboiling about three times faster than the rest of the planet. Gray whales that depend upon the Arctic sea ice to make a living are conspicuously wasting away. Gruesome. It’s a cry of survival and nothing is exempt!” Since 2019, along the west coast of North America more than 386 giant gray whales have washed ashore, emaciated and overwhelmed by whale lice. The actual number of dead grays could easily extend into the thousands since only 3.9 to 13 percent of grays that perish annually are found on land. Gargantuan filter feeding whales, like grays, blues, fins, seis, humpbacks and others, are invaluable. They shepherd the sea and provide us, and all life forms, with oxygen as well as sequestering immense amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and burying it along the seafloor. See The Gen Z Emergency for splendid details. We need the whales alive and farming the sea. The fact that they are washing up skinny and dead is a terrifying omen. From the North Pole to the beleaguered Great Barrier Reef (GBR) nothing in the oceans escapes the deadly accumulating combustion heat. Three marine heatwaves over five years in the Coral Sea (NE Australia) have leveled the greatest collection of corals and all life therein. Aussie researchers now say that fossil fuel and wood pellet ocean heat causes epaulette shark pups to emerge from egg cases earlier, weaker, undernourished, smaller and exhausted. “Sharks are important predators because they take out the weak and impaired and keep the integrity of the population strong,” remarked oceanographer Dr Jodie Rummer, James Cook University, Australia. The GBR sharks are the gatekeepers of ~1,600 miles of exquisite shoreline sea grass meadows, salt marshes and mangroves, which, by the way, store mega amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The loss of the sharks is yet another horrendous blow to Earth’s hallowed living interconnected biosphere – including eight billion procreating humans. No sharks. No life. All hands on deck! Support the vital conservation work of SeaShepherdGlobal.org Each of us is required to lend a helping hand to save our only home.
Make no mistake, the whales and the sharks are climate victims and without immediate action the human race is next. Climate action, in fact, begins with governments ending their annual $5.3 trillion fossil fuel subsidies, and embracing a global plan to achieve a zero-combustion global economy by 2030. It’s a cry of survival and nothing is exempt! #LoveNature #LoveIsTheSolution #Empathy #Compassion #ConsumeLess #GrowFood #GoVegan #WalkMore #TheGreatForestCase #ZeroCombustionEconomy #ForThePlanet #GenZEmergency ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author. Dr Reese Halter’s latest book is now available! GenZ Emergency Tweet @RelentlessReese         As we head into the new year, two Bolton lads are encouraging you to bring new life into your home. In August 2020, four months into the Covid-19 pandemic, Danny Roberts and John Maree set up Oxy-Plants.com. Based in a local mill, the lads are helping people across the UK to reconnect with nature and improve their wellbeing by inviting plants into their homes.
Oxy-Plants believes the perfect antidote to almost a year in lockdown is to start afresh – take a deep breath and take in your surroundings. Danny says: ‘The joy of seeing a new leaf on your plant, or seeing it grow over a long period of time, has been shown to help bring joy and a sense of wellbeing, acting as the perfect remedy to the current crisis we find ourselves in.’ In fact, 2020 was the first year that UK GPs actually prescribed plants to help battle anxiety, depression and loneliness. This worthwhile scheme was launched by Cornbrook Medical Practice in inner-city Hulme, where many patients live in flats and do not have access to gardens or greenery. Medical Secretary, Augusta Ward, says: ‘Having something to care for brings so many benefits to people – especially those who may not have a garden or be able to have pets. The plant is then a reason to come back to the surgery and get involved in all the other activities in our garden and make new friends.’ The idea is backed by the city’s health commissioners, who want to promote community support - or ‘social prescribing’ - as one of the holistic ways to improve well-being in the city. So, on a mission to encourage as many people as they can to make a ‘fresh start’ in 2021, Danny and John would like to offer all customers a 10% discount. Simply head to their website www.oxy-plants.com and enter the checkout promo code BOLTONNEWS. For every plant sold, the lads will also donate 50p to charities Woodland Trust and Mind UK. Website: www.oxy-plants.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oxyplantsltd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oxyplantsltd/ Email: hello@oxy-plants.com  This week, the first people were vaccinated against Covid-19, giving us all new hope for the future. For the past 10 months or more, we have been privileged to have scientists, doctors, nurses and so many other wonderful, selfless and compassionate people fighting to protect us and save our lives.
However, one thing I would ask: please spare a thought for the thousands of laboratory animals who have been subjected to painful, often invasive, experiments to develop these life-saving vaccines, then have either died or been killed afterwards. In much the same way, I hasten to add, as happened to those animals who suffered and died to develop the treatment that pushed back my multiple myeloma, giving me extra years with those I love. The saddest thing is that here in the UK - and in other countries across the globe - the testing of drugs and medical procedures on animals is a legal requirement. It's also bad science - in more ways than one - which could be replaced with animal-free experiments that would offer more accurate results. People could be forgiven for thinking that, after having undergone chemotherapy with superb results, I would condone experimentation using animals. But having experienced first-hand the sorts of treatments that will have been tested on animals, I am more determined than ever that vivisection should end. Besides, I have seen the photos showing the fear and despair in the eyes of those non-human persons whose healthy bodies are poisoned, scarred and destroyed by researchers seeking to save the lives of those of us who are privileged enough to be deemed 'worth saving'. The same fear and despair that I recognised staring back at me in the mirror when I was diagnosed and preparing to undergo treatment. The Covid-19 virus - like so many other viruses - arose as a result of humankind's abuse of animals. And the weapons to fight it have arisen in the same way. We deserve better. Animals deserve better. So, let's get involved in ending ALL abuse - abuse of people AND animals. As for medical research, let's end the use of animals in labs in favour of the clean, compassionate and effective alternatives that deliver accurate results without inflicting fear, pain and death. After all, we have been spared for a reason. Tracy J Holroyd, Cert Ed, BA(Hons) Member of the Society of Authors Co-author The Perfect Pair Dolphin Trilogy and Belinda Fellgate Novella Series www.crueltyfreeinternational. org THE PERFECT PAIR DOLPHIN TRILOGY'S MESSAGE MORPHS INTO DARK FANTASY - REVIEW BY CRAIG NICO20/11/2020  Belinda Fellgate: The Kiss of Flauros
Trying to look for the perfect "POP" word to start my review is proving to be quite a challenge. Why? Because I absolutely loved everything about this book and, for the life of me, can't think of any word stronger than the word "LOVE"! Paranormal forces close in on Belinda and her companions when they visit the dreaded Circus Macabre. I can guarantee that you will form an instant attachment to the characters, who are incredibly relatable with NO disconnect whatsoever. Understand, though, this attachment actually starts in book one, Belinda Fellgate: HellCat, but grows exponentially in the Kiss of Flauros. Without giving too much away, have you ever read a book that has the ability to scare you? That has an ominous aura? Well, trust me, you’ve found it here! When a book has a character comparable to Dracula, a green black-eyed giant with brown-stained canine teeth, behemoths with men’s bodies and bulls’ heads, and a red frog-like creature called “Snotnose”, what more can I say? And if that’s not enough, enter the Dark Lord himself - Satan! Welcome to Hell’s insurgents! As with the first novella, HellCat, predictability is STILL NOT THERE. Every paragraph leaves you guessing; wanting and needing to know more. Will Belinda receive the Kiss of Flauros on her fifteenth birthday? Flauros, the ferocious panther demon whose legions guard Hell’s Gate. If Belinda accepts his kiss, she will achieve maximum power to challenge the most evil demon of all: Malamok. I could go on and on, but I'll give you just one more tidbit. Amongst the new characters in this book is a long-haired boy. He is important because he highlights one of the most pivotal points this novella makes: the gargantuan horrors that captive dolphins suffer in the aqua-circus. The authors have cleverly woven into this text the amazing true story of "The Perfect Pair": the two beautiful armor-clad Atlanteans who once performed and perished in the aqua-circus - a facet of this story I truly loved. Have the authors deliberately used the concept of the fictional Circus Macabre as a parallel to the horrors of the real-life aqua-circus? I can't begin to tell you how proud I am to see this message - possibly one of the most pivotal anyone can imagine – because I'm not exaggerating when I say that, to my mind, the horrors of dolphin captivity are second to none. This is a spectacular read, carrying illuminating insights, and I am literally counting the days until the release of the next novella, Belinda Fellgate: Malamok. Craig Nico, ARA |
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