Lagos to Leamington – a Career in Jornalism

On Tuesday 21st January 30 MIRTHers came to listen to Shyamantha Asokan talk about her experience in journalism and share reflections about issues including ethics and bias. She is currently a BBC journalist covering Birmingham and the West Midlands.

She started by telling us about her work as a reporter and photographer in the UK, Nigeria, India and the USA and her writing for The Economist, The Washington Post, the Financial Times and Reuters.

Questions from the floor started to flow very quickly – at Shyamantha’s invitation. She was impressed by how engaged and interactive our MIRTH audience was! And she was very good at throwing questions back to us, because is passionate about seeking feedback from her audiences.

She moved on to talk about her current work and the kind of stories she is covering and producing in Birmingham and the West Midlands. These include stories about motherhood and women’s rights. She also gathers in-depth case studies for NGOs – and it’s in that capacity that she came to know about MIRTH, when she was hoping to write a story about us.

Discussion ranged across current issues about how people access news, what they think about different media sources, impressions of degrees of bias, the borders between reporting and opinion, and of course how ethical journalists are (compared to for example social media ’news’ providers).

Our members agreed that it had been a fascinating talk, with useful insights into the world of journalism; and that we had really appreciated the opportunities to question & comment, and interact with Shyamantha.

Walking the Lawfords

Eight men were out braving the cold on this January morning. This week’s walk revisited Long Lawford.

We walked on the lanes to avoid the mud in the fields from the recent wet weather.

We walked around enjoying nature, cows were being fed in the barns and some daffodils were making an early appearance. The old landfill on the site of the old Long Lawford airfield with its gas extraction plant looked a bit like a golf course from a distance.

The last time we walked this route we passed flytipping, again we passed some senseless flytipping of rubbish (who thinks this is ok)?

Later we found a huge green tank being constructed on Coronation Lane, many theories were put forward by the MIRTH men as to the purpose of this tank, it was most likely a slurry tank (you can see the details
https://planning.agileapplications.co.uk/rugby/application-details/39961) yes, that’s a lot of slurry.

We passed over the main West Coast railway. A train of Tesco containers passed underneath on its way from Daventry to Doncaster. It was good to see so many containers off the road.

After the walk, we adjourned to The Old Smithy for lunch. We enjoyed good conversation over our food and drinks. Join us next month for another walk.

Blue Plaques of Leamington

Eight of us set off on a walk around Leamington. Richard had prepared a walk around town visiting some of the many properties with blue plaques. It is amazing how many influential people have lived in the town, including architects, hymn writers, artists, engineers, and many other professionals. Among the famous names are Frank Whittle the inventor of the jet engine, Frances Ridley Havergal a hymn writer who also attended St Paul’s Church, and Malcom Sayer the designer of the E-type jaguar.

As we walked past Portland Place we were reminded of the devastating power of the wind. In the recent storms a large cedar tree had fallen seriously injuring a passer-by. A mini crushed by the tree still remains where it had been parked.

After 2 hours of walking we adjourned to the old library for a much-needed lunch.

Mirth Christmas Lunch

This week we held our annual MIRTH Christmas lunch. Twenty-nine of us gathered at the Rugby Tavern for our celebrations. When we gather we like to chat; this time there was perhaps a little too much time for chat as we waited patiently for our food to arrive, some even thought we were copying Reginald Perrin’s no food dinner party idea.

We had all the usual trimmings including Christmas Crackers with bad jokes (Why did no one bid for Rudolph and Blitzen on eBay? Because they were two deer! Bom Bom)

Our food did eventually arrive and we all enjoyed a good lunch.

New friends were made over lunch and old friendships strengthened.
We look forward to our events in 2025.

Warwickshire Lowland Rescue

This month 24 men from MIRTH went to learn about the work of the Warwickshire Lowland Rescue team.  The lowland rescue team is a group of trained volunteers who work alongside the emergency services providing support searching for missing people. Typically they will be looking for vulnerable missing people. They have been called out to assist over 70 times so far in 2024. They are equipped to search on land and also carry our searches on inland waters.

After a most informative talk we were shown some of their equipment including their mobile incident support vehicle and boats. They also use drone technology and dogs to assist in searches. 

You read about their work on the website https://www.warksar.org.uk/, they are all volunteers but need support to pay the running costs of the organisation.  If you want to make a donation to help their work you can click on the button below to go to their Justgiving Page.

Warwickshire SAR Just Giving

As always on a mirth trip food was involved, we had a great lunch at the Farmer’s Fayre Restaurant on the Stoneleigh Showground.

Walking around Kenilworth

This month we walked around Kenilworth Common. It was good to welcome two MIRTHers to their first walk with us.

Richard had planned a route that passed through the common crossing the railway and over to abbey fields. 

We walked across Kenilworth Common enjoying the autumn colours and passing a few interesting industrial remains from a bygone era. 

There is always something new to learn about Kenilworth,  one MIRTH member pointed out a row of houses in Lower Ladyes Hill that was used as a location in the film “Nativity!”.

Some discussion was had around the Windmill. Was it a windmill or a disguised water tower? When I was back home, some research revealed it was built 1778 as a windmill and later converted to a water tower before becoming a house around 1974.

After a 4 mile walk, we were all ready for Lunch at The Tiltyard where we were pleased to be joined by another few members and enjoyed lunch and conversation.

Commonwealth War Graves

This month after our lunch and an opportunity to catch-up with each other we had a fascinating talk by David Harkness. He talked to us about the history of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The organisation was established in 1917 to ensure servicemen who died in the great war (first world war) were buried and remembered. The organisation now looks after graves at over 23,000 locations around the globe.

In addition to the well known sites the CWGC looks after sites both at home, in Europe and around the world as far afield as Australia. Servicemen were buried close to where they had fallen and all treated equally, a Brigadier might be found buried next to a Private with a identical headstone. Rank made no difference in death. You can also find CWGC graves in English churchyards around the country. Bodies were not repatriated but if a serviceman had returned back home injured but died shortly after as a result of his injuries they were given the honour of a military funeral and the CWGC looks after these graves today.

Walking around Leamington’s Street Art

Due to the recent rain this month’s walk was an urban trail. We were blessed with a dry morning for our walk. (The afternoon was rainy again and some of us got a little wet walking back to our cars after lunch.)

The walk was devised to take us on a tour of Leamington’s vibrant street art scene. As you can see in the photos, the colours are vibrant and bright even on a dull day.

Being a group of Mirth men it is all too easy to get distracted along the way. In Jephson Gardens a large delivery of topsoil had just arrived, this needed investigation. (Apparently from Bristol, the flower beds  need topping up every 3 to 4 years.) We then carried on to explore the street art starting with the elephants near the bridge. 

As we walked around the Althorpe Street industrial estate we were intrigued by 44 year old Rolls Royce Silver Shadow being restored in one of the small garage units. We were provided with an impromptu tour of the car.

We continued our walk around the south of Leamington passing one of the largest works on a gable end of a house in Shrubland Street.

We found our way to the Old Library for lunch.

Who thought Dustcarts could be so interesting

16 of us donned our high-vis jackets and protective goggles and set off with our guides in two groups to explore the Dennis Eagle industrial site in the Heathcote Industrial Estate. We were there to learn about in particular the electric refuse collection vehicles (eRCVs) for which they have become justly famous. 

These behemoths of the waste collection galaxy are impressive indeed! 

They are absolutely state of the art and are being snapped up by public and private sector organisations all around the country. Dennis Eagle also sell into the Netherlands, Belgium and a few other EU countries; and are now eating into the US and Canada markets.

We asked about the cost of these vehicles. Typically they go for about £450,000 - compared with £230,000 for a diesel vehicle. But the savings on the electric vehicle are considerable, making the payback period just 7 or 8 years. And of course there are many other environmental benefits, including noise reduction. 

We also asked whether they were developing hydrogen powered vehicles. Dennis Eagle are not convinced. They are watching what others are doing, but they see that the costs are much, much higher. And there are serious supply chain challenges. So they think this is an unlikely direction for them to take in the foreseeable future.

The site is amazingly extensive and we were well impressed with all that is being done there in Heathcote. Dennis Eagle is a company we can be very proud to have as a local one!

Lost in Church Lawford

Eight of us completed a 4 mile walk through the Warwickshire countryside. The walk started well, confidently crossing the River Avon past some interesting remains of an old watermill. However we soon found ourselves lost in a wood. The direction of the path was not clear. After much discussion and consulting the map Richard discovered the path had been obstructed. The stile was overgrown and there was some barbed wire placed across the route of the path. Bravelly the 8 intrepid walkers cleared a path and carried on. Soon another adventure began as we had to cross a field with a herd of very unfriendly bullocks who were looking at us in a very menacing way.

We made it safely across the field and continued until we found ourselves at Little Lawford Ford and you can see a photo of the group discussing options as it was too deap to wade through. We found a bridge just around the corner and were able to get back across the river and made it back to the Old Smithy in time for lunch, the most important part of the walk!