Salisbury Journal

Christopher Wain joined the Salisbury Journal as a reporter in 1960 following Army service in Cyprus during the EOKA emergency.
After reading History at Brasenose College, Oxford he worked for Southern Television’s Day by Day programme before joining ITN (and subsequently BBC TV News) as Defence Correspondent. He covered numerous conflicts, including Vietnam and the Yom Kippur war.
In 1987 he became the BBC’s Transport & Aviation Correspondent until his retirement in 1999.
Chris is a Cathedral Steward, an elected hospital governor, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and an active supporter of Salisbury Samaritans.
He and his wife Frances both belong to Salisbury Rotary Club.

Plus ca change...

The “new-look” Wiltshire Council isn’t exactly inspiring, is it? Most of those who advocated the creation of our ludicrously ill-considered unitary authority are still there.

It’s not too much – it’s too little

Some years ago I attended a lunch and chatted to a Salisbury hotel manager.

Whatever became of joined-up thinking?

Anyone who’s ever caught a train from Salisbury on a weekday knows that after 8am it’s impossible to find a space in the station car park. The commuters have got there first. So you must allow an additional 15 minutes to drive across and use the long-term section of the Central Car Park, which will cost you £7.40.

I can't say I really knew Ted Heath

Professionally I interviewed him for Day by Day when he first became Tory leader and twice during The Troubles when he visited units in Northern Ireland. Socially we met a few times at supper parties in The Close, and we had a fascinating lunch with him (hosted by Bishop David) on his birthday.

You want to leave? So go.

Spending a few days in Brussels recently was a sobering experience. How many of us realise just how irritatingly irrelevant we’ve become in the eyes of the rest of the EU? They’re fed up with us.

Unsustainable plans

It’s now six weeks since Graham Parker’s letter to the Journal – warning of the need to ensure that today’s development doesn’t spoil life for the next generation – was published. And if there’s been any response from Wiltshire Council, I must have missed it.

Getting the message

Monday’s Salisbury Hospital AGM at the Arts Centre was predictably crowded – not surprisingly, given the degree of public anxiety about the future of the NHS now that the Health Act has become law.

Proving a negative

Stead and Simpson have decided to close their city centre branch because of a steady drop in the number of customers. The reason, says the manager, is that car parking charges are too high.

Down memory lane

A friend has lent me a copy of “Newer Sarum” – the blueprint for the modernisation of Salisbury published in 1949. That’s right: 63 years ago.

“So what do you think of the Market Place plan?”...

… asked the electrician we'd called in to discover why we kept getting power cuts (it was ants nesting inside a garden light: they'd come in from the rain and then caused a short circuit).