AT THE recent State of the District meeting Cllr England berated us and chivvied us in the best schoolma'am tradition.

We had to pull up our socks, change our ways, make difficult decisions or we would just end up being a dormitory town in the shadows of that big school up the road called Lancaster.

She warned us, what's more, that we would forever lose our status as a seaside resort.

Can teacher now hold forth from the dizzy heights of her high desk and tell us why the Easter tourists took their toddlers to the paddling pool in Happy Mount Park and found it bathed in warm sunshine but left empty of water?

There was a notice pinned up informing the unhappy water babies that the pool was 'closed for essential repairs.'

Information prised from the headmaster's office reveals that although these repairs were known about at the end of last season, they will only be started 'in the next few weeks.'

No sense of commercial urgency there then.

I wonder if Sir uses the same calendar as we at Seasidicus Scholasticus?

Does he know that in a few weeks the nights start drawing in?

Empty pools and empty theatres, empty rhetoric, Cllr England,

While you were throwing the chalk at us, didn't you hear that eerie sound reverberating round the district and emanating from the Victoria Pavilion?

Please miss, wasn't it hollow laughter?

Correct me if I am wrong.

I Sutcliffe

Elms Rd

Bare