We have held a family National Trust membership for over 40 years. We want to support and enjoy the historic and modern houses, estates, and gardens, and to help purchase land for the Neptune Coastline Campaign which has protected 780 miles of our coast to date.

The first signs we noticed of a profound change in the Trust, was whilst holidaying in Jersey, a couple told us they were asked to leave after 10 years of volunteering after refusing to wear badges promoting a liberal political view of which they disagreed.

Since then the Trust has accelerated this egregious wokery, lecturing us on the evils of the colonialism which enabled the Trust’s properties to be built, trying to make the charity more ‘inclusive’, when anyone with an interest can join, and now they’ve produced a calendar excluding Christian festivals whilst including the Hindu festival of Diwali, Islam’s Eid and Ramadan. What next, leaflets in the tearoom explaining how white middle-class it is to eat scones?

According to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats, 72 billion litres (29,000 Olympic swimming pools) have been pumped into the river by Thames Water in under three years. Mogden near Twickenham was the worst affected site, where 17.1 billion litres of sewage was discharged into the river, closely followed by Crossness in east London, where 15.8 billion litres of sewage was dumped. Naturally these statistics weren’t divulged by Thames Water as they only havea legal obligation to publish the number of hours it’s pumping sewage into London’s river, not the actual volume of the discharges. If you paid a man to dispose of your rubbish, only to find he’d dumped it, you’d call him a crook, and yet we pay water companies to remove our sewage, only to find it dumped in the nearest river.

Romford Market was awarded a licence to trade in 1247 by King Henry III. Originally a sheep and cattle market, in fact before the War my uncle sold second-hand cars there alongside cattle pens. Apart from being a viable crossing over the River Rom (hence the name), the market contributed to the development of the town with up to 150 traders selling a wide range of goods.

When a proposal to open on Sundays was taken, 83 per cent were in favour, prompting Havering’s Leader to announce “Romford Market is the jewel in the crown for Romford”.

Now the current inept Labour-run council are proposing: closing the Sunday market, increasing parking charges by up to 16 per cent, closing libraries, reducing funding for five Metropolitan Police officers, reducing Christmas decorations and outsourcing services.

I have recently received my car insurance renewal and was surprised to find that it’s risen by over 56 per cent. As you might imagine my domestic vehicle covers very few miles a year, and I’ve many years no claim bonus. So, like many, I asked a small South African mongoose to find me a cheaper deal. Curiously the ‘cheapest’ listed of any insurance company I’ve heard of was Churchill, the very one I’m with, but at nearly £18 dearer (that pays for the adverts and cheap cinema tickets). So what are the reasons given by insurers to justify increasing premiums? The excuses are many and varied to fleece you: Increase in vehicle claims; Increase in stolen vehicles; Parts are more expensive to order due to backlog; Parts are taking longer to order due to backlog, subsequently, customers are in courtesy cars for longer which costs insurance companies more; Cars are generally more expensive (both new and used); Insurers paid out more than they took in last year. So there you have it, since covid, when we all didn’t drive and stayed at home, costs have gone up.

Last Christmas I was given an Ancestry DNA kit. The DNA companies (there are a number) send you a little bottle with a plastic funnel that you have to dribble in. Register online, seal the sample and send it away to Ireland where boffins run it through their algorithms and send you (by email, how else!) the results.

When you register your DNA test you’re given the option of putting your results out into cyberspace or keeping stum, probably a wise choice if you’ve populated the planet with illegitimate offspring.

The results were quite quick, about three weeks and although most of my DNA was derived from a Blighty source, disappointingly as much had derived from Sarf of The River, in fact Kent and Surrey.

Now this is where it gets annoying, even if you discount the Old Testament’s assertion that we’re all derived from the same progenitors, our DNA stretches back through countless permutations of couplings.

The results throw up literally thousands of potential relatives from a cousin once removed to an 8th cousin 4 times removed, and it would seem that a distant uncle of mind was on the Mayflower, as I have dozens of distant relatives in the New World. As a result, I’m getting weekly updates of people I don’t know or care to know.