[Infinitus]

Greetings,

I'm just trying to wrap my head around why Church is always forgotten about. First of all, they have all this mullarky about a name change and the coat-of-arms for Church is conveniently "not ready in time" (according to the Editor of The Observer). Search for "Accrington" on Google and look at the description of The Observer's website, I (directly) quote: "All the latest news for Accrington, Great Harwood, Rishton, Altham, Clayton le Moors, Huncoat, Baxenden and Oswaldtwistle, England". Oh yeah, every local place is listed there, even bloody Altham (which is less significant than Church in my opinion) but Church, the oldest place, is missing. This seems to reverberate everywhere I go, Church is a no-man's land to everyone but the people who have to live here and try and make a life for themselves in what has become a ghost town.

It kind of ****es me off to think that us Church dwellers are always forgotten about. Talking to my Grandmother I hear that Church used to be a town in it's own right, we had the "Church District Council", all the shops and entertainment that we could possibly need here and plenty of places for people to get employment. Then they bulldozed it all down. I'm too young to know exactly why Church was basically destroyed, but it does seem slightly upsetting to me that our heritage and the history of the people that lived here is so evasive and there is nothing left that is old (save Church kirk). My best guess (and maybe somebody old enough to remember can enlighten me with the truth) is that the government thought it would be best to take all the local district councils, merge them into one big council and govern them as one. I would guess this was to save money. I think it's a load of crap to be quite frank and now the result of this, Hyndburn, is seen to be a bad place to live. Good, I'm glad something backfired on you because you deserve everything you get. Call it karma or whatever you like, but my belief is that if you destroy something good and forget about it, it will come back and bite you in the arse.

Now I love this place, but it really is a sham compared to what it used to be like. We have nothing here in Church worth having, we have a few family businesses and I'm surprised that they can still make a living, good luck to them. We have hardly anywhere for the kids to play or anything for the youths to do and we wonder why they turn out to be devil children and smash up peoples' property; give them something to do. Look at the "park" on behind the Queen's Road West/Meadoway estate as an example of this, what is it? It is a dumping ground for builders employed by the council. That's HBC's ethos for you; tear down a place were kids can hang about and play and basically build a tip that is of no use to the general public whatsoever. It really angers me that they treat Church like this then have the nerve to forget about it and hope that we'll all just conform and follow suit.

I, for one, will not forget about Church. Accrington is the main attraction and people all over the world remember it, let's hope that people will start treating Church with the respect it deserves, at least locally. If you think Church is a ****hole please consider what I've only touched the surface of; the fact that Church was destroyed by local people and what was once a good place to live has fallen victim of the people who thought they could make a better place (and failed miserably). In my world I'd reverse everything that has befallen Church and it would still have it's own district council; HBC could shove every proposal they have where the sun definitely doesn't shine. This would be THE place to live.

Regards,

John