[garinda]

I've mentioned this on more than one occasion, so appologies if I'm boring you.

In the seventies, and early eighties, we used to get a full and varied selection of professional arts groups performing in Hyndburn. I saw everything from Shakespeare to contemporary dance troupes. I saw punk rock concerts in the Civic Theatre, and alternative comics in Accy Town Hall. I'll refrain from remarking that the Town Hall is still full of comedians...except I didn't refrain from saying it, I suppose.

They were well attended, and much appreciated, and I don't think that in the intervening years the people have Hyndburn have turned into such Philistines that wouldn't pay to see similar things today.

There is no way on God's Earth that I would pay to see the dross we're currently served up. I just tried to check what delights are currently being offered, but as so often is the case HBC's website is down. From memory it's the usual fare of tribute acts, and as a treat maybe Orville.

We have one of the most beautiful art galleries in the country at the Haworth, but again most of the monthly exhibitions aren't a patch on what we used to get under the curatorship of Mr. Potter. I don't want to see what some pensioners have made out of felt in St. Helens. It may have been therapeutic for the them to do, but on artistic merit it scores a big fat zero from me.

As for public art, there isn't any. We must be the only borough in the country of a similar size, which doesn't have a statue.

Art isn't elitist. We have a strong tradition in this part of the world of producing artists of world reknown. From just over the border we have Kathleen Farrier, arguably the greatest contralto voive ever to be recorded, then there's Sir Harrison Birtwistle and John Tomlinson. Throw in our connection with Ossie Clarke, and Jeanette Winterson, and the many actors who have come from Hyndburn, and it shows we have a diverse and rich cultural heritage, but sadly that isn't represented in our borough today.

With the amount of money the council wastes on stupid schemes, their decision to stop paying Mid Penines Arts a relatively small amount, so that we would have at least some variety, is scandalous.