Widow’s Pension Cuts: Cruel and Unnecessary

The Widow’s Pension is designed to help create security and safety for families when they lose a loved one. But this week it is under attack from a new wave of Government cuts. With less money being paid to widows, widowers and surviving civil partners from April 2017 onward.

The changes will only effect those families who lose a loved one after April 6th 2017.

The new rules will add pressure to families when they’re struggling most. Families who’ve just lost a parent are learning to cope on a single income and with one fewer parent. The previous system helped to ease the financial stress with a ‘parachute payment’ which is now greatly decreased.

Families with a terminally ill parent are facing the worst of it, with many having planned for life under the old system now having to look again at the support they can offer to their children or loved ones.

If you want the Government to change its mind and reverse cuts to bereavement benefits, then please share this article with friends and family.

If these changes effect you, friends or family you should visit www.turn2us.org.uk to get support and help.

Message signs working in York City centre again

..but still no car park space availability info

The York Council has repaired most of the Variable Message Signs which guide drivers around the City centre. Those on Blossom Street, Bootham, Clarence Street, Lawrence Street and Heworth Green are working.

The sign on Fishergate is still faulty

All the signs have been displaying warnings about the upcoming temporary closure of Gillygate.

Unfortunately, there has been no tangible progress on reviving the car parking space availability signs or web site.

None of the parking availability signs are working.

The Council’s web site continues to list car parks that have closed and the space availability data is inaccurate.

The Council expected this issue to have been addressed before the end of March, so it is disappointing that the update was not implemented before the busy Easter holiday period began.

What’s on in York: Rewriting the Brontës

York Explore Library

Wed 19 Apr

6.30pm – 7.30pm

£3.50 (£2.50 with a York Card)

Coffeehouse: Debate, Discussion, Controversy, Coffee

Apr 19_CoffeehouseThis will be an informal discussion of the various representations of the Brontë sisters in biography, film, novels, and criticism.  How have the sisters been interpreted and understood? What has been at stake in their shifting characterizations through the decades? Charlotte Brontë has been described, variously, as a domestic angel, a neurotic fixated on her mother’s death, bossy, domineering, a feminist icon, and a tragic figure. The enigmatic Emily has been retrospectively ‘diagnosed’ with conditions from anorexia to Asperger’s syndrome. ‘Dear, gentle, Anne,’ as Charlotte’s friend described her, is currently being re-evaluated by scholars as a powerful proto-feminist who dealt unflinchingly with controversial themes in her often neglected novels.

We’ll discuss the sisters’ novels, as well as biographies, critical texts, and film and television representations of their lives and works. Why are these women of such enduring interest, and what keeps the steady stream of visitors to Haworth Parsonage going, almost two hundred years after Patrick and Maria Brontë moved there with their six small children?

This coffeehouse session will be led by Dr Jo Waugh from York St John University. She is lecturer in English Literature with a specific interest in the Victorian novel, and have an article forthcoming in the Victorian Review about Charlotte Brontë’s representation of rabies in Shirley.

Coffeehouse takes place every first Wednesday evening, 6.30pm-7.30pm
Tickets £3 or £2 with a YorkCard (including a hot beverage)

To book your place in the coffeehouse contact York Explore Library on (01904) 552828, email york@exploreyork.org.uk or pop in to any library and speak to a member of staff.