Village Fair Raffle Prize Winner takes Flight

"I was lucky to win 1st prize in the raffle at our summer fair this year - a flight in a light aircraft donated by Paul Brodie. After a few cancellations due to bad weather, David and I took off on Wednesday on a fine clear morning. Paul was very thorough with safety checks and explained every step along the way. The whole experience was great as we flew over the village, seeing our house from the sky was amazing and the Heath looked vast. We are lucky to live in such a lovely area and at the next summer fair if you buy a few raffle tickets you maybe lucky like me."

Gina Bushill

Blackheath Short Mat Bowling Club

Our friendly club meets in the village hall at 1.15 p.m. on Mondays from 25th September to April. New members are always welcome, and we are happy to let potential players bowl for a trial period to see if they like this activity.

It is suitable for all ages and abilities and the atmosphere is very convivial. For more information contact Brian Monk (893795) or Georgina Grant (898183).

We look forward to hearing from you.

BT switch to digital home phone service

In the last couple of weeks BT have sent correspondence out in Blackheath, announcing a switch to a new digital home phone service - digital voice. They are retiring the existing landline network nationwide and intend to switch everyone over between now and 2025.

This means that all calls will be made over the broadband network rather than the old analogue (landline) network. BT stated that initially this wouldn’t affect:

Customers with a healthcare pendant

Customers over 70

Customers with no broadband

Or Customers with no mobile signal.

However, it appears that some of us are being switched over to the new system in Blackheath within the next month, despite the fact that many of us are unable to use mobiles here without WiFi. The risk to anyone who cannot use a mobile phone in their house without WiFi is that during a power cut you will not be able to make any calls at all, including to emergency services 999.

If you think you are going to be affected by this, you can call BT on 0330 1234 150 to find out when they are going to switch you over, (if you don’t already know). If you report that you don’t have a good mobile signal without WiFi, they won’t switch you for now. You can check the coverage for all providers in your postcode using the Ofcom mobile and broadband checker - checker.ofcom.org.uk. Some of us have no coverage at all from the main mobile providers so it could leave us in quite a vulnerable position, once the switch is made, in an emergency, when the power is down.