DISCUSSIONS are being conducted to assess the viability of a cycle path that will lead from Marlow Bottom (the current putative start point is Burford) to link ultimately to Great Marlow School.

The route will share the current pedestrian pavements, with additional proposals for widening the track in places, and provision of other safety amenities.

Marlow Bottom Valley Residents Association (MBVRA) reviewed the proposals at its recent quarterly meeting. The general view was that, in principle, provision of a wholly reliably safe route for our children to cycle to school would be a commendable additional facility for easy travel.

However, there was considerable reservation about whether sufficient funding, or even space, would or could be provided to furnish a properly safe accommodation for cyclists and pedestrians, sharing. District and county councils are reported to have access to limited funds, but any compromise of standards could soon exchange a significant present inconvenience with an almost certain catastrophe.

GIRL GUIDING, in the valley, is about to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Brownies. But their planned bonhommie has an ulterior motive, I’ll come to later.

Brown Owl has told me what’s in the plan. “Once girls are 14 they can join Girlguiding’s Senior Section and many of you may wonder what they get up to. Many things, is the answer but just one of those is the Rikki challenge.

“This is a county annual challenge for Senior Section. Over the years there have been a variety of challenges including making a film of Snow White and the height challenged people (filmed on location in Marlow Bottom and Milan...) – we won that year; making a glossy magazine – we won that year; and writing a camp fire song for the Guides centenary in 2010 – yes, we won that year too! This year the challenge is to organise a party for local Brownies to celebrate the centenary of Brownies – who were set up because they wanted some of the fun their older sisters were having in Guides.”

So, watch out in coming weeks for how the valley’s Senior Girl Guides aim to win again this year in a double whammy, making sure they get the centre step on the Rikki podium, and setting up their sister Brownies with a spectacular centenary project.

Mostly, the Guides have their own ideas and will provide the effort required but, just in case their initiative steers them towards tapping into the wider community, I guess the rest of us had better be ready, which is why I’ve alerted you, n REMEMBERING that she tends to shun the limelight, I’ve discovered a perfect excuse to embarrass Raji Amlani in a way the whole valley will approve. The fact is that our community-spirited pharmacist has just completed 25 years in the service of this village.

Raji is not just a very dependable dispenser of the valley’s medications, she has, without need of government encouragement, become a natural point of first reference to seek help and guidance on our health problems. Often her words of wisdom and experience can avoid those extended waits for a doctor’s appointment or several laps of the Glade Circuit looking for a parking space.

She has a phenomenal memory of everyone’s regular medicines and will help to identify an additional over-the-counter remedy compatible with our growing list of essential prescriptions.

Don’t try a surreptitious purchase of something that does not suit – you’ll be spotted as soon as you approach the counter!

Seriously, Raji has established herself as the finest pharmacopoeia of the valley’s best cures, and she’s well respected for that and her friendly and persuasive advice.

Now practising in the shining new premises, she has seen to it that we have all the facilities necessary, including a properly furnished consulting room for completely private discussions and, of course, the ideal team of friendly and helpful staff to make the service work to the benefit of us all.

I hope she keeps going for a further 25 years – as I’ll be over a hundred by then, I may not be too disturbed if Raji decides to retire soon after.

Memory teaser – who had been our chemist before Raji? Answer at end of column.

ANOTHER anniversary was celebrated last week, at the Barn Club. Stewards Shelley and Phil have been in charge for a year, and last Friday they put on a party.

The Barn Club may not have been enjoying its best times just before they came. Ask any member or visitor now and all would probably say that the club is now a much more inviting and amenable venue, with a cheery greeting for all. The food is now very appealing and very reasonably priced. Sunday lunches, with all fresh vegetables and meats supplied from Longhursts, have become particularly widely praised and heavily in demand – pre-booking is certainly a prudent step.

Few of the club’s members or committee would deny that Shelley and Phil have contributed massively to the club’s present buoyant and inviting atmosphere. Their new ideas, very hard work and good food seem to have lifted it to a new level of appeal. Congratulations to the pair of them for such immediate results. A successful Barn Club has become an essential component of the community, as we have lost our pub.

THOSE with unimpaired memories will probably have recalled that Mr Christian dispensed our pills.