CHRISTMAS may be over, but there are a couple of points that deserve further mention.

Those used stamps for the Air Ambulance campaign should still be taken to the Post Office when you rid yourself of the Christmas card envelopes.

In fact, there is no constraint on stamps to this time of the year. The collecting box on the PO shelf is always there.

Remember, used stamps only (but including foreign ones, please) and leave a reasonable margin of paper all round. It could help save your life, if you ever need the Air Ambulance.

The other thing that really needs saying is a big thank you to Lee and Lisa in the Post Office.

Marlow Bottom is a deceptively busy PO, probably many people come from outside the valley because it is convenient to get here and park. The Christmas period was often frenetic in its level of activity; between them, they kept the queues to a minimum through most parts of the day even though they have to deal with complex postings from home-based businesses and special rates and types, and it clearly must be quite stressful to deal with such continuous pressure and get the books to balance at the end of a day when the computer has been running particularly slowly and so on.

The community should be grateful for having an excellently run Post Office.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE LINk (written just like that) is a monitoring organisation that keeps an eye on our health and various social care services to ensure the public is getting the best deal from the various authorities concerned.

They need people to visit health and social care premises on LINk’s behalf, in a programme called ‘Enter & View’. No previous training or experience is necessary as the ‘Enter & View’ training will provide the appropriate skills. As a trained LINk representative you will be observing and assessing the nature and quality of services, obtain the views of people using those services, validate information already collected but also gathering further feedback from staff, service users, their carers and families in order to help improve services.

If you would like to undertake this, then you need to act fast as there are only 20 places available on a class on February 1, from 10 until 4, but the venue has not yet been published.

Each person accepted will be required to have an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check made before any potential ‘Enter & View’ visits are undertaken.

This looks like a great opportunity for a retired person with vigorous interest and views on community services and it could be providing a highly valuable service.

You need to ring Buckinghamshire LINk Administrator, Hazel Wiltshire, on 0845 094 9497 or 01225 701120l or you could email hazelwiltshire@hapuk.co.uk ENDEAVOURING to ensure our village chip shop achieves top popularity spot this year, make sure, from this weekend, that you ask for a scratch card when you next visit. It gives you a chance to win some free chips and provides the key to enter your vote on-line. Other events follow in the middle of February, but you can start voting now.

REMEMBER the Liston Hall meeting on February 20. It’s all about Marlow Bottom and I will give further details nearer the time. Just get it your diaries now.

WHOOPING it up with singing nuns referred, last week, to the Swan putting on the very popular West End show Sister Act from March 6 to 17.

Usually, The Swan doesn’t seek early publicity through the editorial columns, well not mine anyway, but this is such an appealing production, part of a national tour, that it is likely to sell out very quickly and early. Whoopi Goldberg is not in it, but she is the producer, giving it further box office appeal.

ADDING more honour to just one small geographical area in the north of the valley, can I record congratulations to two near-neighbours. After we all thought there was no further public recognition the BBC could bestow on Sir Steve Redgrave, he acquired another of those famous TV camera miniatures as he was presented with a Lifetime Achiever Award in the Sports Personality celebrations just before Christmas.

FINALLY, this week, it’s congratulations to Mike Edwards OBE from Badgebury Rise, literally only a few yards from Sir Steve Redgrave’s home. Mike was recognised in the New Year Honours list with an unusually interesting citation.

As a BA pilot, through one of his frequent stop-over destinations, India, Mike became interested in that country’s very distinguished Air Force, one of the oldest established ones in the world. In particular, Mike became aware that the country was the home of a number of vintage aircraft; ones with particularly impressive war-time associations. The Indian Air Force distinguished itself during the Second World War as it defended its Eastern frontiers against Japanese invasion. Mike painstakingly convinced the present IAF of the public relations value of those mainly mouldering machines by renovating them, to establish a flight equivalent to the British World War Memorial Flight (with its iconic Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane combination). The Indian Government appreciated that such a facility could aid recruitment and enhance the image of the IAF both within the country and internationally.

It duly appointed Mike as its honorary chief advisor to the national Memorial Flight.

During his research in India, Mike was instrumental in the discovery of a Tiger Moth (now being restored, hopefully to be ready to be part of this year’s 80th anniversary of the establishment of the IAF), a Harvard (important WWII training craft), a Hurricane, a Tempest, a Wapiti (a crucial NW frontier patrol bi-plane), all of which are capable of being renovated to become part of an impressive Indian display force.

However, all that is eclipsed by the remarkable find of no fewer than four Spitfires, abandoned at the back of a hangar, but more or less in immediate flying order. One of these is documented as having taken part in the Battle of Britain and of having downed an enemy aircraft; it’s now possibly unique.

Although protocol does not permit the revelation of the precise award nomination source, the route through diplomatic circles does indicate an Indian government instigation, and the citation quotes his contribution to India and UK relations and his contribution to the aircraft industry in general.

Mike’s award is given further significance in that he has been invited to receive it at Buckingham Palace on February 16; not all medals are presented there.

His two children, aged nine and seven, will have something a bit different to report in their Burford School diaries the day after, but meanwhile Mike may need greater fortitude to steel himself for a hefty entry on his credit card statement, following his wife’s trip to couturiers. Like Jimmy Saville before him, Mike believes he owes it to those who chose to honour him to make full use of the appendage to his name and, in any case, he’s rightly proud of it.