Couple have same heart surgery within days - and five more local stories you missed this week
A couple who underwent the same life-saving heart surgery at the same hospital within the space of a few days feature in our best local stories of the week.
Cheshire Live reported how Donald and Joan Curzon - who have been married for 56 years - are now recovering from their operations at their home near Winsford.
Elsewhere, a former Miss Wales finalist has won a £6m house in the Omaze draw and German tourists travelled 700 miles to Scotland for a pie.
You can read the full version of each of our selected articles through the links under each story – or read more top headlines from around the UK's regions on the Yahoo UK local news page.
A married Cheshire couple of 56 years have hailed the "marvellous" care they received after both undergoing the same life-saving heart surgery within the space of a week.
Donald and Joan Curzon both needed surgery for a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) after separately being referred to University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust's (UHNM) cardiology department.
Donald, 86, and Joan, 77, are now recovering at their home in Meadow Bank, near Winsford, following their treatment at the Royal Stoke hospital earlier in the month.
Read the full story from Cheshire Live
A former finalist in Miss Wales who has never owned her own home has won a spectacular £6m home through the Omaze million pound house draw.
Vicky Curtis-Cresswell, 38, had been living with her family until she won the property.
Vicky is now the owner of a New England-style coastal property in Norfolk inspired by the architecture found in Cape Cod and the Hamptons in the United States.
Her incredible new home is the most valuable property ever to be offered in a UK prize draw.
Read the full story from Wales Online
Two childhood sweethearts have been reunited after 85 years thanks to an old school photo.
Jim Dougal and Betty Davidson used to walk to school together hand in hand in Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders in the 1930s.
They lost touch after Jim's family moved away in about 1939, but his son Alistair's efforts to trace all the members of a class photo from 1936 brought them back together.
Read the full story from the Daily Record
The opportunity for Kernewek, the Cornish language, being taught in all schools in Cornwall took a step forward yesterday (Wednesday, March 26) when Anna Gelderd MP delivered a 'ten minute rule bill' in parliament calling for Cornish to have equal status to the other four Celtic languages of the UK.
The MP, backed by Cornwall's five other MPs, would like to see children being able to learn Kernewek in all primary schools. She pointed out that Cornish is still not formally embedded in secondary or higher education.
Read the full story from Cornwall Live
A tourist travelled all the way from Berlin to West Lothian to try an award-winning speciality pie.
Paul and Christine Boyle have enjoyed a surge in business after their kebab pie went viral for winning the "pie of pies" title at the 2025 British Pie Awards in Leicestershire.
Now, a tourist from Germany embarked on a journey over 700 miles via Prague, Leicester and Newcastle, to Boghall Butchers in Bathgate. Michael Hunter travelled with a friend and is no stranger to kebab meat with over 1,000 shops in Berlin.
Read the full story from Edinburgh Live
Police swooped to help a lost swan outside a Coventry school just before home time on Tuesday afternoon (25 March).
A few people picking up their little ones at Grange Hurst Primary on Anderton Road were in a bit of flap when they spotted the seemingly lost bird.
But a police officer was on hand and the long arm, or should that be neck, of the law managed to save the day, by ushering the swan towards more familiar ground.
Read the full story from Coventry Live
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African prisoners made sound recordings in German camps in WW1: this is what they had to say
During the first world war (1914-1918) thousands of African men enlisted to fight for France and Britain were captured and held as prisoners in Germany. Their stories and songs were recorded and archived by German linguists, who often didn't understand a thing they were saying. Now a recent book called Knowing by Ear listens to these recordings alongside written sources, photographs and artworks to reveal the lives and political views of these colonised Africans from present-day Senegal, Somalia, Togo and Congo. Anette Hoffmann is a historian whose research and curatorial work engages with historical sound archives. We asked her about her book. About 450 recordings with African speakers were made with linguists of the so-called Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission. Their project was opportunistic. They made use of the presence of prisoners of war to further their research. In many cases these researchers didn't understand what was being said. The recordings were archived as language samples, yet most were never used, translated, or even listened to for decades. The many wonderful translators I have worked with over the years are often the first listeners who actually understood what was being said by these men a century before. The European prisoners the linguists recorded were often asked to tell the same Bible story (the parable of the prodigal son). But because of language barriers, African prisoners were often simply asked to speak, tell a story or sing a song. We can hear some men repeating monotonous word lists or counting, but mostly they spoke of the war, of imprisonment and of the families they hadn't seen for years. Abdoulaye Niang from Senegal sings in Wolof. Courtesy Lautarchiv, Berlin275 KB (download) In the process we hear speakers offer commentary. Senegalese prisoner Abdoulaye Niang, for example, calls Europe's battlefields an abattoir for the soldiers from Africa. Others sang of the war of the whites, or speak of other forms of colonial exploitation. When I began working on colonial-era sound archives about 20 years ago, I was stunned by what I heard from African speakers, especially the critique and the alternative versions of colonial history. Often aired during times of duress, such accounts seldom surface in written sources. Joseph Ntwanumbi from South Africa speaks in isiXhosa. Courtesy Lautarchiv, Berlin673 KB (download) Clearly, many speakers felt safe to say things because they knew that researchers couldn't understand them. The words and songs have travelled decades through time yet still sound fresh and provocative. The book is arranged around the speakers. Many of them fought in the French army in Europe after being conscripted or recruited in former French colonies, like Abdoulaye Niang. Other African men got caught up in the war and were interned as civilian prisoners, like Mohamed Nur from Somalia, who had lived in Germany from 1911. Joseph Ntwanumbi from South Africa was a stoker on a ship that had docked in Hamburg soon after the war started. In chapter one Niang sings a song about the French army's recruitment campaign in Dakar and also informs the linguists that the inmates of the camp in Wünsdorf, near Berlin, do not wish to be deported to another camp. An archive search reveals he was later deported and also that Austrian anthropologists measured his body for racial studies. His recorded voice speaking in Wolof travelled back home in 2024, as a sound installation I created for the Théodore Monod African Art Museum in Dakar. Chapter two listens to Mohamed Nur from Somalia. In 1910 he went to Germany to work as a teacher to the children of performers in a so-called Völkerschau (an ethnic show; sometimes called a human zoo, where 'primitive' cultures were displayed). After refusing to perform on stage, he found himself stranded in Germany without a passport or money. He worked as a model for a German artist and later as a teacher of Somali at the University of Hamburg. Nur left a rich audio-visual trace in Germany, which speaks of the exploitation of men of colour in German academia as well as by artists. One of his songs comments on the poor treatment of travellers and gives a plea for more hospitality to strangers. Stephan Bischoff, who grew up in a German mission station in Togo and was working in a shoe shop in Berlin when the war began, appears in the third chapter. His recordings criticise the practices of the Christian colonial evangelising mission. He recalls the destruction of an indigenous shrine in Ghana by German military in 1913. Also in chapter three is Albert Kudjabo, who fought in the Belgian army before he was imprisoned in Germany. He mainly recorded drum language, a drummed code based on a tonal language from the Democratic Republic of Congo that German linguists were keen to study. He speaks of the massive socio-cultural changes that mining brought to his home region, which may have caused him to migrate. Together these songs, stories and accounts speak of a practice of extracting knowledge in prisoner of war camps. But they offer insights and commentary far beyond the 'example sentences' that the recordings were meant to be. As sources of colonial history, the majority of the collections in European sound archives are still untapped, despite the growing scholarly and artistic interest in them in the last decade. This interest is led by decolonial approaches to archives and knowledge production. Sound collections diversify what's available as historical texts, they increase the variety of languages and genres that speak of the histories of colonisation. They present alternative accounts and interpretations of history to offer a more balanced view of the past. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Anette Hoffmann, University of Cologne Read more: Rashid Lombard: the photographer who documented both resistance and celebration in South Africa 3 things Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o taught me: language matters, stories are universal, Africa can thrive Mbare Art Space: a colonial beer hall in Zimbabwe has become a vibrant arts centre Anette Hoffmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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The one change that worked: I started sketching
I've always battled with phone use. I resent how much my sense of being alive in the world – feeling it, doing things, making stuff happen – is affected by my screen time. So a few years ago, I decided to do a sketch every day. I had always wanted to draw, but I was embarrassed about starting out because I was so bad at it. Then I bought a few black notebooks: a small one for my jacket pocket, and larger ones for my bedside and for the kitchen table. As no one would ever see my drawings, I decided I didn't need to care about what anyone thought. One day I grabbed one of the notebooks and a pencil and went out to the Cornish cliffs. I spent 10 minutes hastily drawing some cows and wild ponies. Standing on a cliff, pencil in hand, I felt like an idiot and an impostor, but I had started. It was a happy moment. I had never drawn a pony before but, to my delight, one quick, simple sketch seemed not bad for a beginner. Next, I drew our cat snoozing. Then our dog, Foxy, staking out a mouse in our kitchen. Beside each sketch, I wrote the date and little notes. Having the pencils and sketchbooks within easy reach – in my car or lying around the house – meant these small moments built up. Within weeks what might otherwise have been buried in photos on my mobile phone became a tender profile of my life unfolding on pages. My favourite drawings are often of people. Our daughter, Elizabeth, is usually furious when she realises I'm surreptitiously drawing her. Drawing strangers at airports, in cafes or on the tube is fun. I enjoy the element of danger. Will I get caught? Can I finish the drawing before that person moves on? It helps to pass the time on long journeys instead of spending it on screen. Lots of my sketches are dreadful, but the quickest ones – of people or animals – can have good results because drawing at speed makes my self-consciousness fall away. One unexpected benefit of doing a sketch a day is I spend less time doomscrolling on my phone. Like most people, I am anxious about the state of the world, but drawing slows things down, makes me pay attention to the moment. I lose myself in the act of drawing, and I'm using my hands, which is soothing in itself. Drawing also brings me back to the analogue world. It makes me happier and more patient. Art is known for being therapeutic and transformative, and I've definitely felt the benefits. In two years our daughter will be leaving home. In the future I'll be able to look at those drawing diaries and think, yes, we were together when I did those.
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Nuclear power stations and Robbie Williams
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