Latest news with #Nortons
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Irish Quarter readies for St Patrick's Day despite city parade cancellation
BUSINESSES across Birmingham's Irish Quarter are gearing up to paint the town green to mark St Patrick's Day 2025. St Patrick's Day will see the Irish community in the West Midlands converge on the Digbeth area for events marking the important date in Ireland's calendar, with one venue announcing its annual ten days of festivities to mark the occasion. Independent bar and music venue, Nortons Digbeth, has announced its annual St Patrick's Festival line-up exploring Irish culture, community and heritage will run from Friday, March 7 to Monday, March 17 2025 It comes following the news that Birmingham's St Patrick's Day parade, which was due to take place on March 16, has been postponed for this year, with organisers saying they could not safely put on the event for 2025. However, Digbeth is still set to come alive with St Patrick's Day celebrations, with Norton's programme featuring a series of live Irish music performances, Irish Gaelic classes, an Irish dance showcase, Six Nations and Cheltenham race screenings and related events, all of which will be launched with a 'green tie ball' dinner on Friday, March 7. During the festival, revellers can also book a guided Irish whiskey tasting and a 'Church End Brewery' beer tasting and be part of an exclusive Guinness masterclass at Nortons. Nortons will also observe Irish tradition by hosting a St Patrick's Day mass in the 'back room' venue and event space on the actual day of the Irish national holiday, March 17. Peter Connolly, owner of Nortons Digbeth, said: 'Our yearly St Patrick's Day festival here has become a firm favourite in the Birmingham Irish calendar, welcoming all communities for ten days of varied cultural experiences in a safe and friendly environment. 'Nortons Digbeth is a proud advocate of the city's Irish Quarter, and we're thrilled to be joining forces with our bar and venue colleagues across the area to highlight the incredible offering we all work hard year-round to deliver, especially over the St Patrick's period. 'Our doors are open to all, and we look forward to inviting people to come through our doors, to explore and celebrate Irish culture, heritage, hospitality and identity with us and the partner organisations we work with year round.' The cancellation of the parade has prompted businesses in the Irish Quarter to pull together to drive visitors to the area for what is traditionally one of the district's busiest weekends. Independent Digbeth NTE and hospitality venues including The Anchor, Autobrew, The Big Bull's Head, Cleary's, The Fountain, Hennessey's, The Mockingbird Cinema and Bar, Nortons Digbeth, The Old Crown, Redcorc and The Spotted Dog have all pledged support for the Birmingham Irish Quarter St Patrick's Day 2025 campaign. The group of publicans will be launching a digital and printed map for visitors to help navigate venues over the St Patrick's period, as well as sharing news and offers around special events planned as part of celebrations.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pam Jordan, last of the ATA's female motorcycle despatch riders in the Second World War
Pam Jordan, who has died aged 99, was believed to be the last of six women who served as Second World War motorcycle despatch riders in the Air Transport Auxiliary, or ATA. The younger of two daughters of a Bedfordshire farmer, Pamela Logsdon (as she then was) enrolled in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry after leaving school. FANYs served as SOE agents, in motor transport – famously, training the young Princess Elizabeth to drive and service lorries – and many as nurses, including Pam after she failed a driving test. Tired of checking for nits and administering enemas, she leapt at the suggestion of her Bedfordshire friend John Jordan that she join the ATA as a motorcycle rider. He had been thrown out of the RAF for indiscipline in 1942 and became one of the ATA's most unruly but most skilled pilots, delivering 53 different types of aircraft for the RAF – once, in 1944, taking a wildly illegal detour over Normandy 'to see how the invasion's coming along' in a brand new Mosquito which lacked the Allied black-and-white stripes, meaning either side could, and would, have shot him down. Pam joined the ATA aged 19 in February 1945 and rode a Triumph T100, 750cc Nortons and BSA M20s. She never did crash a bike – just as well, as she would have been unable to pick them up. In the cold of winter she would stuff a magazine down her front as insulation. Navigation was tricky during the black-outs, with road signs removed for the duration and with no maps – although she found that local taxi drivers could be helpful, once they had got over their surprise at being asked for directions by a woman despatch rider. Pamela Dorothy Logsdon was born on April 4 1925 to William Logsdon and Dorothy, née Powers, She would later recall her pride as her parents came to admire her smart uniform and shining bicycle at an ATA open day at White Waltham aerodrome. Demobbed at the end of November 1945, she married John Jordan in 1946 and was widely known as 'Whizzer' for her love of fast cars – John becoming known as 'Shunter' for the way he drove his. After trying various jobs, including crop-dusting in California, in 1949 John bought his grandfather's flour mill outside Biggleswade in Bedfordshire. Pam moved into the then leaking and chilly Mill House with her first baby; she was to die in her own bed there 75 years later. John's heart remained in flying and motor racing but his car dealerships and mill thrived. Commended by an ATA inquiry for a perfect deadstick landing which saved a new Spitfire, he had omitted to mention that the fuel pump only failed after he had been flying inverted for 10 minutes. Pam's sons, Bill and David, inherited the Jordans' entrepreneurial and engineering flair, and their mother's love of big bikes – which she would take for a test-drive when they were not looking. On a road trip in California Bill discovered granola breakfast cereal, returning with a licence to sell it in the UK. Biba and Neal's Yard Dairy were among the fashionable outlets stocking Jordans' new range, and Crunchy G cereal was launched in 1973, soon selling 80 tons a week. Pam's Mill House kitchen remained the warm and welcoming heart of the mill, where she baked endless Yorkshire pudding to test batches of flour for gluten, as well as hosting television chefs and foreign visitors who might come for a night and stay for weeks. Her gin and tonics were as renowned as her strong opinions, as well as her love of a good debate, and of robins – which were sometimes to be found nesting in her bedroom. She co-chaired the Bedfordshire WRVS and started a Mill shop, presiding over it merrily for more than three decades. John died in 2006, and in 2013 the business and Jordan brands were sold to Associated British Foods. The old Mill is now a thriving heritage centre run by the Jordan family trust. Pam Jordan is survived by her two sons and a daughter. Pam Jordan, born April 4 1925, died January 11 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
