Pubs to help cut heavy drinking
By Tom Bodden Welsh Affairs Correspondent
PUBLICANS in Wales are being shown ways of reducing the amount of alcohol their customers drink.
The Welsh are among the heaviest drinkers and smokers in Britain.
Figures released yesterday showed 300,000 people in Wales indulged in a heavy drinking session every week.
Of those, more than 130,000 were risking themselves or others, according to medical experts.
Now the campaign group, Drinkwise Wales, is signing up landlords to promote sensible drinking.
Profits
Chairman Judith Billingham said yesterday: ' Wales is one of the highest drinking regions of the UK and about half way up the league table for Europe.
' We are urging licensees to join us in encouraging sensible drinking because it in their own interests. '
Rather than cutting takings, profits would go up in well-run trouble-free bars which attracted more customers, she argued.
Sensible drinking amounted to 21 units of alcohol per man and 14 per woman, per week, the equivalent in men of 21 pub measures of spirits or 10.5 pints of average beer.
Training manuals dealing with alcohol issues have been produced, including details on the law and dealing with difficult situations.
The scheme is up and running in Clwyd and Gwynedd and is due to operate in Powys shortly.
Police had to be called to the Ferry Side Beach, near Carmarthen, yesterday as tension rose and tempers flared in a confrontation between the visiting cocklers and locals, who say they rely on the cockles for their livelihoods.
There were no arrests.
The Deeside group says it is doing nothing wrong and that there are no laws to prohibit collecting cockles, which have flourished on the beach.
But at 10 a bag there is a lot at stake.
The local cockle fishermen resent the newcomers and claim some of them are working beds while also claiming state benefits.
The visitors have vowed to return this morning and police will be standing by.
1843 COMPLAINTS that machines used to sweep chimneys were not as effective as the young sweeps, now protected by law.
More than 1,100 Merseysiders travelled on 30-shilling return rail trips from Liverpool to London, allowing up to nine days in the Metropolis.
' Shipping Gazette ' stated that 300 tons of mahogany sawdust had been used in Britain to adulterate coffee.
1893 LIBERAL Mr R.D Holt, became the first Lord Mayor of Liverpool by approval of the Queen.
Comedian Charles Coborn, original singer of Two Lovely Black Eyes and The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, topping the bill at Liverpool's Prince of Wales Theatre.
Temperature in Liverpool (June 14) rose to 92F.
1943 Liverpool FC's good season reflected in profit of 3,091, and a bank overdraft reduction of 4,982.
Ethel Revnell and Gracie West entertaining at the Empire Theatre.
American locomotives brought into Britain, ' now moving vast quantities of supplies'.
The ' ghost voice ', which often broke into German radio news broadcasts, replaced by trumpet blasts, drowning the announcer's words.
I 'M through with all the gentle, kind and witty ' sex symbols' we're supposed to fancy at the moment the Angus Deaytons and Kevin Whatelys.
Sex symbols mean bodies, hormones and recklessness Deayton's side parting is far too geometrical for my liking.
I suppose actor Kevin Whately (Morse's sidekick Lewis and doctor in Peak Practice) does have some appeal but so does an Andrex puppy!
Sean Bean's the man of the moment.
And I 'm with Lady Chatterley on this one: ' Get yer chest out for the girls. '
Time for a second honeymoon
My mother has died and left me 1,000.
I haven't had a holiday for ten years, not since our honeymoon.
We had three children in quick succession, and no spare cash.
My sister, who has always been better off than us, has suggested that I should go abroad with her this year, and says I have no excuse because I have the money and that is what our mother would have wanted me to do with it.
My husband has made it clear he doesn't agree to me going.
My sister was divorced two years ago, and he doesn't really get on with her.
I really would like a holiday, but I don't want to spend a lot of money, and then come home and find an atmosphere.
WENDY SAYS...
I can't help wondering why, if you want a holiday so much, you don't invite your husband to have one with you and you pay.
It's about time for a second honeymoon, I would have thought.
I 'm not surprised he's feeling peeved.
How would you feel if the boot was on the other foot, and he was suggesting he went and spent all that money going away with his foot-loose and fancy-free brother?
I would suggest you think again, because you also have the children to think about.
I 'm sure they would enjoy a family holiday, and my guess is that your mother would approve as well.
I AM saddened and appalled by an incident which happened two months ago when a female security guard chasing a thief knocked my 67-year-old mother off her feet.
Thankfully she was attended to by another lady.
Luckily my mother was not seriously hurt, but the woman responsible has not felt the need to enquire how my mother is.
Does humanity go out of the window when a woman security guard is trained?
Pauline Jones,
Liverpool 13
Pub helps to put its customers off alcohol
By Sue Cocker Daily Post Staff
HUNDREDS of people learned the cost of alcohol on their health and their pockets yesterday in, of all places, a pub.
The Pumphouse in Liverpool's Albert Dock claimed its busiest day ever as droves of people poured in to The Mersey Regional Health Authority-sponsored event was one of many Drinkwise Day events arranged around the country yesterday.
National Drinkwise Day was organised against the background of statistics that show alcohol consumption per head has more than doubled in Britain since the Second World War, with alcohol abuse on the increase among the young.
The nation's booze bill totalled a staggering 24.3bn last year, but doctors claim the cost on the country's health is far higher.
Alcohol is thought to be responsible for 40,000 premature deaths a year, as well as 60pc of suicide attempts, 50pc of murders, 54pc of fires and 30pc of domestic accidents.
Between eight and 14m working days are lost in Britain each year as employees are forced off sick by their hangovers at a cost of more than 700m in lost production.
Visitors to the Pumphouse were invited to input their weekly alcoholic intake into a computer, which calculated the cost of their drinking habits.
The recommended weekly maximum is 21 units for men and 14 for women.
One unit of alcohol is the equivalent of half a pint of beer, a single measure of spirits or a glass of wine.
Mersey Regional Health Authority spokeswoman Jackie Rankin said: ' It was very successful for a lot of people who had time to reflect on what they drink and what it costs them in terms of money and their health.
' We wanted people to enjoy an afternoon in the pub without alcohol and hopefully a lot of them went away reassured. '
Cheers!
Karen Cilmore from Bolton tests her fitness after an alcohol-free cocktail while barman Mike Connell demonstrates the tricks of the trade Picture: TRACEY O'NEILL
A city's Roman soldier gave his stamp of approval to the Royal Mail's latest issue yesterday.
The Royal Mail is commemorating the Roman era in Britain with a special set of stamps show artefacts from the years of Roman rule in England and Wales.
To help launch the stamps in the North West, Chester's Roman soldier, Karl Cleveley, was drafted in to help.
The stamps show a gold coin, a bronze, a gemstone and a mosaic found at sites all over the UK.
Picture: VIC CLEVELEY
The bride and the fall
Downfall of a Marquess: In the aristocratic limelight in 1990 after his wedding in London to Becky Few Brown...
 and in the arms of the law yesterday after his arrest for non-payment of maintenance to his now-estranged wife
Gangsters, shootings and 20,000 millionaires.
Capone's Chicago?
No, it's Yeltsin's Moscow
