PENN and Tylers Green Football Club has paid tribute to Noel Reilly, one of its greatest supporters and volunteers, who died in hospital at the weekend after contracting coronavirus. Noel, 77, and his late wife Eva were actively involved with the club for many years undertaking whatever task was needed, from cooking post match meals, preparing and marking the pitch or cleaning the players’ kit.
A friend wrote on the Hellenic League website: “Club members of a certain age will fondly remember the club music nights when Noel would entertain us with his songs and guitar playing. Noel never forgot his heritage and his banter with anyone sharing his Irish roots was always highly entertaining.”
A fellow committee member said: “Noel was a legend, a character, a top bloke and we will miss him sat on his stool at the corner of the clubhouse bar.”
Coronavirus update
- Neil Macdonald, chief executive of Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, yesterday thanked and praised non-medical staff at Wycombe, Amersham and Stoke Mandeville Hospitals who volunteered to support ward teams at the weekend.
- In a sign that local libraries do not expect to reopen for some time yet, Buckinghamshire libraries have announced that all book loans have been extended until the end of March and no fines for late return will be issued at least until then. A number of library staff have been redeployed to help at vaccination centres.
- A man from Chalfont St Giles who told police he had driven 30 miles to Walton on Thames in Surrey to buy a fried chicken takeaway received a £200 fixed fine for breaching Covid regulations.
- Whipsnade and London Zoos have launched an appeal to help secure their future. The zoos have lost millions of pounds in income during the three lockdowns in the past 12 months but face the same expenses employing keepers and looking after 20,000 animals. As part of the fundraising keepers are reading animal bedtime stories on Whipsnade’s Facebook page every weekend. You can donate at https://donate.zsl.org/donations/
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Fire rescue – Firefighters rescued 16 year old Amelia Tack and her two pet dogs from a blazing house in Beaconsfield yesterday. Amelia, who had to be treated for smoke inhalation by an ambulance crew, was recovered from a bedroom window in Horseshoe Crescent and the dogs were given oxygen. She was trapped in the bedroom by thick smoke and was given advice on her mobile by the brigade’s control room on what to do while she waited for the fire engines to arrive. The cause of the blaze hasn’t been given.
School’s appeal – Holmer Green Senior School, which was issued with a planning enforcement order to take down a large inflatable dome it has erected over its tennis courts to help separate pupils in the pandemic, has told the Bucks Free Press it is appealing against the order. The school says the dome is needed for the health and safety of staff and pupils during the pandemic.
Litter award – Volunteers from Penn and Tylers Green were one of 30 litter-pick teams throughout Buckinghamshire to carry out a big clean-up of their local area last September. Now their efforts have been rewarded because the county has been shortlisted for a special Keep Britain Tidy award next month.