Westwinds Farm Campsite

Open April – September
(Booking is advised for holidays in July and August to guarantee a place.)

Jim and Meg Oaks welcome you to the campsite. We hope you will enjoy your stay here.

We ask all campers to show due care and consideration whilst staying here and to observe the following camp rules:

• Keep the campsite clean and tidy:

  • Dispose of litter in the bins provided.
  • Leave the showers, toilets, and washing area in the same state as you found them.
  • Ensure your site is clear of all litter when you leave it.

• Don’t obstruct rights of way. Keep cars, bikes, etc., off the road.

• Let sleeping campers have some peace. Don’t make any noise after 10 o’clock at night or before 7:30 in the morning.

• Dogs must be kept on a lead. Owners of dogs that disturb other campers by barking through the night will be asked to leave.

• Disorderly behaviour will not be tolerated.

• The lighting of fires is strictly prohibited.

• Ball games are not allowed on the campsite. There is plenty of room for ball games in the park opposite the campsite.

• Radios, portable music equipment, etc., must not be played at high volume.

The management reserves the right to refuse admittance.

The law on minimum pay

Who is entitled to minimum pay?

Nearly all workers aged 16 years and over, including part-time workers, are entitled to the National Minimum Wage. Amongst those to whom it does not apply are those engaged in unpaid work and family members employed by the family business.

What is the minimum wage that I am entitled to?

The National Wage Act specifies the minimum rates of pay applicable nationwide. Since 1 October 2007, the adult rate for workers aged 22 and over has been £5.25 per hour. The development rate for 18–21-year-olds and for workers getting training in the first 6 months of a job is £4.60 per hour. The rate for 16–17-year-olds stands at £3.40 an hour. There are special provisions for some workers, for example, those whose job includes accommodation. Pay means gross pay and includes any items paid through the payroll such as overtime, bonus payments, commission, and tips and gratuities.

I believe I’m being paid below the National Minimum Wage Rate. How can I complain?

If you are being paid less than this, there are various steps you can take:

• If you feel able, you should talk directly with your employer. This is a clear legal right, and employers can be fined for not paying the NMW.
• If you are a trade union member, you should call the union.
• If neither of these is appropriate, then you can email via the Revenue and Customs website or call their helpline for advice.

You have the legal right to inspect your employer’s pay records if you believe, on reasonable grounds, that you are being paid less than the NMW. Your employer is required to produce the records within 14 days and must make them available at your place of work or some other reasonable place. If your employer fails to produce the records, you may take the matter to an employment tribunal. You must make your complaint within three months of the ending of the 14-day notice period.

Dealing with your office emails

Email has completely changed the way we work today. It offers many benefits and, if used well, can be an excellent tool for improving your own efficiency. Managed badly, though, email can be a waste of valuable time. Statistics indicate that office workers need to wade through an average of more than 30 emails a day. Despite your best efforts, unsolicited email or spam can clutter up the inbox and make it disorganized and infect your computer system with email viruses. Here we give you guidance on protecting yourself.

Prioritising incoming messages

If you are regularly faced with a large volume of incoming messages, you need to prioritise your inbox to identify which emails are really important. If it is obvious spam, it can be deleted without reading. Then follow these steps for each email:

• Check who the email is from. Were you expecting or hoping to hear from the sender? How quickly do they expect you to respond?
• Check what the email is about. Is the subject urgent? Is it about an issue that falls within your sphere of responsibility, or should it just be forwarded to someone else?
• Has the email been in your inbox for long? Check the message time.

An initial scan like this can help you identify the emails that require your prompt attention. The others can be kept for reading at a more convenient time.

Replying in stages

Having prioritised your emails, you can answer them in stages, first with a brief acknowledgment and then a more detailed follow-up. This is particularly advisable when dealing with complicated matters where you don’t yet have a final answer. If you decide to do this, tell the recipient a definite date when you’ll be able to get back to him or her and try to keep to this whenever possible.

Some emails are uncomplicated and only require a brief, one-line answer, so it’s a good idea to reply to these immediately. For example, if all you need to say is, ‘Yes, I can make the 10.00 meeting.’ or ‘Thanks, that’s just the information I needed.’ do it. If you are unable to reply there and then or choose not to, let the sender know that you’ve received the message and will be in touch as soon as possible.

THE IRON BRIDGE

The Iron Bridge was the first of its kind in Europe and is universally recognised as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution.

A

The Iron Bridge crosses the River Severn in Coalbrookdale, in the west of England. It was the first cast-iron bridge to be successfully erected, and the first large cast-iron structure of the industrial age in Europe, although the Chinese were expert iron-casters many centuries earlier.

B

Rivers used to be the equivalent of today’s motorways, in that they were extensively used for transportation. The River Severn, which starts in the Welsh mountains and eventually enters the sea between Cardiff and Bristol, is the longest navigable river in Britain. It was ideal for transportation purposes, and special boats were built to navigate the waters. During the middle of the 18th century, the Severn was one of the busiest rivers in Europe. Among the goods coming downstream were cider, iron and other metal products, wool, and salt. Goods moving upstream included luxury items such as sugar, tea, coffee, and wine. In places, the riverbanks were lined with warehouses, and the river was often crowded with boats loading or unloading.

C

In 1638, Basil Brooke patented a steelmaking process and built a furnace at Coalbrookdale. This later became the property of Abraham Darby (referred to as Abraham Darby I to distinguish him from his son and grandson of the same name). After serving an apprenticeship in Birmingham, Darby had started a business in Bristol, and later moved to Coalbrookdale with an idea that he developed into what became a cheaper and more economical alternative to charcoal as a fuel for ironmaking. This led to the manufacture of iron cooking pots, and the abundant supply of coal and limestone in the area.

D

His son, Abraham Darby II, pioneered the manufacture of cast iron and had the idea of building a bridge over the river at Coalbrookdale. At the time, the timber trade was particularly large, with limited sources of fuel for the furnaces at Coalbrookdale and other surrounding areas. Darby involved considerable engineering expertise, as heavy iron was difficult to transport. The project took several years to plan and was undertaken with the help of leading architects and ironmasters, including Thomas Pritchard, who had the idea of a bridge of iron.

E

Sections were cast during the winter of 1778–79 for a 7-metre-wide bridge with a span of 31 metres, 17 metres above the river. Construction took three months during the summer of 1779. The mason responsible was injured during the construction of the bridge—a feat admired by architects and engineers even in modern times.

Approach roads continued for another two years, and the bridge was opened to traffic in 1781. Abraham Darby III funded the bridge by commissioning paintings and engravings, but he lost a lot on the project, which had cost nearly double the estimate, and he died leaving massive debts in 1789, aged only 39. The district did not flourish for much longer, and during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries factories closed down. Since 1934 the bridge has been open only to pedestrians. Universally recognised as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution, the Iron Bridge now stands at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site.

F

It has always been a mystery how the bridge was built. Despite its pioneering technology, no eye-witness accounts are known which describe the bridge being erected — and certainly no plans have survived. However, recent discoveries, research, and experiments have shed new light on exactly how it was built, challenging some assumptions of second-decade ideas. In 1997, a small watercolour was sketched by Elias Martin on the left bank of the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Although there are many other views of the bridge by numerous artists, this is the only one which actually shows it under construction.

G

Up until recently, it had been assumed that the bridge had been built from both banks, with the inner supports tilted across the river. This would have allowed river traffic to continue unimpeded during construction. But the picture clearly shows sections of the bridge being raised from a raft in the river. It contradicted everything historians had previously thought, and it was even considered that the painting could be wrong or the artist had taken liberties with his style. In 2001, a half-scale model of the bridge was built in the Netherlands to test the idea, however, the boat method was indeed validated by the watercolour. Meanwhile, a team of archaeological, historical, and photographic survey experts led by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, along with a 3D CAD (computer-aided design) model, proved the painting to be correct.

H

The results tell us a lot more about how the bridge was built. We now know that all the large castings were manufactured individually, as they are all slightly different. The bridge wasn’t welded or bolted together as modern bridges are these days. Instead, it was fitted together using a complex system of joints, normal used for wood – but this was the traditional way in which iron structures were joined at the time. The construction of the model proved that the painting shows a very realistic method of constructing the bridge that was in all probability the method used.

I

Now yet another twist remains in the Iron Bridge story. The Swedish watercolour sketched had apparently been torn from a book which had two other exact similar sketches in it, not known by historians. One book lay undisturbed for 12 years at a local library before further valuable evidence of how the Iron Bridge was constructed.