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A newspaper editor and history enthusiast who helped inspire a generation of Shropshire journalists has died aged 77.
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Creative children wowed judges with their colourful and imaginative entries to the Express & Star’s Design an Ad competition.
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Businesses are being offered a unique opportunity to receive a bespoke digital marketing masterclass in Wolverhampton next month.
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Star Employment Services operations manager Kylee Russon writes: Whether you are leading a large company and need to recruit staff quickly, or a one-man operation deliberating the pros and cons of taking on an employee, there are many things to consider.
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Reporter Nick Humphreys tells his story in Tuesday’s edition of the MNA daily newspapers of how a bacteria found in a droplet of water ruined his sight – and caused him a year of misery.Have you ever showered or been swimming in contact lenses? Or got a bit of dirt in your eye from playing sport? Or even handled your lenses with wet fingers before putting them in?
Well, be warned, as lurking in our water and soil is a parasitic bug which can destroy your eye and leave you blind.
A YouGov poll for Fight for Sight revealed that a large proportion of UK contact lens wearers are putting their eyesight at risk through unsafe habits, unaware that they could develop infections like Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK).
A worrying 56 per cent of people polled said they wore them for longer than the recommended 12 hours a day, 54 per cent said they had swum or showered in them and 47 per cent had slept in them.
Meanwhile, 15 per cent of respondents had put them in their mouth to clean or lubricate them and two per cent had even shared used lenses with other wearers.
About 3.5 million people in the UK wear contact lenses, and I used to be one of them. Sometimes for vanity and sometimes, as a keen Sunday League football player, for practicality.
I’ve worn glasses since the age of about four or five, but have never liked how I looked in them.
So really contact lenses were the obvious choice, and from 2013 I had used them with no problems.
It was a bright but chilly Friday afternoon in January last year when I first noticed something seriously wrong. My right eye had been a bit dry all week, but I simply put it down to early mornings and a lack of sleep. But this was something more.
For a few days I used over the counter eye drops and turned all my phone and computer display settings down to the lowest brightness.
But after the pain became too much, I went to the optician, and was told I had an ulcer on my eye and advised to go to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital immediately.
There, after being seen by a handful of eye specialists, I had five scrapings (as vile as it sounds) from my right eye sent away to be tested.
The doctors couldn’t be sure what was happening until the test results came back, but they thought it might be Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK).
It is an infection of the cornea – the clear window at the front of the eye – caused by a microscopic organism called Acanthamoeba, which is found in water. Sure enough, I was diagnosed a week later, yet it still didn’t really sink in.
After using disinfectant eye drops for three weeks, it seemed I was on the mend, but by March 2018 I found himself completely blind in my right eye.
I was driving to work and my vision completely went in my right eye. I don’t know how I managed not to crash, but it didn’t take me long to realise I needed to get back to the hospital.
Referred to the Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre, doctors prescribed higher strength drops that needed to be applied hourly – even at night.
The bug had returned with a vengeance and rendered me pretty much housebound for six months. I couldn’t read a page of a newspaper without being in excrutiating pain, light sensitivity was so bad I had to keep the curtains drawn at all times. I even had to watch Eurovision with my sunglasses on.
Some might be reading this thinking “here we go, yet another millennial wimp who needs pulled up by his bootstraps”, and they’d probably be right.
But to hammer home the message, women on an online support group who’ve had this condition have said the pain is a million times worse than childbirth. It hurt!
Spring and summer 2018 was spent backwards and forwards to appointments at Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre, with the condition getting progressively worse and doctors not knowing how to fix it.
While I should have been at the pub getting swept up in the euphoria of England in the semi-finals of a World Cup, I was curled up on the sofa, listening to matches on the radio.
Six months of doing nothing is enough to send anyone stir crazy.
When you get to the point of having watched so much Jeremy Kyle you know who the daddy is before he’s opened the envelope, you know there’s a problem.
Eventually in July my doctor tried experimental cross-linking surgery, a procedure normally used on patients whose cornea has developed into a cone shape.
It involves the surgeon scraping back layers of skin on the eye, pouring in vitamin drops and blasting it with a UV light. To my huge relief, it killed the bug and ended the pain.
However more was to come. A second operation followed in September to speed up the healing after months of toxic drops and a damaging procedure.
I had an amniotic membrane transplant, which involved having graft material placed on the cornea and glued down underneath a hard contact lens. In my case though, the glue didn’t work, so it had to be stitched onto my eyeball.
Despite the pain, the operation went well medically, the problem was a few days afterwards when I pulled back the safety patches and saw a monster looking back at me in the mirror.
Depression and anxiety have been a problem since, but fortunately it has healed to a point where, with glasses on, it’s not too noticeable to others.
Blindness will remain until I have a full corneal transplant on August 15, which will also include cateract surgery. I will owe a monumental debt of gratitude to my donor.
Working with the charity Fight for Sight to raise awareness about the danger of using contact lenses while showering or swimming has helped.
I can honestly say if I’d had the slightest idea that this was even a remote possibility I would never have worn contacts in the first place. It’s crucial that people out there know this is a reality and can happen because of something as simple as showering.
If I get my sight back I’ll never wear contacts again and, if I’m lucky enough to take to football pitch again, I’ll be donning the goggles like the ex-Holland midfielder Edgar Davids.
I’ve lost 18 months of my life because of something as simple as showering with contacts in.
Now contact lens makers need to put sufficient warnings on packaging to stop this preventable condition destroying more lives.
* For more information visit www.fightforsight.org.uk
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They came from across Shropshire bearing ideas to improve the lives of the homeless, and to produce clean energy.
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A former newspaper editor who trained generations of journalists in the Midlands has died while on holiday in the Ukraine.
Brian Mason, 79, from Wellington, is thought to have had a heart attack while on a break with wife Beryl.
Brian was the first editor of the Telford Journal, a newspaper created specifically to serve the expanding new town, which launched on January 5, 1973.
In 1981 he became the training manager for the Midland News Association, training journalists for the Express & Star, Shropshire Star and other company publications.
He oversaw the switch to emerging new technology and served on the main board of directors of the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
But he was also involved in a wide range of other roles, including helping to found the Shropshire Talking Newspaper for blind and partially sighted people, an organisation he worked with for more than 30 years.
“It’s quite astonishing, looking back, to see exactly how much he was involved in,” said daughter Caitlin Bisknell.
Brian died in the early hours of June 26. A memorial service will be held in Wellington on a date to be announced.
Caitlin added: “He had an enormous impact on many young journalists.
“He was editor of Telford New Town’s only newspaper at a time when there was a lot of change.
“It brought together the various communities and was critical in making sure the people of the area knew and understood what was happening and how they could have their say.
“Many of his trainees went on to work for national newspapers and media organisations.
“He was a member of the National Union of Journalists locally, and was very involved with Telford Hornets rugby club.
“He was vice president there and played for a number of years as captain of the thirds.”
Caitlin said that having grown up as a lad from Kent, cricket was another love of her father’s.
“With mum, he was very involved in the Wrekin and Telford Arts Festival, promoting the arts and helping to bring artists and musicians to the area,” she added.
Another love was motorcycling, about which he wrote a regular column.
Among other achievements was the award of a gold badge for donating 50 pints of blood.
Starting his journalistic career in 1958, he was a trainee reporter on the Bexleyheath and Welling Times.
After three years in East Grinstead, he moved to Shropshire and the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News in 1964.
The paper was superseded by the Shropshire Journal, of which Brian became news editor, before becoming first editor of the Telford Journal.
As an in-company trainer, he helped tutor NCTJ subbing courses and ran the Birmingham examinations centre for 10 years.
On other professional bodies, he served on the Newspaper Society Training Committee and helped rewrite the new journalism NVQ standards.
He retired in 2000 after nearly 20 years training journalists.
Brian met and married his wife Beryl in Bexleyheath and they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 2011.
Brian is also survived by his children Caitlin, who lives in Derbyshire, and Claire Heaton, Iain Mason, and Gavin Mason, who all live in Wellington.
Brian also has eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
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The Midland News Association is recruiting a Wolves correspondent for Express & Star and Shropshire Star.We need a top flight operator with the ambition and drive to match that of Wolves.
This is no job for a beginner.
We want someone with a proven track record of first rate sports journalism who is used to breaking exclusives.
Equally adept at working across print, web, video and social media to lead a team dedicated to providing unrivalled coverage of all things gold and black.
You will be the face and voice of the Express & Star’s industry-leading coverage.
In return, we offer an attractive salary package and a company car as well as other benefits that come with working for England’s biggest selling regional daily and award winning website.
Think you have what is takes to be a Premier League operator working in the top flight of regional media companies?
Send your CV, a letter of application and five ideas detailing how you would improve our multi-media coverage of Wolves to:
HR Department, Midland News Association, 51-53 Queen Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1ES or via email at hr@mnamedia.co.uk.
The closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday July 5.
For more information click here
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The MNA’s PR agency has been featured as one of the highlights of the second annual Black Country Business Festival.Star Public Relations staged an “escape room” challenge at the Grand Theatre, which has now been included in the round-up video of the fortnight of events showcasing the region.
Click here to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA9RTdc4esc
Delegates taking part in the event last month found themselves under pressure.
The theatre teamed up with Star PR to stage the event, where attendees were plunged into a scenario, which saw them dealing with a crisis at a fictional company.
The session involved guests working through a communications challenge set by the MNA’s public relations agency.
Partnering with the Star PR experts, they were put on the spot to think of responses to media enquiries as a damaging story broke.
As a unique memento of the day, they received a framed front page of their story, produced in real time at the MNA head office and including a photo of the delegates taken upon arrival.
Star PR consultant Cathy Dobbs tweeted: Great to see the #escaperoom from #BCBF_19 on this video – thanks @BCCCmembers for including us. It was great working with @Char_lottery @WolvesGrand @Vickyprice2018 on this #crisiscomms event and thanks for all the work behind the scenes @ExpressandStar
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A charity which transports vital medical supplies to hospitals and doctors has an extra £5,000 help with its life-saving work thanks to the Cash For Your Community £20,000 giveaway.Shropshire and Staffordshire Blood Bikes took top prize in this year’s Cash For Your Community, a partnership between the Shropshire Star and Enterprise Flex E Rent.
Shrewsbury Guide Dogs for the Blind took second place, receiving a £2,000 donation, while Telford & Wrekin Parkinson’s Support Group took third prize, scooping £1,000.
The charities were presented with the money during a ceremony at Shrewsbury Town FC yesterday afternoon.
The scheme, now in its fifth year, saw £20,000 shared among 33 good causes from across the county.
It takes the total donated since the scheme was launched to a massive £100,000, with more than 200 cheques handed over to more than 150 different charities and voluntary groups.
This year’s groups and charities were selected from more than 100 applications by a judging panel made up of staff from the Shropshire Star and Enterprise Flex E Rent.
Members of the public were then invited to vote for their favourite causes by collecting tokens in the newspaper. The money was shared out according to how many tokens each group collected.
Blood Bikes will use the money to buy much-needed tyres for its fleet of motorcycles, keeping this vital service on the road. Last year its volunteers travelled a total of 219,500, equivalent to almost nine laps around the globe.Shrewsbury Guide Dogs for the Blind will use its £2,000 to support the breeding and training of guide dogs in the county.
In Shropshire there are 45 people waiting for a guide dog, and it costs about £3,200 just to breed a puppy, and £500 to support it in its first year.
Representing the charity were Darren Clutton and Lindsey Rowlands, who both brought their guide dogs with them to the ceremony.
Lindsey admitted to a few nerves as she waited to see how much the charity would receive.
“The sums just kept getting bigger and bigger, and then we came in second place,”she said.
Telford & Wrekin Parkinson’s Support will use its £1,000 to fund speech therapy and physiotherapy sessions for sufferers of the illness.
The group’s Alan West, who suffers from the illness himself, says the therapy is hugely beneficial. He said it was also that people who start the therapies are able to receive it without interruption, as any gains can be lost if people do not keep up with it.
Alan said the £1,000 would fund about three months’ worth of therapy, which would help about 70 people.
The Harry Johnson Trust, which provides support for children with cancer, was another major beneficiary, receiving £986.50. The charity was formed in 2014 by Sally and Stephen Johnson in memory of their son Harry, who died that year aged seven from a rare form of cancer.
The money will be used to provide children being treated for cancer at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital with toys and games.
Hope House Children’s Hospice received £963.92, which it will use to provide support for families affected by the sudden loss of a child.
Fundraiser Rachel Lewis said: “In our special Snowflake Suite, families can say goodbye in their own time and in their own way while being supported by specialist nurses, carers and counsellors.
“At the moment we can only help one-third of those bereaved families, which is really heartbreaking. This money will bring us a step closer towards being able to provide the support to everyone who needs it. ”
Shropshire Prostate Cancer Support received £930.30, which will be used to provide potentially life-saving tests at Oakengates, Wellington and Donnington.
Chairman Dennis Briggs said the money would pay for 10 nurses, as well as the administration costs for organising a session. He said the money would save lives.
“We had a testing session at Oakengates last October, and five people were found to have cancer,” he added.
Cuan Wildlife Rescue received £820.64 for its work looking after sick, injured animals, while AFC Bridgnorth got £792.99 to improve disabled access at its club room and pitches.
The Friendly Transport Service received £740.35 for its work providing transport in the Broseley area for people who would otherwise be socially isolated. The Donnington branch of the Friends of Severn Hospice – which earlier this year announced it would have to close at bed at its Telford site as a result of a funding cut – received a much-needed £735.03.
Tom Macdonald of Enterprise Flex E Rent said: “Yet again the outstanding work done in the Shropshire community has shone through during another fantastic year of Cash for your Community.
“When selecting the final 35 groups it never ceases to amaze all of the judging panel just how much is done on our doorstep in support of charities and great causes.
“I can honestly say that the selection process this year was harder than at any time before due simply to the number of deserving groups and we have been proud to be a part of such an important initiative.
“Congratulations to all of those who took home a share of the £20,000 prize fund and all of us at Enterprise Flex E Rent are excited to see what you do with your deserved winnings.
Shropshire Star editor Martin Wright said it was a privilege to once more be involved with the campaign. “One of the joys about Cash For Your Community has been watching how these groups have used the money to make such a difference,” he said.
“Every one of the organisations represented here has made its own unique contribution to our wonderful county.”