I understand why people try to change things that have gone on for hundreds of years and understand why the words "health and safety" are dreaded in some situations.

I also know the Hallowe'en festivities on Pendle Hill have not passed without incident in recent years.

Celebrating Hallowe'en in this part of the country is very much part of our heritage.

But now it seems a few too many drunken yobs have spoiled it for everyone.

Like everything else – I, for one, have never worked out why Good Friday could ever be a day for getting blind stinking drunk – it now appears Hallowe'en has just become another excuse for getting legless, with all the usual, predictable and unnecessary consequences.

Bonfires and the fireworks that go with them are also a massive part of our national history.

Three years ago we were not permitted to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the day when an attempt to assassinate our king was foiled.

That for me was political correctness gone mad, just like the 200th anniversary celebrations for the Battle off Trafalgar (I mean off, and not of) failing to mention the French got a bit of a hiding!

It now seems to me the fact that too many people in this country party irresponsibly too much of the time means the rest of us, should we feel like it, are not allowed to party when there is something to commemorate or celebrate.


Happy Birthday!
IT seems that never a week passes without a new call for my old friend Jimmy McIlroy to be knighted or honoured in some appropriate way.

Last week came the suggestion there should be a statue of the football genius outside Turf Moor.

Jimmy – who celebrated his birthday on Saturday – will take it all with his customary pinch of salt.

The couple of years I had working with him remain among the best days I have spent in this – or any – office.

But anything that is done to honour the way he helped put Burnley on the map would be a very fitting reward for a footballer for whom the word "legend" is an understatement.