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| Tony Fox obituary Doctor and champion sculler of the 1950sTony Fox, who has died aged 82, ruled British sculling during the 1950s. He won the Diamond Sculls at Hen- ley in 1951 and 1953, the Wingfields for three consecutive years from 1951, and the Scullers' Head in 1955 and 1956. He competed for Britain in the single scull five times and the double sculls once (1954), winning a silver medal in the European championships in 1951 and reaching the Olympic final in Helsinki in 1952.Fox was born into a Guernsey medical family and learned to row in the Channel Islands. He took up the sport in earnest while studying medicine at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and then joined a remarkable group of London Rowing Club scullers when British rowing was in the doldrums. Having won the Head of the River race with the London club in 1950, Fox entered a new event the following year – the Norfolk Long Distance Sculls in Norwich.This was the first time trial for scullers, and Fox won it, followed by John Pinches, Archie Nisbet and Farn Carpmael, all from the London club. This group also included John Marsden, a teacher at Eton; Edward Sturges, who ran a gym attended by London oarsmen and the children of the royal family; and Doug Melvin, a young electrician from the John O'Gaunt club in Lancaster. The club revolved around the coaching of Eric Phelps, who had taken the double scullers Jack Beresford and Dick Southwood to Olympic gold in 1936. The company was competitive, inspirational and congenial.The older men in the group were instrumental in reviving tideway rowing after the second world war and were a driving force behind initiatives for sculling, the discipline that uses two oars instead of one. Fox and Pinches inaugurated a club regatta in 1951, to which Oxbridge colleges were invited. It was won by a scullers' eight, formed by Fox and Carpmael, in a gale.Fox swept the board in 1953, winning the Vesta Dashes, the Diamonds, the Wingfields, the Metropolitan Regatta and the Norfolk Sculls. He represented Britain at the European championships in Copenhagen, where Rob van Mesdag, of the Netherlands, beat him in a heat.In 1954 Fox lost the Wingfields to Sid Rand of the RAF. In the double sculls at Henley, he and Marsden beat the fancied Russians Georgi Zhilin and Igor Emchuk in the first round but were defeated by Erich Schriever and Peter Stebler of Switzerland, the eventual winners, in the semi-final. That year, the London men finished fourth in the European championships in Amsterdam. Fox wore the GB vest at two Olympic Games. In Helsinki he finished fourth. It was the best Olympic result for a British sculler since Beresford's gold in 1924. He finished ninth in Melbourne in 1956, part of a British team that the maverick oarsman Colin Porter describ- ed as the "worst ever".After that, Fox completed his studies at St George's hospital, Tooting, south-west London, and joined his father, uncle and brother in their general practice on Guernsey before retiring to Cornwall in 1989. He married Paula Sweby, a nurse, in 1958, and is survived by her and four daughters. • Thomas Anthony Fox, rower, born 27 July 1928, died 31 July 2010RowingChannel IslandsDoctorsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Mull of Kintyre song estate on sale for £3m A Scottish estate made famous by Sir Paul McCartney's song Mull of Kintyre is up for sale at almost £3 million. telegraph.co.uk |
Letters: Nobel immigrants It is a wonderful vindication of the tradition of academic hospitality in Britain that three out of the four Nobel prizes associated with the UK this year went to academic immigrants (Education, 12 October). They join the many others welcomed who went on to become Nobel winners. CARA has since the 1930s supported 18 who fled from fascism and later attained this distinction. What a magnificent return for Britain's welcome!Anne LonsdaleCouncil for Assisting Refugee AcademicsNobel prizesPeople in scienceScience prizesImmigration and asylumguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Thousands at union cuts protest Several thousand people attend a trade union rally against proposed spending cuts in the centre of Belfast on Saturday. bbc.co.uk |
Spending cuts: Liverpool facing 'worse than the worst-case scenario' With 40% of jobs in Liverpool in public services, local leaders fear that dole queues will swell and social problems worsenLiverpudlians have long been exasperated at the persistence of the "gizza job" tag, bequeathed by Alan Bleasdale's seminal portrait of a working class on its knees in the 1980s drama Boys from the Blackstuff. Thirty years on, construction cranes have remodelled its skyline, replacing dereliction, fashioning chic city-centre apartments, and moulding vibrant shopping malls and arts centres.With the militancy of the dockers and car workers – symbols of the fight against Thatcherism – long vanquished, the city has hungrily hovered up grants. Now reinvented as a tourist and leisure destination, and service provider, its arts scene regularly enhances the culture pages of the Sunday supplements.Yet almost 30 years after a riot in 1981 became a symbol of the consequences of Thatcher's policies, Toxteth remains beset with problems that can only be exacerbated by job losses and benefit cuts.The city already has 50,552 on jobseeker's allowance and 28,330 receiving incapacity benefit, with another 43,960 such claimants throughout the region. A large proportion are in wards such as Toxteth, where Paul Brant, the deputy leader of Liverpool city council, fears dole queues can only swell, and social problems get worse.Social housing, which makes up much of Toxteth's stock, is a major issue, he says. In Liverpool, more than 23,000 are on the waiting list, with 13,000 homes boarded up awaiting demolition as part of a 15-year regeneration programme that surely must now have been derailed. "We don't want to be seen as 'self pity city' again. Liverpool is not that place anymore," said Brant. But he added: "It is worse than the worst-case scenario we expected."Liverpool estimates it will lose £45m each year with a 7.25% cut, totalling £180m over four years. The comprehensive spending review translates into 16,000 expected job losses in Europe's erstwhile Capital of Culture. Almost 40% of the workforce are employed in the public sector, with 60-70% of the council's budget going on wages. Central government provides 80% of its funding.Charities warn that the squeeze on housing and welfare benefits could well result in homelessness becoming a serious concern in areas such as Toxteth.Katie, a 26-year-old single mother, lives on a terraced Toxteth street, where pushing up the rent to 80% of the market value will be hard to cope with.She will also have to deal with the new challenges faced by those in higher education. Eager to grasp at Liverpool's new opportunities, Katie was studying tourism and travel at Liverpool John Moores University until she became pregnant. Her plan was to resume studies once her son started school. But with university tuition fees set to double to at least £7,000 a year, teaching budgets cut and the average graduate lumbered with £40,000 of debt, she can't afford it.As her son grows up, the Education Maintenance Allowance, which helps deprived 16-19-year-olds stay in school, will no longer exist."I agree the layabouts should be forced to find work. But if you're me, and you're trying to get qualifications to get work, there doesn't seem any way. It's very hard for those who really want to go out and pick themselves up. Nobody is helping you," she said.While the pain of the cuts inflicted stretch beyond the city out into the commuter belt, some areas appear relatively unscathed.Across the Mersey lies Wirral West, the most affluent of Wirral's four constituencies, reclaimed this year by the Conservatives from Labour and home to the genteel seaside towns of West Kirby and neighbouring Hoylake. More than a third of West Kirby's homes are detached, and Range Rovers and Jaguars are seen outside many of them."Yes, it is affluent," said West Kirby councillor David Elderton. Eight-bedroom mansions are not uncommon. In the exclusive enclave of Caldy, £5m will buy a home fit for a footballer. "But we do have some areas of social housing, and pensioners on fixed incomes have their worries," Elderton says.On West Kirby's streets the threat of cuts pass most by. Some express annoyance about increased commuting costs. Others were incensed about recent proposals for an 80-bedroom hotel and spa on the seafront, now axed. But benefits, social housing and job seeker's allowance do not affect the majority.Typically middle-class professionals or retirees, husbands tend to commute to Liverpool, Chester and Manchester, to jobs in the private sector. Many wives work part-time, some in the public sector."I suppose I am vulnerable," said one mother of two, who works part-time for the NHS while her husband works for an IT company. Losing her job would be unpleasant but not a matter of life or death. With her sons now working after going through the area's grammar schools, financial pressure has eased."Very few work in the public sector," said David Elderton. "And people travel great distances – some even to Birmingham."Jack Stopforth, chief executive of Liverpool's Chamber of Commerce, believes the city will survive, but not without a struggle."We are no longer dependent on grant aid as a city," he said. "But we still have a private sector starting from a terribly low base and it's too small to absorb that number of jobs."We've had more new hotels in the last couple of years that you can shake a stick at. Fantastic new arenas and conference centres. Undoubtedly those will be affected."But we are not living in the past. People still hark back to 18,000 workers on the docks or 10,000 in the car industry. That's so long ago. What we are about now is the service industry, leisure, retail, bio-medical."But the past is all around at the Casa, a city centre bar and bistro bought by ex-dockers from the profits of Ken Loach's film Dockers, depicting their bitter two-and-a-half year strike in the 1990s. Black and white photograph of Liverpool's docks adorn its walls, trade unions use its function rooms, students and city workers drink side-by-side, and welfare and benefits advice is dispensed upstairs.In the gents toilet someone has scrawled: "Opium of the people: pint of lager and Sky Sports.""I haven't rubbed it out because it's that good," said director Tony Nelson, 53, a docker since the age of 15, and shop steward who was on the picket line throughout the strike.Nelson believes the cuts will be devastating. "We had a march against the cuts and got about 500 to 1,000," he said. "Two days later there was a march by Liverpool FC supporters against their owners. There were thousands and thousands. Says it all."The young just aren't politicised anymore. And they are the very ones that are going to be affected most."Spending review 2010Tax and spendingWelfareState benefitsLocal governmentPublic sector cutsPublic services policyPublic financePublic sector payCaroline Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |