Good afternoon Beckworth, I do hope you are all enjoying the wonderful weather your mayor’s office has layed on this weekend… And what better way to enjoy the sunshine than to celebrate the birthday of Beckworth’s most famous offspring known to fans simply as JC. Yes, I mean Joan Collins. And tomorrow afternoon our annual JC Whitsun Bank Holiday Birthday Parade will be starting at 1:00pm, so there’s plenty of time to come along. For the last 64 years or so Beckworth has combined it’s Whitsun Bank Holiday celebrations with Mrs Collin’s birthday in exchange for the popular actress & part-time trucker laying on most of the cheap entertainment, food and drink and donating some trucks from her haulage company for use as floats. I am hoping we will see crowds of enthusiastic spectators all along the 7 mile route; starting at Beckworth library steps and winding it’s way very slowly to Crewbury Synagogue. Plucky old bird Joan Collins (109 years old last Tuesday) will be dressing as a “large heffer” due to a sizeable sponsorship deal with a local slaughterhouse, so she should look spectacular. Once again we’d hoped to book the Red Arrow’s to perform a flypast but they say we can’t afford them and put the phone down when we inquired. Thank goodness Noel Edmunds has promised to put on a death-defying kite display around early evening and local east end bouncer, and part-time bouncer at the nursery, Ray Winstone has agreed to lead the floats and the WI marching band on a borrowed tricycle. See you all on Monday. Thanking you most warmly. Aashif Ackworth. New Mayor