A belated Happy New Year to you all. It seems such a long time since the Editors met that it was rather strange getting back to business again this week. However, we were soon back in the swing of local affairs again and hope that you enjoy this first edition of 2003.

Sid Parkin has been busy over the holiday season contacting all our old commercial advertisers and sorting out our advertising section. Most commercial advertisers book a space for the year ahead although some will only want a space for a month or more. Please contact Sid if you wish to advertise; and if you forgot to renew your previous space or wish to take out a new advertisement do so now so that they can be included next time. Contact addresses and telephone numbers for all the Editors are on the back page.

We stated in our December issue that we would like to see the festive lights outside homes and business premises at Christmas and many homes especially made a tremendous effort. We had intended to put pictures of the lights on the web site but I am afraid that the photographs that we took were not of good enough quality to warrant inclusion so we did not publish them this year. Is there anybody out there that has some photographic expertise that would help us with photographs for the web site and the magazine? Please contact an Editor if you can help even on an infrequent or occasional basis.

One of our deliverers is temporarily unable to deliver so we are desperate for someone with a car to help out. Please contact Hilary Oliver for details. Thank you. Finally you may notice that we have included in the magazine a request that any item submitted to the Editors for inclusion in The Marlpit should have a name, address or telephone number attached. This is so that the Editors can contact you if there is a query over your item or advertisement. Sometimes I am afraid we do have difficulty reading people’s writing and a telephone call could save many problems. We do not intend to publish the telephone numbers and addresses unless you ask us to do so.

Barbara Gidney