Long-rumbling dispute nears resolution

For many years I have had a saving account with Skipton Building Society. A building society is a mutual (i.e. not commercial) form of bank. They were mainly created in the 19th Century to assist ordinary people in saving for and in borrowing for the building or purchase of a house. Thus the name. Sadly, in the last dozen years most of these estimable societies were privatised with disastrous consequences. Most of them have now completely disappeared.

In essence, the problem I had with the Skipton was that they didn't offer me information in "accessible formats". After huffing and puffing for some time I decided that a bit of "direct action" was called for. I went up to Skipton which is in North Yorkshire - in the Pennines. I staged a two day protest outside their offices.

The outcome was that we achieved a successful resolution of the dispute by which they paid me the interest I had lost through their actions and, perhaps more importantly, they agreed to pull up their socks in the future for all VI customers. I shall be asking the RNIB to monitor this.

My clever reader, David, even exhibited further areas of expertise in creating a placard for the occasion. You can see two photos of me taken in my sitting room during a dry run and photos of local newspaper coverage of the event on my Flickr gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hova/sets/72157630775137368

We hope to have more photos from the newspaper's photographer soon. The articles are also available online at the website of the Craven Herald & Pioneer:

http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/ocalnews/news_skipton/9839470.Blind_investor_holds_protest_outside_Skipton_Building_Society

http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/leisure/archive/2012/07/26/Bradford+News+%28bradford_news%29/9837735.Investor___s_300_mile_protest_journey

Improvements afoot

Regular readers (both of them) of my blog will be heartened to learn that I'm going to overhaul my website completely in the next few days to bring it into the 21st Century. I thank all those who have been patient with the existing less-than-perfect arrangement.

Colin

Burst of activity

After a period of apparent dormancy I am posting some information I consider very important.

1. The epic struggle for Julian Assange, currently holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London awaiting political refugee status, continues. This is the link to donate to Julian Assange's legal defence fund: http://apps.facebook.com/fundrazr/activity/41b29c5b8f144f82bdf8e0eb9bd947a7. You can also email the UK Ecuadoran Ambassador at ecuembpress@gmail.com to show support. I remind you that Julian is facing extradition to Sweden but this is just a ruse to get him into the hands of the US Government. You can read more at www.swedenversusassange.com.

2. As important as the physical war in Syria between the West and the Syrians is the media war. This link contains an interesting 18 minute video interview with President Assad: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/assad-interview-video-and-transcript.

3. Here in the UK we are watching information emerge out of the woodwork concerning what the bankers and politicians have been up to at the expense of the world's public. Here is the link for the UK campaigning organisation 38 Degrees' banking inquiry petition: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/a-banking-inquiry-with-teeth?source=facebook-link#petition

Countryman back numbers for sale

The Countryman is a venerable quarterly magazine dealing with country matters. I used to subscribe to it and also collected back numbers. Along the way I acquired duplicates which I am now selling via an advert in the Countryman.

There is one copy of each of the below issues, unless otherwise stated:

Edition            Copies
  
April 1939  
Jan 1940  
July  1940  
April 1941  
October 1941  
Spring 1943  
Summer 1943  
Winter 1943  
Autumn 1944        2
Autumn 1946  
Spring 1947  
Autumn 1947  
Winter 1947        2
Spring 1948  
Summer 1948  
Autumn 1948  
Summer 1949        3
Autumn 1949  
Winter 1949  
Spring 1950        2
Summer 1950        2
Autumn 1950        2
Winter 1950        2
Spring 1951        2
Summer 1951        2
Autumn 1951  
Winter 1951        4
Spring 1952  
Summer 1952  
Autumn 1952        2
Winter 1952        3
Spring 1953  
Summer 1953        2
Autumn 1953  
Winter 1953  
Winter 1954  
Autumn 1955  
Summer 1956        2
Autumn 1956        2
Winter 1956  
Spring 1957  
Winter 1957        2
Spring 1958  
Summer 1958  
Autumn 1958  
Winter 1958  
Spring 1960        2
Summer 1960        2
Autumn 1960
Winter 1960
Summer 1961
Winter 1970
Autumn 1974
Winter 1974/5
Autumn 1976

Please email colinbbennett at palmeira.org.uk if interested (replace "at" with @ symbol). Thank you.