Many Islanders signed up to the campaign to save the bus pass for pensioners which OnTheWight ran during the summer.
This in from Richard Worrall, organiser of the bus pass campaign (via Peter Geach from East Cowes). Ed
A delegation of pensioners, in the company of MPs David Winnick and Alison McGovern (Walsall North and Wirral South, respectively) recently delivered 152,347 pen-on-paper signatures to 10 Downing Street in my laundry basket.
The householder wasn’t at home as he had gone to Scotland for a relaxing break, and, even worse, he has kept the laundry basket for his dirty linen.
The One Show
Last night’s ‘The One Show’ (available on iPlayer at around 52 mins in) carried a piece on two couples who completed a mystery bus pass challenge, one from Leicester, and the other couple from Walsall Pensioners’ Convention campaign team, Andrea Stanton and Colin Wilkinson.
The threat against the Pensioners’ Bus Pass was also highlighted.
Lack of media coverage
Media coverage across England has been patchy, and there was no national coverage on delivery day, despite three separate approaches to all of them, and just one piece in the Guardian a few days before.
In the absence of national coverage, and because some local papers published the original letter, but others didn’t, there are still lots of areas where there is no knowledge of the threat or of the petition, so we will carry on getting in signatures for the second and final delivery next March, and I hope that the two deliveries taken together will produce at least 1/3 million signatures, maybe more.
Updated petition forms
Updated petition forms and info sheets can be requested from [email protected]. Please consider forwarding these to others, and asking them, in turn, to do likewise.
Those who need or prefer to receive the material by post should call Andrea, or myself, on 01922-448331 or 641084, respectively, giving or leaving name and address, and it will be sent by return.
Many thanks for your support, so far, a truly terrific response, ONLY achieved with YOUR help.
Image: pics-by-mpdunder CC BY 2.0
