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Welcome to Belper

With its busy shopping streets packed with unique independent businesses, its history and heritage, its parks, reserves and beautiful spaces, Belper in Derbyshire is a great place to visit.

Find out more about this thriving, historic market town here: belper.madhm.uk.

Welcome to Belper

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Turpin

At 73, William Turpin remains fully active in his chosen profession, despite suffering horrific injuries on a daily basis.

The great, great grandson of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin, William has followed in the family tradition and continues to ply his trade up and down the motorways of Great Britain.

"Of course, things were much easier in the days of my illustrious ancestor," says William from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from a broken collar bone, severe lacerations of the face and a cracked pelvis. "All he had to do was step out into the road, cry out 'stand and deliver' then just collect the loot. Now me, I step out into the road and get as far as 'sta...' and then whack! Next thing I know, I'm lying in a ditch with my legs bent round the wrong way and the word 'Scania' imprinted across my forehead."

Vet Shortage

dog picture

There is growing concern over the dwindling numbers of veterinary surgeons currently practising in the UK.

Many vets are leaving the profession to take up better paid positions as hairdressers or butchers. At the same time, there is less and less new blood coming into the field, a fact which is blamed on the many years of training and the unnecessarily stringent examinations needed to obtain a veterinary licence.

The final exam requires students to assemble a fully functional cat from a variety of spare parts, and candidates can often fail on the simplest of things, such as getting a spleen in the wrong place.

However, a radical new rethink is set to encourage more people to become vets. To make the profession more accessible the test will be made much easier. In future, students will be required to draw a picture of a dog with a felt-tipped pen, and we understand that even those that only display a passing resemblance will pass.

Young Waiter of the Year

Paul Mayhew, 16, from Halifax is delighted to have reached the national finals of this year's Young Waiter of the Year Competition.

The competition, set up six years ago to encourage youngsters to enter the profession, is considered most prestigious within the catering trade.

"Paul is a natural," says his trainer, Candice Bulwater. "Being surly and ill-mannered is something that comes very easily to him and, when called for, he can fling some pretty devastating insults. Oh, make no mistake - a gobful of abuse from young Paul certainly strikes home."

Ms Bulwater is taking particular care over Paul's 'thumb technique', the delicate art of surreptitiously placing the thumb into a bowl of soup. It is important that only the very tip of the digit is submerged, as any waiter observed to be up to his knuckle in minestrone shows clumsiness and lack of control.

Paul is considerably more confident about his spitting technique and he boasts about his ability to hurl phlegm into a pan of mashed potatoes with military precision. His personal best is fifteen feet, but Ms Bulwater believes he can beat this with a favourable wind.

If he succeeds it will not only be a triumph for Paul, but also a poignant moment for his trainer. Thirty years ago the young Candice was herself the proud holder of the East Riddings Amateur Gobbing Championship for three years running - before an accident with a runaway stapler destroyed her lips and brought her glittering career to a tragic end.