Former Mayor calls time on Town of Peace bid

THE former mayor of Warrington, Geoff Settle has finally called it a day on trying to get Warrington to become the 2nd Town of Peace in the UK.

He asked if Warrington would Pledge to Peace at three Full Council meetings and even arranged a video conference with the council leader Russell Bowden and Richard Outram.

Geoff says the challenges of facilitating the Warrington BipolarUK Peer Support Group, research into the chronic illness, chairing the Warrington Visually Impaired People and Nature Conservation Forum are enough. A speaker at a recent bipolar meeting wrote in an email “I fear you may face an uphill struggle to get the council to be as willing as Oldham. Well, done at being so tenacious with this though – you have certainly kept the matter alive.”

The former mayor has captured some of the town’s peace related events in the “Warrington Pledge to Peace” Facebook page that he set up, however this evidence is worthless unless an application is signed off by someone with representative powers in Warrington.
Geoff said “As mayor I made a promise to the Mayor of Oldham, his Peace envoy Richard Outram and the Irish President Micheal D. Higgins during their visit in 2016 to the Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball Foundation to get Warrington to be the 2nd town in the UK to Pledge to Peace. I thought it would be a shoe in, but I have been proved wrong. I received an email from Nick Taylor after the visit on behalf of Colin and Wendy Parry and the Peace Foundation wishing me good luck with the venture.
“The Foundation hosted a fund raiser in 2005 for Dr Kumarswarmy and his wife Leela for collecting 2,000 bin bags of cloths and toys to victims of the Xmas Sri Lankan Tsunami. I used my project management skills to help supported by the Warrington Wolves Foundation, Helen Southworth MP, local press, WireFM and town’s people who formed a chain to load the two containers used to ship the goods to Asia.”
As Mayor in 2016 Geoff visited Belfast on two occasions, once as a member of the peace cup party and again by himself for the Mayor’s Inaugural Dinner to celebrate Lisburn and Castlereagh becoming a city. Everywhere they went Warrington received praise for the work that the Town’s people were doing for Peace with special thanks to Cllr Mike Hannon and the Rev Steven Kingsnorth.
One afternoon the former Mayor and Mayoress took a bus into the city. Geoff wanted to see how it had changed since his visits to the province in the late 1970s during the troubles. He ran a ten-miler road race and a half marathon. He received a warm welcome, helped the race director set up the course and saw some of the trouble spots. During the early part of that decade, he was a student in Coventry a place that had been devasted by the German Blitz. It is now a place that has become a City Pledged to Peace and Richard is working hard with them. On one evening in 1974 Geoff was watching Towering Inferno in the Cinema with his friends. They didn’t realise until the following morning that one of the explosions they had heard was a real one. An IRA bomber had detonated his device early and blown himself up. Working in New Town House twenty-nine years later that fatal Saturday he said that it was the last place he would ever have imagined such an incident would occur.
He said: “My dad knew Northern Ireland well from his national service days and in the 1970s he was F. W. Woolworth’s regional accountant and had to settle numerous insurance claims when the IRA blew up the stores. He said that he had a fast-track pass to get him aboard his jet quickly at Manchester airport. It never seemed to bother him, sadly with the number of bombs going off everywhere it had become routine.”

During the former mayor and mayoress’s visit to the Belfast City Hall in 2016 Geoff was nearly knocked over by a smaller man who looked like he owned the place. He turned out to be the Lord Mayor of Belfast and a member of Sinn Fein. He invited the pair into his magnificent parlour for tea and chat, it was a surreal experience to say the least. The Lord Mayor’s gift set of Irish Whisky glasses was found later in Geoff’s suitcase by airport security. He told them “Oh that’s a box gift set from Sinn Fein I didn’t realise it contained whiskey”. Well sir said the security man, liquids must be outside your case in a see-through bag.” Things had changed beyond belief; the bombings had ceased; the craic was great and the troops jumping out in front of him with their guns had gone.
Geoff added: “There are countless groups promoting peace in our Town e.g. the Mela celebrations of diversity in Queen’s Park. The fund raising by Ben and Sharon Dunne fund in memory of River Reeves has amounted to £70k for young musician’s bursaries. Baroness Helen Newlove’s work as the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales following the murder of her husband Garry, Esther Ghey’s daughter Brianna’s murder has led to a campaign of mindfulness for schools, called Peace in Mind and of course the pragmatic and brave contribution that Colin and Wendy Parry made to the peace process in Northern Ireland and their impact on so many communities.”
Geoff met up with Richard Outram and his partner Maria in 2019 to see what Oldham had been doing for peace Former Mayor continues Peace Pledge campaign (warrington-worldwide.co.uk). The Princess Diana garden with its Peace Pole was spectacular. He had visited the town in the late 1990s as a member of the Warrington based Young Enterprise team to teach business at an Oldham High School caught up in the infamous racial riots of 2001. He said “I met up with its American Headmaster who was married to my boss, they lived in Culcheth. We learnt so much. He thanked us all for coming from Warrington which he said had proved to be a Town of Peace. It would be fantastic if a Peace Pole could be planted in the grounds of the crematorium as suggested by David Boyer, WBC’s Environment and Transport Director.”

Commenting on Geoff’s decision to call it a day on attempting to make Warrington the 2nd Town of Peace a Warrington Borough Council spokesperson said: “Warrington has a proud “peace” legacy. Warrington applied to be city of peace in 1999 and throughout the town’s history our communities have shown extraordinary compassion, mutual understanding and a willingness to uphold and indeed celebrate peace in Warrington.
“This has been shown throughout Warrington’s recent history – how the town came together following the tragic IRA bombing, how communities stood together in remembrance of Brianna Ghey, and more recently how communities worked in partnership in the face of national unrest and disruption.
“We are grateful for the support or our partners, residents and businesses who collectively work to make Warrington a town of peace, and we are particularly appreciative of the work of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation.
“We aren’t currently aware of opportunities to bid for Town of Peace, but remain committed to upholding Warrington’s proud legacy of peace.”