23/06/2014 Midlands Today

Historic and poignant as thd old Staffords march through thehr county

You are always sad to see a battalion go.

We'll be asking what it means for jobs and how it'll

Concern over the number of xoung people heading to the Middld East to

Glad he got a second opinion ` the former detective who found out his

hamstring trouble was a massive tumour.

I was a very active policem`n until that point. It was a bolt ott of the

blue. Landing a big one in Wimbledon

fortnight. The company that supplies The temperatures aren't the only

thing that are red hot. Bewdley's ablaze with

poppies this season. Are we destined for more sunshine

this week? Find out later. Good evening. Soldiers from the 3rd

Battalion of the Mercian Regiment held their final parade in Stafford

today, before it's disbanded. Formerly the Staffordshire Regiment,

the 3rd Battalion, The Merchan Regiment was formed in 2007,

recruiting soldiers from Staffordshire, the West Midlands and

Birmingham. Since then, thex've spent a total of two and a half

years on operations in Afgh`nistan. But in 2012, the Government

announced the 3rd battalion would be disbanded by 2016 as part of the

restructuring of the British Army. Today was a day of mixed emotions

as Lindsay Doyle reports. Welcomed back to Stafford whth

pride. The mersian Regiment, the first of a series of parades

marching through the unit's hometown, to celebrate its return

from Afghanistan. They do a wonderful jobment they are tnder

recognised for the achievemdnts and the efforts they put in. Thdy look

lovely. Yeah, very smart. So proud. They have done us, oh just

unbelievable. I'm so emotional. Today has been particularly

poignant. In line with Army 202 which sees the restructuring of the

British Army, the third Mercian is being disbanded. It will merge with

the other two Mercians. This is really a merger. The 1st Battalion

will be the armoured infantry ba ttalion and the second one hn

Chester. A huge opportunity for the soldiers. The parades are a chance

for the soldiers to show how the traditions and ties to the community

won't be forgotten. The homd coming parades are an important. A chance

to say thank you to the towns who supported them whilst in

Afghanistan. 90% of the reghment is recruited from from the West

Midlands. The support we have had from the local community, across

Staffordshire has been tremdndous. It was a long tour. The parcels and

letters that came from the locals was just fan TAs UK and meant so

much to me and my soldiers. The end of the week will see the end of an

era as the final march will take the regiment from Lichfield Cathedral to

the city's King's Head pub where the regiment was formed in 1705. Steeped

in history, it is adapting to the future.

Joining us now from Westminster is the Labour MP for Birminghal

Edgbaston, Gisela Stuart, who sits on the Defence Select Committee

A sad day this? The regiment has done a tremendous job and the

restructuring is something we have got to make sure we get right. We're

replacing many regular soldhers with reservists and I'm not sure that's

the right structure to go for. This is a good source of jobs

disappearing, isn't it? Armx 20 0 envisages the regular Army goes down

to 82,500 from over 100,000 and the recruitment process for the

reservists which is a good process, but A, the numbers aren't coming

forward. The process of recruiting aren't recruiting. We have reached a

level where the British Armx can't be cut any further if we want it to

do the job the country wants it to do. Coalition had to make so many

cuts in so many places, what's the option? You either cut and have a

strategic vision and the wax the Defence Committee criticised, but

the Public Accounts Committde criticised this latest

restructuring, it was driven by money. It started off by how much

money we had and then we cut the numbers. Given that we are `n

island, there are certain requirements which you thought in

the national interests have to be there. Most people are unnerved It

is a volatile time in the world that the Army or armed servhces are

a shadow of what they used to be? The only glimmer of hope is a cross

party commitment that we wotld go on meeting the 2% spending on GDP on

defence which is part of our NATO commitment and I hope the cross

party consensus on that will hold because it is vital both for the

country, but also, for us as part of the North Atlantic alliance.

Thanks for joining us here on Midlands Today.

Coming up later in the programme:

why scientists they may havd found a way one day to make bendy mobiles!

A Birmingham MP says he belheves as many as 1500 Britons may have joined

Muslim extremists fighting hn Syria and Iraq. Khalid Mahmood's dstimate

is more than three times higher than any official Government figtre.

I spoke to him earlier about why he believed so many young men

A conservative estimate would be around 1500 young people out there.

That's if you want to defind that, you look at the British Syrhan

community and the Kurdish community and the South East Asian and the

north and east African commtnity here and a fair group of those young

people have gone from here. You are looking at a three year span. If you

break it down to 500 per ye`r they would easily reach that. Do you

think this is a serious thrdat to security on our streets? I think

they will be a serious thre`t. I'm not saying all the people rdturning

are want to take up arms or do something here. But there whll be a

number of people who will w`nt to do that, just the number coming back,

just because of the quantitx of it, a small percentage will be `

significant security risk. H have had two young people at Birlingham

City University who last ye`r went out. Within six months of somebody

making contact with them, two them, being radicalised in this country

over six months, one left a letter for his mother saying that he is

going to Syria. That's how ht can happen. As far as the parents were

concerned, they were going to university and doing the right thing

and doing all the right things to support them. So there are really

difficulties that we need to address and that has been combined with the

community and the Security Services. If you see the activity going on,

please report it to the polhce and Security Services to help them

ensure that we cut down on this Counter`terrorism officers hn the

West Midlands are investigating two possible cases involving yotng men

form the region who may havd travelled to Syria. The latdst

involves Coventry teenager. Our Reporter Ben Godfrey is in our

Coventry studio for us now. So Ben what more do we know about his

case? In March an 18`year`old went missing

and we know that West Midlands counter`terrorism unit are

investigating amid allegation that he could be in Syria with ISIS. The

police haven't given us his name. I have been speaking to the Coventry

Muslim Forum who say if the allegation are true, they are

concerned. Some teenagers are feeling ail yaen ated `` alhenated.

I wish that all youth growing up a will attend Madrasas in the UK

because by doing so they will learn the right Islamic teaching `nd

principles and uphold it and will practise Islam in the best way

possible. They will then distinguish wh ha is good news and what is bad

news in terms of who will influence their future. That sounds lhke the

view of moderate Muslims, Bdn. Where do we think the extreme views are

coming from? Well, one view is that it is coming from the internet. A

self radicalisation at home rather than the mosque. Last week we told

you about a 20`year`old frol Birmingham, he skipped bail and

ended up in Syria uploading pictures of himself with ISIS. An expert told

us in Birmingham today that to suggest the internet is a source of

radicalisation is probably wide off the mark. It is certainly a factor,

but it is simplistic to see it as the sole driver of this. Thdre is a

history of people going abroad to fight in conflicts. Bosnia, Libya,

Kashmir, but in the 1930s, xou had 2,000 British men who went to fight

in the Spanish Civil War. There wasn't social media around `t that

time. It is not certain that these latest investigations involve

extremist activities committed, but the authorities are watching. This

year alone in the West Midl`nds at least five men and women from

Birmingham have been charged with terror related offence ins Syria,

but it is a small proportion of the arrests made in the last 18 months.

A seven`year`old boy is being treated in hospital after hd was

dragged under a car for 50 feet following a crash in Birmingham It

happened during this morning's rush hour on Nineveh Road in Handsworth.

The boy suffered multiple injuries. His mother, and her four other

children, were also injured in the crash and were treated at the scene.

Security has been increased at Perry Park in Birmingham after tednagers

threatened and robbed peopld with a ball`bearing gun. There've been

three similar incidents over the past few weeks. Police belidve the

robberies are linked and ard looking for two Somalian youths aged between

One of the founders of the 0960s counterculture magazine Oz, has died

Felix Dennis was a key figure in the magazine's high`profhle

obscenity trial in 1971, before re`inventing himself as a poet. His

family said he'd died from cancer at his Warwickshire home. He w`s 6 .

It was nearly six years ago that Nigel began building his vegetable

patch. Afterwards, when he went to get fo the shower, he noticdd the

muscle in his leg seemed larger The tumour was 12 centimetres and he is

lucky to be able to enjoy the fruits of his labour. I have got a great

deal to be thankful for to be honest. I really got no major

symptoms. Yes, I get discomfort and minor issues, but compared to having

no leg, it is a no brainer, I think, really. At the Royal orthop`edic

hospital they want to improve diagnosis. He had insurance

otherwise he would have waited six weeks for his scan which wotld have

been too late. It takes thrde to four visits to a GP to get tested.

We found there was no changd in 25 years in the average size of soft

tissue sarcomas. Even though early diagnosis guidelines were sdnt to

GPs, nothing has happened ddspite that. Most sarcomases in thd UK

don't get discovered until they are this size, the size of a baked bean

can. We want to get to this size, the size of a golf ball and that's

the message that's been sent out to GPs. Richard was at the hospital

today to speed up recognition. The Paralympian lost two legs to the

disease. I have empathy with patients who lose their limbs due

sarcomas. Nigel is take ago golf ball and information pack into his

GP and hopes others will have an easier path than he did.

Scientists at Keele Univershty in Staffordshire think they've found a

way ` one day ` to make electronic devices, such as televisions and

mobile phones ` flexible. They say their work could eventually provide

a cheaper alternative to tr`ditional silicon technology. Our scidnce

correspondent David Gregory`Kumar is here to tell us more.

So David what have the rese`rchers done?

Next tonight the story of the First World War soldiers fighting for a

I have been playing around with this. This is a ball of 60 carbon

atoms and it is the same structure as a tra dushgal football ``

traditional football. What the researchers at Keele have bden doing

is give this ball an even longer tail of carbon atoms. With ` few

tweaks you can change that. You start playing around with the

structure of these bits herd, you can actually then make much larger

Assemblies too. We can have gels. They contain fibres about the same

thickness of my hair. Within the hair strand as it were or gdl fibre,

you have got lots of C`60 columns. Here is the doctor creating some of

this gel. Now, if we look at it under a microscope, we can see some

of the new fibres inside thd gel itself. If you tweak the chdmistry

more, you can start to create regular sheets of these carbon balls

and tails and what you get hs a material that's flexible and

conducts electricity and it behaves like silicon. Silicon is so

fantastic in electronic circuitry, but we are reaching the limhts as to

what silicon can do. We need to look to other materials, I'm not saying

this is going to offer the alternative to that material, but I

think that the method assembling that molecule is important. This

model has bendy TV screens. To make things like this, you are going to

need flexible screens and ndxtable components and this opens up new

ways of how we can make the materials for a future bendx

television or phone. The old Staffords march through

their county town one last time I will have the latest on the

weather. Also, inspired by top athletes,

hundreds of schoolchildren join in the countdown to next month's

Commonwealth Games. Next tonight the story of the First

World War soldiers fighting for a country they'd never set foot in.

Tens of thousands of Sikhs travelled from India to play a vital part in

the British war effort in Ttrkey, Egypt and Europe. Many of their

descendants are now settled here in the Midlands. But some feel their

sacrifice hasn't been properly In the Punjab in Northern India they

found willing volunteers. The Sikh had proven himself to be thd most

staunchiest, the most bravest, the first versatile prolific soldier

that the British Army had come across. Jack's grandfather, pictured

on the left, aged just 15, was one of those to answer the call. My

grandfather, he was already eager to go. Two previous generations already

in the Army, fighting, soldhering battles, that was already in his

DNA. He wasn't alone, to begin with 35,000 Sikhs fought beneath the

British flag, by war's enit was over 100,000 `` end, it was over 100 000.

In Birmingham, the film is hn production highlighting what some

call a hidden history. It is a story that's not been told in its

entirity, but `` entirety, but something we can be passion`te and

inspired by as third generation British Asians. Our forefathers

fought in the Great War. We are ready to fight and do our bht. I'm

proud that we did or my ancdstors did and my tribe did it so H'm proud

in saying that we stood for the right reasons. As the war goes on,

they realise they need something thicker. The kit issued to Sikh

troops offered scant protection from the freezing mud of the French

trenches. The actual Indian officers were complaining about the

situation. But as usual, thdy get dismissed because they are not

British troops. That's the way they are looking at them which is an

awful shame. The men are fighting and dying just the same as dverybody

else. In Coventry, Jack's hometown, a

memorial commemorates the Shkh contribution. It is inaccessible

though, tucked away on a busy roundabout and some feel thdirs is a

sacrifice often forgotten. Today, in modern Britain we simply have no

recognition of this phenomenal contribution of people who hadn t

even set foot in Britain and yet were fighting for Britain. Sikh

tradition has it to die on ` battlefield is an honour. Thousands

did just that. Wimbledon started today with Dan

Evans in action alongside Andy Murray on the opening day. How is

Dan getting on? Started badly, but is improving. We can brung xou

up`to`date with how Dan Evans is getting on. It started badlx. He was

6`1 down in just 19 minutes. The second set got better. After an

early break, down. The third set was best of all. He won that 6`3. He is

doing OK and he is back in the match after a terrible start. He never

reached the second round? No, never beforeful he had a great run in the

US Open where he got to the third round, but he never got to the third

round at Wimbledon. Let's hope he can do better. You can see the match

live on the Red Button. Andx Murray got off to a flying start bx winning

his first match on Centre Court He is not the only one hoping for a

profitable fortnight with btsinesses looking to cash in on the most

famous tennis tournament in the world.

What does salmon fillets on a giant artwork have in common? The waiting

is over! Yes, it is Wimbledon and the and the Severn and Wye Smokery,

Wimbledon means salmon. Thotsands and thousands of them being prepared

to the exacting standards expected by the tennis going public. We do

smoked salmon, and cold smoked salmon and this year, a special

salmon using a seaweed cure on the fish.

I started at 5.30am. We will be finished by 5pm this afternoon. No

problems. Up the motorway, hn Worcester, it has been just as busy.

They have been commissioned to create an artwork which the public

will colour in. It is reallx exciting for us to be working from

our studio and getting so mtch interest. At the smokery, they are

working 12 hour days to fulfil their contribute with Wimbledon. Wimbledon

is a great British instituthon, isn't it? We're a great British

industry and you know, it's a great privilege for us to be invited to

supply, yeah. Tomorrow's order for Wimbledon will be leaving hdre later

today, but it might be a little light. But there is still more than

enough to serve the crowds `nd all we need now is for Andy Murray to

serve up a few aces. There is more about how the winners

trophies were made in Birmingham. With the Commonwealth Games a month

away, hundreds of schoolchildren in Birmingham spent the day ushng it as

inspiration to find a sport they love. The Games could help hn the

classroom because education experts claim taking part in compethtive

sport helps children get better grades.

He 700 children from 20 prilary schools across Birmingham. @ll

loving a chance to get out of the classroom and into action. This is

national schools sport Week. It is designed to get young children of

all and abilities a taste of as many sports as possible. We are not here

to push kids. That's not wh`t it is about. There are so many different

sports out there. I really believe there is a sport or an activity for

everybody. Taking part is one thing, making sure they enjoy it is the

most important part of the plan I liked doing it. It makes me stronger

and I feel better. I enjoy ht so much that I would do it all my life.

On a scale of one to ten, about ten. An event like this isn't just great

for getting the kids playing sport, Ofsted said there is a link between

achievement and competitive sport. One great school I saw after the

exam they took part in sport. Release and relax after you have

done your exams. Having really great PE teachers and great staff who are

really enthusiastic about staff is the key to this working. With just a

month to go before the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, every school had a

country to represent. With two Commonwealth champions to encourage

them as well, the hope is that educational and athletic inspiration

will follow. Some disastrous news about Dngland

cricket. Chasing 250 to win. 57`5. England are, but Moeen Ali hasn t

gone in yet. Moeen Ali of Worcestershire, good luck to him!

Time for the weather now. It has been another mainly stunning day

unless you experience that had unbelievable storm in Gloucdster.

A day that's produced some of the highest temperatures this ydar. So

particularly so for southern counties. The values were vdrging on

hot in Worcestershire. That has taken its toll on pollen levels

which soared as a result of the sunshine and the warmth.

Unfortunately for those to drop we have to see a change this

conditions. I think we will see those during the second half of the

week. High pressure is going to give way to low pressure and that

unfortunately is going to bring with it cooler conditions and also some

showers perhaps and rain as well by Friday. If we look at that, we can

see that the high pressure hs already showing signs of giving way

as this cold front starts to slip southwards and this is why we are

seeing the thunderstorms brdak out across parts of Gloucestershire So

here and southern counties through this even and the first part of

tonight, we will see heavy downpours, but there will bd a more

substantial system that's moving in from the West and clipping the parts

of the south later in the wdek. That's on Friday and that's going to

bring in more substantial r`infall. Tonight, it is drying up. Wd have

got clearing skies, but there will abbit of cloud `` will be a bit of

cloud to hold the temperatures up to 13 Celsius. Still warm. The coolest

spot will be the south`west where temperatures drop to 10 Celsius We

could see some isolated mist patches developing into the morning

tomorrow, but under the strdngth of the sunshine which will bre`kthrough

by daybreak it should disperse quickly. So it is another vdry

pleasant day for most of it, it is largely dry with sunny spells. The

cloud starting to drift southwards during the afternoon as another

system starts to roll in from the north and this is just going to lead

to some fairly sharp showers breaking out across parts of the

north`east. They are largelx light and they are not particularly heavy,

but for most of us, dry and temperatures rising to 20 or 22

Celsius. Temperatures dropphng to 10 Celsius widely and this is going to

ring the changes for the rest of the week. Chilly nights and chilly

starts, but largely dry. The headlines:

A third British Jihadist fe`tured in an ISIS video urging Muslims to

travel to Iraq has named locally. The old Staffords march through

their county town one last time That's it for now. I will bd back at

10pm with your latest updatd.