August 13 - Day 115 - "You can always tell a Yorkshireman but you can't tell him much!" Gervaise Phinn

I was thinking about numbers again this morning - possibly because the superstitious amongst you will have noted it is Friday 13th. It is thought that the idea originated with the Last Supper, attended by 13 people, with Judas, associated with the number 13. 13 was not the number I was thinking of though as today is Day 115.

The numbers that 115 is divisible by (1+5+23+115) all add up to 144, which itself has a square root of 12 (12x12 = 144). 12 is seen as a much a much more positive number associated with the disciples. For some reason (you can see my mind is a little strange) I then started thinking about bus numbers and discovered that the 115 is a Rotherham Bus. This not only links with the quote in the title (Gervaise Phinn , author, was born in Rotherham but also the picture (Well I know it’s not the River Rother but it gives a sense of water and I liked the scene this morning!)

So - my usual exploration of place names tells me that Rotherham’s name comes from ‘ham’ , hamlet or homestead’ on the ‘Rother'. The river name comes from an older word meaning ‘chief’. In the floods of 25 June 2007, which you may remember, 80 million cubic metres of rain fell on South Yorkshire and the River Rother at Rotherham reached its highest level ever recorded, at 5.71 metres (18.7 ft),

What I didn’t know about were the Feoffees (an ancient name for trustees), established since the 14th century and Rotherham’s oldest charity. For the past 700 years they have distributed ‘doles’ of food, coal or money. The doles continue annually and one of the Feofees charity main aims has been to help the poor in Rotherham. What a fitting way to end the week - recognising the importance of such charities over time. Sponsor a Spin has now raised £4,862.00 and I can’t stress enough - not only how grateful I am to everyone who has donated but also what a huge impact that money will have on the work St Wilfrid’s Centre does for the vulnerable, isolated and homeless.