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Tucked away down a quiet lane, Wat Sriratanaram feels wonderfully secluded.

Although it sits just a short distance from the M61, the noise of the outside world barely reaches the monastery.

Instead, visitors are greeted by birdsong, the gentle ripple of water or the soft sound of Buddhist chanting.

Colourful lanterns hang above the pathways, apple and pear trees frame the gardens and small wooden bridges cross a tranquil pond.

Beyond them all, remarkably friendly sheep graze in neighbouring fields while a resident cat quietly wanders between the statues as though it has been welcoming visitors for years.

It is an unexpected pocket of peace – and one that many people know is there but few have ever had the chance to explore.

Head monk Ajahn PK welcomed The Bolton News for a tour of the monastery, sharing its history, traditions and the community that has helped it flourish over the past two decades.

Wat Sriratanaram (Image: Wat)

Established in 2006, Wat Sriratanaram was created after members of the Thai community wanted a permanent Buddhist centre in the North West.

This year marks its 20th anniversary, with the monastery now one of around a dozen Thai Buddhist temples in the UK.

Walking through the grounds with Ajahn PK, it quickly becomes clear that every corner has its own story.

The heart of the monastery is the main prayer hall, where a magnificent 700kg golden Buddha sits above worshippers on an ornately decorated platform.

The inside Buddha (Image: Wat)

Fresh flowers, candles and offerings surround the statue, while monks gather each day for prayer, meditation and chanting, continuing traditions that have been passed down through generations.

Outside, another striking Buddha forms the centrepiece of an open-air prayer area where worshippers pause to reflect.

The outdoor prayer area (Image: Wat)

The statue has its own journey, having originally stood outside an Indian restaurant before being donated to the monastery in 2001.

It is now surrounded by seven smaller Buddha figures, each representing a different day of the week.

In Thai Buddhist tradition, people pay their respects to the Buddha linked to the day they were born, giving every visitor a personal connection to the peaceful space.

Beyond the prayer areas, the monastery’s grounds invite visitors to slow down.

A peaceful pond sits at the heart of the gardens, crossed by small wooden bridges and surrounded by carefully tended planting.

Paths wind through the site before opening onto green spaces where sheep graze quietly, adding to the sense of calm that seems to define the monastery.

The friendly sheep grazing in the gardens (Image: Wat)

It is difficult to imagine that this tranquil setting was once home to a golf club.

Today, the monastery is home to around six resident monks who have made Kearsley their permanent base, dedicating their lives to Buddhist practice while welcoming visitors from across Greater Manchester and beyond.

During the tour, Ajahn PK explained that while the monastery is an important place of worship for the Thai Buddhist community, it has always aimed to be somewhere everyone can enjoy.

“Anyone can join and visit. We are looking for volunteers to help maintain the land.

“Everyone is welcome.”

That welcoming spirit is reflected in the activities held throughout the week.

(Image: Wat)

Free meditation sessions take place every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm and are open to people of all faiths and none.

The monastery also runs a Sunday school for Thai and British children, alongside English language classes for members of both the Thai and wider local community.

The monastery has continued to evolve thanks to the dedication of its congregation.

Inside Wat Sriratanaram (Image: Wat)

Last summer, worshippers raised £40,000 through donations to build a new road through the site, improving access for visitors.

Every improvement, from the landscaped gardens to the meditation spaces, has been made possible through the generosity of volunteers and supporters who have invested both their time and resources into creating somewhere special.

Earlier this summer, the monastery also attracted attention beyond Bolton when 15 monks embarked on a 49-kilometre Walk for Peace from Kearsley to Runcorn, believed to be the first event of its kind in the UK.

The Peace Walk (Image: Wat)

The walk reflected the monastery’s wider mission of promoting peace, mindfulness and community beyond its own grounds.

The next opportunity for visitors to experience the monastery comes on Sunday, July 26, when Wat Sriratanaram will host its annual Buddhist Lent candle procession from 10am.

The event is one of the most important dates in the Buddhist calendar and welcomes visitors wishing to learn more about Buddhist traditions and Thai culture.

Wat Sriratanaram gardens (Image: Wat)

Standing in the gardens as the tour draws to a close, it is the atmosphere that lingers more than anything else.

There is a quiet confidence about the monastery, found in the carefully tended gardens, the peaceful prayer spaces and the sense of community that has grown here over the last 20 years.

Before the tour came to an end, Ajahn PK presented The Bolton News with a number of gifts that reflected the monastery’s message of kindness and mindfulness.

Among them was a bracelet, given with wishes of happiness, good health and good fortune, along with books exploring clarity, calm and Buddhist teachings.

He also shared a copy of his own book, One Day Meditation, a practical guide for people interested in learning more about Dhamma and developing mindfulness in their everyday lives.

The thoughtful gesture summed up the spirit of the monastery itself – one that places as much emphasis on generosity and community as it does on faith.

For many Bolton residents, Wat Sriratanaram is simply a place they have driven past or heard about.

Stepping through its gates, however, reveals something entirely different: a place where faith, culture and community have quietly flourished for two decades, creating one of the borough’s most unique and peaceful spaces.

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Another tournament, another agonising chapter in English football’s long catalogue of glorious disappointments.

England were dumped out of the World Cup by Argentina following a capitulation that will echo through the annals of English footballing folklore. Having taken the lead just shy of the hour mark, this one really stung.

But the irony is that this late collapse has stitched another thread of continuity into the long tapestry of England’s footballing heritage.

As a researcher of cultural heritage, I’ve always thought of football as so much more than the results on the pitch. Indeed, what makes the beautiful game such a powerful cultural phenomenon are the stories supporters inherit and pass on. The things that connect fans to team.

Long before most people fully understand the tactics or even the rules of the game, they begin learning its narratives. They hear about legendary players, miraculous victories, controversial refereeing decisions and – especially in the case of England – devastating defeats. Over time, these a form a shared cultural inheritance.

This is why football can be understood as a form of living heritage. Heritage is not confined to castles, monuments or museum collections. It also exists in intangible things too like traditions that communities continually recreate and transmit from one generation to the next.

Football support works in precisely this way. Every generation inherits a repertoire of stories before adding new chapters of its own and passing them on again. Football culture is thus sustained by an ongoing conversation between past, present and future.

These stories have a vital cultural function. They create identities by giving supporters – and players – a shared understanding of who they are. They bind strangers into communities through common memories and references. And they provide continuity, allowing football cultures to evolve without losing their sense of themselves.

Football matches come and go. The stories endure. It is those stories, continually retold and reinterpreted, that transform football from entertainment into one of Britain’s most powerful forms of living heritage.

Nowhere is this clearer than in England’s relationship with its men’s national team and in the never ending quest for football to finally “come home”. England’s defining story is not simply one of repeated failure, but of a peculiar cycle in which hope and disappointment continually reproduce one another.

Each generation inherits the emotional landmarks of previous tournaments. Of course there is the totemic memory of 1966 when England won the World Cup at Wembley Stadium. But the country’s subsequent experiences of heartbreak loom even larger in the collective imagination.

They are painfully memorable. Gazza’s tears in Turin in 1990 when a yellow card in a semi meant Paul Gascoigne wouldn’t be able to play in the final. The various penalty shoot-out defeats, and the unfulfilled promise of the “golden generation” of England’s 2006 World Cup team. And of course, the recent near misses under Gareth Southgate, as England have contrived to find ever more creative ways to miss out on a second major trophy.

Crucially, this tragic inheritance has not produced a culture of resignation or cynicism. Instead, every tournament begins with the same familiar ritual. Supporters convince themselves that the draw has opened up, that this squad is different, that this manager has found the answer. They do so partly in earnest and partly with a knowing smile, fully aware there is likely heartbreak to come.

For all the criticism it attracts – particularly abroad as an expression of arrogance in England’s self-perception as founder and home of modern football – the idea of football coming home is actually couched in a deep self-awareness. It is an expression of belief against the evidence, of an ability to hope despite knowing how the story will end.

In this way, England’s Sisyphean quest to finally bring football home is the narrative engine that animates the country’s footballing culture. England’s footballing living heritage is the repeated performance of hoping against hope – the willingness, however irrationally, to believe that this might finally be the year.

Each near miss, each cruel twist, becomes another story to be woven into a shared mythology that gives England fandom its remarkable continuity. The national footballing identity has never been forged by glory, but by a collective experience of its doomed pursuit of a second major trophy. The 60 years of hurt has become home.

So, as I try to emotionally recover from England’s latest heartbreak, I can take some comfort in the idea that this defeat has at least sustained a crucial continuity at the heart of this nation’s footballing heritage.

Perhaps football never will come home. But perhaps we don’t need it to. Because the quest has already given generations of England supporters something every bit as valuable: a shared story through which to understand who we are.

Christopher Nolan’s new film, The Odyssey, has been wowing critics, sparking renewed interest in the epic tale of sex, gods and sorcery. That it still resonates millennia after Homer invoked the Muse is a reminder that the characters may change, but human nature stays the same.

As proof, you need only look at the epic saga unfolding on our own political stage. As Britain’s self-appointed new saviour, Andy Burnham, prepares to take up residence in No 10, it seems to me that his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer’s place in history has finally been assured.

He will be remembered not for his oratory, his political acumen or his charisma, but for acting as a political Trojan horse for Burnham’s stealth army of Seventies socialists.

Just as Odysseus and his soldiers duped the men of Troy into allowing a seemingly innocuous gift to the goddess Athena to breach their defences, so the Labour Party duped voters into electing a similarly hollow vessel who appeared, on the outside, to be the answer to all our prayers – but has instead paved the way for a socialist coup.

With his lawyerly demeanour, Starmer succeeded in persuading even those who might not normally vote Labour that he’d be a safe pair of hands, a welcome relief from the so-called years of Tory chaos. He appealed to metropolitan Lefties and disillusioned Conservatives, and it won him a huge majority, albeit on an historically low turnout.

Key to his success was the notion that he had the hard Left of the party firmly under control. He suspended and barred Jeremy Corbyn following the 2020 Equality and Human Rights Commission report on anti-Semitism within the party. He also placed moderate candidates in safe seats, marginalising more Left-wing activists. In short, he gave the impression that, as one friend of mine who voted for him put it, he was a ‘decent guy’ who would get Britain back on course.

He may well be a ‘decent guy’ (all his allies tell me so), but he lacked the one attribute that every leader or prime minister needs in order to be able to do the job properly: the ability to control his parliamentary party, and in particular the equivalent of those Tory ‘swivel-eyed loons’ that David Cameron had to contend with.

It quickly became apparent that, far from him having locked the hard Left in a dark cupboard, they had him over a barrel. Attacks on pensioners, massive resistance to welfare reforms, huge tax rises, assaults on business, VAT on private schools – his much-vaunted commitment to growth was strangled at every turn and he had neither the authority nor the strength to resist.

He was elected on false pretences. And now he has been usurped by a man whose politics are completely out of kilter with what most of the British electorate wants – and who, had he been required to win an election himself, would have been rejected as Corbyn was in 2017 and 2019.

Because the truth is that Britain is not a hard-Left country – it is a land of political moderates, of small-business strivers, savers, home-owners and entrepreneurs who want to enjoy the fruits of their labours without being sucked dry or lectured on wokery and political dogma.

People are fed up with chancers being rewarded for nothing. They are tired of being told to go to the back of the queue for services they have paid for. And they are sick of being squeezed until the pips squeak.

They need Burnham’s socialist utopia like a hole in the head. They don’t want more welfare, more immigration, a bigger tax burden. That is why Reform has gained such popularity, and that is why, despite her party’s woes, Kemi Badenoch’s clear-sighted Conservatism has made her the only party leader with a positive poll rating.

Burnham has so far refused to account for himself either in Parliament or to the Press, save to declare himself the saviour of British politics and airily tell taxpayers that they are going to have to do ‘a little bit more’.

So the only way a man like him can get his hands on the levers of power is by stealth – and cunning. The coup that Burnham has pulled off does at least tell us one thing: he is a player. Where Starmer showed himself to be unsuited to the cloak-and-dagger style of parliamentary politics (one thing that stands in his favour) and always played a straight bat, Burnham clearly has a Machiavellian streak.

How else could he have plotted such a power grab? Even Starmer’s greatest detractors don’t quite know why he had to go. Despite a series of mistakes, including the Peter Mandelson affair, there is no massive scandal, no £5million of undeclared donations or evidence of misconduct in public office.

He has gone because he has finally served his purpose: to usher in the armies of hard-Left ideologues in Labour who have been hiding in the darkness and who are now preparing to unleash political hell on the unsuspecting – and trusting – voters of Britain.

Claudia’s so candid

Claudia Winkleman hosting an episode of The Claudia Winkleman Show

All credit to Claudia Winkleman for admitting that she wasn’t really enjoying hosting her own chat show, saying it made her ‘too nervous’. Most people would have made up some waffle about wanting to spend more time with their family, or similar. By being honest about her decision, she only reminds us why we love her.

They say Labour has a women problem, but surely releasing thousands of convicted rapists from prison early is taking it a bit far, even by their poor standards?

That’s no way to treat a widow

Readers may remember that my father died just over a month ago. As part of the inevitable ‘deathmin’, my mother needed to inform his various state pension providers. First, she rang the Italian pensions people. She explained the situation, and the lady was incredibly kind and helpful. She expressed her condolences, asked how my mother was coping, and detailed the process by which she could submit the information. Next, my mother rang the pensions people here. She explained that her husband had recently died, and she was in the process of sorting his things out. There was a long pause. Then, ‘Well, you’re not getting any money from us.’ Not, ‘I’m so sorry, here’s what you need to do,’ or even just, ‘Let me take his details.’ Just a nasty, unkind and frankly unnecessary dismissal of a grieving widow who has just lost her husband of 60 years. What the hell has become of us?

The easiest way to resolve the row over whether grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed should be deported to his native Pakistan is to put him back in jail and make him serve his full sentence. This revolting excuse for a human being was released last month after serving just 14 years, having been jailed in 2012 for 22 years for 30 child rape offences and 19 years for child sex offences and trafficking. He’s 73: if he just serves out his term, with any luck what to do with him when he gets out will no longer be an issue.

The plight of Piddingtonians 

Of course, not all asylum seekers are dangerous – but with reports of cases such as this on the rise, can you really blame the Piddingtonians for taking matters into their own hands?

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The 350 residents of Piddington in Oxfordshire have reacted to Home Office plans to house 1,250 single male asylum seekers, a move that would overwhelm the village and totally change the nature of the area, by voting for independence.

No doubt they will be denounced as Nimbys but having lived in the same road as a hotel full of these young men and seen how their behaviour impacts their environment, I understand their concerns.

Truth is, many of them come from cultures that have very different attitudes, especially towards young girls and women – and sadly there are too many instances where those attitudes have led to violence.

A case in point is the three men – Iranian Abdulla Ahmadi and Egyptians Ibrahim Alshafe and Karin Al-Danasurt – sentenced last week for brutally raping a woman on Brighton beach.

Of course, not all asylum seekers are dangerous – but with reports of cases such as this on the rise, can you really blame the Piddingtonians for taking matters into their own hands?

Isn’t it interesting how the Duchess of Sussex and her two children managed to come to the UK without being spotted? Just goes to show that if someone truly wants privacy, it’s perfectly possible to have it.

The 25-year-old has not been seen for nearly two weeks

Police are “increasingly concerned” for a missing 25-year-old from Cambridgeshire. Lewis, from Eye in Peterborough, was last seen 13 days ago. However, he wasn’t reported missing until Thursday (July 16).

Police said the 25-year-old is “considered vulnerable” and Cambridgeshire Police are “becoming increasingly worried for his welfare”. Officers are appealing for help to find him.

A police spokesperson said: “He is keen on camping in woodland areas and officers would like to hear from anyone who believes they may have seen him. Lewis is described as 6ft 4 inches , with short dark hair and beard.”

Anyone who may have seen Lewis or has information concerning his whereabouts should call 101 and quote incident 254 of July 16.

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