1998 was a year when we all became accustomed to the frustrations of stop/go progress towards the final planning approval of the Museum site at Weedon in Northamptonshire.
          However, the outstandingly good news of the year came in September when the Trustees were able to publicly announce the sponsorship of our Museum project by Barclaycard.
          Initially, this sponsorship means that Barclaycard are providing resources and expertise in the person of Tony Barrett. Tony is a senior administrator with Barclays Bank who has significant banking management experience gained both with the bank  and previously with engineering and computer companies. Tony has an impressive track record including recently that as Chief Executive Officer designate of the Northampton Millennium Park Trust. Previously he had been Project Director of Barclaycard's new multi-million pound headquarters building. He has a degree in mechanical engineering and amongst his interests he lists bowls  and vintage cars.
          At present Tony is working full time for the Trust on a wide range of Museum matters. Not least of this has been much detailed work with the Weedon site developers and their architects on the considerable input needed up to the Daventry District Council Planning Committee hearing of 16 December 1998.
          Tony meets the Trust Chairman regularly and has already been extremely active on behalf of the Trustees in all manner of diverse areas. One of his recent achievements is helping to set up a Museum web-site on:  www.fireworld.org.uk/. We are indebted to Derrol Hopewell of DPH Computing for all the technical help and support which he has provided to the Trust in this project.
          Turning to other matters, I am conscious that there has been a significant gap of time since the last edition of Saved appeared. The publication of Saved on a regular basis is only possible with the commercial support from advertisers and I am grateful to Volvo Truck and Bus Ltd for their unstinting help in this. In fact, many companies in the fire industry have indicated that they are likely to take future space in Saved once the Museum is open.
          Another factor which has not helped my role as Editor has been the continual delays and postponement of planning approval which we suffered at the back end of last year. We kept holding on for good news! Nevertheless, I would like to thank all the contributors to this edition and am always pleased to receive articles on interesting historical fire service topics.

Stop Press

          The very latest news on the Secretary of State's 'calling in' of the Weedon project is that a date has now been set for the Public Inquiry. This will start on 26 May 1999 at Daventry District Council offices and is expected to last for up to six days. However, as there is no formal opposition to the Weedon scheme, we expect that the overall detailed process of the Inquiry will not be a protracted affair, even though a final decision is not likely to be known for some time after the hearing.
          Once out of the planning jungle, I do feel that we shall be able to really get going at Weedon to achieve the beginnings of a Fire Museum which we have been waiting for all these past years.