Through his music, Belal Al Asali takes people in the UK back to Syria and reminds them of the beautiful past.

Belal, 39 years old, was born into an artistic family with most of its members working in music. Studied music in Syria then fled to Lebanon and then the UK. He says “Syria is always in my heart and it’s challenging to sing when my people suffer a crisis every day but we must keep our smile for the audience and sing to provide for our families and help people in need in Syria.”

Belal only chooses songs that have good lyrics that suit the Middle Eastern culture. “I always sing traditional old songs to bring them to life again. Arabs in the UK enjoy listening to them as they feel nostalgia and happy old memories visit them.”

The Syrian artist has a studio at home where he spends most of his time training and recording songs. Belal plays the keyboard and the percussion instruments and learns new instruments now and then. in 2016, he formed a band with 27 members called Balabel Al Shark (the Eastern Bulbuls). In each part of the UK, there’s a member or two to cover that area.

Belal says, “I dream of being internationally well-known and becoming a first-class singer. My songs have a message and encourage people to listen to good music. I urge people to be wise when listening to songs. The type of music and lyrics must be respectful and meaningful, otherwise, it might harm the brain. This is primarily for the new generation who deserves good music.” 

His fans are not only Arabs but also English and people from different backgrounds. “Music is a language itself, we don’t need a translator to understand and feel the music,” he adds.

Belal is currently working on a mini album that includes two of his original, lyrics and music.

He says, “I sing to spread love and unity and because we represent the Syrian community, I want to introduce Syrian cultural music and educate people about the history and art of Syria through my music.”

Leamington Spa is the most welcoming place for refugees. Rima Ayoubi catches up with Welcome Here Group to find out about what they do to make guests feel at home.

People who are forced to flee their countries arrive in the UK with no idea how they will live or what they will face. But then, in Leamington Spa and Warwick, a volunteer group came together and made those people feel “welcome”.

Penny Halpin, Chair of the Welcome Here Group says, “We wanted people to feel welcome here in Leamington Spa because not everybody is welcoming.”

Halpin has been the chair of the group for five years and recently she has handed the position to one of the volunteers, Kate Morrison.

It all started when Halpin heard that Syrian refugees would arrive in Leamington Spa and applied to be volunteer befrienders. She then linked with the first two families who arrived in 2017. Then, the group started from there when all the volunteers got together and formed it to help the families.

“It was important to do things properly, so we set up a committee and opened a bank account for the group.”, Halpin said.

Over the years, more Syrian families arrived. Then, in 2021, Afghan families started to arrive and the group is supporting them as well.

The group works very closely with Warwick County Council resettlement team, the local churches, and Compassionate Kenilworth, who work with asylum seekers. They offer ESOL classes and collect and distribute donated clothes.

The group gave practical support and funding. They offered bicycles to children to be able to get to school and television for each family. Sometimes, parents weren’t able to afford after-school clubs and the group paid for them from their small budget. 

Halpin says, “We are not a big funder but when the Afghans arrived in 2021, there was suddenly a huge need for clothing, toiletries and stuff for babies. We have put a local appeal and people were very generous so we went out and bought a lot of stuff for the families.

We are always careful when contacting the community and putting in any local appeals. This is because of the balance between recognising the privacy of families that we are working with and getting support from the community. The families are entitled to private life.

Therefore, the group doesn’t have a big presence on social media. The families need to fit in with the community and not be seen to be different.”

Welcome Here Group is the only group that works with the refugees in Leamington Spa and Warwick. Six years ago, Warwickshire never had this experience of having refugees but now everything has changed.

The community needs to realise how difficult it is for people to be forced to leave their own homes and be sent across the world. They didn’t know where they were coming to and ended up in the UK. Then, they have to rebuild their lives from scratch.

Halpin adds, “It’s very difficult for us to imagine what it must be like for families who have come to live in this country, not because that’s what they chose to do, but because they have come for reasons of war and conflict.

The difficulty is leaving their homes and leaving families behind and fear for them, for their safety. Besides, the difficulty of settling into a new culture, learning how the system works and speaking a new language. The challenges are multiple!”

The main challenge for refugees is finding jobs. To be able to get a job, they need to have a reasonable level of English. So, the group helps people with their speaking, reading and writing. The volunteers visit the families regularly to give them English lessons.

As Halpin explains, it’s a complicated system for anybody looking for jobs. People bring all kinds of different skills. Language is the first barrier. Then, skills are not always transferable and there is a huge bureaucracy in getting jobs in this country. It’s very different to the environment of getting jobs in their countries.

Of course, This is different for asylum seekers as they are not allowed to work. This makes it even more difficult for them.

Halpin says, “One thing on our agenda is to help refugees with employment, which isn’t available at the moment”.

The volunteers also face some challenges. For instance, the difference in language is a massive one. They use Google translate and simple hand-signing to be able to communicate. 

Over time, the families learn English and improve their ability to communicate and build friendships. Children adapt more quickly than adults and once they start going to school they become translators. The first family that Halpin helped had a five-year-old boy, Ali. He became a very good English speaker just after a few months in school.

The families and volunteers become good friends and learn from each other. Tricia Lee, a volunteer with the Welcome Here Group says, “We’ve laughed a lot, cried loads and learnt together some of our cultural differences.”

Mrs Lee is known as “mum” to both a Syrian young mother and an Afghan girl, who is without any family members. Her family couldn't make it to the UK. All the families are happy to meet them and very hospitable. “It’s a huge privilege to be involved”, Lee adds.

After all these years of working with the families, Halpin says, “I do feel how lucky I am. I really do. I’d like to feel that any refugees and asylum seekers who come to Warwickshire and who come to live in this particular area would feel welcomed. Then, we would see their lives little by little improving and they would feel more and more at home. It is important to see other people as different sorts of human beings and honour other people’s beliefs and how enriching it is. I’m the richer for being involved in the Welcome Here Group. It’s one of the best things in my life!”

Two Syrian small business owners struggle to keep serving traditional Syrian food at Shawarma Shack in Coventry city centre.

Most businesses are struggling with inflation. Even big names closed many of their branches to be able to survive. Small businesses are the ones who are hit the most. Shawarma Shack in Coventry is one of them.

This shawarma house is the only Syrian food place that opened last year in Coventry since the refugees started to arrive in the city in 2014. Ahmad Al Shiekha and Taha Al Abdullah, partners of Shawarma Shack, are from Homs, Syria.

Due to the war in Syria, they were forced to flee the country and started a new journey in the UK, full of challenges. Mr Al Abdullah says, “We faced many obstacles before being able to start this business including the licensing, which took too long. This is due to the bureaucracy that we’re not used to in our country. In the end, we did it and here we are serving Syrian shawarma in Coventry.

Today, and after a year only, inflation is massively affecting us. The increase in fuel price and cost of primary ingredients make it very challenging for our business. We are trying to keep our prices as they are because we have the cheapest food in Coventry city centre and want to stay the cheapest so all people can afford to enjoy our food.”

Their first business was a takeaway shop in Hillfields but it didn’t survive for more than a few months. So they had to close it and look for a better location. Now, they are in the city centre.

Mr Al Shiekha started to work towards starting his own business after a year of arriving in the UK. He says, “We want to introduce Syrian food culture to the British community.”

The two partners have a family spirit and share all the shop’s responsibilities.  Mr Al Abdullah says, ”Like all the Syrians, we lost our families in the war, some lost their lives and the others are resettled all over the world. I’m grateful that we found each other here. Our unity is our strength.”

He is qualified in hospitality management and has been in the UK for six years. He adds, “We want to prove to the world that Syrian people are productive and love to work.”

Al Shiekha adds, “We are a new business and the price increase doesn’t help at all. It’s very difficult with high tax rates, employees' wages and everything becoming more and more expensive."

Due to inflation, some prices doubled and tripled in a very short time. After the war in Ukraine, oil prices doubled in three months only. Eggs, chips, packaging costs and energy prices are a few examples of what Shawarma Shack suffers from price rises, especially with chicken and meat. Besides the shortages in vegetables. And because it’s a new business they can’t change the prices to follow the market.

This doesn’t prevent the two Syrian chefs from helping and supporting others. They donate three per cent of their monthly profit to people in need in Syria.

After the earthquake crisis, the two partners decided to support the affected people in Turkey and Syria and did two days of fundraising. All their profit of £6000 was sent to help families in need through the Ummah Welfare Trust. Al Abdullah comments, “This is the least we can do to support people in need.”

They both dream of progressing to a big chain. Al Abdullah emphasised that Syrians have the ability to adapt and turn any dead area into a successful working place. 

He says, “We are creative and skilled people and came to the UK to show our skills and we will use them to give back to this country. We would love to integrate into British society and serve food that everyone loves and enjoys. We always look for new ways of serving our food and flavour to other societies.”

His partner Al Shiekha adds, “Thanks to the British community who accepted and welcomed us here.”

People with disabilities will find it harder to get jobs due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report says.

This is expected to further exacerbate pre-existing employment barriers.

For many disabled people, there is a higher of risk of catching the virus, making employers reluctant to hire them because of safety concerns. 

The Zero Project – a non-governmental organisation advocating disability-inclusiveness – says that Covid-19 is speeding up the transition to a digital economy. As people with disabilities generally experience lower levels of education and training, it is essential that the necessary skills are provided to ensure equal access to new digital jobs.  

Caroline Casey, moderator of the Zero Project Conference, also spoke about the opportunities presented by the pandemic.

“In the last year we have seen the business system flex, adapt and change because it had the intention and willingness to do so.

“Companies that thrived in the pandemic are those that equally included people with disabilities and so we no longer need to make the case for employing that innovative talent”.

Adopting systems such as remote working, flexibility and adaptability in the workplace have long been sought by the disabled community. The Zero Project hopes to lead the way in creating a digitally inclusive workplace that will benefit all.

Russell T Davies' hit TV show It’s a Sin is a hard-hitting account of the injustices and gay shaming that plagued the LGBT+ community throughout the 1980s.

But what has it been like to grow up as an LGBT+ person in the twenty-first century? An LGBT+ kid in Coventry?

For thirty-three-year-old Michael Mullen, it was one of the most challenging times in his life.

“I found school incredibly difficult. I didn’t know how bad it would be from one day to the next and nine times out of ten I would go home feeling really down”.

He believed he was a target for bullies at secondary school because he had a voice and ‘feminine’ mannerisms.

The bullying was not limited to the playground, and he recalls having homophobic slurs thrown at him on the school bus regularly.

“It was difficult because I didn’t even know my own sexuality at the time”.

Michael’s mental health deteriorated throughout this period leading him to self-harm and he believes if he didn’t have his older brother to confide in, he may not have been here now.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. In 2017, a report by Stonewall found that 61% of LGB pupils had deliberately harmed themselves because of school bullying while 22% had attempted to take their own life. For trans pupils these figures were higher, rising to 84% and 45% respectively.

Though experiences of homophobic and biphobic bullying at school have declined since Michael went to school, LGBT+ young people are still twice as likely to be bullied as their heterosexual peers. Perhaps just as worrying, a 2017 report by NIESER found that 83% of serious incidents committed against them would go unreported. Common reasons given were ‘it happens all the time’, ‘nothing would change’ or ‘it wouldn’t be taken seriously enough’.

Robbie Young (33), a former National Union Students LGBT+ Officer, understands the negative impact this can have on LGBT+ young people. As a teenager, he internalised a lot of shame as a consequence of relentless bullying at school and Air Cadets for being gay.

The lack of support Robbie received at these institutions and a fear of how his family and peers might react to him embracing his sexuality, eventually played a part in his decision to leave Coventry.

“Moving away for me was a way of becoming who I wanted to be. If I had gone to Coventry University, I’d still be in the same street hiding who I was.

“You are made to feel bad about who you are, who you love, and how you feel”.

As Robbie progressed through university, he was able to relieve some of the shame he felt growing up and he channelled this into creating positive changes for the LGBT community.

“It took a long time to get rid of that shame and I didn't join my LGBT society in my first-year because I didn't see the point. I was one of those people who would say, ‘Oh, I'm gay, but I'm not that gay’.

“I started campaigning when I realised there is so much wrong with society. I began to realise I was not the problem.

“If I had stayed in Coventry, I am not sure how involved or outspoken I would have been on gay rights or LGBT rights in general”.

For thirty-two-year-old Katie Sullivan, her experience of school differed to both Michaels and Robbies which she puts down to the lack of knowledge surrounding LGBT relationships.

“I didn’t hear of any gay people, so I never had a chance to explore it myself. It was just never a thought process, I thought I was straight.

“Everyone used to fancy my boyfriend at school, and I thought I must do too.

“But you don’t understand that feeling [sexual attraction] until you have actually had it”.

For Katie, anxiety came when she had to tell some of her close friends about her sexuality, aged 19. Growing up, they had shared intimate moments and she feared it would change the relationship between them.

“I was really scared they might think it was because of them… that it was something deeper rooted.

“It was difficult for them at the start and they didn’t really grasp it 100%. They were a bit bemused because I had been with men, like many people were.

“This is why people can have a massive lack of empathy because unless they have physically been through something themselves, it is difficult to put themselves in that mind frame”.

Fast forward to 2021 and how LGBT-inclusive is the UK as a whole?

The latest LGBT survey carried out in 2017, showed that just over half of its respondents (56%) felt comfortable being LGBT+ in the UK. Two thirds (68%) still avoided holding hands in public for fear of negative reactions, and 40% had experienced verbal harassment or threats of violence in the year preceding the survey.

For Robbie, education and dispelling the myths around LGBT+ people is key to tackling discrimination.

“My view on life is different from 20 years ago and I believe in compromise, co-operation and negotiation.

“If someone were to say they didn’t like LGBT plus people, I’d ask them exactly what it is they didn’t like.

“I know I’m not going to meet everyone’s view, but there are lots of stuff that people can agree on and as long as it's consensual, safe, and legal, then what’s the point?”

Robbie now works as governor for a school in Manchester which he is proud to say have fully embraced LGBT-inclusivity into its education.

From summer 2021, all schools in England – including independent and faith schools – must teach LGBT+ content in Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), in line with government guidance set out by the Department of Education (DfE) in 2019.

As every young person should receive an education that reflects the full diversity of the world around us, let us hope these changes bring our LGBT+ young people a future without exclusion.

At least 18 people have died in Myanmar as violence from security forces intensifies on day two of an aggressive crackdown.

Shots were fired into crowds of anti-coup protesters in several cities including Yangon, Dawei and Mandalay. Tear gas was also used in several locations.

Over 1000 individuals have been arrested for opposing the military coup d’état that overthrew the National League for Democracy Party on 1 February.

Protests had remained largely peaceful until now.

In a statement released today, Ravina Shamdasani of the United Nations Human Rights Office said: “We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protestors.

“We reiterate our call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained, including members of the democratically elected government”.

A million people from across the UK demonstrated in London calling for a second referendum or "People's Vote" on Brexit.

Alex Gander, a manager at Boots in Kings Cross said, “We weren’t given enough information in 2016 but now after three years, I realised that I was completely wrong to vote for leave and this is time to correct my decision.”

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said on TwitterL “The British people didn't vote for a bad Brexit deal. The British people didn't vote for a no-deal Brexit. It's time to give us - the British people the final say.” He added, “Enough is enough - it's time to give the British public the final say on Brexit.”

Laura Gs, marketing officer at Costa in Birmingham, held a placard with words written “voice of Remainers”. She said: “People are really in mental disturbance since this referendum has been done with the ambiguous situation of a country. We are not sure about jobs and especially the NHS if no deal Brexit happens.”

John Buckley, a mental health researcher from Glasgow, said: “People want to get out from the uncertain situation on Brexit and the Government needs to put a vote for people and let them decide rather than a group of elites.”

The Labour MP, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, said: “We are not asking the elites to decide, we want the decision to be put back to the people.”

Live reports from the Wearable Technology Show in London. 

ZACHARY ZHOU  4.58pm

BikeHud is the world’s only augmented reality head-up display motorcycle helmet. It can display speed, distance and route and was created using 3D printing technology. Inventor Jon Samwell claims: “It’s the safest helmet worldwide.” Samwell is also developing a smart wristband, which can show heart rate and blood pressure to monitor health on a long journey.

JOSE PEDRO ABREU  4.03pm

Patient Voice is an online platform for users of health services to give easy and immediate feedback. Dr Waheed Hussain explained that users can send anonymous opinions through Patient Voice, which collects the data and sends it to the organization concerned. “The main objective is to improve whatever complaints the users have and there are already some cases where the complaints were addressed”, Hussain said. In the last sixth months Patient Voice has expanded to 16000 public and private companies. “This is just a way to make it easy as possible for both the organizations and the users”, says Hussain.

MATTIE JAMES  3.19pm

Smart watches can help retailers sell a third more, according to intelligence company Inovretail. Sales VP Laszlo Csibi says “smarter technology” has been found to improve customer service and organisation in retail companies. "People who are attending to customers with a smart watch sometimes sell 30% more than their peers,” Csibi said. Inovretail also found that if stock control used smart watches, it encouraged store assistants to use them. “We didn’t have to encourage the shop assistants to use the technology,” Csibi said. “When our CTO was sent the result and they reviewed it with the client, they said that 'There must have been a mistake'”. Inovretail has yet to expand beyond Europe but Csibi insisted that the company seeks to expand globally. “We’re looking at a global takeover,” he joked.

ZACHARY ZHOU  2.14pm

Students from Hong Kong have designed a virtual reality game that encourages people to use fewer plastic bags. The presents a virtual underwater world and shows how rubbish can harm turtles in the sea. The team had to design the interaction between the different objects to make the game feel real. "We want students to learn about environmental problems," said Evan C. W. Chu, the senior teacher of students’ team. "We have to protect sea turtles, which are very important to the whole world, as well as other species." The teacher said many kids did not care much about global environmental issues because they were to complex and seemed too remote. "But they presented their care and love about other species and our planet – it’s quite significant." The students won first runner-up prize in the VR Game Design Competition in 2018.

LUYU CHEN  1.47pm

VR is aiding city planning in Russia, says Ivan Puzyrev, head of AR/VR department at Strelka KB. Stakeholders can view a virtual scene and use buttons to show what they like (green) or hate (red) to provide feedback to developers. The future plan is to provide more services for citizens so they can participate in city construction.

JOSE PEDRO ABREU  1.30pm

The Lancet Digital Health Online Journal will go live in April. The open access journal from the publishers of the medical journal The Lancet is dedicated to publishing original research, comments and correspondence . The main aim will be to promote digital techonologies in health practice worldwide. Some of the subjects covered will be research on digital technology in clinical medicine, public health and global health. The monthly publication will help build and strenghten the relationships between health professionals and researchers.

Engineering student Ahmad sits, alone in his room, staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. Taking all those pills, he thinks, will solve all of his problems.

In 21 August 2017 the National student survey revealed that 82% of students at UK universities suffer from stress and more worrying than that, one in five students have had suicidal feelings. Students who have poor organizational skills tend to experience more stress in schools and colleges, usually because they are not properly prepared for the challenges ahead of them. Lack of support from parents and teachers can also add a lot of stress in students and they may feel that a lot is expected from them. This is a cause of stress that can affect hard working students in particular. 

“Student’s stress is higher than general public,” says Doctor Abdullah Umer Rehan Physiatrist in city hospital Peterborough. “Approximately 80% in random stressed students did not get the mental health care they needed, stressed students cannot learn and also that stressed students are more abused more than others when they are in stress.” 

There is no specific treatment for stress. “But there are some treatments which could help,” says Dr Abdullah. “Talking with trained professionals can help you learn to deal with stress; Cognitive behaviour therapy is a type of talking treatment which helps you”. The expert also left some advice for people who are struggling with this problem: “Talk with someone who could not judge you, do some exercise. Swimming is a better option, watch entertaining movies, spend time with family, read books, do not stay alone, try to be social and creative, try to love yourself, these things, help to resolve complicated feelings or try to find a way to live with them.” 

Stress manifests itself when people feel burdened and they do not know how to overcome those problems. Some students have study tension when their exams are near or when their projects deadlines are closing, and in many cases, students stress more about their love life then their studies. There is also work tension, when people feel big amounts of pressure to finish their tasks in the intended. 

“I am always in stress because I have a lot of pressure from University,” says Muhammad Pasha, a physiotherapy student at Coventry University. He complains stress has taken over his life and that all he does is think about university tasks and little more than that. He even claims that they gave me a lot of work to do, “I have a lot of assignments, presentations, and exams, I cannot eat properly I cannot sleep properly, I have a lot of pain in my shoulders, my mind always stuck in studies. Sometimes I motivate myself saying that these problems are temporary, but somehow I am not getting out of this problem”. 

Ahmad, the mechanical engineering student from University of central Peterborough thought seriously about suicide due to all the pressure he was feeling but he never took those sleeping pills. “I could not handle the pressure of work and study at same time; this pressure brings anxiety, depression, tension and stress together and I cannot manage both things. With this I feel pain in my shoulders, I feel lazy and I get headaches. I’m also irritated by usual things, sometimes I cannot even breathe easily. Some days ago, I visited my family doctor, who claimed this was all because of stress, he gave me some medicines and further recommended me to join the gym, and go out for morning walks to get rid of this problem”.

Ahmad is doing better and with a smile on his face he confesses that “I’m feeling better now because i have finished my exams”. 

You never know when a news story might present itself to you – so as a journalist it pays to be prepared, and keep your nose for news well-honed.

When I found myself, unexpectedly, in the middle of a breaking news story here’s what I did.

0811: On the train

At Wolverhampton railway station I boarded the late-running 0809 Arriva Wales Trains service towards Birmingham, where I planned to change for a train to Coventry. There was nothing to suggest anything amiss.

0825: Alarm is raised

Like most of the passengers on the train I had no idea what was going on when an alarm sounded. Usually these things are false alarms, or someone is ill and needs to leave the train for medical attention, so nothing for anyone else on the train to worry about. I was near the back of the train and the train manager, and a British Transport Police officer who I’d seen board the train at Wolverhampton, both hurried past towards the front – but in itself that was no real cause for alarm or interest.

The first I knew of a story ‘with legs’ was when passengers started filing down the gangway, and I overhead some saying they had been told to leave the front carriages – because the train was on fire.

I looked at my watch.

Whenever you report on anything, you need to get as many facts as you can and try to answer the six key news questions – Kipling’s ‘six honest serving men’ – who, what, when, where, how and why. One of the facts I could easily establish was when these events were taking place, so I made a mental note of the time.

The train then stopped at Smethwick Rolfe Street station and we were asked to leave both the train and the station. By the time the doors were open I’d grabbed my phone and started up the camera app to get a shot of the train as I left. But there was no way I could grab a picture without impeding other people trying to get out of the station. So I followed the crowd up the staircase to Rolfe Street.

As I queued for the stairs I counted the number of passengers ahead of me and looked back to estimate how many more were still to come. When I finally reached the top I saw one of the station staff coming down carrying two fire extinguishers – and made another mental note.

0835: Off the train

Rolfe Street passes over the station on a bridge. From the bottom it looked like there might be a good view over the train from the bridge, but now I was at the top I could see that most of the train was obscured by trees. But I could see there was a bank on the other side of the tracks that might give me a view over the scene.

I heard emergency vehicle sirens and guessed it would be a fire engine, so I crossed the road to get a shot of the fire engine in front of the station buildings, and noted the time it arrived – 0836. 

0838: Photos and notes

A second fire engine arrived two minutes later, and then fire service personnel and police started closing Rolfe Street. I got pictures of the fire engines being moved and signs being placed on the street.

I now had plenty of facts and could imagine there would be more to come. So I found my notebook and pen and started noting down all the things I’d seen and heard – the time of the alarm on the train, the actions of the train manager and policeman on the train, comments made by passengers as we left the train, the arrival time of the fire engine and so on.

I also made notes of comments passengers were making as they passed by, saying they had been advised a bus service would be provided, though it wasn’t known when, and that an alternative was to walk down the road to Galton Bridge station and catch another train from there. I didn’t end up using this information in the story – but it was useful to know how to continue my own journey later.

I tweeted and emailed pictures to some local news organisations, though I don’t think they picked up the story. Maybe trains catch fire all the time in Smethwick.

Update: Expressandstar.com used two of my pictures with a story they posted later that day.

By now I realised I was going to be late for my meeting, so I called in to apologise.

0850: Surveying the scene

I walked across the bridge to the other side of the tracks and turned left at the end to look for the bank I had identified earlier which might give me a view over the scene. A couple of minutes’ walk and I had found it. I clambered up the grassy bank – frightening away a breakfasting rat – and found I had a good view over the stricken train. Unfortunately the pictures I could get from there had little to indicate the train had a problem – unless you could spot the blue lights of the fire engine through the trees on the far side of the train. But at least I now had a clear shot of the train.

0853: Researching the background

It was a 10-minute walk to Galton Bridge station, where I could take another train towards Birmingham. I shot a picture of the police cars that had closed off the end of Rolfe St as I walked past. Then as I continued towards Galton Bridge I started to wonder about Arriva Trains Wales’ safety record, and the quality of its trains – which I’ve used a lot, and they’ve always struck me as old and a bit dishevelled. So I started doing a bit of internet searching while I walked.

I quickly unearthed a recent report on Wales Online where Arriva Trains Wales’s policy director Roger Cobbe told a Commons committee that the company’s trains were the oldest in Britain, and a constant challenge to keep running reliably.

0925: Story could have gone online

I wasn’t under pressure to get the story written for an online news outlet, so I set about resuming my journey to Coventry, via Galton Bridge, Snow Hill and New Street. If I worked for a news website I’d have found somewhere I could sit and work and typed up the story, and I reckon the first version would have been online in half an hour. I downloaded pictures from my phone to laptop, cropped and resized them in Photoshop, and posted them online along with the 450-word story. It would have been online just about an hour after the incident began.

Be ready for news

• Charge up your phone at every opportunity, so when you’re at the scene of an incident you’ve got as much battery life as possible.
• Shoot stills and video if you can – if you’re using your phone hold it horizontally.
• Always carry a notebook and pen.
• Think ahead of the situation – what’s about to happen and what information or pictures will you need at that moment? Think about how you can prepare.
• Keep your eyes and ears open. Listen to what people are saying, look around for details to add colour to your story – like the Victorian bridge, and the column of smoke.
• In your story, try to answer the six important questions – who, what, when, where, how, why. Remember the reader wasn’t there, so they need you to tell them everything they need to understand the situation. Say what you see.

Journalism lecturer Andrew Noakes found himself at the centre of a news story when the train he was travelling on caught fire. Here’s his account.

“OK, who pressed the button?” For passengers crammed onto the 8.09am Arriva Wales Trains service from Wolverhampton to Birmingham International this morning the ring of an alarm bell was just another annoyance to add to the morning’s drizzle and the late running of their train.

But it was about to become more than just an irritation.

Passengers from the front half of the four-carriage train began streaming down the gangway into the rear of the train where I was, saying they had been told to move because the train was on fire.

As the bell continued to sound the train braked to a stop, unexpectedly, at Smethwick Rolfe Street station and the train manager’s voice crackled over the tannoy.

Two fire engines attended the scene, and Rolfe Street was closed to traffic Picture: Andrew Noakes

“This is a special announcement,” he said. “Would passengers please leave the train and move to the exit of the station. There is a fire on the train.”

Dutifully we stepped out onto the platform and climbed the narrow staircase to Rolfe Street, which runs above the station on a Victorian brick bridge. Near the top I was met by one of the station staff clambering down – carrying two fire extinguishers.

Arriva Trains Wales has the oldest rolling stock in Britain. In September, policy director Roger Cobbe told the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee that ATW's trains were on average over 25 years old. "Some of our trains have done 4.5 million miles and are 30 years old," he told MPs. "There has been a colossal rise in the number of people using trains. Yet we haven't been able to order any new rolling stock because there is no spare capacity across the whole of Britain."

The ageing trains provide a maintenance headache for ATW. "The trains have to work very hard and our engineers have to work very hard to keep them going. Occasionally there are problems," Cobbe told the committee.

While we don't yet know what caused the fire on this train, its age could well have been a factor.

As passengers trooped off the train there was no panic, no pushing – just an orderly procession of 500 or so people towards the exit, some of them glancing over their shoulders at the ominous black column of smoke rising from the second carriage.

Most had reached the road by the time the first fire engine arrived from Smethwick at 8.36am, closely followed by a police car. A second fire engine arrived at the scene at 8.38am, and the emergency services began to close Rolfe Street to traffic while they made the train safe.

 “It was under the carriage we were in,” one train passenger told me. Another summed up the general mood: “Typical,” he said. “The train I decide to get on bursts into flames.” 

Police vehicles close Rolfe Street to traffic while the fire is attended to Picture: Andrew Noakes

Being 21 comes with a lot of expectation; to establish yourself as an independent adult, whilst juggling a social life and trying to make the correct step into a career that will mould you and fundamentally shape your working life. Sounds exhausting doesn't it? Well you would be correct. It is made even harder when you actually have zero clue where the hell you want to be in 5, 10, 15 years and you are being told that the decisions you make now shape your future. I was foolish to believe that having an undergraduate degree meant getting jobs would be easier, this was an unachievable idea, and after about 100 rejections I am now doing a Masters. I think I chose wisely, however my next steps cannot be delayed for much longer, apparently you cannot be in education forever!

This was three months ago…

Induction week has arrived and I am about to start my tasks in preparation for next week when the hard work begins, again! Aside from all the specifics (rooms, the timetable and the modules) a lot of what I am hearing is centred on passion, resilience, style and content. I like books and reading and discovering new authors; transition from reader to writer is one that is going to take some getting used to. I never once had to write my own pieces because I have never been sure that I have an opinion, let alone one that someone would want to read.

This could be more of a challenge than I expected. I am basically learning the exact opposite to what I have been doing for the last 3 years of my academic life, but rising to the challenge is something I have a lot of experience with. However, whilst writing this piece and laying out my fears, I am realising that whilst this is going to be a challenge this could be the perfect opportunity to find my voice, my interests and develop the skills to be able to enter the world of Publishing/Journalism with all the qualities needed to succeed. Even when faced with modules that had not exactly been what I had expected, I was always able to find and discover a section that interested me, an area that I wanted to research and write about, and I often managed to achieve something I never thought possible. Those experiences are going to be pivotal for this year. This is a year to find and expand on what interests me, share stories that I have written and find my own voice amongst the noise.

The web is crammed with images, and it's tempting to use them in print articles. Legal and ethical issues aside, there are fundamental problems with attempting to use web images in print.

To find out why, let's look at an example:

On screen this looks like a fairly big image, and it might be tempting to try and use it in a magazine or newspaper. But there's a problem. If we use that same image in print it ends up looking like this:

In print, the image reproduces at a much smaller size than you might expect. The problem is that print reproduction has much higher resolution than a computer screen.

Resolution: what is it, and why does it matter?

The resolution of a digital image is measured in 'dots per inch' (it's an area which has yet to go metric). The dots are pixels, the individual elements which make up the image. The greater the number of pixels in each inch of image, the smaller each pixel must be, and the higher the resolution of the image. A higher resolution image can show more detail.

Images on websites are usually 72dpi, whereas images for high-quality print reproduction (eg in a magazine) are usually 300dpi. So a one-inch-square image on screen is 72 x 72 pixels, but a one-inch-square image in print is 300 x 300 pixels.

If we take our 72 x 72 pixel image and try to use it in print, we have to reduce its size until each one of the pixels is the right size for print use – 1/300th of an inch square. Our 72 pixels no longer span one inch of space, but 72/300ths of one inch. So the image comes out 0.24 (72 divided by 300) inches square.

Images taken from websites will usually appear about a quarter the size when they are used in print.

Of course, in InDesign and QuarkXpress it's up to us how big we use images – so why can't we simply use the image scale settings to blow up the picture to the size we want? If we scale up the image to 400% in both directions, it should be the right size again.

The trouble is, we end up with something like this:

We've taken a small image and increased its size, but all that's happened is that we've taken a tiny amount of data and spread it across a wider area. We haven't increased the detail in the picture. The result is that our image starts to look fuzzy.

Whenever you use an image at more than 100% size, the image loses definition – it becomes fuzzier.

Resizing the image in Photoshop is marginally better, because Photoshop has a more sophisticated method of resizing. But even this does not add information back into the image: all it does is use a guesstimate to synthesize more pixels.The result is almost never as good as a big, original image.

Images for print: how big do they have to be?

As we've seen, images for high-quality printing need to have a resolution of 300dpi. To find out how many pixels we need to cover a given area, we simply multiply the size we want (in inches) by 300.

If we take an A4 page (210 x 297mm or 8.25 x 11.7in) as a starting point, we can quickly work out how big a digital image must be to cover different amounts of the page:

In practice, we would probably need images even bigger than this to allow for cropping, and to provide some 'bleed' area where the image runs to the edge of the page.

An image we could run at half-page size in a magazine would be 34 inches wide on screen – and you don't see too many websites with images that big...

Introduction