Happy Christmas from Philip Dunne MP

The chances for a white Christmas seem greater this year than any other year of the noughties. Sub-zero temperatures for several days have brought joy to children, my own included, particularly where accompanied with enough snow to set a toboggan down hill.

But for many the freezing weather has brought real problems. Imagine if you were planning to travel on eurostar. As it happens, my brother-in-law was on the second train to get stuck last Friday night. He had to walk through the service tunnel for some distance, and sat for hours on a train with intermittent power and little information about what was happening. An alarming experience, but fortunately with a happy ending.

He could not alert relatives because of course mobile phones don't work in the tunnel. One of my hopes for a new government will be to make mobile antennae compulsory on trains.

Closer to home, roads and pavements have been treacherously icy. I witnessed a gentleman in Ludlow falling on a slippery pavement and hurting his back. Several passers-by stopped to help. The paramedic arrived within a couple of minutes and the ambulance not long afterwards, despite the dispatcher having to ask where the station was in Station Road in Ludlow: an example of one of the challenges posed by regional control centres.

After a year of recession, declining incomes and worries about jobs, the last thing people need to worry about is how to keep warm. So this Christmas, at a time when we think of others less fortunate than ourselves, if you know someone who may need a helping hand, why not take a moment to drop by to see if all is well.

For those who can, enjoy the holiday break with crisp clear days, hoar-frost on the trees and our glorious Shropshire countryside shrouded in white.