12 December 2025
Bedford Ian has been looking at recent goings on across Bedford Borough and tells us what he thinks of it all…
Christmas hope
Following my comments on disunity in the Council chamber last week (and the week before…), I have been informed of an outbreak of unity in another chamber, the spiritual chamber of St Martin’s Church.
The Council’s annual civic carol service was held on Sunday (7 December), and the formation of a choir made up from Cllrs from all parties was part of the service.
They sang two medieval carols unaccompanied, and whilst it was debatable that they sang all the right notes in all the right places, might this show of unity bring promise for Cllrs to hit the right note for residents before the end of this municipal year?
We live in hope.
Long live good news
While wonders may never cease when it comes to politicians getting along, it seems journalists are also not just writing bad news all the time.
The editorial team at Progress Publishing recently noticed something quite remarkable. The number of stories tagged as ‘good news’ in either the Bedford Independent or Bedford Clanger has surpassed 3,500.
Read: Nothing-but-good-news pages
In fact, there are now 3,652 good news stories on these pages that are positive, happy and a celebration of all things that make Bedford Borough the wonderful place it is to live, work and play.
If you need some context, the tag in second place is ‘Bedford Borough Council’ with 1,566 stories – and, they won’t all be bad news either… honest.
Content isn’t just for Christmas
While some businesses might be winding down for the festive break, Damiano Hair are not only busy giving Bedfordians their pre-Christmas trims, but they’re also creating top-quality social media content and even have an album on Spotify (with a bit of help from AI).
The barbershop, owned by award-winning barber Mick Damiano, has been on Bedford High Street for five-and-a-half years, opening the day after lockdown ended in July 2020.
They’ve been making TikTok and Instagram content for the last two years, and while they started just sharing videos of recent haircuts, they have become increasingly ambitious, with all 12 team members (and occasionally clients) getting involved.
“Nothing is too crazy for us to do,” said barber, Shane, who comes up with lots of the concept ideas.
“Everyone loves to get involved,” said Aleisha, who has worked at Damiano for nearly five years. “We come in on our days off to film; it’s so much fun.”
Not only do they involve everyone in the shop, but they also like to rope in other indie businesses in the town centre.
Their brilliant ‘Panetonne’ film (see below) features Libby at La Piazza, the team at Cibo, the Italian street food cart on Midland Road, and “everything Italian we could find”, said Aleisha.
“We love working with other businesses in Bedford to raise the profile of the town and show the community that we’ve created here,” said Mick.
“We’ve just filmed our Christmas finale, and it will definitely be worth the wait.”
We can’t wait to see it…
Christmas quiz
Finally, here’s a festive quiz question to end the week on a high.
Could Bedford Borough Council have written these car park Christmas opening hours in a more efficient way?
Answer: yes
See you soon, Bedford Ian.
PS: If you see anything Bedford Ian might find amusing, let us know at news@BedfordIndependent.co.uk.
