Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

In this modern era where political correctness and public awareness can sometimes be taken to excessive extremes, every so often we forget the genuine areas of disablement that impair the enjoyment of those affected.

CSS or ‘Cascading Style Sheets’ offer the visually impaired, and people who experience colour blindness, the ability to view all of the pages on a website in a print style and colour to suit there own preference. By selecting your choice from the style choice below, the whole website will be converted and remain in your chosen style for all subsequent visits. You can of course revert back to any style at any time by revisiting this page.

As the World Wide Web expands and is introduced into more homes and internet purchases bite into High Street profits, many blue chip companies, including British Airways, American Airlines, Marks and Spencer, Lloyds Bank etc. recognise the financial benefits of attracting a growing minority to their websites and are reportably soon to incorporate this facility. The disabled and especially the older generation are becoming more ‘savvy’ to the intricacies of the internet and as such are an important source of revenue for these retail giants.

CSS provides a public service to all with a visual problem and we at the BJFC want to ensure that anybody, whether young or old, short sighted, long sighted or suffering the inconvenience of colour blindness can view our pages with ease. Our standard style for viewing is a black type, 10 point, Trebuchet font on a mottled blue background (Style 1 below). By clicking on each of the other numbered styles you can view the example text and photograph on this page, in a larger print size and combination of colour styles, and then choose the appearance that suits you best. Whichever style you choose on this test page will be automatically applied to every page on our website.

Note: to use this facility, your computer must allow 'cookies' (see below) to be stored on your machine. By allowing 'cookies' the style settings will be remembered next time you return to the website.

*** Its has been reported back that sometimes when this is first used you may need to refresh your web browser. ***

Example Style and Text

Pat Andrews first met Brian Jones on a 'blind date' in the summer of 1960 after he had recently returned from his 'exile' in Germany and Scandinavia.

Pat explains, "there was a chap called Roy Sellick who owned an espresso coffee bar in the middle of Cheltenham. The coffee bar was known locally as The Aztec, it was just a couple of rooms above a cake shop, but Roy had decorated it nicely and created an atmosphere that reflected those ‘modern times' with wall mounted juke boxes, lots of glass balls, fishing nets and ornaments including candles in bottles, dripping in wax, scattered around the place. At that time, in the late 1950's there wasn't many places for youngsters to congregate, but The Aztec became a popular meeting place for the teenagers of Cheltenham. Roy asked a girl friend and myself to help out occasionally behind the bar, as the club was gaining a reputation and getting very busy, so it was that I often found myself doing stints behind the counter serving hot dogs, soft drinks and coffee".

Pat continues "it was a warm summer in 1960 and I was at a friends bar-b-q when a guy, l don't remember his name, was telling me about a friend of his who'd just arrived back from Germany and had lost contact with all of his friends. This guy said that his friend would like to meet a local girl, and so could l do him a big favour, meet up with his friend and go out with him. Now at that time l was dating a German lad who went to college in Cheltenham, but he'd recently left and returned to Germany. Being at a loose end and thinking, well this might be interesting, l asked this guy where his friend was from, his answer was Cheltenham and my immediate reaction was, forget it!! For-get it, l don't want to know, find somebody else. At that time chaps from Cheltenham were thought not to be hip and the term country yokels comes to mind, you know guys with straw sticking out of their hair, ha ha. I know it sounds cruel and you can't tar everybody with the same brush, but that's how a lot of us girls thought at the time"

"So it wasn't cool to date a chap from Cheltenham and as I said, my response was quite forceful, FOR-GET IT" Pat smiled as she recalled this event from long ago but added "the guy wasn't taking no for an answer, he kept on at me throughout the afternoon. Oh please Pat, just for me" he must have asked a dozen times, "look Pat y'know, please, if you do me this favour I'll be forever in your debt".

"He kept on and on and was so persistent, l eventually felt worn down and finally agreed but insisted, ok, I'll meet your friend, only the once mind and that's it, just for you, but remember that's it, I'm just doing it for your sake and you owe me big time".