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Real Elvis fans
A TRING couple obsessed with Elvis Presley are all shook up with joy after a TV show splashed out £20,000 to help turn their home into a mini ‘Graceland’.
Elvis fam Julie | Julie Mundy, 37, and Trevor Yeardye, 45, who first met at an Elvis fanclub disco, have been devotees of the king of rock ‘n’ roll since they first heard his songs as children in the 1970s.
The couple have collected vast amounts of Elvis records and other paraphernalia, and now, thanks to a television make over show, their Tring home is set to become a shrine to the Memphis megastar.
Julie, who has written books about Elvis, including one on his life as a fashion icon, said: “When we bought the house we planned an Elvis theme throughout. We'd already started but the designer from the show was far more imaginative than we could ever have been.”
As will be revealed on TV screens across the country next Thursday (April 27), crews from the ITV1 show 60 Minute Makeover helped transform three rooms of Julie and Trevor's home into the first parts of their very own Graceland paradise.
Downstairs, a black and white chequered floor leads into a diner-style kitchen and dining room, with neon walls and 1950s furniture.
A life-size cardboard cut-out of Elvis stands next to the dinner table and a giant blind featuring a print of the Las Vegas strip at night hangs above the kitchen sink.
Upstairs, the master bedroom has been converted into a tribute to the king, with Elvis curtains, a gold Presley disc and an acoustic guitar on the wall.
The second bedroom now looks ‘Las Vegas’ enough for any jumpsuited entertainer to crash out in after a casino comeback gig.
And work continues to convert the rest of the home – silver EP initials have already been printed on the shower door of the new bathroom.
Julie said: “We'll finish off the rest of the house and the hall will be the last bit – cream, gold and blue like the halls of Graceland, with blue velvet curtains.”
Work for the couple on other Elvis projects is
also underway, with their joint internet venture www.elvis.co.uk set to go live next month.
The new website will be an online fanclub and shop, and Julie is hoping it will help to attract hundreds of thousands of new Elvis fans.
She said: “We were aiming to get 500,000 hits in the first year but we've already had 200,000, and the site isn't even fully open yet.
She added: “I had a five-figure offer to sell the site but we don't want to let it go to a businessman. We get a lot of emails from schools and young Elvis followers, and it would be wonderful to nurture new fans.”
As well as working on the website, Julie will continue to work as a writer on Elvis and Las Vegas while Trevor continues to run his luxury bathroom design company.
Through her writing, Julie has been given unprecedented access to the Gracleland archives and has even been made an honorary member of the 'Memphis Mafia' – Elvis' most trusted friends.
Phone box blow
UNDER new rules introduced by Ofcom, Tring Town Council will lose its power to veto plans to scrap public phone boxes.
Last year Tring councillors voted to save a phone box in Manor Road, which BT wanted to axe claiming it was not being used enough.
Their bid to save the phone was successful and the phone box, first installed in 1987, still stands.
Following a review by Ofcom - the independent regulator for UK communications industries - the power of local veto no longer applies to town or parish councils.
The move means that only unitary, metropolitan, district and equivalent councils can use the special power.
Dacorum Borough Council will be responsible for deciding whether to veto plans to take away phone boxes, but town and parish councils will still have to be consulted.
Other changes introduced include an extension of the consultation period for proposals to remove a final phone box, from 42 days to 90 days.
The local veto will apply to the last phone box within a 400 metre area, instead of a 100 metre area.
Where phone boxes are repeatedly vandalised BT and Kingston will have more freedom to make a box cashless.
The new rules came into affect from March 14 this year.
Across the UK the number of calls made from BT payphones has more than halved in the last four years, due to the increase in mobile phone use.
Help clean up town
VOLUNTEERS are being called on to help make sure Tring stays clean and tidy.
A litter pick is being held around the town on Saturday, April 22.
Organiser Cllr Derek Townsend will meet volunteers at the Red Cross Hall in Faversham Close, Tring at 10am.
People with some spare time are also needed to help plant flowers in troughs, which will be displayed around the town during the summer.
A total of 14 troughs will be planted up at Dacorum Borough Council’s central nursery in Two Waters Road, Hemel Hempstead on Tuesday, May 30.
The troughs will then be posted around Tring.
Everyone is welcome and volunteers should contact Mr Townsend for further information on 01442 824842.
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