Life is Never Simple.

    The more observant of my readers may notice that I'm late posting. But as the title suggests, life is never simple.

    My wife and I are of 'senior years' so age and health matters feature highly in our declining years. My wife has had heart related problems for some time, a cause for considerable concern. Not helped when Paulette was examined and discharged by the hospital; the only person not knowing she had been discharged being my wife. Thus many weeks lost and many anxious moments suffered before a new 'opinion' as to the problem was reached. Paulette had a 'stent' fitted this week; hopefully better health beckons for Paulette at long last.

    I attended a 'pre-opp' examination for a knee replacement surgery recently. Only to find a mysterious heart murmur is making surgery a possible problem.

Two hospital visits later, intense examination of my heart completed and I should, I say should be at the hospital entrance at seven on the morning of the 21st of May. complete with nightshirt and slippers. (Will it be dark at such an ungodly hour?)

    Again it has been\still is a very fraught time. In all the coming and going it is impossible to gauge the state of the NHS. Paperwork, administration seems to be 'the be-all and end-all'. And I used to think computers would be the answer to all our problems! Nevertheless most of the people experienced at all stages have been magnificent and you can only judge at the end of the day by personal experience. (I am wary of scurrilous newspapers like the Express and the Mail whose personal agendas are unhelpful, political and often downright dangerous.)

    At times I have thought NHS stood for No Hope Sadly. Truth told we are lucky to have the NHS. I got the impression it is stretched beyond belief, for many, many reasons but boy oh boy. without it we are nothing. I have followers from all parts of the globe. I am all too aware not all are as lucky as we in this underrated isle.
    There is no doubt I personally would be long since gone if it were not for a nationalised health service, warts and all. I had a life saving operation when hours old and have continued in like manner ever since. Strangely enough, one thing I've never had is warts! My posting is likely to be erratic in future months. (I am also due another knee replacement in September.) Life is never easy and seldom mundane. If I'm more grumpy than usual, forgive me. Here's to a better summer and if not, cheer up, it will soon be Christmasf

Shut My Eyes, What Do I See.

    I was a full time secondary school teacher for around seventeen years; that's well over six thousand days. The vast majority of the time pleasant enough but not memorable to any degree. 

    I honestly believe all we ever experience is stored in our brains while ever we are 'alive'. The vast majority is so fleeting, unimportant that it registers for the shortest of moments; but its still there, I'm sure. I find myself recalling experiences from school on occasion.  I'm not sure why, something unknown acts as a trigger; not always welcome. 

    At the school were over two thousand pupils and in excess of one hundred teachers. I have experienced many strange things, including two occasions where teachers were actually arrested on the premises. Obviously unusual occurrences, most days are repetitive, mundane, almost boring; teachers in the main are ordinary in the extreme, having the same highs and lows, expectations, problems as anyone else.

    Don was a teacher fairly new to the school, taught Business Studies, aged around thirty two, married with children. I was a union rep so made a point of talking to anyone fairly new to the school. In Don's case it usually took the form of commiserating when he had to cover for absent colleagues, a bone of contention with all teachers. A pleasant, quiet man similar in so many ways to many of the other staff at this unexceptional establishment.

    On one particular day Don travelled into school as normal. An ordinary day, seemingly. He finished at the normal time, got into his car and travelled home; a distance I suppose of around fifteen miles. (Next day nobody commented as to Don's demeanour or behaviour being strange in any way.) 

    Don parked his car, changed into his 'jogging clothes' and went down to the local park. Plus Don carried with him a can he had placed to hand in the garage before he left for work in the morning.

On arrival at the park Don poured the contents of the can over himself and lit a match. The contents were of course petrol. (I am told by a fire officer that death is mercifully swift, by suffocation.)

    I'm not even sure as to why this event from so long ago has replanted itself in my consciousness at this present time.  But it has played on my mind this week several times. I do not wish to dwell on this tragic event. But do you know what baffles me most. If you knew you had planned your 'end' later in the day would you go through the motions of 'normal existence' prior to so horrific an action. How terrible, how sad that none of us realised his torment prior to that bell signalling the end of the school day.

    This week is the traditional May Bank holiday week. Particularly a family time. Enjoy yourself. Particularly those in a position to enjoy the blessings of children and grandchildren. Plus we need to give others a little of our time. We are often blind as to what is happening beyond the end of our noses.  

Round and Round in my Head

It's been a funny week. And not particularly funny ha-ha. I had a pre-op medical to set getting a new knee in motion. Only a problem came to light. My heart seems to have some sort of murmur, irregularity, not evidently present a couple of years ago. Strangely enough my wife has always maintained I stop breathing in my sleep (sleepacchnia). Scary stuff. So what happens next; You tell me!

This getting old malarky is a bit of a drag at times. You spend most of your time visiting doctors, dentists or hospital.  So much to do, so much to remember. Do you have nights where you lie in bed with a million and one things on your mind; I'm not the only one surely. And that leads to even more things going round and round!

I have always, always believed that everything that you've always experienced is still in your mind, right until the day you die. The difficulty is in recalling it, in any meaningful way. It took me years to recall my e-book (A Childhood Revisited) and that only covered fifteen years. I reckon I could do another but I haven't the heart. As an experiment last week I lay in bed and recalled anything that came into my head. The following surfaced:

My motorbike TNU137  1957

Derby County playoff versus WBA at Wembley 2007

Ruby Murray, who I reckon sang down her nose. My first love. 1955 (Softly, Softly)

Mundesley school camp in 1953

Little Miss Muffet junkets. Around 1950

Grannies funeral, the snow howled down at the graveside, just like a scene out of Dickens.  1978

A real football, one up on the rich kids, courtesy of an uncle in Derby.   Around 1951

Arriving on Chesterfield station to a new job, very reminiscent of High Noon.  1965

I started to wonder how much could the mind actually store. Stephen Hawkins reckons it can store 10,000 Oxford Dictionaries. Somewhere else I read it can store one trillion gigabytes of memory. I've studied it a bit but it soon loses me when it starts talking about petabytes and synapses. Some clever devils suggest the brain can grow with how much it NEEDS to grow! Thats a bit convenient, surely!

This all gets a bit deep but its partly an age thing I suspect. It all gets a bit personal when you reach seventy!

So many, many things to ponder. I wonder why we have spells of going round and round and spells of comparative 'sanity'. If I was mad, would I know I was mad or would I need someone to tell me? Here we go again. As Arthur English used to say 'Play the music! Open the cage!

Fame or Infamy

    I'm just an ordinary person who has lived mainly in two places. By coincidence both have been in the news for completely different reasons; both will be immortalised for ever.

I live in Derby, a midlands city that houses Crown Derby pottery, Rolls Royce aero engines and Derby County Football Club. Very much a railway place originally, an industrial city that limps on in hard times. Home of Joseph Wright the painter and few others. A place that from now on will be infamous as the home of the notorious Mick Philpott.

    Mick was well known in Derby. He fathered seventeen children by five different women. He lived with a wife, mistress and eleven children in a council house not far from my house in Derby. He appeared on the Jeremy Kyle Show and in a documentary with Ann Widdicombe. He had plenty of time to do so as he had not worked for many years. He amused himself by playing snooker in an extension to his house, amusing others on a pub kareaoke machine and 'dogging' with his wife and best friend Paul Mosley in and around Derby parks. On occasion he appeared in the media demanding a larger house from the local council and stated in no uncertain terms that 'Britain was going to the dogs.'

    Mick Philpott would still, I imagine, be living the proverbial 'life of Riley' were it not for a tragic, stupid, horrific mistake he made in May 2012. He and his friend Paul Mosley hatched a plan to set fire to his house. He, Philpott was to rush into the house and rescue the six children. He would appear a hero, the council would supply him with a bigger house and his mistress Lisa, who had left the house recently with her five children would be blamed.
    The deed was done, the fire got out of control and the six children in the house perished.                

    In March 2013  the despicable trio were sentenced for manslaughter. (Mairead his wife may not have taken part but was complicent.) Mick Philpott was sentenced to life in prison, Mairead and           Mosley seventeen years.         .

    There is so much more one could say.  Suffice to say Derby will be forever immortalised for the existence of a dangerous, feckless, bullying braggart whose whole existence it would be hard to justify. We in Derby have had months of publicity we could do without. I would be amazed if, irrespective of where you live  in the world, you haven't heard of Mick Philpott. He is, I assure you, not typical of the place.
    I lived in Grantham, Lincolnshire for four years. Nothing much happens in Grantham. They had a railway accident in 1906. They still talk about it! Mind you, both my children were born there; there wasn't too much to do of an evening! Isaac Newton was born just outside. A very clever man indeed but I'll take you a bet. I reckon Mrs Thatcher's fame will eventually outshine that of dear old Isaac.
    There's a statue dedicated to him in the town. There's no statue of Margaret Thatcher in Grantham, yet, but I've no doubt it will come. They don't rush things in Lincolnshire! I used to reckon the Lincolnshire motto was 'Never do today what you can leave 'til tomorrow.'
     Lady Margaret Thatcher died this week, aged eighty seven. Her father, Alfred Roberts kept a grocery store in the town and was also Mayor.     .

    His daughter Margaret took an interest in politics, became an MP and eventually the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Love her or hate her, there has been an outpouring of comment that will no doubt continue for many moons to come.  The Philpotts of this world become infamous; the Thatchers, I will be kind and say, probably famous. The only certainty in life is that we all eventually die and eventually leave some sort of legacy.What memories are you going to leave behind and what is your town or village famous for?

Sod's Law.

    The news has been dominated by the policewomen in Norfolk who tripped over the curb whilst investigating a possible burglary. She claims she injured herself so she is suing the garage owner. Pathetic is the most moderate language that springs to mind. If you want an easy life don't join the police force.

    I wouldn't normally be interested except that it reinforced a theory of mine that the world is ruled, not by a mysterious god on high, but simply by that mysterious force, known as Sod's Law over here and Murphy's Law by our American cousins.

Most of you will know the axiom 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' Its a perfectly NATURAL tendency for things to go wrong wherever possible. Plus things don't just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moments. (or when you least need it.) There are mathematical formulas for all this. It's all a bit clever for me, but if you are interested, look up NULL HYPOTHESIS; very scientific, very intriguing.

    When I was a small child I 'borrowed' a bike. I was going to take it back, honest! Only I wasn't very good at riding it as I wasn't used to riding one and I fell off. I broke my arm; definitely Sod's Law. I wasn't as big as the other kids. So I tried extra hard to do what the other kids did. I swung from the cricket roller like they did; only I fell off and broke my arm; definitely Sod's Law. When I worked for F W Woolworths we were all young and daft lads together. We sent the empty lift back down with a matchstick in a buttonhole. Only the lift came off its runners and there was no-one in the lift to stop it. One very broken lift and five very scared, hard to find stockroom boys; definitely Sod's Law personified.

    No doubt the policewomen is after a 'payout'. Its a legal situation, involving money, money and more money. But note I mentioned the legal situation, and the law is a funny thing; not 'funny ha ha'.   IF, note IF her lawyer can get Sods Law incorporated, officially into the British Legal System she's laughing. Everything and anything from hence on will be attributed, officially to 'Sod's Law'. Look at the possibilities; look at the potential! (Falling over a curb, no problem, it was bound to be there.) This is the future, remember, you've read it here first. 

    Stick your head outside the door, step outside and wait for something, anything to happen. Life will never be the same again. Hurrah for Sod's Law to be made official; I can't wait.......

Heroes All; Past and Present.

    There is a television series running at the moment called Born to be Different. It is an inspirational, unsentimental, candid British Channel 4 series filmed over several years chartering the lives of six disabled children and their families. It is remarkable for several reasons. It is totally lacking in self pity, and not without humour in spite of adversity; courageous individuals all, children and adults alike. I have seldom felt so humbled for many a year; compulsive viewing which will be for ever remembered.

Like many other instances in life, the present, in this instance Born to be Different made me recall the past, and in my case, brought about an awareness not previously present.

    I was born in November, 1939. My mother was unmarried, my father's name a secret she took to her grave (in 1953). I was born with a condition which I was told in later years was a twisted bowel but was almost certainly pyloric stenosis. I was operated on within twelve or so hours of birth. I also spent many months hospitalised in infancy suffering from rickets (Lack of pre-natal care and general poor diet.) The hospital in Bretby, South Derbyshire was around twenty miles from my mother's home; my mother did not drive or own a vehicle. We were poor in the extreme. My mother married a soldier, Ernest, who, in 1942 was found drowned in the River Derwent whilst home on leave from the Pioneer Corp in the British Army. My mother attended, alone, an inquest in Derby in order to identify Ernest's body.

    All these facts and more are covered at length in A Childhood Revisited on Kindle, Amazon. (See the lengthy review at the beginning of my blogs. May I ask, if nothing else, you read the FREE introduction here, and you DON'T need a Kindle to read it! Very easy, just click the arrow\ cursor on the book cover.)

    My mother died at the age of forty seven; I was thirteen years of age. (The death certificate stated cause of death, pneumonia; it ought to have said, 'cause of death, worn out due to overwork'.

  Born to be Different reminded me of my childhood. How resilient are children, particularly in adversity. How different they look at life in so many ways.

    For all the problems of my own childhood, I have happy memories. Different to the norm, maybe but often happy. I now realise how difficult it is to be a parent. I was unaware to the nth degree of such things. Perhaps it is 'clever stuff', that often the problems of the world are 'missed' by the young.

    My life aged around aged five to fifteen revolved around football, trips up the fields, train spotting, dens, and dams; my pleasures, my life, me, me, me. My mother's world consisted mainly of work, work and more work. School cook, skivy, mother of two children. Minimum income for maximum effort. (One of my mother's jobs as school cook/dogsbody in 1948 paid £38.8.9 for a year's work. Three hours per day per five day week; actually paid for, two and a half hours per day. When the school, Ockbrook Junior became short of money it was debated as whether to cut my mothers wage! Some kind soul in fact decided otherwise! )

    I had no real comprehension concerning rationing and shortages; the ever presence of impetigo, nits; ringworm, scarlet fever, whooping cough and the like. I reckon I had almost no comprehension of anything beyond my selfish existence.

    On a bad day I am filled with remorse as to what a hard, relentless existence was my mother's lot in life.  It is a fact that I was unaware as to the world beyond my cocooned, sheltered, safe, oblivious little existence. And it should be obvious why I had such a cocooned, sheltered, safe, oblivious existence. That's what hurts most. Had I the right to be so happy I wonder.
    Many, many adults, my mother included sacrificed their lives in order that their children had chances in life they themselves were denied. Make no mistake, for many they were hard times. Austerity, a buzz word indeed; the majority today do not really know the meaning of the word. ( Though there are many today who still live for their children; love for one's offspring will always be with us. Without love we are all nothing.)
    Life is seldom simple. There is a popular saying, 'Life is what you make it'. The older I get, the less I know. What I do know is that there were and still are are some wonderful people in the world. The families in the documentaries;  plus my mother, Mary Elizabeth Stevens. 

I Thought by Now I Would Understand Everything.

    I am trying to make sense of the human condition. Please bear with me.

When I was little, for many years I lived in a village; I lived in the bottom end of the village; we kids at the bottom formed gangs, and we 'fought' the top end of the village. sometimes violently, with home made weapons. Not surprisingly, for we were boys, and that's what we understood boys did. (Some might like to read A Childhood Revisited. Kindle, Amazon. Ah, happy days.)

Around the age of eleven we went to new schools, not all of us to the same schools. And we made new friends, wore new uniforms and continued fighting, given the chance. Sometimes new foes from different schools, sometimes children in different uniforms, who used to be friends. Because we were now mobile, we made new friends outside of the village, but also new foes out of the village; naturally, inevitably, because that what boys did.

    We liked football and we 'belonged' to the local football team (in our case Derby County); or did they belong to us? Some swore allegiance to more famous or successful teams like Manchester United but their's was a strange affair. They seldom if ever went to their matches and, horror of horrors, they were even known to change to another club if one was so inclined. All part of 'belonging', of 'being someone, not merely one of the crowd. It was all part of growing up.

    Some of us were  were taught 'religion'. The idea of a life after death pleases. To some it makes sense, to others no sense.The idea of being special pleases. Unfortunately many, many religious people feel they, and only they are right and must 'teach' others; by killing the 'opposition' if need be.

Despite the protestations of the pious that it is otherwise 'religion' has been responsible for much death from time immemorial. (All for the off chance of a life after death for a chosen few. Sounds a bit selfish and dictatorial to me.)

    Nevertheless I understand more concerning life than I did in my youth. Not too much more, granted. And if I don't always agree with why people do the things the way they do, at least I can usually understand their thinking. Many people in the United Kingdom for instance have strong views on immigration. They see it in terms of 'them and us', 'our'  not 'their' country and so on. I do not subscribe to this viewpoint but I can well see where this viewpoint comes from. And this is important because yet again this is a post I had not intended to write. Something happened in the week that I cannot for the life of me fathom. The reason for this somewhat convoluted post.

    There was a football match a week or two ago; Tottenham Hotspur v Inter Milan. an Italian team versus a British team. A match that will be remembered yet again for some spectators (not all but not a tiny number either) who were abusive to any black players playing for Tottenham. A frequent occurrence in Italian football. Am I totally 'thick' in not being able to understand this moronic abuse of a fellow human being. Can someone TRY to get in the mind of those responsible for me. I am fortunate that this blog goes to many parts of the world. Please, will someone explain what it is all about. I assume it is not typically Italian behaviour. (It occurs elsewhere.)  Is it a male thing? A class thing? A football thing? Are some people naturally full of hate, and colour of skin is an easy 'marker' as who to 'pick on',

    How frightening that such people may be parents; perhaps they may people in positions of power in the world. How can ANYONE take offence solely because of the colour of a persons skin. I suspect the older I get the less I understand.