Time

 Five years - I began the last entry in this blog with a comment about the last five years. Well, guess what! It's actually seven. You see that is exactly what happens with age: time just travels more quickly (or at least appears to). 

A few years ago (please don't ask how many) I made a donation to Wikipedia. I must have been feeling flush and generous, but having done that I do genuinely admire an organisation which provides (mostly) useful information and is not plagued by advertisements. To this day I get reminders of how grateful they were - and please could I make a further donation? 

Anyway, seven years ago (on 17/11/2017) I attended the funeral of a former nurse at St Bartholomew's hospital, Caroline Jackson, who had died of cancer at the age of approximately 63. I met her and a couple of her closest friends, Helen and Fiona, in 1973 at a nightclub in Stamford, Lincs., called 'The Riverside'. (Yes, it was indeed located by the river in Stamford.) All three were nursing at 'Barts', I was working at a bank in central London but staying at the 'YMCA' Barbican, just a stone's throw from St Bartholomew's Hospital. I was 'clubbing' in Stamford as I had gone home to stay with my parents, who lived close to Stamford, that particular weekend.

Of course we became good friends, frequented a local pub (now demolished), eventually drifted apart but, with the advent of the internet, found a way to re-unite. 

Reset: my story of 71 years on planet Earth.

The last five years have been amongst the most frustrating in my life. And if I've learned anything, it's that frustration is often home-grown. 

At the same time these recent years have thrown up some truly wonderful memories. So my life appears to be turning into a personal soap-opera: with all the humour, disappointment, joy and pain (not too much pain) to  which anyone (possibly even you, dear reader) might succumb. 

I shall therefore attempt to chronicle the good and the bad of 71 years on planet Earth. Settle, back, relax and enjoy.

I was born in Oldham in 1953. My father was born in Bermondsey, my mother in Yorkshire. They met in Egypt during my Dad's conscripted national service. Dad was ambitious (against all odds he managed to succeed in becoming an officer - having been told by his superiors 'no chance') and was posted to Egypt during the 'Suez Crisis'. My mater had joined the 'NAAFI' to escape her somewhat 'Victorian' step-father, whose beliefs (not uncommon in that era) were that women are meant to be wives, mothers and carers: nothing more nothing less. I only learned this from my Mum as I grew up. To me he was simply a delightful man with whom I could play games, indulge in fantasies and who would tell me daft stories and recite silly poems  (One of which was the infinitely repeated tale of Antonio and Marino on a dark and stormy night). 

As I recall:

"It was a dark and stormy night

The rain came down in torrents

The brigands and their chiefs were in their cave

And Marino said to Antonio

'Antonio, tell us a tale'

and the tale began as follows...

'It was a dark and stormy night'

and repeat....

I could listen again and again. Alf (my maternal grandfather) was a plasterer died fairly young (around age 68) within just a couple of years of retiring. This was not uncommon back then as so many men of that era saw retirement as an opportunity to put their feet up in front of the television and be waited on by their spouse. Things are very different today.

At the age of three, my father put my name down to become a student at a famous public school, when the fees for such an education were roughly five times his annual salary. Driven by ambition, he succeeded in this and so I went from 'northern lad' (with the regional accent - we lived in Lancashire) to public schoolboy where my northern accent was almost literally beaten out of me, to be replaced by what was (in those days) referred to as 'RP' ('Received Pronunciation'). 

Above and beyond the excellent education I received, one of the lasting benefits of those boarding school days was an exponential growth in self-confidence. This enabled me to make friends from all walks of life: many of those friendships are still alive and well as I write. I still have, and frequently meet with, friends whom I have known and loved for over fifty years. 

I retired in 2019 following (successful) brain surgery. There is a post somewhere here which tells that tale.

To end this first bit of pure self-indulgence, I'm going to make a a simple but sad observation. I was lucky to be born in a free country. I have seen those freedoms diminish during my lifetime. The invention of the internet allows me to do what I am doing now - writing and publishing my story: it has also created some problems. 

Since I retired I have occupied myself by learning to play the Ukulele, and to learn how to use software to enable me to publish the recordings I make on YouTube. You can find them here: https://www.youtube.com/@PaulCDyer

Some of it is good, some of it is awful, but it is fun. During my happy school days, I became a fan of the poet Edward Lear. My 'boarding school' education began (in 1960) at Hampton House School, Tarporley, Cheshire, run by the wonderful 'Saunders-Griffiths' family (from South Africa). Sadly the building was condemned in 1963 and so I had to commute to 'St Andrews School, Eastbourne' from 1963 (we still lived in Lancashire) until 1966 when I entered 'Public School'. As a nine-year-old boy I can tell you that the train journey from Manchester to Eastbourne was 'exciting'. 

I'm uncertain as to whether or not children can make such a trip these days?? I, too, now watch daytime TV, but unlike the actors in the advertisements for cremation services I now see on a channel called 'TPTV' I do not have conversations with my wife, whilst I am in the bath, about the delights of planning (and paying for) my funeral some years ahead of that inevitable event. Not least because I am uncertain that such companies will still exist when the grim reaper doth call! (I'd hate to have wasted my money.)

Comments are welscome.

PS. The follow-up to my South African trip is also available on my YouTube site here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHkjl9O6a18