Blog Archives - FordeFables

February 29th, 2016.

29/2/2016

Thought for today:
"Today is a strange and amazing day that comes only once every four years. Today marks a 'leap' in time, when the calendar is adjusted to make up for extra seconds accumulated over the preceding three years due to the rotation of the earth. It is a day of temporal tune up, a day of unlocked potential, a day when the shy of heart woman dare ask her sweetheart to marry her without appearing unladylike. So be you a female of the coy kind, this could be your ideal year to take your heart in your mouth and jump towards what you have always secretly wanted.

There is a small yet very significant difference between you English and we Irish. Having had your freedom for much longer than us Irish, you have grown more accustomed to exercising your choice in accordance with your will, whatever its effect on the heart of another. If today in England, a woman should ask a man to marry her, the man may choose to either acquiesce to her proposal and accept it willingly or turn it down flat and tell her to 'take a hike!'. In Ireland however, on the 29th of February years, if proposed to by a woman, be she beautiful or ugly, tall or small, thin or fat, well tempered or foul mouthed; if she be single, then a man must accept her hand in marriage or be forever shamed in the eyes of the church, pub and wider community!

Doing is a quantum leap from imagining, so if you are a fair maiden in want of marriage to a certain man today, remember the wisdom of Lao Tzu who said, 'When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.' If on the other hand, you have a shadow of doubt about what you propose to do, I would ask you to remember that while bigamy is having one marriage partner too many, that monogamy is the same.........if you ask the wrong man!' William Forde: February 29th, 2016.

December 31st, 1969

29/2/2016

February 28th, 2016.

28/2/2016

"I am smiling because you are my brother. I am laughing because there is nothing you can do about it. It will be nice growing up with someone like you; someone to lean on, someone to count on and someone to tell on. Welcome to the real world brother where you wipe your own bum and big brothers rule! " William Forde: February 28th, 2016

February 27th, 2016.

27/2/2016

Thought for today:
"The best breeds thrive on the greenest of pastures. They lay down with nature's presence and awake with God's grace. They inter-breathe with earth, sky and sea and know that they did not come into this world, but out of it. They recognise that their deepest roots are bedded in nature and remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation. As long as they live, they will sense something of the marvellous in all they see; something of the magic in all they touch. They will come to learn that nothing can befall them in life, be it disappointment, despair, calamity or disgrace which nature cannot repair or the soul cannot stitch. So preserve your nature and it will provide you with peace, for it is as silent as a stone when at rest." William Forde: February 27th, 2016

February 26th, 2016

26/2/2016

Thought for today:
"Whenever a situation arises that creates fear, there are two alternatives; either you fight or you take flight.

I am sure that we have all done some dangerous things in our lives; things that after we did them, we'd sit down and and realise that we could have seriously hurt or needlessly killed ourselves. I know that I have in my youth.

When I was twenty, I considered myself fearless and the possessor of a charmed life. In the 60's, young men were expected never to show fear; especially in front of their peers and I was always capable of putting on a brave face. Whatever the challenge, I found it easier to take on than turn down. I probably had a twisted personality at the time as one of my greatest fears was heights, yet I believed that only by climbing higher would I ever conquer this fear. My greatest fear of all however was the possession of fear itself; any fear!

I can recall climbing up an eighty-foot high chimney in the works of Harrison Gardners for a £5 bet, and at the top, inching around the circumference and descending by the iron ladder at the other side. I had always been afraid of heights and remain so today. So while I never lost that fear, I can say that I won the bet! I remember the railway bridge in Heckmondwike near the Catholic Church. Two boys would race each other across walls of one foot wide at each side of the road. If you fell the forty foot drop onto the rails below there would be one less at the table for tea. I must have taken up this foolish challenge dozens of times and I never heard of anyone falling.

We did many daring and daft things in those days. When new housing was being built on Windybank Estate where I lived, it was the initiation task of every new gang member to climb the scaffold and jump from the roof height of approximately twenty feet into a pile of sand below. The newcomer to the gang never knew until after their 'leap of death' that the rest of us had buried at least one dozen bricks beneath the sand surface! We also had real life Cowboy and Indian battles down the fields called Green Lane at Hartshead armed with 202 pellet guns and arrows with darts fixed in the end of their shaft. The one time I came a cropper was at the age of 17 years when I mounted a cow in a field on Windybank Lane, pretending that I was riding a bronco horse or rodeo steer. Seconds after mounting the cow, it threw me to the ground and ran over me. Fortunately, a few broken ribs a fractured wrist and bruises is all I incurred along with a few days in Batley Hospital. Naturally, when I was telling the tale to the rest of my drinking mates in the pub later, I magically turned the cow into a raging bull and instead of remaining on its back for mere seconds, I rode it for almost five minutes before it stumbled in a field pothole and managed to throw me. The film that was all the rage at the time was 'Tommy the Toreador,' starring Tommy Steel; the year was 1959.

I know now that doing those dares then was stupid, but these were just a few of the initiation tests necessary to join the gang and to remain a proud young man who maintained the respect of other gang members. The girls on the other hand had their own favourite sport, which usually involved leading the lads a merry dance by pretending that they were not interested while forever yearning they had been born boys instead of having bigger boobs. If however a girl wanted to join a boy's gang, a special initiation test would be devised by the boys. Ah... those were the days! " William Forde: February 26th, 2016.

February 25th, 2016.

25/2/2016

Thought for today:
"I recall a number of years ago seeing gangs of youths walking around the streets dressed in hoodies. It wasn't their numbers that intimidated me, but the fact that they concealed their identities from the other passers by. I suppose that in some way, it was like seeing cowboys from the days of the wild west wearing bandanas which concealed their identities when they held up a stage coach and robbed a bank or when they covered their faces on long dusty cattle treks to market as they rode at the rear of the herd.

Women of some Islamic traditions daily dress in the Burka; a garment that covers them from head to toe and which is used to preserve their modesty. The fact that faces are concealed offends the sensibilities of many who also find this practice intimidating. It is as though when one cannot see what lies beneath a hood or face covering, then something untoward must be going on beneath the veil; some evil thoughts must be being thought or some wicked action intended.

I realise that we are now living in more violent and uncertain times when suspicions are raised more easily and one person is capable of doing all manner of wrong to countless others, simply because they follow a different religion, support a different political group or hold widely different opinions on this or that; even because they look different, act differently or come from far away places and are culturally different!

I also accept that while each country in the world has a humane responsibility to assist and assimilate asylum seekers as Britain has done on many occasions in the past, that to operate a policy of 'uncontrolled emigration' for the economic migrant is neither helpful nor viable to the indigenous person or newcomer! I still recall in 1972, when President Idi Amin of Uganda expelled almost 60,000 of his people from their country besides killing between another 100,000 and 500,000, and the British response. At that time, only Great Britain welcomed the expelled Ugandans, who in turn prospered as successful shop keepers and business men here, because they brought added skills and chose to culturally fit into their adopted country.

When my family and many other Irish families came to England during the 1940s, it wasn't to change the English culture and customs, but to have a better life in the form of occupation, accommodation and future prospects; things that were in short supply back in Ireland. I won't pretend that relationships with one's new neighbours was always dinky dory and that when natural disagreements occurred between a native to West Yorkshire and an Irish immigrant, that name calling like tinker and exhortations to 'Go back to your own country and take your popery with you' didn't take place. Of course it did!

The discrimination hurt deeply at the time, but it didn't diminish our character or destroy our future. Neither did we allow such insults to keep us segregated from the larger English community or divorced from their affections. Within a short time we were truly integrated with English customs and the family adopted those customs we liked whilst ignoring those we didn't. I will always remain grateful to England for offering my family a home and a future. All that we aspired to over the years, all that we have and all we became, none of this would have been possible if England hadn't accommodated us during the 1940s in our time of need.

When I read about the rest of the world, both during the 1940s and today, the discrimination displayed by the English at the time (although admittedly wrong), was no more than any other country in the world and was in many ways much less! Whereas the discrimination of the English was exercised mainly through name calling and denying equal status, other nations were cutting off hands for having stolen a few coppers or lynching those citizens from trees whose facial features were harder to identify in the dark of night!

I doubt that the present problems in the world will be sorted out in my life time, or indeed if they ever will, but what I do know, what I instinctively feel is that the English are a compassionate nation and shall, in the end, do their bit and play their part in helping any new neighbour to our shores, whatever dress they choose to wear." William Forde: February 25th, 2016.

February 24th, 2016

24/2/2016

Thought for today:
"We all have at least one dark secret in our lives which we would do anything to keep unknown from the world; a secret so shocking that we would never tell our best friend, spouse, family member, total stranger or soul mate, because we acted so wrong at the time and have been ashamed of the incident ever since. I'll tell you mine, if you promise not to think too badly to me.

Many years ago, fifty to be precise, while out in Canada, I sometimes took a boat out on my own. I would go out of Toronto Bay and spend a sunny weekend afternoon drifting aimlessly without a care in the world. At the time, although I always had an eye for the ladies, I would never give way to impropriety of any kind. Indeed, my late dear mother always told me as a child, 'When you grow up, Billy, be a man of the world by all means, but always polish your shoes before you go out and wear clean underpants in case you have an accident and finish up in hospital, and whatever the circumstances you find yourself in, always behave like 'a proper gentleman.'

I took these words of my mum on board and I have always kept them without fail. But what's this dark secret I hear you ask yourselves that shamed me ever since? One sunny afternoon while sailing the Toronto Lake, I went far farther out in the water than I'd ever gone before. Suddenly I heard screaming, lots and lots of ladies screaming their heads off fearfully. They seemed to be half a mile away and the boat they were in was in the process of sinking. An old repair had seemingly opened up on its underside and they were frantically trying to bale out the excess water with cupped hands, but their efforts were proving futile and the water was coming into their boat quicker than they could cup it out. 'Save us! For God's sake, somebody save us before we drown', they screamed.

After spotting my boat in the far distance, hope entered their bodies and they started to shout for help in my direction as they waved their hands to attract my attention. Seeing them obviously in distress I sailed towards them, but as I drew closer and started to see them more clearly, I saw that every single boat occupant drowning was a naked woman crying out for help.

Having never been confronted with such a sight or dilemma before, my mother's advice to me as a child came rushing back to my rescue, 'When you grow up, Billy, be a man of the world by all means, but..................... whatever the circumstances you find yourself in, always behave like 'a proper gentleman.'

There was simply no way that I could manhandle a lady from her sinking boat to mine safely, while casting my eyes away, especially if the lady was not my wife and was stark naked! So sadly, I did the only thing that any proper gentleman in my circumstances could have done; I turned my boat around and returned to Toronto Bay as the fourteen naked ladies went down with their boat and disappeared beneath the water line!

In your dreams! I've no intention of telling any of you lot my dark shameful secret. I'll take it to my grave first!" William Forde: February 24th, 2016.

February 23rd, 2016.

23/2/2016

Thought for today:
"Never regret growing older, for it is a privilege denied to many. While I cannot recall being held in the arms of my grandmother as an infant, I know that I was and I also know that I undoubtedly benefited from it.

There are many children born into the world who have never had the privilege of knowing their grandparents. Such people have truly missed out on knowing one of the most important people ever to grace a child's existence. Grandmothers are not only a vital link to our past, but are often the mainstay of the present.

I was the first born of seven children to my mother. I was born inside the home of my grandmother's house at 14, William Street, Portlaw, County Waterford, Ireland. To be precise about the location, it was on the third mattress on the floor of the front bedroom. While many an Irish man has been born at home instead of in a hospital maternity ward, most mothers giving birth usually have the benefit of a solid bed and not three mattresses stacked upon each other to give birth on! At the time of my birth, mum and dad lived thirty miles apart; he with his family in Kilkenny and she at her parent's house. Being a small terraced cottage that housed a large family, mum like all the mums of her time, had a home birth and made do with what they had.

I later learned that my mother, aunties Nelly and Nora and Uncle Willie had been born on mattress number one which came from Killenaule, County Tipperary and my uncles Johnie and Tommy were born on mattress number two which was purchased in Waterford. Mattress number three didn't occupy 14, William Street long before my birth and was purchased second hand in the nick of time in County Kilkenny where my father lived. It was carried by him to Portlaw, some thirty miles, rested across the handle bars and saddle of his bicycle, two weeks before I was due to enter the world.

With my mother still needing to work part time after my birth and my father living in another county, my grandparents looked after me a great deal of the time. Now let me say here and now, by 'looked after me' I mean that they were around doing their daily work in the same house and looked in my direction when they happened to pass me. My grandfather was the man in the village who mended all the bicycles from his garden shed. I recall that he would rarely get paid for his labour in cash; often woodbines and home-grown food produce would be the payment offered. He was always busy smoking his woodbines (over forty a day) and mending his old bicycles in his shed. Whenever I went into his shed, he would puff his cigarette in his mouth without ever holding it in his hand and say, 'Your grandma has a biscuit she has just baked for you, Billy Forde. Don't let it get cold now. Now, go away and let me get on mending this bike!'

And sure enough, upon going back inside the house, Grandma would always give me a biscuit when I asked for one. Grandma Fanning was always cooking on her big black range. She baked her own soda bread and would always break off the end of the loaf to eat after she had scraped away the excess burn marks. Soda bread and salty Irish butter has always been a favourite with me ever since childhood. Grandma rarely cleaned her range and always swore that the food cooked and tasted better that way as too much cleaning washed away all the natural goodness.

I soon learned that what happens in grandma's kitchen stays in grandma's kitchen. We had our daily secrets and one of them would be not to tell my granddad that she frequently stole an odd Woodbine of his out of his packet when he wasn't looking. Grandma did not believe that whatever one marriage partner took from the other without their consent constituted 'theft.' I would usually get a buttered biscuit or a piece of soda bread for keeping her secrets, but years later, when I returned for holidays in my teens and smoked myself, I would sometimes get blamed for pinching the odd Woodbine from granddad's cigarette packet when grandma had stolen it and denied it!

Grandma Fanning wasn't a pretty woman in the attractive looks department and had a lived-in face. She'd had a hard life and being the eldest girl in a large family, she'd been forced to miss out much of her childhood years and grow up long before her time. Her skin was lined upon the bones of her face by the weather-beaten years she'd endured working outside in all climates of her childhood when she ought to have been at school, and her early teens had taken its toll upon what little facial beauty remained. She looked older than her years and in the centre of her face protruded a big nose that was large enough to hang a kettle on!

Just before my fifth birthday, mum, dad, me and my two younger sisters (who'd themselves had been privileged with a hospital birth), came to West Yorkshire, where we lived and prospered. Every other year my mother would miss paying the household bills for a week and take us to my grandparents in Ireland for a holiday. She invariably arrived penniless and my grandparents would freely put us up until we'd eaten them out of house and home.

My grandparents loved each other in their own way, but neither were too demonstrative in the expression of their affections. They had this peculiar habit of hardly speaking to each other during the day, but then when they came to bed on a nighttime, they would talk and smoke in bed for hours before they went to sleep.They died within a few months of each other in their mid seventies.

I had reached my twenties by the time my grandparents died. I came to understand in later years that a grandma is only a mum with lots of practice, and who is privileged to have two goes at motherhood. I guess that it is such a privilege being the mother of a mother and that there is no grander person to be. Being my mother's first child and my grandmother's first grandchild made me extra special in her eyes. She used to say, 'Billy Forde, perfect love doesn't arrive until the first grandchild comes along!'

Grandma will always remain a special person in my life and when I die, my wife has been instructed to have a part of my ashes scattered on Haworth Moor, a part on my parents' grave in Heckmondwike and the third part scattered on my grandparents' grave in Portlaw, Ireland." William Forde: February 23rd, 2016.

February 22nd, 2016.

22/2/2016

Thought for today:
"There are lots of people in this great big world of ours who I would give the 'thumbs up' to. The vast majority are triers; the ones who simply refuse to give up at the first, second or even the third attempt. Such people are an inspiration to the rest of us. They may realise that they cannot stop the waves of change arriving on their shores, but they simply refuse to be drown by them and instead learn to surf them.

I give the thumbs up to those women who have had a miscarriage or stillbirth and still keep trying to give birth to a child: to those unemployed people who have sent off hundreds of job applications and keep on doing so : to the homeless who refuse to become heartless : to the soldier who has come back from the war zone with fewer limbs than he set out with and needs to readjust to his new life from the arms of a wheelchair: to the learner driver who has taken a dozen failed tests and is still determined to pass : to the pupil who is daily bullied and still goes to school to face down the bully: to all folk with terminal illnesses who refuse to make today their final day : to those who have lost a loved family member or soul mate but refuses to lose all memory of them: to the nurses, doctors, surgeons and all medical staff who live daily surrounded by the dying, but who carry on their attempts to heal: to those who feel like taking their own life, but stay around to face another day: to those who had a poor relationship with a parent and were never told they were loved as a child, but who are determined to relate well to their child and never allow a day to pass without telling them they are loved: to the person who has loved and lost, but keeps one's heart open to the possibility of a new love in their life: to the couple who made their lifelong marriage work against all odds: to the poor person who still shares with their neighbour the little they possess: to all those lost individuals whose search for self is still ongoing.

All of these amazing people can be found in any street at any time, though we may not recognise their daily plight. To all of these amazing people I give the 'thumbs up.' All such people learn from their yesterdays, live for today and hope for tomorrow. Whatever befalls them night or day, they never quit their day dream. They are an example to us all and make the world a better place for others. Thumbs up to them all." William Forde: February 22nd, 2016.

February 21st, 2016.

21/2/2016

Thought for today:
"To get the most from life, we should live today as though there was no tomorrow. Be not frightened of the public gaze if you wish to go out into the world. Be yourself, as that is the least pretentious person you will ever become. Never be afraid to smile as this action is the most disarming of all personal weapons we have in our armory, especially with strangers. A smile is so powerful when it is unforced; it has been known to have saved the day of many a person it was given to. If you don't know where to find your smile, it is located immediately beneath your nose. Only when we are liberated enough to put our tongue out at the world dressed in all its serious finery can we say that we are truly free." William Forde: February 21st, 2016.