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      • No Need to Look for Love
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        • The Tannery Wager
        • 'Fini and Archie'
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        • 'Forgotten Love'
      • The Priest's Calling Card >
        • Chapter One - The Irish Custom
        • Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
        • Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
        • Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
        • Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
        • Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
        • Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
        • Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
        • Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
        • Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
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        • Chapter One - The Portlaw Runt
        • Chapter Two - Tony Arrives in California
        • Chapter Three - Tony's Life in San Francisco
        • Chapter Four - Tony and Mary
        • Chapter Five - The Portlaw Secret
      • The Oldest Woman in the World >
        • Chapter One - The Early Life of Sean Thornton
        • Chapter Two - Reporter to Investigator
        • Chapter Three - Search for the Oldest Person Alive
        • Chapter Four - Sean Thornton marries Sheila
        • Chapter Five - Discoveries of Widow Friggs' Past
        • Chapter Six - Facts and Truth are Not Always the Same
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        • Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
        • Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
        • Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
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        • Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
        • Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
        • Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
        • Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
        • Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
        • Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
      • The Alternative Christmas Party >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
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        • Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
        • Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Four : Early Manhood
        • Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
        • Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
        • Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
        • Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
        • Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
        • Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
        • Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
      • The life and times of Joe Walsh >
        • Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
        • Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
        • Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
        • Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
        • Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
        • Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
        • Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
        • Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
        • Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
        • Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
        • Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
      • The Woman Who Hated Christmas >
        • Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
        • Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
        • Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
        • Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
        • Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
        • Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
        • Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
        • Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
        • Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
        • Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
        • Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
        • Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
        • Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
      • The Last Dance >
        • Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
        • Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
        • Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
        • Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
        • Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
        • Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
        • Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
      • 'Two Sisters' >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
      • Fourteen Days >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
      • ‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’ >
        • Author's Foreword
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        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
        • Chapter Eighteen
        • Chapter Nineteen
        • Chapter Twenty
        • Chapter Twenty-One
        • Chapter Twenty-Two
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Song For Today: 28th February 2021

28/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to six birthday celebrants. First, we wish a happy birthday to my great-nephew, Christian Eggett who lives in Heckmondwike, Liversedge, West Yorkshire: Happy birthday also to Maura Traynor Logan who lives in Kilkenny, Ireland: Rebekah Ashworth who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire: Frank Kelly who originates from Ferns, Ireland but who now lives in Odense, Denmark: Gavin John who lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire: Becky O’Reilly who lives in Piltown, Kilkenny, Ireland. Enjoy your special day and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song today is ‘Summertime’. This is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera ‘Porgy and Bess’. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel ‘Porgy’ on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin.

The song soon became a popular and much-recorded jazz standard, described as "without doubt one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote. Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century".

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Summertime, like every season of the year, has always been important to me, and none more than this summer of 2021. Like the rest of the nation, I have been disheartened by the repeated lockdowns and restrictions placed on all of us. An additional burden to me and Sheila over the past year has been an unwelcome progression of one of my three body cancers to a more advanced stage from which a cure is no longer possible. From my three different body cancers, two cancers are now assessed as being terminal, and the most aggressive of my skin cancer has shortened my lifespan to the extent that this summertime could well be my last.

As the country sees signs of many of its lockdown restrictions being lifted over the months ahead due to the increase vaccination programme in the population, and hopefully the decrease and control of Covid-19 virus and its several variants, I look forward to this year more than all previous years in my life.

I look forward to enjoying the warmth and new growth of spring, followed by the magic of summer evenings and summer shade in our allotment, along with a glorious display of flowers, bushes, and newly leafed trees. I want my next autumn to reflect in its variety of leaf foliage the most colours I have ever seen in one place at the same time and the breeze that blows through the trees to be the most welcoming and embracing.

As for next winter, I want to see snow on Christmas day and hear the unmistakable pleasure and excitable voices of young children sledging down snowy hillside slopes, building snowmen, and throwing snowballs in gleeful abandonment. I want to see the Christmas tree that Sheila and I planted in our allotment four years ago, pass my own height, and be able to imagine it standing there fifty years hence.

For the moment, however, I will not think beyond this spring and summertime, as I want these newly-born seasons to be every bit as good as if nature knew they could be my last. Let me plant new growth in our allotment this season, for this is the best way of seeing new tomorrows dawn. What I really love about summertime is that nature's song sings itself, and all that we need do is to breathe in the air of intoxication and delight in all the beauty which surrounds us.

For many years a robin revisited our allotment every spring, but last year we never saw it and feared some misfortune had occurred to it. I want to see our friendly robin approach ever so near again, to eat the crumbs on the ground as it bobs its head up and down in gratitude. I want to watch the worm bury its head beneath the garden soil once more until the robin has flown, enabling it to resurface. I want to see a kaleidoscopic invasion of my favourite Red Admiral butterflies flutter in flight as they revisit our allotment this summertime after several years of absence. Such would be a pleasure in itself to see the return of an old friend. I want to feel a sudden breeze gently brush across my face in the pleasant warmth of a summer’s afternoon and feel the presence of the angel of nature. Butterflies have such a short lifespan yet they fly fearlessly enjoying their briefest of lives without ever bothering about their inevitable demise.

What better blanket of love is there to be wrapped in than an English summer warming the relaxed body of an Irish man in his Garden of Eden as his beautiful wife bends and busies herself harvesting new potatoes to cook and serve for her man’s evening meal with a good lashing of salted Irish butter?

Springtime and summertime; are my best times, anytime, and for all time.

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 27th February 2021

27/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to three of my Facebook contacts who celebrate their birthday today. We wish a happy birthday to Roseanne Manton who lives in Cashel, Tipperary, Ireland: Alan Troake who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England: Mary Lyons who lives in Ireland (unaware of precise location). We hope our three birthday celebrants have an enjoyable day and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song today is ‘Call Me Irresponsible’. This 1962 song was composed by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics written by Sammy Cahn. The song won the 'Academy Award for Best Original Song’ in 1963. It is believed that Van Heusen originally wrote the song for Judy Garland to sing at a CBS dinner. At that time, Garland had just signed to do ‘The Judy Garland Show’ on CBS, and the intent of the song was to parody her well-known problems. Garland later sang the song on the seventh episode of the show. Another account was that the song was originally written for Fred Astaire to sing in the film ‘Papa’s Delicate Condition’, but Astaire’s contractual obligations prevented him from making the film and the role went to Jackie Gleason who introduced the song. The song is filled with five-syllable words of which Cahn was said to be particularly pleased.

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PLEASE CONSIDER THE LENGTHY PASSAGES OF WRITING BENEATH OPTIONAL TO READ.

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We are all free to choose but none of us is freed from the consequences of our choice, and it is the bad consequences of some choices which label us ‘irresponsible’. Given the better part of a lifetime working with people’s problem behaviour, I am only too aware of how often most of us choose the easier option as a means of avoidance as opposed to confronting problems. I learned that the greatest part of people problems is our tendency to avoid, evade or even deny the consequences of our actions and the part we play in producing our own problems, or at least aggravating and intensifying them!

The single thing most frequently denied by these problem makers is the truth/facts of the situation. Truth is often like unwanted surgery; it cures but pains and is not always comfortable to live with afterwards. They find self-deception to be an easier option, which is likened to taking a painkiller that can provide more instant relief but never addresses the cause of the pain and can leave the taker living with adverse side effects. I believe that most people would learn from their mistakes easier if they stopped spending so much time and energy denying them.

Then, there are some people who live their lives as drama queens by turning every inconvenience that befalls them into a personal crisis. It is as though they cannot function without creating social storms and then complain and whine when crisis after crisis rains down on them. They make sure that they are always a part of an explosive situation as they are the ones who plant the bombs of self-destruction. They bring down upon their own head a crown of chaotic consequences which evoke the ‘look-at-poor-me’ cry of whinge and complaints. Give me honest to goodness ‘truth’ over insincere conscientious convenience any day of the week. My mother used to say, “You will hurt me less, Billy, if you slap me across my face with the truth than kiss me with a lie”. One of the reasons people do not always want to hear the truth is that to acknowledge the existence of a bad situation requires changing it!

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I was born in November 1942, during the ‘Second World War’ years, and although I was a mere child at the time, there was little of its aftermath that we were protected from. There was still rationing of food until 1950, and it took several decades before the British economy recovered and a more acceptable standard of living came into being for the working-class families in the country.

The contrast in the standard of living for the entire country over the past seventy years could not be greater. Things that full-time welfare claimants with a couple of children to bring up today take for granted and constantly complain is ‘insufficient’ would have been considered the height of luxury by the ordinary working classes of the 1940s with the breadwinner in full-time employment!

The increased prosperity in any nation brings with it an inevitable corresponding increase in citizen expectation, plus a lengthening of individual life span. Yet, few can claim to be starving in this country today, and from whichever source their food is derived, at least provision is made to the bulk of the population. None of this is to deny the current-day experience of perceived poverty by many citizens, but neither can I deny my own experience and those experiences of others of my age who formed the working-class households of my childhood years.

I hear the deafening outcry by every man, woman and child who believe themselves to be inadequately resourced and provided for in this country today, but let me tell you that however scarce your supply of food is today, it is a feast to what I had when I was growing up just after the ‘Second World War’. Those who complain about inadequate housing conditions never had to fetch water from a pump half a mile away instead of turning a tap today for their instant supply. Neither were they obliged to bathe in a tin tub of second and third-hand water because of the lack of money to heat up clean water for the next bather in line. Even the rough sleepers of today do not wear trousers with patched arses or have to walk in holed shoes with nothing but cardboard strips between the sole of the foot and the stony ground or damp pavement. Even refugees fleeing the poverty of third world countries across the other side of the world are seen wearing designer gear and footwear that costs more to buy than my parents ever had to provide for the family food any month of the year.

There is simply no comparison with either the material expectation and the poverty of the late 1940s and today, and people who imagine that they are worse off now than the population was then are simply living in a world of make-belief. Many were the nights when the young in large families were sent to bed early because of having no food to eat. As for bed blankets, I still recall when I wore my coat during the day, and it added extra cover to my bed at night.

Indeed, there were many times in my day when children from working-class households who became patients in the hospital for a broken leg might not go home immediately after hospital discharge. Many children were considered undernourished and would spend a few weeks at a Convalescent Home before returning home. What was the purpose you may ask? It was to feed us up with nourishing food that we could never afford at home in a large working-class family. I recall two such Convalescent Home experiences which I welcomed as a holiday; one in Arthington, and one next door to the beach holiday camp of Butlins at Skegness on the Lincolnshire coastline of North England. On each occasion, I arrived back home much weightier than I had been when I left.

As for millionaire footballers like Marcus Rasford agitating that the government paid for children’s meals during school holiday periods, pull the other one. Incidentally, I am not saying that my own father was as good a footballer as Marcus Rashford, but at the same age as Rashford, dad also played soccer for County Kilkenny and even went on to play for the Irish national squad. The biggest difference to then than now was that my dad did not earn millions of pounds monthly like Marcus. Indeed, none of the National squad was paid a wage. All they ever received was travelling expenses and the glory of being selected to play for one’s country!

I do believe that the average citizen took greater responsibility for the consequences of their own actions in the immediate post-war years, which is often alien to the present time. When you broke the law of the land in my youth, you received a punishment commensurate with the gravity of the offence committed. The punishments might range from a physical cuff around the head (the equivalent of a policeman’s warning to an apple thief raiding a private orchard of another) or a fine for not having a wireless (radio) or a dog licence, or a few years imprisonment for burglary, or thirty years for a Post Office or Bank Robbery, and a life sentence for rape or the molestation of a child, and the capital punishment of hanging for killing a policeman in the execution of his duty!

And even if the law of the land did not punish the offender, the community in which the offender lived did! If you stole from an employer, you would be instantly sacked and all pension rights forfeited, and if you stole from a neighbour you would be instantly shamed in the community where you lived. When a young man fathered a child, he did the only thing expected of him and married the young woman, and she was also expected to accept the marriage proposal before bringing approbation on the ‘respectability’ of the family name. When a newly-wed man or woman fell out with their marriage partner and returned to their parent’s house for a bit of sympathetic support, the parents told them to get back to their husband or wife and sort things out themselves. Self-reliance was a parental expectation of all their children, and when their children did wrong, it was an explanation that the responsible parent sought and not the provision of excuses.

And, so it followed that as the child grew into adulthood, their sense of responsibility and duty also grew alongside them. Once an individual was an adult, a married person, and a parent, they were expected to deal with their own basic situation and not to look to one’s parents, friends, or the state to give them a ‘hand out’ because they refused to wear clothes to the cut of their cloth. Adult married children were not bailed out every other month by the bank of mum and dad. All children grew into adulthood understanding the crucial distinction between a ‘hand up’ and a ‘hand out’! It was considered that holding any type of work was honourable and being workshy was to be wholly disapproved of. I still recall what my father said one evening when the politician Norman Tebbit was talking about getting on his bike to look for a job. My father retorted, “Even bikes were scarce when work was short. They would be sold to buy food. Anyone wanting a job would have to walk up to ten miles a day asking at every firm they passed!”

Yes ‘self-respect’ and one's good name’ were the only things a poor person possessed. Either could be forfeited by one’s misconduct, but neither could ever be taken away from an individual by another. Neighbours losing community respect would be shunned by one’s neighbours during their period of penance. Respect for children, pregnant women, one’s parents, one’s elders and widows were inbred characteristics of the entire population, whatever their social class. These were the days when a handshake between two men and a spoken promise were as legally binding as any solicitor’s contract.

Naturally, there is progression and regression that takes place in every generation, and my generation was both better and worse (in some respects) than today’s generation. In the main, society was more racist and sexist in my day, and more intolerant toward gays, more unaccepting of unmarried pregnant women, and despising of all violent and sexual offenders.

Where my generation and the generation today are undoubtedly the same is in the following. Both generations are more favourable toward the native than the foreigner, more favourable towards the richer than the poorer, and more deferential towards the more educated than the illiterate. In these three areas, little has changed despite superficial claims to the contrary.

Where I believe we were better then than now was in the’ social cohesion’ of society. We had more in common with whatever social class we occupied then than we do today, and each class structure represented a set of values that were more acceptable to that class. As for anyone who believes we have no class structure today and have deconstructed all social class-difference, I am afraid they deceive themselves. The style of the garment that cloaks a person may have changed from generation to generation, but the person beneath the clothes still treasures the differences between themselves and another, along with their aspiration to climb any social ladder placed at their feet. Difference, distinction and discrimination will always remain a constant in any society of any generation; such is human nature. Some people will always believe themselves to be better than others and lesser than some.

Take for example an English person’s home which their labour, sweat and hard-earned earnings allowed them to eventually own outright. Now, place that old person in a ‘Residential Home when they become senile and are unable to be safely looked after by their family, somewhere in a country where neither national nor local government has sufficient funds to pay for their continued care and upkeep. Let us assume that they will never live in their own house again, and also allow the local authority to sell the home of their resident, and pocket all the sale profit to pay towards the old person’s future Residential Care. Imagine the outcry? It matters not whether it is a house to the value of £50,000 or £1,000,000, the uniformed outcry is one of ‘unfairness’ as the expectation of all classes in England is that we do not pay taxes on the same earned income twice and that what we have purchased with our own taxed money will be left as an inheritance to our children when we die. That is the intrinsic expectation of every Englishman and woman of all classes.

Where we were better in my generation than to the generation of today was in having a more cohesive and self-reliant society. We also enjoyed a common code that was embedded in community values that were agreed upon and accepted by all. There was an indisputable community spirit that does not generally exist as widely as it did then (but has been witnessed in the present Covid-19 crisis). As I grew up, the neighbour looked after neighbour in times of need without being asked to, and the only time the neighbour pulled their curtains on during the day was to signify a death in the household. We looked out for each other’s back automatically, and as far as family responsibility went, it stretched throughout all living generations of the same family unit. We considered our children, ourselves, and our older family members to be the responsibility of the nuclear family and not the responsibility of the state.

We should never forget that poverty and wealth are ‘relative’ terms and always will be. What is poor to you, might be rich to another. Merely think about the third world countries in relation to our nation. One is less likely to consider oneself as being poor if you have more than the people around you, and vice versa.

However, what should not change and arguably does not change, however poor or rich we believe ourselves to be, is our responsibility to self, others, and the world in which we live. Though times change, and relative prosperity and poverty levels alter, personal ‘responsibility’ for both the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’ should remain a constant trait in every generation, but unfortunately there has been nothing constant about the growth or maintenance of individual responsibility over the past seventy years. As the state has been pressed consistently to assume more financial responsibility for the individual, the individual has assumed less financial responsibly for themselves. Coming to expect and accept more state responsibility has unfortunately led to individuals paying a heavier price than they can know.

Have we never heard the saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune!” We see day after day in our current pandemic crisis, our basic freedoms being taken from us one by one, by governments across the world overreaching in their desire to control our very daily movements. When this pandemic crisis passes by, these governments which took our freedoms will be most reluctant to return them to us, I strongly suspect. That is the real price our 'irresponsibility has cost us since the Second World War years.

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 26th February 2021

26/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Mary Hogan, who originates from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary but who now lives in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland.
My song today is ‘You’re My World’. This ballad was originally recorded in 1963 as ‘ll Mio Mondo’ (‘My World’) by Umberto Bindi, who co-wrote the Italian version with Gino Paoli. The song was given English lyrics by Carl Sigman as “You're My World”. The song reached No. 1 in Australia (twice), Belgium, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom in recordings by Cilla Black: Daryl Braithwaite: Guys and Dolls: Helen Reddy. The versions by Cilla Black and Helen Reddy reached the ‘US Top 40’ in 1964 and 1977, respectively. The song also reached Number 1 in France and Spain in the respective translations ‘Ce monde’ and ‘Mi Mundo’, both sung by Richard Anthony.

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Whenever I hear this song it always reminds me of an emotional problem that bedevils therapists the world over when they meet it in the lives of their clients; ‘loving a person too much'. I suppose when I look at this unusual problem, I would have to say it is less ‘loving a person too much’ and more ‘not loving oneself enough’.
All situations which are difficult to resolve invariably contain an emotional component to them. Allow me to remind you that all behaviour patterns are made up from Thought-Feeling-Action, and it is in that sequence that all our acts start and end, and our behaviour patterns are comprised. First, we ‘Think’ about something, next we formulate a ‘Feeling’ about what we have just thought about, and then our body muscles are instructed automatically to ‘Act’ upon our initial thought.

When our initial thought is a ‘Positive Thought’, the feeling that follows is automatically a ‘Positive Feeling’, and the action that follows is invariably a ‘Positive Action’. Conversely, when our initial thought is a ‘Negative Thought’, the feeling that follows is automatically a ‘Negative Feeling’, and the action that follows is invariably a ‘Negative Action’.

Please note that the action which follows the feeling is ‘invariably’ and not ‘automatically’ of the same quality of the thought and feeling that preceded it. The reason is that the individual has the power to reverse the process at the action stage. By changing their initial ‘thought’ instruction they can reverse the automatic ‘feeling’ that follows, and which invariably produces a corresponding ‘action’.

Next, I would remind you that much of any individual’s daily life is composed of ‘talking to oneself’. This is a mental process that therapists describe as ‘self-talk’. Most of the time, we do not act upon 99 percent of the thoughts that pass through our head, but sometimes we mentally instruct our body muscles to act in a particular way, and to ensure that our body acts as we have mentally instructed it to do, we formulate a corresponding feeling of quality and strength to propel the muscles into action.

So often one or both parties of a loving couple will constantly tell themselves repeatedly (along with the rest of the world), “I love my partner as much as life itself! They are my soulmate and my whole world. They are my sole reason for living and were anything ever to happen that left me without them, it would be so awful I would not be able to stand it, and I would feel like dying without them beside me.”

So many loving couples love their partner ‘too much’ (which means at the expense of them forgetting to love themselves sufficiently). They may have enjoyed fifty years of happily married life before illness takes one of them to the grave. During their lifetime together, one of them might have self-talked in the way described in the previous paragraph; not once or occasionally, but literally hundreds or thousands of times. Often, they will have engaged in a lifetime of such self-talk, believing every word they say to be truthful. When the sad event inevitably happens, their body demands that they pay the price for years and years of instructive self-talk by ensuring that their body now acts like they had been telling themselves for years and years that they expect it to act when left without their loving partner!

Another thing to appreciate about mental/body coordination, instruction, and function is that the mind has a memory box in which it stores all manner of ‘anticipated experiences’, and when the time arrives for those anticipated experiences to be enacted, the thought processes will delve into the memory box where it will find the ‘anticipated experience’ it has stored away repeatedly. Once the ‘anticipated experience’ has been located, the brain then instructs the body how to correspondingly feel in consequence of the anticipated event having happened (the feared death of one’s loving partner). The subject has unknowingly self-hypnotised themselves into future feelings and actions by the strengthening of repeated self-talk of a similar kind over many years. Through constantly saying ‘how they will feel when their loving partner dies', and leaves them on their own, the bereaved person is effectively engaged in the thought-feeling-action process of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell yourself a lie enough times and you will eventually start to believe it!

That is why we should be precise in the use of our language, as every word we tell ourselves has the effect of instructing our body to feel precise (not ‘approximately’ but ‘precisely'), how we told it to feel. In days gone by, our mothers might have told us to ‘walk tall’ or ‘walk proud’. As these two terms effectively mean the same thing our memory banks will have one box marked ‘walk tall’ and a second stored box marked ‘walk proud’. Both thoughts stored in our memory box will instruct our bodies to produce identical feelings (if ever called upon to do so), each of which will lead the body to walk upright.

The other thing that we need to understand is that the mind cannot tell the difference between what is ‘real’ and what is ‘imagined’. The reason behind this mental phenomenon is that feelings can be generated by an ‘inner image’ as well as a ‘visual sighting’ and that all mental instructions by the mind to the body carry their own corresponding image. Such enables a person to feel ‘inner sensations’ as well as ‘outer sensations’. In imagery terms, the mind and body do not distinguish between what is real (what is experienced by the outside world), and what is imagined (what is believed to be real internally). Consider a hypnotist who can produce body reactions and responses in their hypnotised subject which makes the subject believe what is to the outside audience observing nonsense. Or consider a patient who complains of excruciating pain, which the doctor has to put down to being ‘psychological’ instead of ‘physical’. Because there appears to be no earthly reason for the presence of such pain, a doctor or psychiatrist would assume that it is a mental aberration (a figment of the patient’s mind). The essence here is that to the patient, it matters not as the pain is present in their internal experience, and if another person considers their pain to be imagined, it does not prevent the pain from feeling real to them!

The simple fact is that to our mind and body, ‘truth’ is what we believe it to be. Consider for a moment someone we know as ‘Tom the tramp’ who lives rough and behaves strangely on all occasions and in any situation. Tom wears long shabby robes and a large metal bangle around his head that he calls his crown. Upon examination, a psychiatrist might diagnose ‘Tom’ as being mentally insane, and yet, as far as Tom is concerned, he believes he is King Henry 1V, and therefore he might dress and act as King Henry 1V. In fact, to all intents and purpose, in the experience of Tom, believes that he is King Henry 1V. Tom’s mind and body consider their inhabitant to be no less than King Henry 1V and will act in unison of this belief and the image Tom has of himself.

Indeed, after my childhood traffic accident at the age of 11 years, and three years of being unable to walk, having had four dozen operations on my left leg, I found myself with one leg being three inches shorter than the other leg. I have never worn a built-up boot and I refused to. I wanted my walk to readjust with my body as I grew older. Over the years ahead, I used mental imagery to instruct my body that I was walking with ‘a slight limp’ instead of walking with ‘a pronounced limp’ that would be expected with a three-inch leg-length deficiency! Through enjoining the ‘real’ and’ imagined’ with my own ‘self-talk’ and ‘belief’, I created a ‘new reality’ for myself that my mind and body acted upon. When I walked across the floor, I would imagine myself walking okay but with a 'slight limp’ that suggested one of my legs was one inch shorter than the other, instead of imagining walking with a 'pronounced limp’ that suggested one of my legs was three-inches shorter. Thus, my ‘belief’, my ‘imagination’, my precise ‘self-talk’ mentally instructed my body muscles to walk with a one-inch limp. And if you do not believe me, and you ever get the opportunity, watch me. To put it bluntly, I am walking proof of the validity of the theoretical process I have just espoused! Incidentally, the only time when I limped worse than usual was at the end of a mentally hard day, when my mind and my body were tired. Because of making myself walk with a lesser limp than a three-inch leg-length difference would suggest, over the decades, my two hips realigned themselves to physically enable me to walk in a ‘rolling action’ as opposed to moving ‘one-step-in-front-of-the-other’ action. The effect of this realignment also supported the physical minimisation I wanted in the extent of my limp from one of ‘pronounced’ to one of ‘slight’.

Anyone out there who is still emotionally distressed by the death of a loving partner long after their partner has died is effectively allowing their own belief and self-talk to delay and/prevent their bereavement process from being healthily and emotionally resolved. All those bereaved who always told themselves they could not bear life living without their partner until you start changing your self-talk from the former to something like the paragraph below you will never depart this graveyard memory.

This is the only way that you can healthily negotiate your bereavement period and grieve proportionately to the degree of sorrow you would be feeling today, had you not fed yourself an unhelpful self-fulfilling prophecy for decades through unnecessary and unhelpful self-talk.

Tell yourself this if you want to emotionally move on with your life:
“I loved my bereaved mate more than any man/woman I ever knew, and I am finding it hard to get by without them, but I know I must find a way that keeps them in my fond memory rather than as a living ghost in my actual life. I will always love them and never forget them, and because I never doubted how much they loved me in return, I know that they would want me to start loving myself more in the future. When they lived, they were my world because I made them my world. Rest assured that today, tomorrow, and thereafter, until the day I die, they will remain a very important part of my world, as I learn how to make myself a larger part of my world also.”

Love and peace
Bill xxx


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Song For Today: 25th February 2021

25/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to three Facebook friends today who celebrate their birthday. We wish a happy birthday to Fiona Denby who lives in Oakworth, West Yorkshire: Vladimir Gojanovic who lives in Sibenik, Croatia: Kay McAuley who comes from Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland. We hope that you all have an enjoyable day, and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song today is ‘You and Me Against the World’. This song was written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams. It was recorded by Helen Reddy in her 1974 album ‘Love Song for Jeffrey’.

The co-writers of the song saw their work as being a traditional love ballad, but Helen Reddy considered the song's lyrics as being too "paternalistic" to be convincing as a woman's declaration of love for a man. Instead, she interpreted the song as a mother singing to a child, which her version clarifies by its ending. The record reached Number 9 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in September 1974 and became the fourth of Reddy's six consecutive Adult Contemporary Number Ones. The song did equally well in Canada.

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The very first bond any person has is with their mother at birth and during their formative years. Being the first bond formed by the child usually makes it a special bond to all others that will be developed in one’s. With the sole exception of one’s marriage partner and soul mate, it is arguably the strongest of all bonds forged within one’s lifetime. Indeed, the bulk of most comedian’s jokes over the past hundred years has been built around the ‘mother-in-law’ image of being a marriage interferer and perpetual interloper into family affairs beyond her remit. Indeed, in many societies, the grandma figure is the most influential in the family network, naturally making mothers-in-law powerful also.

I know that as the oldest of seven children, probably the most important and influential relationship in my life was the one with my mother. It was as special and while the value range and traits I have today come from both parents, my predominant traits come from my mother.

Whereas dad was a practical, down-to-earth man, his roles as father, husband, and family provider for seven children ensured that he remained the most industrious of men. He was somewhat traditional in his belief that ‘hard work’ was the bedrock of manhood and individual character building. Dad would judge another person by how prepared they were to do whatever was required to get by. While being the proudest man I ever knew as well as being the most modest, he believed that no kind of work, however hard or lowly was beneath the dignity of any other man, woman, or child to perform. He also believed that whatever work one did in life, it was one's duty to do it as well as one possibly could, even if one’s job was sweeping floors. To do otherwise, my father believed was letting one’s self down as well as one’s employer. Being a person who was brought up in poverty, my father left school and all formal education before he had long been a teenager and entered the manual workforce to financially assist his family. Dad always valued hard work over that of education, and he rated lessons learned from 'the school of life’ before any other form of academic education or scholarly book learning.

My mother on the other hand was the opposite kind of person. Indeed, it frankly amazes me how the two of them ever got together as a couple, but they must have had something like ‘love’ going for them as they were together from marriage to death and parented seven children in the process of their lifelong marriage. Mum was a black-haired woman of attractive features. Her body was essentially an emotional vessel that contained too much love for her own good. Some would call her a soft touch as she would be known to empty her purse and give her last shilling to the first beggar to come her way with an outstretched hand, asking for money to buy a cup of tea when it was a bottle of stout that he was really seeking the funding for. Mum was compassionate, loving, understanding, and forgiving to a fault. Whereas most people only accord respect to another who truly deserves it, mum would bestow it on everyone she ever met, long before they ever earned it.

Mum gave voice to her emotions at the moment of their birth and she would rarely sit on her thoughts of any perceived injustice that she encountered to herself or another, be they family or stranger. Mum loved life down to her last breath. She could get lost in her life all day long and never want to be found again. It mattered not what household chore she did throughout her long day, she could always be found, smiling, singing, and smoking a cigarette in the process. In fact, she was probably the only person I ever knew who could smile, sing and smoke simultaneously!

Mum’s greatest regret was that my father never took her dancing. His feet were good enough to grace the soccer team of County Waterford and then the Irish National squad, but when it came to dance around the ballroom floor, mum said that he had two left feet. Mum was a woman who day-dreamed, sang, danced, and romanced in her head all day long as she performed her motherly duties about the home. Her day’s work was never done until late at night, and her only time when she would wind down was when she was telling me some Irish folk tale with the sincerity that it was every bit as true as the Gospel that the priest read out every Sunday at Mass.

Whereas my father was as solid as the ground he stood on, mum was the born adventurer and risk-taker. She always acted on her belief that a bird in the hand was worth more than two in the bush. She was never prepared to wait to buy something for tomorrow if she could borrow the money for it today. To mum, life was far too short for hanging around waiting for something to happen, so whenever life got too quiet for her, she made something happen! It was as though she knew she would be dead by her early sixties, so she was determined to get every bit of fun out of life that she could beforehand.

Until my mid-teens, I was light-fingered and would steal anything I could get my hands on. Most of my thefts remained undetected and could not be proven, but the local Bobby (policeman) knew me to be responsible for more than he ever caught me for. As for my early life of stealing, I always exercised a ‘Robin Hood’ conscience and value range. I never stole off poor folk, only shop keepers and the flowers from rich folk’s gardens. When I stole a bun or a few apples from a shop, I would always share my ill-gotten gains with a mate. I might even give a stolen plant or bunch of flowers from a garden to a kindly neighbour who had never experienced the gesture of holding a bunch of flowers in her hands as a gift from her husband.

The local policeman lived on the estate also and forever had his ear to the ground. He often knew what someone intended to do before they did, simply by listening to any loose talk around the estate. He was a regular visitor to our house. Knowing that I was always up to some trouble, if my dad opened the door to the inquiring policeman before the constable had told dad what I was supposed to have done, my father would say, “Take him away, Officer, and lock him up for the night. That will teach him to respect the property and belongings of other people!”

Whereas my mum’s response would be entirely the opposite if she opened the door. As soon as mum opened the door to a policeman asking, “Is your son, Billy, in Mrs. Forde?” mum would automatically reply, “Yes! He is, and he’s been here helping me all evening. Not once has he left my sight, so whatever you think he’s done, he hasn’t, and I’ll vouch for him if needs be!”

Mum always provided me with any alibi I ever needed, and it was her loyalty in this regard that lead me to believe that together, she and I against the world would beat it hands down every time. My wife Sheila also invokes the same feeling within me.

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 24th February 2021

24/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to eight Facebook friends who celebrate their birthday today. First and foremost is Chris Foster from Fareham in Hampshire. Chris is the father of three children and the husband to my favourite niece, Janie (but don’t tell the other nieces). We also wish a happy birthday to the other ‘Magnificent Seven’: Denise Booth who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire: Mary O’Keeffe who lives in Waterford, Ireland: Michael O’ Dwyer and Alison Hearne, both of whom originate from Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary but now live in Clonmel, Ireland: Amy Fleming who lives near Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Amy and my daughter Rebecca grew up as close friends: Paul Cook who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire, and who is a church friend: Last but by no means least is my good friend, Janet Fynn who lives in Knaresborough in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

Today’s song is ‘Perfect’. This a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran from his third studio album in 2017. The song reached Number 1 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’ and on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in the U.S.A. in December 2017. ‘Perfect’ became the UK Christmas Number 1 song for 2017. It also peaked at Number 1 in sixteen other countries, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand.

In March 2017, Sheeran broke the record set by Frankie Laine in 1953, by occupying all the top five positions in the United Kingdom and placing nine songs in the top ten of the 'UK Singles Chart’. Also, every single one of the sixteen tracks from his new album entered the top twenty. The song has literally won too many accolades to mention in this post.

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Whoever we are, everyone dreams of someday meeting and marrying the ‘perfect one’, but sadly we do not all achieve our dream. However hard we try to find the right one for us, circumstances often militate to prevent us ever attaining our dream, and discovering that state of perfect happiness and complete union with a soul mate.

Being in the right place at the wrong time, being with the right person at the wrong time, being with the right person in the wrong way or the wrong person in every way you ought not to be; each and all these circumstances will never provide the perfect conditions of ever meeting Mr or Mrs Right.

All my life I have been a hopeless romantic who would frequently fall in love. I suppose that as a trusting individual who respects honest emotional expression, I have always made myself emotionally available to any woman with a wholesome lifestyle and honourable values. Sometimes, I find that I have given my heart too readily, and on occasions (particularly where the relationship has been one of a physical attraction more than romantic attachment) I have not given my heart at all and have withheld the possibility of establishing an emotional bond.

I have messed up in the relationship stakes of my own life as much as anyone else has, and probably more often than most of you. Where I have prospered, where others may not have, is that I have always been there at the count. Like the Lottery slogan says, ‘You’ve got to be in it to win it!’. It is futile to stand outside of life and then wonder why you don’t have one! I have always been a player on the field of romance and have never watched from the side-lines. More importantly, I have never been frightened to prevent the possibility of my romantic adventures taking me to places I have not been to before and may be wary of exploring.

During my life, I have known the genuine love of a woman on many occasions, and each of these relationships has been worthwhile and are not regretted in the least. I have come to believe, however, that most relationships have a 'shelf life' and when the time comes that one person in the relationship changes their attitude, behaviour, and needs more than the other partner, then the couple’s continued happiness moves closer to the ‘sell-by-date’ of their partnership. It is true that several significant factors may persuade one or both parties in an unhappy relationship to stay with the relationship past its ‘sell-by-date’; preferring to eat stale bread as opposed to having no bread at all to digest! The length of the relationship, the age of the couple, the health of both parties, any children born to the union, the financial implications of a relationship breakup, and all manner of personal considerations may come into play when deciding whether to end a relationship or continue with it, however unsatisfactory.

If you still search for that relationship of lasting love, you may be lucky to find it, as Sheila and I have, but never fool yourself into believing that any relationship is truly perfect. The more perfect the relationship, the more fragile it is. It is also more difficult it is for outsiders to spot hairline cracks in china. Whereas ‘perfection’ is always the aspiration, it is rarely the achievement on this side of heaven, as it is simply impossible for either person not to be found wanting in one way or another. Were such perfect relationships possible, there would be no affairs, no divorces and infinitely less heartache caused by disagreements, bitter arguments, and broken relationships?

All people are complex individuals. We are shaped by our total experiences at the hands of our parental potters and primary influencers. Our parents, our family background and our overall experiences help form our characters and influence our lasting beliefs. We are each unique, not clones of any other. Even twins who share the same embryonic egg, differ in some major aspect of personality. We all seek lasting love and realise that our best chance of finding such happiness within a relationship with another involves finding someone who is truly prepared to share themselves with us in a spirit of love, truth, faithfulness, tolerance and understanding. It is a bonus if we find somebody who can occasionally leave some things unsaid, and who keeps a flag of forgiveness to fly close to hand, wherever required.

Look not therefore for an angel or a goddess, or a superman or superwoman in your partner, as you will not find one. Instead, be content with a good man/woman of substance who possesses human flaws as well as personal strengths. Look for love, honesty, faithfulness, charity, compassion, understanding, sensitivity, forgiveness, and goodness, and should you find all these attributes in one person, you have found as good a mate as you are ever likely to meet.

Such qualities exist in most good people, along with the human frailties of an individual who does not always get things right at the first attempt. Such people will have erred in the past but have since built their strength and wisdom from their mistakes and ignorance. Realising that they walked the wrong road, they possessed the strength of character to become a better person. They are most likely to be a combination of saint and sinner. Those are the ones to look for when seeking a partner of substance. As a jeweller friend of mine once told me, “The rougher the diamond, Bill, the more solid the stone and the better they polish up!”

I was fortunate to find my woman of substance in my wife, Sheila, and it is my fervent wish that every heart can find true love in the heart of another, as we share. I know that each of us is good people, but I also know that neither are flawless personalities. What is perfect about our relationship, however, is the love we share for each other.

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 23rd February 2021

23/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to two Facebook friends who celebrate their birthdays. They are Ceily Power O’Leary who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland, and Kez Pageous who originates from Cleckheaton but now lives in Skipton, West Yorkshire. In the past Kez lived in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

My song today is ‘One Fine Day’. This song was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It first became a popular hit in the summer of 1963 for the American girl group ‘The Chiffons’, who reached the top five on the ’Billboard Hot 100’ chart. In 1980, Carole King covered it herself and charted at Number 12 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart with her version, becoming her last Top 40 hit. The song has subsequently been covered by numerous artists over the years.

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Today’s song reminds me less about climate change and more about some individuals who are known as being ‘fair weather friends’. The world is experiencing all manner of extreme weather due to climate change; even England, who always experienced the four seasons as regular as clockwork until the end of the last century. For centuries, the English citizen came to expect the warmth and fine weather of spring, the hot and sultry weather of summer, the brisk and windy weather of autumn, and the cold and snowy weather of winter, and without fail, we would experience the four seasons annually in that order.

I love the different weather conditions we experience, with the exception of the floods that risk life and ruin homes and livelihoods for so many these days. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, and snow is exhilarating. Indeed, for most of my life, we rarely experienced bad weather, only different kinds of good weather in the eyes of the positively inclined. Indeed, my allotment buddy, Brian, tells me that us tough tykes from up north in Yorkshire believe that there is no such thing as bad weather, only soft southerners.

The lessons that nature teaches us are little different than what mankind can learn from their own nurture and human traits. Mankind, like the forces of the sea, is advanced and driven back by the tidal events which we experience during our lifetime.

Often, I have encountered people who believed themselves insignificant in their life and who think that their views are unimportant enough to be listened to. My advice to any such persons of low self-esteem would be to immediately change their Christian name to ‘Weather’. That single alteration alone is guaranteed that they will be the first and most spoken about person in any social setting they ever find themselves a part of, and even when they are at home tucked up in bed fast asleep, you can bet your sweet aunt, that somewhere in the world, some stranger will still be talking about them!

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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MEDICAL UPDATE: WILLIAM FORDE: FEBRUARY 23RD, 2021.

22/2/2021

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MEDICAL UPDATE: WILLIAM FORDE: FEBRUARY 23RD, 2021.

I received a hospital appointment at St, James' Hospital, Leeds for March 11th, by which time the cancer consultants will have received the results of today's CT Scans, and will know if I am suitable to receive the cancer drug. There is obviously an urgency for speedy action.

MEDICAL UPDATE: WILLIAM FORDE: FEBRUARY 22ND, 2021.

I received a phone call from the 'Nightingale Hospital' in Harrogate today offering me an appointment to have my CT Scan tomorrow at 5:00 pm. Given that I was only seen at St James' Hospital in Leeds on February 18th, I would have to say this is a 'pony express' service response by the NHS.

Through my contact with many cancer patients, coupled with other cancer patients I know of, and all of who have been waiting for essential medical procedures, tests and operations since the pandemic struck in March 2020, and the various lockdowns have come in, the speed of the service I have personally received has been of 'gold standard' level. Since March 2020, I have had two major cancer operations (one over six hours long) two biopsies, two Ct Scans, and four or five hospital appointments since March 2020. Indeed, the speed of treatment has been unbelievable, given all the restrictions facing non-Covid hospital patients. Apart from being unbelievably fast, it is somewhat also scary as it underlines the seriousness of my present medical condition.

I sincerely thank my God, my wife, my children, my siblings, my family, my friends, my neighbours, my Facebook contacts, and all of the NHS staff who have been giving me my first-class care, thought, and their practical and prayerful support throughout. I particularly mention my wife, Sheila, who is my prime reason for living far beyond the medical expectation of three years given to me in 2013. As the song say, Sheila, "You’re the reason I do things, you’re the things that I do, you’re the reason I’m living, I’d be lost without you". I love you, Sheila Forde xxx


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Song For Today: 22nd February 2021

22/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to my daughter-in-law, Elisa, who lives in France on the Swiss border with my son, James, and their two teenage children. Enjoy your birthday today, Elisa. Love Dad Forde and Sheila xx

Other Facebook birthday celebrants today are Susan Hogan who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland, and Josephine Guidotti who lives in Milan, Italy. Enjoy your special day, Susan and Josephine, and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song today is ‘Here I Am, Lord’, which is sometimes known as ‘I the Lord of Sea and Sky’ after its opening line. This Christian hymn was written by the American composer of Catholic liturgical music, Dan Schutte in 1979 and published in 1981. Its words are based on Isaiah 6:8 and1 Samuel 3:4.

Schutte wrote the song at age 31 when he was studying theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkley. Schutte's hymn is also sung in many Protestant worship services and is found in multiple hymnals and missalettes.

In 2004 a survey conducted by ‘The Tablet’ an international Catholic magazine, reported ‘Here I Am, Lord’ as readers' 63rd favorite. A poll conducted by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians found among members that it came in second among ‘songs that make a difference. It has also been highly ranked in many other surveys of hymns, and in 2009 it was voted the United Kingdom's 10th favourite hymn.

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Today's message is summed up in one line of the hymn. "Here I am Lord. It is I Lord. I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart."

Let us hold God's people in our hearts.

Love and peace
​Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 21st February 2021

21/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to three birthday celebrants. We wish happy birthday to Nora Davitt who originates from Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary but who now lives in Clare, Ireland: Lynne Royale who lives in my village of Haworth, West Yorkshire, and Melissa O’Neill who also originates from Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary but who now lives in Erith, South East London in the county of Kent, England.  Have a smashing birthday, ladies, and thank you for being my Facebook friend. 

My song today is ‘On the Beach’. This was a 1964 hit song by ‘Cliff Richard and the Shadows’. It was taken from and released in the lead up to the release of the film ‘Wonderful Life’ and its soundtrack. It became an international hit for Cliff Richard, reaching Number 7 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’, and charting in Australia (Number 4), Ireland (Number. 6), Norway (Number 4), South Africa (Number 2), and Sweden (Number 12).

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During the time I spent in Canada between 1963-1965. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a number of beach parties. The Canadians and the American youth use their beach parties like the young in Great Britain use rave parties that go on throughout the night. Not surprisingly, there are lots of drinking, dancing, and romancing.

There were a few memorable nights I enjoyed, but none of which I wish to go into here, except to say that love in the sand dunes can be the grittiest of romantic experiences that I would invite all romantic toe suckers to avoid at all cost.

Love and peace
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 20th February 2021

20/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to four people who celebrate their birthday today and to Sheila’s lately deceased brother and only sibling, Winston, who celebrates his heavenly birthday.

Our earthly birthday celebrants include my 4-year-old great-nephew, Jacob Price, who is the son of his parents Evie and Gareth. Jacob lives in the Huddersfield area of West Yorkshire with his mother, his brother, and maternal grandmother: Adam Heigold who lives in Leeds, West Yorkshire: Riana Lambert who lives in Bradford, West Yorkshire: Kerrie-Ann Hollister who lives at beautiful Kangaroo Creek, in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, Australia. We wish all our birthday celebrants a happy day.

My song today is ‘Love Lifted Me’. This is the first solo studio album by the late Kenny Rogers which was released in 1976.  The album was a minor success, reaching Number 28 on the Country charts.

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If ever there was one thing to lift any person to higher plains, it is the love of another human being. Most of my occupational life was spent working as a Probation Officer within the West Yorkshire Probation Service. For the first 18 years of a 27-year career, I worked in the Huddersfield area of West Yorkshire.  During my years as a Probation Officer, while I helped many an offender stop their offending behaviour, there were many other offenders which appeared to be beyond help. Such offenders have the title of being called ‘recidivists’ (which essentially means that whatever you try to do to help them they will not change, and they continue reoffending regardless). Many repeated offenders continue to receive custodial sentences upon custodial sentences and eventually become institutionalised (they find it easier to exist inside a prison instead of being a free person on the outside). I have met so many people aged between 40 to 70 who have literally spent more time behind bars than they have in the community since first being sent to Borstal as a teenager. 

Occasionally, one of these recidivists suddenly stops offending, and when their conversion occurs, it is rarely down to Probation Officer intervention and is invariably down to ‘finding ‘love’. There are three kinds of love they find which gives them the desire (often for the first time in their life) to go straight and to settle down to a crime-free life. They may have experienced a religious conversion inside prison and have found the love of God, or they have found a partner to love and to be loved by in return. The third reason is that they have extended their family line by becoming a parent and having a child to love. From these three prime reasons to change their established criminal pattern to that of becoming a law-abiding-citizen, by far the most common is the love of a good woman. My own Probation Officer experience over twenty-seven years is that the love of a good woman usually trumps a religious conversion, and when a child is born into the same love equation, it has the effect of reinforcing a positive new identity for the new father.

One such person who will always stay with me was Bernard. Bernard was abandoned at birth and never knew his parents. I first became involved with him while he was serving a borstal sentence. He was aged around 20 years at the time.  Bernard had no siblings he knew of and was reared in Local Authority Care Homes and a ‘Doctor Barnardo Home’ until he was 17 years old. Bernard was one of those people whose face perpetually carried a ‘look-at-poor-me’ look. Once an individual learned of his unfortunate start in life, it became so easy to focus upon his unhappy start to life and to ignore his recidivist past. Ever since the age of ten, Bernard had run away from every Children’s Home he had been placed in. He would steal anything from anyone, and he appeared to have no moral compass or sign of the slightest conscience. He was a confirmed thief by the age of ten, and before he had entered his teens, he had started burgling people’s houses in the dead of night when the occupants were fast asleep in their beds.

Bernard was committed to a sentence of Borstal as soon as he was old enough. Borstal sentences were usually completed in less than a year but could extend to an inmate serving a full two years if their behaviour proved unacceptable. Serving longer than fifteen months was so rare an experience that Bernard was the only person I ever knew who served the full Borstal sentence of two years plus extra time for repeat offending behaviour while inside. Whatever anyone tried to do to help him, he essentially flung back their kindness in their face.

I worked with Bernard for around five years in total. I can truthfully say that I went beyond the call of normal duties to assist him to change his life for the better, but the more I did for him, the more he rebelled, and threw my kindness back. Because of Bernard’s past, I even started a ’Foster a Young Offender’ project which turned out to be so successful that even the Social Services adopted it in Kirklees. My foster project was geared to asking church members across the whole of Huddersfield if they would accommodate a young offender upon borstal release and offer them a loving family setting.  I believe I was the first worker in West Yorkshire ever to show a photograph of the young offender wanting the experience of a home environment. Bernard was the first person I ever placed with a couple in their 50s from half a dozen placements (all the rest worked out).

The couple concerned had been married thirty years and had only parented one son who had sadly been killed in a traffic accident (I believe) some years earlier. Their son was young when he died and would have been around Bernard’s age had he lived. The age similarity was an obvious attraction, leading them to believe that Bernard would be ideally suitable. For the first few weeks of Bernard living with the couple, all seemed to go okay. Then one night before the month was out, while the couple slept, Bernard robbed them of whatever valuable belongings he could find in the house before making off to fence his stolen goods the following day. He even stole a silver-framed photograph, and later he discarded the photo inside the frame before selling his stolen property.

Of all the things he stole, the photograph inside the silver frame was the most precious as it was the only photograph they had of their deceased son around the time he was tragically killed. Bernard was rightly sent to a Young Offender’s Prison as a sentence for his despicable theft from the kindly couple who had offered to share their home with him. For over one year, I continued to visit Bernard monthly in the prison for Young Offenders at Thorpe Arch, Weatherby. The visits would take place in his prison cell and a prison guard would remain outside, within sight and hearing distance. During each visit, I would spend one hour, and every visit during that first year, Bernard remained totally silent whenever I attempted to engage him in any conversation. Observing that he never once spoke to me, the Prison Officer nearby would often remark after the visit had ended, “I don’t know why you bother with the little ….?” I was slowly arriving at a similar conclusion.

One visit to see Bernard in his prison cell occurred during a day when I could have done with taking the day off work. I cannot recall whether I was under the weather, or one of my children was not well, or some other domestic issue was concerning me, but after an hour of having received the usual silent treatment from Bernard, my patience snapped, and I lost my temper with him. I told Bernard that I considered him to be one of the most ungrateful and inconsiderate clients who I had ever worked with. I cannot recall if I pinned him up against the wall of his prison cell while I was railing him but whatever I did, and however understandable, it was most unprofessional. I believe it was the first and last occasion I ever ‘lost it’ during a 27-year-long career. Meanwhile, the Prison Officer nearby heard and saw my actions, and said to me, “Go on! Give the little toe rag what for. I won’t see you!” It was probably the Prison Officer’s invitation to thump Bernard while he turned a blind eye that returned me sharply to my senses.

Just as I was leaving the prison cell in a state of total exasperation, for the first time in one full year and a dozen hourly visits from me, Bernard broke his silence. He said in a polite voice, “Thank you for visiting me, Mr. Forde.” 

I continued to visit Bernard a few more times before his release, and he completed his Young Prisoner Licence in another area outside Huddersfield. With Bernard moving to another area upon his prison release, our statutory contact as Probation Officer and Client came to an end.

About four years passed by and nothing else was heard of Bernard during the intervening period. I kept my eye open on all the court cases in the whole of Kirklees, as I half expected to see Bernard’s name appear on the list of court defendants. There would rarely be an evening when I failed to scour the daily court appearances and convictions in the regional newspapers. 

One morning while walking through Huddersfield, a voice called my name from behind, “Hi, Mr. Forde. Nice to see you. How are you doing?” Looking back, I saw it was Bernard and a young woman in her twenties who he introduced to me as his partner. He had a young child in the pram he was pushing who he proudly told me was his child, and I believe he had another toddler holding his hand (although my memory fails me about that).

Bernard was smiling like a Cheshire cat. That was the first happy look on his face I had ever seen, and it filled me with joy. He was obviously proud of his partner and their family and he told me with pride that he had not reoffended since he had last seen me. He also told me that like himself, his partner had been raised in Care all her life also. He told me that together they had found love and that for the very first time in his life, he was happy.  I made a point of telling the couple who had been so kind to Bernard, and from whom he stole. They were pleased that he had become law-abiding and had settled down since he stole some of their property. I told them he had always been ashamed by that offence of his, which was his last known offence. Bernard told me when asked, that he had never been back to see the couple. I suspect the shame of what he had done was too great for him to cope with. 

God bless you, Bernard, wherever you are. I wonder if Bernard’s grown-up son today works as either a policeman, prison officer, or even a probation officer, or…….. could he be a prisoner somewhere? I would hate to believe so! ‘Love’ certainly lifted Bernard to new heights.

Love and peace
Bill XXX

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Song For Today: 19th February 2021

19/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to two Facebook friends who celebrate their birthday today. We wish a happy birthday to Richie O’Dwyer who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland, and Andrew Wood who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. Enjoy your special day, Richie and Andrew, and thank you for being my Facebook friend,

My song today is “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. This song is by The Rolling Stones and was released in 1965. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The lyrics refer to sexual frustration and commercialism. 

The song was first released as a single in the United States in June 1965 and was also featured on the American version of the Rolling Stones' fourth studio album, ‘Out of Our Head’. “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction" was a hit, giving the Stones their first Number 1 in the US. In the UK, the song initially was played on pirate radio because its lyrics were considered too sexually suggestive. It later became the Rolling Stones' fourth number one in the United Kingdom.

It is one of the world's most popular songs and is second on Rollin Stone’s ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. It was inducted into the 'Grammy Hall of Fame’ in 1998, and it is the 10th best-ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to ‘Acclaimed Music’. The song was added to the ‘National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress’ in 2006.

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At the time when I first married, unless it was a ‘shotgun wedding’ (which was greatly frowned upon by all and sundry), it was usual for the courting couple to have a period of engagement lasting a few years before one’s wedding, and for the couple not to engage in full sex before one’s wedding night.  I should imagine that almost sixty years later, the practice of such restraint would constitute a rarity.

From my own personal experience, and in the role of matrimonial guidance counsellor during my thirties, I would have to say that it is probably better if a couple can establish the presence of being sexually compatible before they commit themselves to marriage, as opposed to tying the knot first, only to discover that things start to unravel from the first night you each remove your under-garments. Going into any marriage ‘sexually cold’, is like being wedded to an iceberg; you never know what lies beneath the surface. You could find yourself married to an Ice Maiden or a Red-Hot Mama!

I feel really sorry for all of the young women who married between the two World Wars when a wife had few rights within her relationship with her husband, and absolutely no redress after marriage regarding her husband’s sexual behaviour and demands in the bedroom. How he wanted sex in terms of either frequency or manner appears to have been the sole domain of male prerogative. Indeed, as there was no such offence as rape within a marriage and the police rarely intervened in physical disputes between a husband and his wife, the woman was left to the mercy of the man she had married. Marital rape is considered a form of sexual, domestic violence today, but it did not become illegal until 1992 in Great Britain. 

One family I worked with in Huddersfield, during the early 1970s involved the brute of a man. He was a father and husband who would get drunk frequently, arrive home and demand sex from his terrified wife the very moment he arrived back in the house. It would not concern him if his children were present at the scene of his rape or whether his son and daughter heard him from an adjacent room after making themselves scarce. If his wife objected, he would beat her, along with any of his children who interfered, and afterwards, he would mock her, always alleging that she could not satisfy ‘a proper man’. 

On one occasion, his twenty-year-old son came home to find his father viciously beating his mother in the lounge after having sexually assaulted her. Ten minute’s earlier, he had demanded sex in the lounge from his wife who requested they go upstairs to the bedroom lest the children walked in the lounge. Afterwards, he physically punched her several times in the face for not being passionate enough during the act. Her son, Peter, heard his mother scream as his father punched and kicked her and went to his mother’s aid. Peter came off the worse as his father was twice his size and weightier. Peter then told his father he would kill him if ever he laid a finger on his mother again. His father laughed in his face, telling him “You’re not man enough!”.

A short time after this incident, Peter, rearranged the cutlery drawer and placed the sharpest and longest knife in a position within the drawer where he could get immediate access in a hurry.  Some weeks later, Peter arrived home to find his brutish drunken father physically assaulting his mother again. Without announcing his presence, Peter immediately went into the kitchen, got the sharpest knife he had previously positioned for immediate use, and returned to the lounge where he stabbed his father repeatedly in the back. When his father fell to the floor, he stabbed him a couple of times in the abdomen also. He then comforted his mother as a sister phoned an ambulance. Dad was dead long before the ambulance arrived. Peter was arrested and charged with murder.

Peter’s solicitor tried to get the Prosecution to agree to a charge of Manslaughter, but they refused because of his previously acknowledged threat to kill his father if he ever beat up on his mum again, plus the fact that his concealment of the kitchen knife for future use implied clear premeditation. Such forethought of action made the charge one of ‘Murder’ and not ‘Manslaughter’. 

Neither Peter’s mother nor his teenage sister was at the court to see him sentenced, and once convicted of Murder, Peter received an automatic life sentence. I was appointed to maintain contact with Peter during the earlier years of his sentence. Initially, his mother and sister provided all the necessary statements to the police informing them of the brutish and animalistic behaviour of the deceased, but then for some reason, they would not explain, why they had decided to cut off Peter from future family contact for having murdered his father. 

Neither Peter’s sister nor mother wrote to him or visited him once in prison during the four years I had contact with him. During my monthly prison visits to see Peter at Wakefield Prison, he always said he had acted on behalf of his mother and sister, to protect them both from further physical assaults, and could not understand why they had removed him from their affection. It would seem the mother and daughter felt under community pressure to reject Peter, or else the neighbours would think that the mother, daughter, and son had planned the murder together. In always felt that Peter had been the scapegoat for what they had all wanted.

I was never able to view the murdered man other than being a brutish and vile bully, who was oversexed, and who probably derived more excitement from raping his wife instead of indulging in agreeable sexual activity. and physically assaulting and abusing her afterwards. 

Whenever I hear today’s song, it is Peter and his family who immediately come to mind.

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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MEDICAL UPDATE: FEBRUARY 18TH, 2021

18/2/2021

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I attended Leeds Hospital (St. James') this afternoon to have a consultation with two of my three cancer consultants at Leeds. I also have another two cancer consultants overseeing two other cancers I have had for some time at Airedale Hospital. As initially feared, it looks like the aggressive skin cancer has spread to the base of my neck and is now tracking itself across my RHS shoulder. To confirm that diagnosis, I had a biopsy taken from my shoulder this afternoon and provided a blood test to check out my kidneys. I was told that arrangements would be made for me to have another full-body scan over the next two or three weeks to see if cancer has recently spread to other body parts.

Given the findings of today's biopsy and the forthcoming body-scan results, a decision will be made re my suitability to receive the drug Cemiplimab. This drug is designed to stimulate the immune system. It is not a cure as my cancer cannot be stopped, but when it works on a patient, it can slow down the cancer growth and delay the final stage of life. It is administered intravenously for half a day at a time every three weeks. The duration of receiving the drug is wholly dependent upon its efficacy, and how well the patient is able to tolerate the bad side effects during it.

This afternoon's hospital visit has merely confirmed what Sheila and I suspected to be the situation. I must admit, that from my cancer consultants (all five of them covering three different body cancers) that the three consultants at St James' Hospital Leeds are on the ball and have provided me with prompt service throughout. In spite of the pandemic lockdown periods we have experienced since March 2020, I have had two major cancer operations, twenty sessions of radiotherapy, two biopsies, two Ct Scans, and a further three hospital visits/check-ups during this twelve-month period. I'd give the NHS 10/10 for the excellent service they have afforded me to date, especially when I hear daily about the delays other cancer patients have had to cope with.

The next important stage is another full-body scan during the next month to see if there are any new cancers we do not know about yet. Unfortunately, my terminal blood cancer condition is prone to give me new cancers in all my body organs, as that is its nature, and what makes it a terminal condition.

The song below is for all people who are coping with cancer, and especially little children who have cancer. God bless you all.
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Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 18th February 2021

18/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to Maria Rowena Zapanta Macobos who lives in Pasig in the Philippines, and Donna O’Neill who lives in my birth village of Portlaw, Waterford, Ireland. Both Maria and Donna celebrate their birthday today. Enjoy your special day, ladies, and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song this Easter Sunday is ‘One Pair of Hands’. This song was composed by Carroll Roberson who is an evangelist, gospel singer-songwriter, and author from Ripley, Mississippi. He read the Bible growing up but did not surrender his life to Christ until 1983. One year later, he was diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his throat. With no promise that he would be able to talk anymore, Roberson underwent thyroid surgery and was reportedly able to sing again within a matter of weeks. Shortly after, Roberson devoted himself to full-time ministry. After serving as Minister of a Baptist church in his hometown for two years, Roberson went into full-time evangelism, and since 1987, he has been preaching at revivals and crusades and singing his music to people around the world. Carroll has recorded more than twenty-five albums and written over one hundred songs.

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Today’s song essentially tells the story of ‘The Creation’ as revealed in Genesis of what God achieved with ‘One Pair of Hands’. If you believe in the Easter Message that the crucified Christ died on the Cross to save mankind, and then three days later, he rose from the dead and instructed his apostles to go out and minister his Word to the world, you are a Christian. If you do not believe this, you are no more or less of a ‘good person’ as any Christian in the world. I honestly believe that it is by your actions that you will be known and judged, and not any religious affiliation.

Christians believe what is written in the 'Book of Genesis'. Genesis tells us that in seven days, God created the heavens and the earth. He filled it with birds of the air, animals of the land, and fish of the seas. He then gave life to the underworld and its creeping inhabitants, before creating all plant life and form of vegetation. When all this had been done, God gave life to his most beautiful creation of all; you! You are the living embodiment of God’s love! This is the essence of the Christian message. 

After God created the earth and placed mankind on it, the world was set spinning in perfect motion on an axis of love. It was God who set the earth in motion, but it is the love of mankind that keeps life turning. I believe that it is the love of each of you, as expressed freely to one another, which keeps the world turning in  harmonious revolution. How? You may ask. The bible says that Christ said, “By your deeds shall you be known”. I believe that it is through the deeds of mankind, and their consequences for both good or bad, that our Earth rotates either harmoniously or harmfully in its daily cycle. Climate change shows us that once we stop looking after our world then Nature no longer protects us from our worse consequences, as recent floods and the effects of weather extremities show.  

I believe that our Creator endowed us with ‘free will’, and that we exercise the choice to both do right and wrong, and good and bad, to our neighbour, and to our environment and our natural habitat. It is through the choices that we make shall we be known and remembered when we depart this earthly life. It is through those choices we make in our earthly life that we shall be judged eternally. This I believe.

Today’s post is written by an unashamed Christian. I have never been a ‘bible basher’, as I consider that role to be a futile approach to ever adopt. Nobody would ever have a chance of convincing me or converting my opinion by hammering home one point repeatedly and clumsily.

Neither do I consider it essential for any reader to believe in any part of the Creation as espoused in the ‘Book of Genesis’ or in any part of the bible to be considered as being a ‘good person’. I know many non-Christians whose behaviour is as good as most Christians I know, as well as having known many professed Christians whose thoughts, feelings and actions are as un-Christian as one could imagine.  The only definition of a ‘good person’ is someone whose thoughts, feelings, and actions are ‘good’, be they Christian nor otherwise. I believe that to behave in a good way is to behave in a Christian way, and vice versa! We can change the label on the tin as many times as we wish, but the contents remain the same!

Please, take one moment out of your life today and hold up your hands before your eyes. Look at your hands and know that what you do with these hands is essentially what you do with your life. You can use them to destroy or to build, to welcome or to drive away, to caress or to crush, to stroke or to strangle, to create or collapse, to love or loathe! The choice is yours alone to make. The Creator gave you this free will to choose. Please make the right one and become the good person you are meant to be. It is far better to shake hands with daily life than to close them in anger and contempt.

Love and peace
Bill xxx 

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Song For Today: 17th February 2021

17/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to three birthday celebrants; all ladies who live in Ireland. We wish a happy birthday to Marcella Ryan who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland: Valery Salter Reddy who lives in Carlow, Ireland: Ann Burke who lives in Kilkenny, Ireland.

My song today is ‘Blowing in The Wind’. ‘Blowing in the Wind' was released in 1963 and sung by Bob Dylan. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as impenetrably ambiguous. Either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind. In 1994 the song was inducted into the 'Grammy Hall of Fame'. I have always regarded Bob Dylan as being as much a poet as a singer and songwriter; he was undoubtedly the foremost troubadour of the 1960s, bringing awareness to the youth of his age. 

Love and peace.
Bill xxx


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Song For Today: 16th February 2021

16/2/2021

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February 16th, 2021
I dedicate my song today to three of my Facebook friends who are celebrating their birthday. They are Ber Glascott who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland: Patricia Bermingham O’Sullivan who lives in Carlow, Ireland, and Rachel Upton who is the neighbour and wife of the Baptist Minister of Haworth. Enjoy your special day and thank you for being my Facebook friend. 

My song today is ‘The Lady Is A Tramp’. This song is from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical ‘Babes in Arms’ which was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. This song is a spoof of New York high society and its strict etiquette and phony social pretensions. It has become a popular music standard. The song became the signature song for Sinatra.

I was introduced to this song when I saw the film version of ‘Pal Joey’ starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak. Joey Evans (Sinatra) sings the song to Vera Simpson (Hayworth) as he tries to entice the wealthy widow Simpson into financing Evans's dream of owning his own nightclub.

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Generally, the wealthy often resent getting their hands dirty if they can pay someone else to get another pair of hands dirty on their behalf. I must put my hands up to the fact that over a number of years, I have been privileged to have been able to afford a cleaner for my house. When I first got married at the age of 26 years, my then socialistic principles would not have even condoned the possible notion of using another person to clean the house in which I and my family lived. When my wife and I worked outside the home, it became necessary to employ a cleaner, and I still resisted the impulse to employ somebody until my sister Mary offered to clean weekly for us.

My sister Mary had been a cleaner for over ten years at the time, and for some strange reason, I found it more acceptable to use the services of my sister than a stranger, especially as she seemed more than willing to perform the weekly task. When I married Sheila, I discovered that she had also employed a cleaner for many years before she knew me; due to her own work commitments. 

The cleaner Sheila and I have is a wonderful woman who has been with us for years. I do not feel bad anymore about having a cleaner come in for four hours weekly, especially as it enables me to practice what I believe, and I am able to apply my old shop steward principles. I believe that whatever type of worker is essential to one’s circumstances ought to be amply rewarded for their services. I personally see no reason why one person should earn more hourly than another for handling the same product. If one took a ‘brush’, a ‘duster’ a ‘mop and bucket’ for example, why should a person who handles each of these items during the course of their daily job be paid more or less than another worker handling the same items in a different capacity, and occupation?

Who is it that decides a cleaner is worth less than a shopkeeper who sells such products, or even the person who designs, manufactures, or tests such products before they arrive on the market for sale? The one thing I was able to do was to pay the person who cleaned for me a better hourly rate than most other cleaners in the country gets paid. Indeed, her hourly rate equalled that hourly rate her tradesman husband earned, and there were an automatic annual increase and a holiday bonus at Christmas time. By such means, I have been able to assuage my conscience about using a cleaner.

During most of the past year, Sheila and I have had to do our own house cleaning during the lockdown periods. I have come to accept this weekly task far better than I would have initially imagined, given my disabilities in some bending and the absence of agility of right-arm movement when it comes to polishing furniture above my head level, after badly dislocating my shoulder several years ago.

I am able to truthfully testify that Sheila is not only a beautiful person inside and out, but she knows how to get down on the floor and do the dirty whenever required. She’s no tramp; she’s my lady!

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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MEDICAL UPDATE: WILLIAM FORDE: FEBRUARY 16TH. 2021.

16/2/2021

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As most of you are aware, I have three body cancers, with two of them considered terminal. At my last hospital consultation, I was essentially informed that very little more can be safely carried out on me at the moment given all my circumstances. While an extensive operation on my face to remove cancer from beneath my cheekbones is possible, it would be considered too dangerous as it would involve me being under anesthetic for over six hours, and even if I survived the operation, all my facial nerves would have had to been severed to remove cancer, leaving me with a collapsed face at one side, unable to speak properly or eat solids. And there would still be a strong likelihood that cancer would simply spread to another part of my body. It was said that I might be offered a new cancer drug when my cancer advanced. This new drug will not cure but merely suppress the cancer growth if successful (delay its advancement).

About one month ago, I noticed a couple of small pimple-sized bumps at the base of my neck dissection. We photographed them and e-mailed them to the cancer consultant after the two bumps became larger and turned into a cluster of six. It looked like my neck and facial cancer had spread beneath my throat and along my shoulder ridge area. Within a week, my consultant set up a hospital visit/consultation with me for this coming Thursday, presumably to discuss being given this newish cancer drug.

My consultants have been straight forward with me all along for which I am very appreciative, and given the difficulty, I know that many other cancer cases have experienced getting medical attention during the pandemic virus lockdowns we have experienced over the past year, I have had prompt and excellent NHS service. Thank you all for your continued kind thoughts, messages, and prayers. Sheila and I greatly appreciate them.

Love and peace
​Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 15th February 2021

15/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to six Facebook friends of mine who celebrate their birthday today. First, we wish a happy birthday to my Great Niece, Emily Jones who lives in Liversedge, West Yorkshire. Other birthday celebrants include my friend and illustrator of many of my children’s books, Dave Bradbury who lives in Shepley, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire: my friend, Eva Gasper, who lives in West Sussex:  Denise McCauley, and Claire Carroll who live in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland: Willie Corcoran who lives in Waterford, Ireland.  We hope that you all have a wonderful birthday.

My song today is ‘Bring it on Home to Me’. This song was recorded by American soul singer Sam Cooke, and t was released on May 8, 1962. The song peaked at Number 2 on the ‘Billboard Hot R&B Sides’ chart, and it also charted at Number 13 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’. The song has become a pop standard and has been covered by numerous artists of different genres. It is one of ‘The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll’. 

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It is said that we don’t miss the water until the well runs dry, which is another way of saying that we never know what we have until we lose it. How true that is! Whether the loss is one of love, life or liberty, there is no more sorry state than experiencing a lifetime of permanent regret, especially if we were partly responsible in the first instance. 

The past year of this pernicious pandemic Covid-19 virus will surely have brought home to the country and the world at large how fragile mankind can be during times of great uncertainty, fear, and doubt. There are few among us who would have ever imagined the type of year we have all just experienced, along with the loss it has brought so many of us. Change can be wanted, it can be welcomed, or resisted. Change is always challenging and sometimes threatening, but none of us like change which is enforced upon us. National lockdowns and restriction of our basic freedoms to mix and move, to kiss and cuddle with family, and shake hands with friends, to marry our loved ones, to visit our hospitalised or to bury our dead, or even to take a walk represent a loss so great to each of us that is alien to a free and democratic country.

However, should our lives change drastically because of any wrong decision we have made, then the responsibility we shoulder in the future can become too heavy to bear. So many people who have denied the pernicious nature of Covid-19 have unfortunately been struck down by it or have had family members die from it. So many rational people have also had their mental health ruined because they have allowed well-intentioned government ministers to frighten them to death with the consequences if they continue to do what comes naturally for them to do. Surely, no government in the world (under any circumstances, pandemic or otherwise) has the moral right or justification to prevent a family member be at the death bed of a dying parent to hold their hands during their last moments on this earth?

I once worked with a man when I served as a Probation Officer in Huddersfield during the early 1970s. My client had been engaged to a young woman for five years and on the day of their planned wedding, as the taxi carrying the bride and her father to the church arrived outside the church steps, the bride broke down, started crying and told her father she did not want to go through with the wedding. Her father naturally told the taxi to take them both back home; leaving the church filled with wedding attenders, an anxious groom and best man, relatives wondering the worst, and a vicar twiddling his thumbs.

This was in the days prior to mobile phones. After dropping his daughter back home at the parental address, the father of the bride-that-was-to-be took the waiting wedding car back to the church to announce to all and sundry that the wedding was off. The very first response of the bride’s mother was to think about the lavish wedding reception awaiting sixty guests, the huge wedding cake that had taken months to make, and the booked entertainment for the evening. What was to be done about all that, just because of a few bridal wedding butterflies? She would have to tell everyone that everything was off.  That thought was quickly followed by the knowledge that their retirement savings were now considerably depleted by being the bride’s parents. 

Even by the 1970s, the custom was that the bride’s parents still stood the total cost for any wedding. The groom’s parents got off Scot free for having given birth to a son instead of a daughter. The groom had given his name to his bride, so, apart from the honeymoon tab to pick up (unless his parents paid the bill), his contribution was merely symbolic. 

Meanwhile, inside the church, the rejected groom was in a state of bewilderment, not knowing what had hit him or where to put himself. He later admitted to being more worried about the shame of having been left at the altar and what people might think of him before trying to figure out why his fiancée had got cold feet at the church entrance.

The upshot was that while the bride-to-be liked her fiancé immensely, she did not love him. She later admitted that ‘she liked the idea of getting married as she was in her mid-20s and was ready for settling down’, but when push came to shove, she could not reconcile herself to the thought of being married to anyone for a lifetime, especially her boyfriend (divorce was still heavily frowned upon in the early 1970s). She told her father as he rode back home in the wedding car with her that “It would have been so easy to have gone ahead and married her fiancé, but it would have been wrong”. Her reason for eventually deciding against the wedding was, “He was too nice a man, too safe, too predictable an individual!” She said that life with him would have been too routine, and in time would simply have become boring, with little prospect of excitement or surprise. 

I hear you asking yourself what brought such a good respectable man into statutory contact with a Probation Officer? Or are you perhaps wondering did he go berserk in a mad moment of feeling shamed and betrayed, and physically assault his bride-to-be? Or perhaps, did he tell her father what he really thought about his possessiveness where his precious daughter was concerned? I am afraid it was nothing so natural.

He truly was a decent law-abiding man who normally did not drink, but after being jilted at the altar he and the best man went in every pub between Huddersfield and Holmfirth and the pair wasn’t seen again until they were released from the police cells the following day. The couple had got blind drunk. The groom had fallen over a table filled with the drinks of six seated people in a pub lounge and finished up in a brawl he never asked for. The best man tried to protect his mate but was also embroiled in the melee. The police were called and arrived to arrest the jilted groom and the best man. One of the women sitting around the table was accidentally hurt when the collapsed table fell on her. Her minor injuries led to the groom being charged with an offence of Assault while being Drunk and Disorderly. His best man faced a lesser charge but being drunk, the couple were held overnight in the police cells.

Normally the matter would have been dealt with by a fine or a caution, but given the unusually-cancelled wedding circumstances before the pub incident, and the clean offence sheet of the two defendants, the court asked the Probation Service to prepare a Social Enquiry Report upon both men. The court was as concerned with the jilted groom as they were about the offence which he was charged with, hence the requested report. 

In preparing the report, the Probation Officer concerned has access to interview whoever they believe can be of assistance in understanding the defendant’s full circumstances leading to and surrounding the offence. I had a brief interview with the father of the bride-to-be in my office after he had phoned me when he had heard that his daughter’s ex-fiancé had been arrested.  It was he who filled me in with what his daughter had told him after she decided not to go through with the wedding. He and his daughter felt sorry for the jilted groom and sought to say a word to the reporting Probation Officer on his behalf.

I prepared my Social Enquiry Report and recommended a Conditional Discharge and a Compensation Order be awarded against the jilted groom for the damage caused in the pub. The Court agreed and sentenced as recommended by me. 

When I was singing today’s song, I remembered that the one thing the defendant could not ‘bring back home’ with him that day was his beautiful bride, and instead of sleeping with his bride in the booked hotel wedding suite, he spent what would have been his wedding night in the Huddersfield Police Station in adjacent cells to his best man!

Love and peace 
Bill xxx  

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TO SHEILA, MY VALENTINE, WITH LOVE FROM YOUR BILL XXX

14/2/2021

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Three years and one week ago, I read in a newspaper article that daily singing practise could significantly enhance one's lung capacity. Having been a past smoker for fifty years, having had two previous heart attacks, three body cancers, and an inability to exercise due to severe osteoarthritis since the age of 11 years, I quickly became breathless whenever I walked over twenty yards or climbed steps. My lung capacity was similar to COPD level which is about twenty per cent less than normal lung capacity. My blood cancer automatically reduces the oxygen levels in my blood. My daily singing practises worked and my lung capacity and blood oxygenation levels have improved twenty per cent in the first year and have remained at normal levels ever since.

One week after starting my daily singing, I sang you 'Come Prima' for Valentine's Day 2018. I was naturally breathless singing that song then, and so I have decided to sing the same song to you today for Valentine Day 2021.

In addition, sweetheart, I have sung you another song, which along with the content of 'Come Prima' says everything I feel about you at this moment in time.

You have had a horrible year with the death of your dear brother, Winston last year, and with my worsening condition (three cancers today as opposed to one cancer three years ago), plus supporting me through seven more cancer operations, and forty sessions of radiotherapy and numerous hospital procedures and check-ups during this time. If anyone deserves a bit of respite Sheila, then it is you, sweetheart.

Today's message through my songs for you is simply to tell you how much you mean to me, how much I love you, and how glad I am to have you by my side during the last years of my life.

Lots of love Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 14th February 2021

14/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to two birthday celebrants. We wish a happy birthday to Grace Long from Waterford (daughter of Lorna Long), and Martin Bentley who lives in Bingley, West Yorkshire (husband to Ann-Marie). Enjoy your special day, Grace, and Martin. We also celebrate Valentine’s Day the world over. I shall be doing my own separate song for my Valentine, Sheila, this afternoon.

My song today is ‘Somebody to Love’. This song was by the British rock band ‘Queen’. It was written by the lead singer/pianist Freddie Mercury. It reached Number 2 in the UK and Number 13 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in the US. The song demonstrated that "Queen could swing as hard as it could rock, by channelling the spirit of gospel music"
Written by Mercury at the piano, ‘Somebody to Love’ is a soul-searching piece that questions God's role in a life without love. Through voice layering techniques, Queen was able to create the soulful sound of a 100-voice choir from three singers. Freddie Mercury's fascination and admiration for Aretha Franklin was a major influence for the creation of this song. Queen played ‘Somebody to Love’ live from 1977–85. 

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I believe that we all need someone to love and to have someone love us in return. I always feel a touch of sorrow each Valentine’s Day knowing that there are many people living alone who dearly want ‘somebody to love’ as a soulmate in their life. Such love is a part of life that goes towards making each of us much more than a fleeting solitary reflection of ourselves in the puddle of our earthly experiences.

However much we hope for love, and pray for love, wish for love, and dream for love, we should not be foolish enough to put our life on hold ‘waiting for love’. It is one thing to miss out on love because you have been unable to find it, and quite another to miss out on life while looking in vain for it! Finding somebody to love cannot be planned to occur here or there, by these means or any other. Love is a ‘happening of the heart’’; it appears in a moment, and in many instances, it lasts a lifetime. Love can grow or diminish with the passing of time, and like ‘time’ itself, it never stays the same, but always comes around more than once. Unfortunately, we may not recognise it pass us by again, having taken our eyes off our romantic clock.

It helps considerably if we know what we are looking for, and if we can distinguish love from lust, as these two aspects of human nature rarely walk hand-in-hand. Love can mean different things to different people, and at different times. Pure romantics may tell you that ‘love alone’ can withstand all hardship and sustain all struggle, and I believe that it can, but the circumstances of two people making this type of couple are rare and require two indomitable spirits of compatible traits who are wedded to the importance of working together, and whose communication channels are never closed or dishonest to each other. There are unfortunately very few couples who are capable of either revealing all and sharing all, and that is why happy and lifelong marriages are made in heaven between soulmates of like mind.

Paradoxically, it is the loss of those special feelings in one’s body that initially announced the presence of 'love' to us which marks its disappearance from our relationship. When I worked in the capacity of a marriage guidance counsellor during my earlier years, I would often ask couples who were on the verge of breaking up to see if they could remember what it was about their partner that first made them love them. I did this in the hope that remembering their partner’s endearing qualities might enable them to recapture those associated loving feelings they had lost since their wedding day. On occasions when the couple’s marriage could be saved, the recollection of their partner’s traits which endeared them initially undoubtedly helped. This exercise was also found to be valuable when the marriage could not be saved and the couple still decided to separate and divorce, especially where they had children to their union and custody was an issue. In those cases where the marriage could not be saved, it was still possible to salvage the relationship sufficiently so that the couple might part amicably.

I cannot count the number of people who have told me that their life is unfulfilled because they never found anyone to share it with them. However hard a person tries, some people never find somebody to love who would love them back in the same way. That is why some couples who want children but cannot have them often finish up lavishing their parental love on a pet cat, dog, or a horse instead. That is why many individuals who are not destined to find a lifelong partner to live with (or in some instances do not want a partner), may choose to have a close relationship with a dog or a cat as a faithful and loving companion instead.

Most of these people I encountered who crave having somebody to love, lacked confidence and displayed an absence of social skills in the presence of others. Many were non-assertive and very shy in disposition, and the more they searched for a mate but did not find one, the less confident, and less assertive they became. All of them, however, was lacking in self-love. Many believed they did not possess 'loveable qualities' and did not come across as being a 'loveable person'. Some lacked basic social skills, and never felt easy in the company of others or expressing their personal views.

Before they were to increase their likelihood of finding ‘somebody to love’, who would love them in return, my first task as a group worker for twenty-five years was to discover ways of helping them to improve themselves. This involved encouraging them to perceive themselves more positively and learning to’ love themselves’. I did this because the ability to love oneself is a prerequisite to loving another and attracting their love for you. After all, people are less likely to think a lot about you if the messages that you constantly give off is that you think so little about yourself! ‘Partners to be’ want to see the occasional flame of passion in their mate, not a constant stream of pity flow from their apologetic mouths.

One of the frequent dangers which prevails whenever someone who wants a relationship 'too much' manages to find a suitable mate, is that they often display a tendency towards becoming ‘possessive’. Needy people always want too much; that is what makes them ‘needy’ in the first place. Their possessiveness often starts to show whenever the relationship appears to be going along okay. Secure in the knowledge that their relationship is on safe ground, they start to change the rules. They find themselves gradually becoming more demanding and controlling with their partner. When their partner shows any signs of resistance to their controlling behaviour, they often seek to justify themselves using ‘emotional blackmail’; generally saying that they do what they do and are like they are because they love the other person so much and want to protect them at all times. They may even blame some previous relationship where they were badly treated. If they really believe what they are saying, then they are merely disillusioning themselves, but 27 years of working as a Probation Officer leads me to conclude that they are using emotional blackmail tactics to justify their own jealous, manipulative, and controlling behaviour, which is being stoked by their own sense of insecurity.

Another type of individual is the person who has one relationship after another relationship; all of which inevitably break down for similar reasons. They are often like the possessive type in the previous paragraph, but with two added features in their makeup; they are highly presentable in image terms and are usually handsome and attractive of face and body. They also occupy a professional occupation of high community esteem. However insecure a personality they are, their good looks alone, and the financial security they appear to offer a potential partner ensures that they will always have someone who is initially attracted to them (usually at a physical/sexual level). They tend to start and end relationships at such a frequency that their subconscious fears that their relationship will inevitably fail when the other person ‘finds them out’. In recognition of that likelihood (and not wanting to be alone again when it does), they often begin grooming a new partner to be to take the place of their current partner before their next relationship break-up occurs. Not surprisingly, this type of person is prone to unfaithfulness and indulging in regular affairs, often associated with their place of work.

Life sometimes sucks and is often unfair on one person in a relationship. I do hope that any lonely people in search of a loving mate this Valentine’s Day finds one to share Valentine 2022 with. I am so pleased that in Sheila, ‘I have found my ‘somebody to love’.

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 13th February 2021

13/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to Hannah Gibson who lives in the heart of Bronte land in Haworth, West Yorkshire, and Patrick Dowling who lives in Carlow, Ireland. Both Hannah and Patrick celebrate their birthdays today. We hope that you both enjoy your special day and thank you for being my Facebook friend. 

My song today is ‘Always on My Mind’ which one of our birthday celebrants specifically requested. This ballad was written by Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher, and Mark James. The song has been a crossover hit, charting in both the country and western and pop categories. It has been covered by dozens of artists since it was first recorded, including Brenda Lee, Elvis Presley, and Willie Nelson most notably. Willie Nelson 1982 version won him a Grammy Award, and his version of this song is my favourite.

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To me, this song spells ‘love, love, love’. Who else is there that can bring out feelings of love in someone like a person we love, have loved but lost to death, and will always love. As I write this post for today’s daily song, I think about the loved ones and the soulmates who have died and left the lives of so many people over recent years bereft of their presence. The ‘love’ of a person is so powerful a thing that its presence can make one feel whole for the first time in their life or its absence can shatter and break one’s heart in two. No matter how we measure the effect on our lives, ‘love’ can either make or break us by its presence and its absence. 

A part of me always feels that when a soulmate dies, and the loss of their presence has the dire effect of emotionally unsettling the bereaved partner for the remainder of their lives, that they expressed their love disproportionally when their soulmate lived. This assertion of mine is not to cast the slightest doubt that they loved their partner in life more than life itself, but that they did not have sufficient love of self to healthily sustain the loss of their loved one after he/she departed this life. Indeed, the very fact that they tell you that they ‘loved the deceased more than life itself’ is indicative of a disproportionate imbalance of their feelings. Such a declaration following the death of a loved one harbours difficulty in healthily coming to terms with their loss. It also indicates that the bereaved person’s self-talk has unknowingly instructed the body to ‘no longer feel alive’ when their loved one is dead. 

The way out of prolonged grief paradoxically involves them doing the very opposite to what they did wrong while their partner lived. lt is also a way that their deceased loved one would heartedly approve of, were they able to advise them today. The love of their bereaved partner would undoubtedly lead them to tell them to worry less about their departure, and to concentrate more on the arrival of their new self. 

This new self will be a person who begins to love themselves. They will be an individual who recognises that that self-love is healthy, the more love they have within them, the more love they have to express toward others. And,so it is true about all levels of personal attributes. The more self-respect one has, the more likely one will truly respect others, and that the less one lives in the past, the more they can live for the present, and plan for their future life.

The issue is not that they loved their partner too much when they lived, but that they did not love themselves enough. Whenever a disproportionate allocation of any individual’s love quotient pertains within any relationship, and the individual who is left bereaved never gave themselves sufficient love before their partner died, their bereavement period will be unnecessarily extended and will be far more emotionally difficult to negotiate. 

So, accept that your deceased partner loved you as much as you did them, and know in your heart that were they able to communicate with you and influence your actions today, it would be in today’s language they would be speaking to you in, and it would be about today’s concerns and today’s circumstances that they would ask you to apply your mind to. No deceased person would ever desire that you mourned them forever and made your once happy home an eternal shrine or a morgue. They would naturally like you to remember the best parts about them and to forgive any small faults they had. ‘Not to be forgotten’ and ‘to be fondly remembered’ is what they would ask of you. Their most important wish, however, would be ‘take what happiness you can find’ in your future life. 

Finally, you need never fear that you will forget them and what they meant to you when they were alive, as they live on in your heart and mind. All the things they stood for and believed in still matter and serve their memory. Your loving partner also lives on in the looks and mannerisms of their children, their grandchildren, and the children of your grandchildren not yet born. Life goes on and on, and when it's gone, it lives in someone new. 

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 12th February 2021

12/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to Mike Howarth who lives in Baildon, Bradford, England, and Liam Lonergan who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland. Both Mike and Liam celebrate their birthday today. Enjoy your special day, guys, and thank you for being my Facebook friend.

My song today is ‘My Coo Ca Choo’. This was the first successful release for Alvin Stardust reaching Number 2 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ in December 1973. This glam rock single fared even better in Australia, where it was the best charting single in the country in 1974. 

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The only thing I can recall about the release of this record in 1973 is that I first heard it at a Christmas party in December of 1974. It was one of the rare occasions when I drank too much alcohol. Being tipsy is an infrequent experience for me and being drunk is a total rarity, as I have not been much of a drinker since the wild days of my teenage years. On this occasion, however, I had drunk too much alcohol and was sitting (or perhaps positioned prostrate) on one of those sofas of the time that went around the room perimeter and had over a dozen sections to it that one could shove together if required. I must have been drowsy and was dropping off to sleep when suddenly, the record being played changed to one being sung by Alvin Stardust, and the room bust out into the loudest ‘Coo Ca Choo’ chant I’ve ever heard (or so it seemed at the time). Then, someone bent down over me, placed both hands on each of my face cheeks, and said “And who’s this little ‘Coo Ca Choo’ all on his own?” as she landed a big kiss on my lips.

Let met instantly say that it was not the usual type of kiss that asks, “Are you enjoying yourself there all on your own, Bill?” but a more lasting, lingering, and tempting one that communicated to my tipsy and addled brain, “Are you enjoying yourself there on your own, Bill? Wouldn’t you rather be enjoying yourself much more if you were alone with me elsewhere; somewhere more private?” 

It turned out to be one of the more attractive and friendliest of females in the Probation Office who often chatted and joked with me in a flirtatious manner, which I enjoyed immensely, despite being a married man. When she kissed me unexpectedly at the office do, she knew that I had not yet celebrated my fifth wedding anniversary and that I was at least two years farther away from itching to scratch at any new extramarital territory. It turned out that she also was a woman who rarely drank, but had decided to attend this party and get inebriated because her marriage was going through a rough patch since she’d discovered her husband had been having an affair with a married woman in his workplace. 

I would have responded more romantically under different circumstances had neither of us been married. While my own marriage was on a downward slope at the time, I still considered my marriage vows sacred and the words still rang loud and clear whenever a sexual thought strayed in an extra-marital direction. Besides, I believed I was ‘wedded for life, for better or worse’, and politely prevented her from making any further advances she would come to regret when she had sobered up the next day. We spoke for some considerable time that night before we went home our separate ways. 

As fate would decree, nothing untoward ever transpired between us during the future years, despite a few ‘near misses’ after both of our marriages broke up two years apart. We continued to flirt harmlessly, aware that danger was always present whenever we found ourselves alone. It was probably the thought of dangerously living on the edge of some event that was always likely to happen that created a sense of acceptable risk and frisson for each of us. We both sensed that there was a spark between us that would immediately ignite into a raging bonfire were we ever to meet again in an inebriated state, and this mere realisation between us would occasionally allow our eyes to betray our ‘guilty secret’. We continued to play out our flirtatious game for several years longer, whilst managing to keep our feelings in check throughout by the combined approach of effectively stifling the expression of our feelings for the other and handcuffing all inappropriate touch and friendly caress in a collusive partnership.

We were both aware that the sexual spark which existed between us could flare up with the mere exchange of a certain look, the voicing of one incautious and inviting word, or the feel of one inappropriate touch between us. Were these explosive elements to ever combine in a meeting of minds at the right time, it would most certainly lead us to do the wrong thing! It was as though we each unconsciously held a box of matches in one hand and a bucket of water in the other for the remaining years we came into contact in the same working environment! We both finished up divorcing our marriage partners, and we never got together.

Before this post, and the recollection of today’s song, I have not thought about my fair-maiden office colleague for many years now, and no doubt she would have remained a distant memory in the recess of my mind had I not recently heard the Alvin Stardust record ‘Coo Ca Choo’ on the radio which momentarily made me wonder, “What if…. I had….?” Then I look across at Sheila, the beautiful woman I was to eventually marry in the autumn of my life, and think, "She’s the only Coo Ca Choo for me!" 

Love and peace. 
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 11th February 2021

11/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to four birthday celebrants; all of whom live in the same Irish town. We wish happy birthday to Helen Hickey: Jimmy Hogan: Onora Grace: and Susan Collins who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland. Enjoy your special day and thank you for being my Facebook friend. I had originally intended to dedicate today’s song to my best friend, Tony Walsh from Carrick-on-Suir when I initially recorded it last year, but Tony sadly died shortly after in 2020. It is therefore very appropriate to record it to four of his Carrick-on-Suir neighbours.

My song today is ‘Treat Me Nice’. This song was recorded by Elvis Presley. The song was featured prominently in the film ‘Jailhouse Rock’.  The single was the B-side to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and both singles became Number 1 hits in the USA in the Fall of 1957 and in the UK in early 1958.

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When I was a teenager, aged between 11-16, my energies were spent learning to walk again and regaining my balance, following a bad accident I incurred when a wagon ran over me and put me in the hospital for nine months with life-threatening injuries. One of my major injuries included a damaged spine that suggested I would never walk again. Over a two-year period, I have over fifty operations breaking and resetting my legs which had been badly broken in many places.

During my mid-teens, a new boy came to live with a relative on Windybank Estate where I lived. His name was Tony Walsh, and he came from a village in Ireland called Carrick-on-Suir which was the neighbouring village to Portlaw where I was born. Being Irish and Catholic, we became the closest of friends, and for several years before Tony eventually returned to his home village in Ireland, we would spend most of our spare time together.

I needed four dozen leg operations on my left leg which had been broken on the knee and in several places when the wagon which knocked me down wrapped my body around the main drive propeller shaft. Because of many leg operations, growth in my left leg over a two-year period was stunted. As these operations occurred at a phase in my life when my body was in a growth spurt, I eventually found myself with two legs of unequal length to each other. My left leg was now three inches shorter than my right leg, and naturally, this left me with a pronounced limp each time I took a stride. The medics naturally recommended a built-up boot with metal rods down the sides to strengthen and stabilise my walking. I adamantly refused and insisted that I would deal with the discrepancy of leg length by more natural means. At that time calipers were more common as Polio was still a prevalent condition.

Between the years 11-14, I was unable to walk or stand unaided. Between the years 14-21, once I was able to walk again, I engaged in every sporting activity I could, especially those activities which helped me to improve balance, as it was my balance I needed the most help with. Such activities involved boxing, wrestling, tennis (lawn/court/table), rugby, running, etc. By not wearing built-up footwear, my hips gradually realigned themselves to a diagonal slanted position. For many years, I used imagination exercises/auto-suggestion/relaxation training methods to assist me to achieve a more acceptable walk. I was able to develop a ‘rolling action’ of walking instead of taking deliberate stepping motions. My friend Tony had been a national boxing champion, and he taught me how to box better, which involved showing me ways of addressing my slanted stance in the boxing ring. We would also go out on evening runs a few times weekly.

During the late fifties and the early sixties, the new dancing craze was to hit the dance halls was Rock and Roll. I had always loved dancing and longed to return to the dance halls, but knew that I would never again possess the poise, balance, and grace to glide around the floor with the fleetness of foot required to do the foxtrot, quickstep, and tango to competition level. The advent of Rock and Roll provided me with my means to get back into the dance halls for pleasure. Bopping was a dance where I could participate on equal terms because of its freestyle moves that enabled me to disguise my unequalness in leg length on the dance floor by gyrating my hips and other body parts.

My romantic teenage years were spent with my best friend Tony Walsh and the rest of the Windybank group of young men drinking, dancing, and fighting. We would attend ‘Cleckheaton Town Hall’ every Saturday night, and we would either go to a dance in Batley, Dewsbury, or Halifax during the week. Every dance night was an opportunity to court young women, to have a decent drink, or to round the evening off with a large fight between different gangs of young men in the area. In most of these activities, Tony and I would be alongside each other. We would often go out on a double date with a couple of young women we met at a dance. Whenever a fight with another gang happened, however much we were outnumbered, we would always have each other’s back.  As regard to drinking, neither of us drank as much beer as our other mates, because we were more into sporting interests. 

Our paths separated before I went to Canada for a couple of years at the age of 21 years, and Tony (who was younger than me) returned to his Irish birthplace where he met his own beautiful colleen, Lily. He fell in love with Lily, married her, and had a lovely family. Sadly, when my best friend Tony died last year, his departure from this world took a significant part of my early years with him. God Rest his soul and God bless his widow, Lily, and his children and grandchildren.

Tony’s favourite singers were Billy fury and Elvis Presley, and during the past three years when I have been engaged in my daily singing practice and putting up a recorded song on my Facebook page, I have usually dedicated any Elvis Presley songs to my friend Tony. Tony loved this song which I initially planned to dedicate to him at a future date.  Sadly, Tony died last year, so he is mentioned in today’s dedications. Tony Walsh, I hope that you are allowed ‘listening in time’ from up above to hear your old pal sing you one of your favourite Elvis numbers. And send down some heavenly blessing on today’s four birthday celebrants, Helen Hickey, Jimmy Hogan, Onora Grace, and Susan Collins.

Love and peace 
Bill xxx  

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Song For Today: 10th February 2021

10/2/2021

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As I have no Facebook contacts who I am aware of who celebrates a birthday today, I dedicate my song today to all the girls and women everywhere who are called Diana, especially any of my own Facebook contacts.

My song today is ‘Diana’. This song was written and made famous by Paul Anka in 1957. Paul Anka stated in his autobiography that the song was inspired by a girl named Diana Ayoub, whom he had met at his church and community events and had developed a crush on. Paul Anka's original 1957 recording reached Number 1 on the ‘Billboard Best Sellers in Stores’ chart. It reportedly sold over nine million copies. ‘Diana’ also hit Number 1 on the ‘R&B Best Sellers’ chart. It also reached Number 1 on the UK's ‘New Musical Express’ chart.

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As a young man, I was a decent singer and we still lived in the age where young women loved being serenaded. I recall being so taken by this song as a 15 and 16-year-old teenager that if ever I dated a young woman called Diana, boy was she in for a treat! My aim was to meet them, date them, and finally, impress them by serenading them with the song 'Diana' one moonlit night before ‘popping the question’. The question would naturally change from situation to situation and girl to girl.

Being less acquainted with classical mythology in my teens, at the time of my pursuit of young women called ‘Diana’, l was unaware that in mythology, Diana was the Goddess of wild animals and the hunt. I now suspect that I may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps it was the beautiful young women called ‘Diana’ who were the hunters and I, their unsuspecting prey? 

I dated a few young women called 'Diana' during my 16th year of life, although I must admit in all truth, I would have dated any female beauty of fetching features, even had she been named ‘Mucky Molly from Miry Lane’. Miry Lane was commonly known as 'Lover's Lane' to all courting residents of Windybank Estate who were on the lookout for a lover’s hideaway. Halfway down Miry Lane, off the roadside, was a grain field where sheaves of barley grew tall enough to conceal any loving couple from main-road passers-by once they lay down. This lover’s spot was notorious for young women losing their maidenhead during warm summer evenings to young men whose surname they may not have known at the time but would shortly adopt as their own before the year was out.

I was a teenager during an age where there were still double standards commonly practised between men and women. This was the sexist sixties of Great Britain where men and women doing the same thing and behaving, in the same way, were viewed entirely differently by society at large. A young man having sex with a young woman was generally considered to be behaving as all young men tend to do before settling down with a respectable wife-to-be, whereas the single woman engaging in any sexual activity before marriage was acting ‘sluttish’ or was called a ‘common tart’. 

Whereas it would be regarded as being understandable for a young man to engage in whatever comes naturally to a young man who has wild oats to sow and seeks fertile ground to sow them in, for a young woman to ever believe that she would share a similar harvest of opinion by the community at large, would be akin to her having her loaf and eating it. This was the late 1950s and there was no equality between man and woman. The young men wanted the pleasures of a romantic encounter without any of the responsibility. They would continue to have their fun and to get married when they were good and ready to marry, whereas the highest fear of any a young woman was remaining unmarried into her mid-twenties (being left on the shelf) and being branded ‘an old maid’. Even when the word ‘spinster’ was used to describe the unmarried status of a woman in her late twenties upwards, the utterance of the word ‘spinster’ was spat out suspiciously, in a manner that sought to place a large question mark over her sexual status.

The sixties were undoubtedly days when moral codes were applied differently to any young man or woman committing the same sexual act. Society discriminated greatly against all females, much more than any male. Whereas men could fight, fart, and f…k when and where they willed, women were still clothed in a blanket of male subservience and moral protection. This was undoubtedly the age of 'double standards' where inequality between the sexes still existed in all corners of the land. Whenever any young woman became sexually involved in a casual manner with a young man, there was only one loser, and it was never the man. The prize for any young woman of the time was winning a good man who would marry her, respect her. father her children and support the family. The competition was never played on equal terms and different rules applied between the sexes.

First and foremost, as males were the main family providers in the nation’s workforce, women approaching their twenties needed to get married more than men did unless they wanted to live at the parental abode as an ‘old maid’. To acquire their long-term security, young women were expected to play the most dangerous of roles when seeking young men of good husband material. The task was simply reduced to how they could get the most of what they wanted from their relationship by giving the least they could in return, while still maintaining ‘His’ continued interest, and preserving ‘Her’ own respectability and good name? To remain intact required the feminine skill of ‘promising everything’ whilst ‘giving up nothing’. The courting woman, however, was caught in a double bind as she was dammed by society if she did, and dumped by her boyfriend if she didn’t!

When the women managed to get their man to the church on time and became the respectable wife and mother, and a responsible member of the community, women still had the worse part of the marriage lottery. However decent the man she married was, however loving a father to their children, or good a breadwinner to their household he proved to be, the bottom line was that the husband remained head of the household, he was the breadwinner and controlled the household budget, and it was to him that wife and children turned whenever important decisions required to be made.

This essentially meant everything was done by the wife when her husband expected it to be done. They lived where he decided, they ate when he decided, they had sex whenever he decided, they had the number of children he wanted to father. There was not a man in Great Britain of any class who did not have his expectations met by his wife, without there being ‘trouble to pay’ when she was found wanting. For instance, when he arrived home at five o’clock after his day’s work was done, he expected to have a warm meal already out on the table for him, ready to eat. His wife, on the other hand, never rested until she went to bed (and not always then). Whereas her husband knocked off and relaxed upon coming home, her work was never done, and the only chance she got to sit down for two minutes in her busy day was when she went to the lavatory! Between 1860 and 1960, apart from women having been given the vote, little changed in the entire century to improve the woman’s lot!

The women of the day needed a female warrior to rally around, and the 1960s and 1970s witnessed a growth of women’s movements mushroom across the world; the most notable one at the time being headed by Germaine Greer and millions of feminist followers reading ‘The Female Eunuch’ as they paraded the streets in protest Their protest marches often concluded in the ceremonial burning of their bras in public demonstrations. Germain Greer adopted the role of a ‘Diana’ as she lectured far and wide, and it was impossible to turn on the television during the 1970s without seeing Germain Greer on the screen. Many feminists today would undoubtedly say that Germain Greer eventually ‘sold out’, but we would need a woman’s perspective to validate that view.

During the past sixty years, while laws have been passed in Great Britain to secure more equitable roles between men and women in society at large, most women would feel that legislation has merely paid lip service to women’s rights. The greatest advancement that provided more freedom and security for women during the last sixty years was undoubtedly the introduction of the contraceptive pill, but even that fact is hard to swallow as representing sufficient progress. Massive inequality between the sexes still exists, and probably always will.

When I look around Great Britain today, what do I see? The monarch still rules her subjects: the Government of the day still legislates laws that govern the citizen’s daily lives: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer: the powerful still hold sway over the powerless and always will. And as for the Englishman himself; his home is still his castle, and his wife is still his Queen, and their young Princes still take precedence in the line of succession over their Princess sisters. If you do not believe me, ladies, you just try to enter any ‘male ground’ and see if you are impeded. Except for a few women who have broken through the glass ceiling, this unequal access still applies in the major positions of state, government, church, law, business, education, etc.

In fact, let us ignore the macro illustration of society at large and look much closer to home. Should a wife try to go into her husband’s garage, his work shed, or even attempt to set foot upon his allotment plot, she will soon find her presence unwelcome, resisted, and discouraged. She will find that entering male ground is even harder than going in his wallet to get more housekeeping money.

I am afraid it started way back in the ‘Garden of Eden’ when Eve was created from the rib of Adam. Whatever a woman is, she comes from man (according to biblical scripture). She came second then, and until Christianity is spearheaded by a Goddess instead of a God, that as far as monarchy, government, church, law, state, employment, education, society, home, and allotment shed, ‘She’ still comes second to ‘He’.

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 9th February 2021

9/2/2021

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I dedicate today’s song to four birthday celebrants today. We wish a happy birthday to my favourite niece, Carol Morris, who lives in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire: Violeta Dimitrijevic who lives in Kumanovo, Macedonia: Carmel Walsh who lives in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland. Finally, we wish a happy birthday to Lorna Stone who comes from the Irish village of my birth in Portlaw, Waterford, but who now lives in Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland. Enjoy your special day ladies. 

Today’s song is ‘Leaving on Your Mind’. This is a famous Country song written by Wayne Walker and Webb Pierce. The song was popularised by Joyce Smith in 1962. Patsy Cline stated that she was in Owen Bradley’s office one day, heard the record Smith made, and immediately wanted the song for herself. Patsy Cline wound up recording the song and releasing it in 1963. It was her last single before she died in a plane crash in March of that year. Unlike her earlier hits ‘Crazy’ and ‘I Fall to Pieces’, ‘Leaving on Your Mind’ was an unfortunate failure on the pop chart, where it stalled at Number 83. However, the song today remains a classic in Country music. 

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During my own life as an individual and as a Probation Officer for 26 years, I experienced numerous people who found themselves in unhappy relationships. There inevitably came a time when they realised that something had to be done, and from that moment of decision only one thought preoccupied them; 'they had leaving on their mind’ as the only logical response to preserving their sanity, emotional stability, peace of mind, and occasionally, their physical safety. 

Where the relationship is without children, some pain is undoubtedly avoided at the point of separation, but when children are part of the family equation, the decision to stay or go, to separate or divorce becomes much harder. There have been many husbands or wives who claimed to have stayed in a failed marriage ‘because of the children’s sake’. 

Often, the decision to leave an unhappy and failed relationship has been postponed for many years until the children of the union have become older or have negotiated some important ‘next phase of development’. The person will often perceive their unselfish action as representing their parental duty. They will view sacrificing their own happiness ‘for the sake of the children’ as being the only responsible course of action open to them. Often, they may tell themselves or their reprieved partner, ‘I’ll leave you when the children have done their school examinations… or have gone to university… or have left home!” 

When the threat to leave is ‘put on hold’ until a more suitable time in an unhappy relationship between husband and wife, an uneasy peace prevails between the couple during the intervening period. When, however, the children have left, that is when the person making the threat must declare their hand or be prepared to surrender their pride. They either leave as threatened or decide to stay; leaving them feeling that either their bluff has been called in the marital stakes or they have simply thrown in their hand and have continued to play at a losing marriage table. 

If you are a person who has ‘leaving on your mind’, whether the leaving pertains to a relationship, an affair, or a marriage, a job, or any organisation or body, the sooner you come to a decision that meets your needs and which you can emotionally reconcile with, the better for all concerned. Those of indecisive mind will always be left stranded; often to feel that the last train has left the platform. However, if you are unfortunate enough to be in that situation, do not give all up, as that is not the case. There will always be another train arriving. It is never too late in the life of any individual to wake to a brighter morning.

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 8th February 2021

8/2/2021

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I dedicate my song today to six birthday celebrants. They are Joan Wall, Patricia Collins O’Shea, and Angelika Nastaly who live in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, Ireland: Rachel Whipp who lives in Keighley, West Yorkshire: Ursula Harms who lives in Surrey, and birthday greetings to Sylvia Moroney who lives in Brighouse, West Yorkshire from her daughter Michelle Robins. Have a smashing birthday everyone, and enjoy your special day.

My song today is ‘Careless Whispers’. This pop ballad was performed by George Michael. It was written by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of the British music duo ‘Wham!’ It was released on 24th July 1984 on the album ‘Make it Big’. The song has been covered by several artists. It was released as a single and became a huge commercial success around the world. It reached number one in nearly 25 countries.

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This song is about unfaithfulness in a relationship by cheating on a best friend. I recall my later teenage courting years when a group of a dozen young men would go out together from the estate where I lived. We each considered that we were no less than a blood brother to the other eleven mates, and we always had the backs of each other. None of us ever missed attending some event because they happened to be short of money at the time, and when this happened, the rest of the gang would chip in and to cover their cost of admission whether to the Picture House (called the cinema today) or into a dance. We would go dancing at least twice weekly and attending the ‘Cleckheaton Town Hall’ on a Saturday night would be our dancing/romancing highlight of the week.

There were certain understandings between us that were essentially part of our code of brotherhood. We never abandoned another of the group who was being picked on by another gang, and fights between different groups of young men from Cleckheaton, Batley, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, and Halifax were a regular weekly feature. It was permissible to go out alone with a young woman for the evening during the week, but on Saturday nights we attended the dance as a group of mates and met any women we had planned to hook up with there. Until we walked our young women home at the end of the dance, we were to consider ourselves ‘on-call’ to assist any other group member if a fight broke out or some other need arose.

There was one taboo (the 11th Commandment), however, which none of the gang violated. To do so, would result in immediate shame heaped upon you and the rejection of your peers. The taboo clearly stated that another mate’s woman was strictly ‘off-limits’, a ‘no go area’ to any other admirer. One never cheated on a mate by going with his woman behind his back.  It was considered okay to try one’s hand with any young woman who was courting a young man from ‘another gang’ if you thought you had half a chance of persuading her to switch allegiance. That behaviour was usually unwelcomed by your peers, as it invariably involved an unnecessary gang fight in the dance hall. Your group of friends did not mind a good ‘free for all’ breaking out on the dance floor if the night was boring or the reputation of a group member or the gang itself was at stake. However, there is a time for fighting and a time for courting, and when the rest of one’s mates are hooked up with a young woman they like, there is naturally some resentment if they are broken off in the middle of a heavy-petting session because one of their mates has decided to cast their eyes in the wrong direction and keep them there, regardless of the inevitable consequences. No young man with a fetching young woman in his arms likes having to take a ‘rain check’ and abandon his lady when it looks like he has a 'promise on’, just to assist a mate get a dance with a young woman of their choice who happens to be the girlfriend of a rival gang member.

There would naturally be the usual exception to the above rule. For instance, if someone from your crowd was attacked by a member of another gang first, well then, fighting back was automatically expected; indeed, gang pride demanded no less! 

So, whatever we might get up to during our average week within our peer group of blood brothers, we did keep one sacrosanct code. None of us messed with another mate’s girlfriend, or else they messed with the whole gang. It was considered okay to hang out with or to go out with a mate’s ex-girlfriend, but only after one month or more had elapsed since your mate had broken up with her. However, if she had been the one to break it off with your mate though, to have a relationship with any mate’s ‘ex’ was considered unseemly, and was actively discouraged, as it could lead to bad blood being spilled between gang members. 

My teenage years occurred during a time in Great Britain where both ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ were rife. Males and females still lived in a white, heterosexual man-made world that was geared towards the satisfaction of heterosexual male interest more than the pursuit of gender equality or comparable consideration in the decision-making process between the men and women. 

Love and peace 
Bill xxx

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