Blog Archives - FordeFables

March 31st, 2016

31/3/2016

Thought for today:
"When I was young, the air was clean and work was dirty to perform, but I felt safe. When I look into the future now, I find it unsettling and filled with uncertainty because I know that's where I will spend the rest of my life. There was a time that I was not afraid of tomorrow because I'd seen yesterday and felt content with today, but now I fear old age in these new times. Whenever I now look into the future, the smell of fear becomes stronger the more I look, the clouds of uncertainty more looming. My dreams are darker and all beauty has been stolen from them. Everything is so different today." William Forde: March 31st, 2016.

March 30th, 2016

30/3/2016

March 30th, 2016.

30/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Do you realise what it means to come home at night to a partner who gives you no love, no affection, no tenderness and no understanding? It means you are in the wrong: in the wrong marriage, with the wrong woman, in the wrong time and place and 'in the dog house', that's what it means!

Many of my readers, like me, will have known the heartache broken marriages can impose. Many relationships have a 'sell by date' and one is fortunate in the extreme to marry, settle down, stay happily married and live together until the end of one's life. Often however, when it becomes clear that the marriage is broken beyond repair, part of me says it should be treated as shattered glass; better to leave the relationship broken than to hurt yourself more trying to put it back together like I did for thirteen years of my first marriage. I found it impossible to move on when my circumstances and surroundings stayed the same; so I left.

I fought to save my marriage to my first wife, Janet, but unfortunately, after the birth of our two children, she fought to end it. You know, the saddest thing in the world is continuing to love someone who used to love you. It slowly drains one of self-respect and saps the morale.

The love which had once existed between me and my first wife died many years before we called 'time' on our marriage. Upon Janet's insistence, I finally stopped trying to salvage it and left. I had resisted the inevitability of this separation for countless years; I had refused to see that our marriage was over and had refused to accept that by staying in it against her wishes that I leave, I was simply making matters worse, for her, me and the children!

Within one day of leaving, I uncorked those repressed emotions which I had bottled up for the previous decade and allowed my lungs to breathe in fresh air and my body to feel unchained. I felt like a trapped bird which had been freed from its cage into the wide open world. Nothing or nobody could have persuaded me to return to my prison cell and lock myself back in it. Only then could I accept that I loved my wife best when I left her. She now had the opportunity without my presence, to find herself and to become a happier and more accepting person.

When my first wife denied me all contact and access visits to the two children of our marriage for almost two years after we separated, I was filled with rage and I stayed angry for a number of years. This trapped negativity merely ensured that the devil would not loosen his grip on me until I abandoned all the residual anger I still carried inside about the bad way I had been treated over the previous decade.

My saddest memory of marital breakup to my first wife was the inevitable hurt inflicted upon our two innocent children. Each divorce brings with it the death of a small civilization. The children of the marriage often feel responsible for the breakup of their parents. They feel it to be their fault and search their little souls for something they might have done. Sadly, the most important thing a father can do for his children in their eyes is to love their mother and when he no longer can, the bond between father and children is inevitably threatened.

My second marriage to Fiona was a much happier union than my first and lasted twenty eight years, of which twenty were as good as it gets. I met my second wife a short period after leaving my first marriage and instantly fell in love with her. I often wonder whether we fall in love again on the rebound in order to burn our bridges behind us so that our devil cannot follow?

Some of our earlier years were difficult times, but despite any hardship that visited us, they were the happiest of years we shared. Despite the shortage of money and the difficulty in persuading the children of two failed marriages to play 'happy families' during weekend access periods, we eventually forged a healthy family unit founded on love and buttressed by mutual respect. I feel immensely proud today when I look at the children of our mixed marriages and know that there are no half measures to their relationships when they call each other brother and sister. Very early on in my second marriage, I refused to see divisions fostered in our children by the use of fractions. I would allow no step to separate them; there would be no half-brother or step-sister, no other acceptable term than that of brother and sister to keep all of them fully committed to each other.

I must admit that the children of both marriages were life savers in the process of restoring self-belief and finding my intrinsic worth again. Simply looking at them reinforced the undeniable truth, that just because a relationship ended with their mothers, didn't mean it wasn't worth having in the first place!

After the ending of my second marriage, unlike the ending of my first, Fiona and I remained on friendly terms and determined that we would stay jointly responsible parents to our children .

With two marriages ended and having effectively been twice dumped by brides who were unable to stay the course, I had three or four years on my own to gather my thoughts in respect of what went wrong. I arrived at the view that in many ways, marriage is always a trade off. I considered it a continuous compromise between two brokers, and where breakup comes when there isn't anything left to bargain with. In many ways, a marital-relationship breakdown is represented by a kaleidoscope of extreme emotions to be found along one's journey between 'falling in love' and 'falling apart.' Perhaps, the only way to keep a marriage alive requires falling in love many times over with the same person?

In 2010, I found my one true love with whom I knew from the start that I would end my days, Sheila. We married on my 70th birthday in November, 2012 and I can swear that I have never been as happy or have known a grey day since. I have since formed a theory that happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love and marriage blossoms when we love the ones we marry. I also believe that successful marriages on earth are renewed in heaven. I once asked a couple who were enjoying their sixtieth wedding anniversary their secret and was told,'We talk together, we play together, we learned to forgive and forget, we never allow truth to become an inconvenience and we always refused to go to bed on a row.'

Being with Sheila has taught me that love doesn’t commit suicide. It can only die if we kill it off, neglect its presence or let it wither through abandonment of affection. As to the secret of staying together, Sheila recently told me that she'd fathomed it: she said, 'If you ever decide to leave, I'm coming with you!" William Forde: March 30th, 2016.

December 31st, 1969

29/3/2016

March 27th, 2016.

27/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Sheila and I would like to wish all of our family and friends a very happy and peaceful Easter.

I rose this Easter Sunday morning around 5am., having developed a sore throat and being unable to sleep longer because of a troubled foot. As I made myself a cup of tea, I decided to compose my 'thought for today.' The thought I held most prominent was one of 'rising', and in particular, the words 'resurrection' and 'insurrection' came to mind, along with my 'reflection' upon my first Easter present to my wife, Sheila.

Easter Sunday is the most important festival in the Church calendar. In short, it tells all Christians that Christ has risen and that Christ is love.This was the first thought that my mind resurrected today.

One hundred years ago in Ireland, the land of my birth, there was another Easter Rising. For six days during Easter of 1916, Irish republicans launched a rebellion in Dublin. The purpose of this insurrection was to end British rule in Ireland and to establish an independent Irish Republic. Over the next 82 years, following the partition of the 32 Irish counties, whereby six counties in the north remained under British rule, ongoing hostility between the different Irish factions persisted. In the Easter of 1998, 'The Good Friday Agreement' was signed between the British and Irish governments, formerly bringing hostilities of these troubled years to an end.

My mind then reflected upon the very first Easter I knew Sheila. During the early morning of Easter Sunday of 2011, I rose early from my bed, (very much like this morning), deep in thought. I wanted to give Sheila a present of love on Easter Sunday morning; a gift that would never be spent, broken or perish. I knew she played the church organ most Sundays, so I wrote and arranged her very own hymn entitled, 'Be my life,' believing such a gift to be appropriate to give to the woman I wanted to marry. We had the hymn sung at our wedding in November 2012. When Sheila plays the organ at Mass on a Sunday, she will frequently play her hymn during the quieter part of the service.

Please excuse the quality of this recording of the hymn that was taken on our wedding day, but it will enable you to hear it. There is also a backing track that Sheila has recorded on the organ for anyone to sing along with. For the more musically talented among you, Sheila has fitted the words to the musical score, to be played on any keyboard or stringed instrument. Happy Easter all." William Forde: March 27th, 2016.

http://www.fordefables.co.uk/be-my-life.html

March 26th, 2016.

26/3/2016

”Thought for today:
"You must take responsibility for your own life. You can't keep blaming someone else for your disappointments. Life is really about seizing the moment and moving on, not looking back in permanent regret. Do not let the past steal your present. No one has ever been known to get a life looking backwards instead of forward, where one's future lies. Let the past bury its own dead; you've got your future to look forward to!

If you want to love life for all its worth, you must first learn to value it. Look always in the direction where 'positivism' is to be found. This requires one being constantly channelled into an energy force that is determined to do good. Everything around us is made up of energy and therefore, to attract all things positive in our lives, starts with ourself giving off positive energy.

Positive people believe in self as well as others. I am always doing things that others tell me I cannot do. That is how I get them done. I will not be defined by what others think of me or by 'what I did,' as opposed to 'what I do.' I refuse to be prodded, pressurised and pushed by problems, when being led by my dreams makes me a more content individual. In the final analysis, there are only two ways to live one's life. One way is to believe that nothing is a miracle and the other is to believe that everything is! Looking around at the birth of a child and all the mystery of nature and its four seasons, I much prefer to believe the latter.

So look forward to tomorrow by being purposeful in all you do today. One of the biggest mistakes in life is to travel through it without purpose or self-belief. If we are wise, we will always have a goal to pursue. The trouble with not having a goal to direct you, is akin to spending your life running up and down the football field and never scoring!" March 26th, 2016.

March 25th, 2016.

25/3/2016

Thought for today:

'That's Spring' by William Forde

"When spring leaves winter standing in the distance
and lupins poke their heads above surrounding tuffs of grass.
That's the time when rambling sweethearts set off walking.
That's the time when ardent sweethearts stop their talking.
That's the time when lover's dew is in the making.
That's the time when happiness is there, just for the taking.
That treasured time, shared between every lad and lass,
amid the silent lupins and surrounding tuffs of grass.
That's the time. That's spring."

William Forde: Copyright: March 25th, 2016.

March 24th, 2016.

24/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Worry not what your child might be tomorrow, instead, forget not what he/she is today. All children need space to grow. They need the roots of family and the wings of imagination to thrive in whatever soil they are placed. A learned and stimulated child needs avenues to explore, magical things that excite and mystify, the right to fail, and the permission to have secret friends who are invisible to the prying eyes of adults. You will keep your child young and innocent as long as you maintain the preservation and identity of Santa. You will keep them inventive if you give permission to play in snow, make mud balls to throw and grant them allowance to jump and splash in puddles on rainy days. All days must be filled with time to dream, bed-time stories after saying prayers and a good night kiss before sleep. Do all this, along with a constant supply of love and reassurance from mum and dad and you will have a happy child and good adult in the making.

There are many adults who believe that having children is all that it takes to make them a parent. Let me tell them, it makes them no more of a parent than having a piano makes one a pianist! In order to know how best to play the role of parent, the first thing to learn is how a child plays when they think you are not looking.

I learned very early on in my life that a happy family is one where at least one parent knows the importance of all the little things that matter in a child's life. When I first crayoned a picture at Infant School and brought it home to my mother, she received it lovingly from my hands, smiled, kissed me and said, 'That's lovely, Billy.' Then, when she thought I wasn't looking, she pinned it on the lounge wall, and this made want to crayon another one. We were a Catholic family and always had 'holy water' in the house to bless ourselves each morning and night. When mum thought I wasn’t looking, I would see her bless herself and whisper a prayer, and seeing this, I came to understand there was a God I could always talk to. I often wanted to say thanks to mum for all the things I learned from her when she thought I wasn't looking, but to have said 'thanks' would have told her that I had been!

Whenever handing out advice to children, never forget their childlike wants and needs, for like adults, they are only prone to accept the advice that echoes the message they long to hear. My mother was always one for giving me advice on what to do or not do and how best to do it. My father rarely gave me advice. What made me admire him was the knowledge that he kept little personal money from the unopened, brown wage packet he tipped up to mum weekly. Always having little money provided him with no need for a wallet to carry inside his coat, but what I do know however, was that within the inside pocket of his coat, he always carried a photograph of mum holding me as an infant, and that told me I was a wanted child.

Christian parents carry a heavy responsibility to teach their children to distinguish between the absolutes of 'right' and 'wrong' and 'good' and 'bad', as well as show them how to recognise those qualities and vices of character that both attract or keep at bay, salvation or damnation. If the child can come to believe in God's presence in all mankind, they will experience their happy family environment to be an early heaven. Christian parents should never forget though, the powerful influence their words have on little ears and remember that the parent's voice, to a child, is like the voice of God. This is why parents should teach and not indoctrinate, show how to discern and not discriminate, educate how to criticise without condemning and demonstrate by their restraint if needs be, how to be in a hostile environment without displaying the instinctive urge to hit out and fight.

I truly believe that children live best when they live with approval. Parental approval enable children to like, accept and trust themselves much earlier on in life. I also believe that any child who lives with acceptance, trust and friendship as constant companions, learns to find love in their heart for all earthly creatures and things, along with the courage to never give up when the chips are down.

All these things I believe to represent sound parental guidance. I knew some of this knowledge in my earlier life as a parent, but like most parents, I made many mistakes the first time round. I learned not to repeat the same mistakes and made fewer the second time, but I only gathered in all these leaves of wisdom in the autumn of my life when my children had grown and my fathering days had passed. "William Forde: March 24th, 2016.

March 23rd, 2016.

23/3/2016

Thought for today:
"We have all heard the odd story that begins, 'That's nothing...when I was young, we were so poor that the family had to.......................' and if you are like me, you have probably told the odd story now and then about your poor past. All poverty is relative, but when we get down to brass tacks, few of us have ever known real poverty in our lives.

True, many have known times of hardship when there's been no money to buy the children Christmas presents or occasions when we have had little food for a few days due to lack of money. There are some who never experienced a holiday away from home or had to walk out with holed shoes that has been inwardly reinforced with a piece of stiff cardboard which kept out the wet, but hurt if you stood on a stone. They will even be a few who hid quietly in the house while the rent man knocked in vain, etc etc etc.

But whatever we have known during our hardest of times, it is nothing compared to what some poor souls currently know everyday as their way of life. Even Satan himself could not have created the deep divide that exists between the extremes of rich and poor in the world today; only mankind could manufacture such obscenities and witness such heartache as broken and scattered families are torn apart in lands of devastation; sunk without trace upon perilous sea crossings.

In some parts of the world, poverty is represented by the total absence of food, hope and freedom. There is no sense of dignity or decency to be drawn from such sad states where the people are trapped between barbarism and brutality, wandering aimlessly between moments of despair and seeds of destruction, living in circumstances where hope no longer exists and dreams of a better tomorrow are never dreamt. Such are places where fear screams from the mouths of helpless children and despair is worn upon the faces of grieving mothers and fathers who struggle to protect their young. Here reside the hard hearts of their captors, whose gifts to their fellow man are wrapped in bouquets of barbed wire. Such is the real poverty of these poor people, the absence of freedom from war and want.

The mass exodus of refugees and migrants across Europe today, fleeing war and persecution or seeking a better life are merely the start of worse things to come if an unfair distribution between rich and poor is allowed to continue. When will we wake up and start to smell the coffee and see the misery on our doorstep; sense the revolution in the making? Has not history shown us too many times that poverty is the parent of revolution and partner to most crime? The world's poor and oppressed craves a fairness they have not received. They are hungry for action and want full stomachs, not empty words or broken promises of intent. For far too long they have had to stomach the greatest sickness of mankind; the ability of richer and more powerful countries to stop caring for those who are worse off than ourselves! A hungry person can never be a free person. It is possible you know, for a person too be so hungry, that the only way God can ever appear to them is in the form of bread!

History is written by the victors of war, it is dictated by the powerful and the poor get blamed for everything economically unsound. Whether they exist on benefits, low wages or handouts in the soup kitchens of the north or stand on the southernmost street corners begging for crumbs from passers by, it is they who are blamed for the austerity of the times, not the greedy bankers, world capitalists or prospering countries that erect trade barriers against struggling countries of the Third World.

So speak out against this evil of poverty loud and clear, this enslaver of souls and quasher of hope. As the late Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Martin King Jr., said 'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.' " William Forde: March 23rd, 2016.

March 22nd, 2016.

22/3/2016

Thought for today:
"The purpose of life is much more than to live for oneself; it is to be useful and compassionate to others. Only by giving are we able to become the good person we are meant to be; only by giving are we able to receive more than we already have. What I spent I had, what I saved I lost and what I gave, I have! The bottom line is that wholesomeness cannot be achieved alone and doing nothing to help another when something helpful can be done, will prove the undoing of every man.

There is nothing more beautiful to see than unselfish love in action. No more rewarding experience can an individual have than to go out of their way to make better the life of another. Even where mild criticism is required to ensure correction, one's criticism should be as constructive as the blessed rain in a desert; gentle enough to nourish the future growth without destroying their roots. The mark of a good person and the living of a good life is to have made a difference in someone else's.

The very next opportunity you have to hold out your hand in friendship or can embrace the life of another with love and affection, rejoice in the certain knowledge that you are making a difference and say, 'Thanks for today.'" William Forde: March 22nd, 2016.

March 21st, 2001.

21/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Had my father lived until today, he would have been one hundred years old. He died twenty-five years ago and prior to his death, he suffered in silent pain for around two years. He was a strict man who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, from the poorest of upbringings, yet he remained a proud man throughout his life. Though he never possessed much, he wanted little, and like my mother, generosity was no stranger to him. He was the most modest man I ever knew and not once did I hear him boast about the things that he was certainly most proud of and was entitled to boast about, like having played international football for both his county and country.

Being relatively unschooled (leaving to start work before his teens),my father never prized education as a means of personal advancement. To him, the honesty of the worker's labour in being prepared to do a good day's work for a fair day's wage was the true bench mark of a person's character, which he never failed to meet. He was a committed Roman Catholic in the following of his religion and was so disciplined/rigid in his faith, that he would have sooner missed every meal for a week before he'd ever consider missing mass any Sunday morning! Indeed, had the Pope declared in a pronouncement of infallibility, that entry into heaven could not be gained by anyone who would not perform either this or that every morning for the rest of their life, whilst stood on their head in a bucket of ice-cold water, my father would have done it unquestioningly, without second thought. The one character from the Holy Bible he most represented was Abraham whom God commanded, 'Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.' (Gen.22:1-2)

Until my late teenage years, I found my father a hard man to follow and live up to. He commanded my respect, my sincere love and my unshakable belief that he was a good man who always did the things he thought was right, however wrong to others it might have seemed at the time, and whatever the consequences his actions attracted. It therefore became easier to accept in him, things I would never have accepted in another man. I frequently remarked to my friends that I would be happy were I to turn out half the man my father was!

Then, as I entered manhood, I became a much more discerning son and objective person than my father had ever been and gradually I took dad down from the pedestal I'd placed him on since childhood and positioned him as an equal alongside myself and other men. Over the next ten years, I was to learn things about dad which made him a less perfect pillar of respectability that the community and myself had always thought him to be. I started to see his failings of character in places where previously my love for him had blinded me and my mind dare not take me to. I still saw dad as being a 'good man,' yet my vision was no longer rose coloured. I could now see dad as being a more flawed a man who had travelled through life with the trappings of sometimes uncertainty and the weaknesses that most men occasionally display.

If only we were able to turn back the hands of time, how much wiser would we not be! I was a man before I started to see my dad for the man he truly was and by the time he died, I was thankful that I'd got to understand and know him better in his later years. He mellowed in mannerisms and softened in attitude after my mother died and showed himself as being a much more vulnerable being than I'd previously believed capable of.

During his last years of life, while the strength of my love for him never waned, I started to redirect it towards the man I now knew better. I began to respect many of his former traits a little less than before, but I now liked him much more as a person and a dad than I had ever liked him. Through my greater understanding of him and seeing his vulnerabilities, made him more human in my eyes, drawing him closer to my affections than he'd ever been, instead of remaining an emotionally more distant dad to idolise! In his final days, his body hurt considerably and for the very first time in his life, he became a man who was not afraid to show his tears and express his pain.

Happy hundredth year, Dad. I love you. Your eldest son, Billy x." William Forde: March 21st, 2016.

https://youtu.be/psytGX8LkGY

March 20th, 2016.

20/3/2016

Thought for today
"Don't allow your doubts to be responsible for missing your boat. Our lives are defined largely by opportunities, even the ones we let slip by. Your big opportunity may be where you are now, looking you in the face, but you refuse to see it. It is so easy to instantly disregard an opportunity that comes your way, simply because it is dressed in overalls and appears too much hard work to follow up.

No successful person will ever complain of insufficient opportunities; they prepare themselves to seize every chance that comes their way.They are the ones who have made it an art of life to catch all the good within their reach. They realise that good opportunities are seldom presented, but are so easily lost if we let them slip through our net. As a society, I frequently feel that we place too much store on one's ability, which although good, is of little worth without the opportunity to employ it.

How many times have you heard of the man or woman who had the opportunity of securing true love, but by the time they realised it was there, it had gone; their indecisiveness enabled the catch to slip through their grasp as they'd dithered with their destiny. Their sad lament in later years as they pass their evenings alone with their cat is to console themselves with the memory of what might have been, but never was: 'There was another life I might have had, a happier and more fulfilling life, but having missed my moment,I missed the boat and I am having this one instead.”

So do not miss out on the opportunities that come your way, for more often than not, they pass but once. As the Austrian writer, Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach once remarked, 'When the time comes in which one could, the time has passed in which one can.'" William Forde: March 20th, 2016.

March 19th, 2016

19/3/2016

Thought for today:
"As a past worker in stress management and a Relaxation Trainer for almost fifty years, one of the most common problem behaviours I found in people who experienced too much daily tension and stress, was to 'box themselves into a corner' instead of learning how to come out fighting and improve their situation!

For all you Freudian followers out there, 'boxing oneself into a corner' is akin to withdrawing to the womb and cowering down to life's stressors instead of confronting them and successfully beating them. There are many ways of not falling into this common trap, which will only take a few weeks of repeated practice to ensure that your new behaviour becomes a reinforced part of your new response pattern the more you practise.

There are three main categories of stress we encounter in life:
(1) The stress that naturally visits us through tragic and traumatic circumstances, over which we have no influence and cannot avoid.
(2) The stress which we invite into our lives and put upon ourselves.
(3) The stress that we allow others to dump on us.

Stress One: Whether the tragic circumstances which visits one in life involves bereavement of a loved one, loss of limb, loss of home, loss of job, loss of love, terminal illness etc., etc., there is a process and a time span to be negotiated before healing of feelings, body and mind can occur. Like many healing episodes in life, you will not emerge totally unscathed from your traumatic experience and may be left with some scars; perhaps even immobilised for a brief period. At the very least, expect to emerge badly bruised. The most important and helpful responses to healing in this example is to accept the reality of what happened, do not deny yourself the expression of your negative feelings, thoughts and fears. After you have healthily negotiated this experience, move on with your life. You will not forget the experience, but you will learn from it and become a more understanding and stronger person for having had it and successfully negotiated it!

Stress Two: While it may seem strange to think that we invite stress into our daily lives, believe me, we do. Much of the stress one experiences is self-inflicted, mostly through the reinforcement of bad habits into our response patterns. Observe too fat a person eating two pizzas in one sitting, followed by a giant tub of ice cream and it becomes easy to see the stress being stored up for later life, such as increased likelihood of heart attacks, diabetes or failed organs. Other forms of self-inflicted stress however, become less visible to the untrained eye and unthinking mind.

Did you know that learning to become more assertive, besides practising a few social skills behaviours more regularly will reduce self-inflicted stress levels enormously? The social situations I refer to are everyday situations which most of us are called upon to deal with, but many duck and take the easy way out by avoiding the expression of their true feelings. My twenty years of research into response patterns revealed that there are a handful of social situations which contain the ingredients to induce stress in each of us if we do not handle them properly. The situations I refer to are the giving and receiving of compliments, making a request from a stranger and refusing a request without the provision of an explanation, and learning to be appropriately assertive and tell the truth in potentially embarrassing situations.

Imagine: your mother-in-law gives you a birthday present you detest and she asks you if you like it? Or perhaps, asking your partner whom you suspect to be spending too much money or having an affair if they are! Most of us find it easier to avoid dealing with such situations when they affect us, but such avoidance makes matters worse, not better and lead to higher stress levels. The mere avoidance of doing what we know we ought to do increases stress, which leads to the unhealthy suppression of feelings. This vicious spiral leads to the strengthening of a bad habit and the increased likelihood of doing the same again in a similar situation. When the stress level gets too high, the person is in a greater danger of involuntary explosive action. Some inappropriately allow their stress to build up and up until it becomes too much to contain and like a volcano they erupt and 'explode', letting rip at the other person. Others of a more non-assertive nature allow their stress levels to build up and up until they 'implode' and let rip at themselves. This inward explosion either makes them ill, self-harm or can even drive them towards suicidal action. Whenever we avoid doing something we should instead of facing and dealing with it, our stress levels increase, and conversely when we confront our anxiety, our stress levels diminish.

Stress Three: I find this type of stress the worst of all; not because its negative consequences is or isn't greater than the other two stress categories, but rather because it is avoidable and so unnecessary. Put as crudely as I dare in a public post, nobody would allow another to defecate over them without a word of protest as they just stood there and allowed it to happen. Why then, why oh why, do we allow others to dump their stress on us? Why do we burden ourselves with their stress by accepting the parcel of anxiety they pass to us?

We live in an ever stressful world today and knowingly or otherwise, the rich often make the poor poorer, the strong tend to place the greatest burden on the more vulnerable, the powerful seem to believe it their right to reign supreme over the impotent and your boss, your neighbour, the stranger in the street, your friend and even your partner will occasionally try to dump their stress on you, 'if you let them!'

This behaviour is akin to one person wanting to push a problem out of their corner, dumping it on you and leaving you to deal with it in yours! It is most evident in one's job where the boss will delegate a problem downwards to you to be solved that he doesn't want to bother with, and being subordinate in your work position, you find yourself accepting their 'dump'. It's not surprising afterwards therefore, that you feel a failure letting it happen; not at all surprising if the experience leaves you feeling a bit of a shit! The very best way not to allow others to dump their stress on you is simply to refuse to take it on board. When they dump their stress in your corner, pick it up and put it back where it came from and belongs; in theirs! 'I'm sorry but you seem to have mistaken me for someone else' or 'I don't recall going to the shop to fetch your sandwiches as being a part of my job description when you gave me the post' or better still, 'JUST SAY NO.' Indeed, the very first rule of becoming more assertive and not allowing others to dump on us begins with learning to say, 'No!' My own feelings on the matter is, if you cannot say 'No' to a stranger or boss, how are you ever going to say no to your children's demands or your partner's unfair behaviour whenever they seek to employ their emotional blackmail in order to make you feel guilty, so they may get their way?

So starting tomorrow, begin your new life, start to reinforce and strengthen your new response pattern and don't let anyone box you into a corner, least of all, yourself!" March 19th, 2016.

March 18th, 2016

18/3/2016

Are you a person like me, who believes in fate as opposed to mere coincidence and who has always held the view that all things happen for a reason? This morning I had a strange experience while reading an article in my daily newspaper, The Daily Express (page four) about my friend, the Magician Paul Daniels, who recently died. In the article, one of his three sons, Martin told the journalist, Giles Sheldrick, who was interviewing him after his father's death, that immediately following his father's death, a meteor flashed across the sky close to his father's home. Martin said,'My dad passed away and a meteor flashes in the sky. What an exit.'
As recently reported on my post yesterday, Paul recorded for me an abridged version of the story entitled 'Maw' that I wrote in the 1990s to raise funds for 'Martin House Hospice' at Boston Spa. Follow the link below to hear Paul's recording. Sixteen minutes into the story, the small sized hero Maw looks out of his window and sees a shooting star flash across the sky before his very eyes, and is instantly endowed with magical powers at the precise moment of his birthday.
For Paul's son Martin to have seen the very same image at the precise moment of his father's death, some would call 'spooky,' but I call 'fate!'Bill x

http://www.fordefables.co.uk/maw.html

March 18th, 2016.

18/3/2016

Thought for today:
"You can look at me anyway you want to, but the next time I lick your face, I want you to like it and not pull my ear!" William Forde: March 18th, 2016.

March 17th, 2016.

17/3/2016

Thought for today:
"I wish all of my Facebook friends a very happy St. Patrick's Day. While I often dare to venture onto many topics during my daily 'Thought for today' and regard no area of consideration or proper discussion as being 'taboo,' I rarely publish a joke. Here's one which I came across last year and now include for all my Irish compatriots:

THE IRISH PROSTITUTE

An Irish daughter had not been home for over five years. Upon her return, her father cursed her heavily.

'Where have ye been all this time, child? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn't ye call? Can ye not understand what yer put ye old Mother through?'

The girl, crying, replied, 'Dad... I became a lowly prostitute.'

'Ye what!? Get out a here, ye shameless harlot! Ye hussy, ye sinner! You're a disgrace to this Catholic family. Get out and never show your face round here again! You're no daughter of mine. Begone with ye!'

'OK, Dad... as ye wish. I only came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten-bedroom mansion, plus a five million euros savings certificate. For me little brother, I have this gold Rolex and for ye Daddy who could never afford a car, there's the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside, plus a ten-year membership to the country club. I'd also like to extend an invitation for ye all to spend New Year's Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera.'

'What was it ye said ye had become?' asks Dad.

'A prostitute, Daddy!' the girl cries, 'A lowly prostitute.'

'Oh! My Goodness! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a lowdown Protestant! Come here and give yer old Dad a hug. It's fair grand to see you again!"
William Forde: March 17th, 2016.

March 16th, 2016.

16/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Last night, my Facebook friend Sally Kavourmas messaged me to say that her dear mother had just died as she sat by her side, holding her hand. My heartfelt sorrow goes out to friend Sally and her family along with my prayers. I am so glad she was able to be with her mother during her final moments on this earth. This would have been a great comfort to her mother and a privilege to Sally that so many of us are denied. I know from Sally's depth of grief that her mother was also her dear friend.

As I go into hospital again today for my fortnightly blood transfusion, my 'Thought for today' is one that looks at the true value of 'friendship.' Since my terminal illness started a number of years ago, I have grown to understand my body more than I ever did before. Indeed, understanding my illness has helped me to come to terms with it; I have grown more accepting of its presence in my life. I seem able to talk about it without bitterness, anger or resentment and accept it now a constant companion of my remaining days. Because my illness is an inextricable part of me and a companion that will never desert me, I find myself more able to embrace it now, rather than view it as a deadly enemy. It is easier to make the big 'C' in my life one of compassion, care, concern and companionship as opposed to that of Cancer.

As a child, I could never quite grasp what Jesus meant when he said that 'we were to love our enemies'. I mean, how is it possible to love one's enemy? It doesn't make sense, for how can anyone you love possibly be an enemy? And therein lies the answer to the conundrum; they cannot!

As I grew older, I generally accepted that the rules for the creation of the 'perfect relationship' had been spelled out in the bible, but then thought that such a relationship was impossible ever to attain. I now know that the 'perfect relationship' refers not only to the relationship between you and your God, but also to the relationship between you and your enemy. It is through this relationship that one is enabled to make the transformation of all other relationships possible. For those who do not believe in a God, then the 'perfect relationship' must first be established between you and your inner self, your ego and your conscience, your mind and your heart; your body and your soul.

In short, only 'love' can make enemies 'friends.' The longer the eniminity has existed and the more intransigent and irrational it has grown, the greater, more patient and consistent will be the love required to improve and transform the relationship.That is why the Law of Moses cites, 'To love your neighbour as you love yourself' is the greatest commandment of all, for when you do this, you truly love your God.

As a general rule, while we may pick our friends, we do not pick our neighbours. I feel sure that there are some neighbours who live farther away whom you might prefer lived next door to you, as well as some next-door neighbours whom you might wish to be far more distant. Indeed, 'having good neighbours' comes very high up on the wish list when moving house.

When I moved to my second house in Mirfield after my marital separation and divorce over thirty years ago, there was a coal yard situated next door. Because the coal yard was worked by the owner only and because it was hidden from view of our house, it caused me no problems whatever. Then, a few years later, the coalman died, and his yard was sold to a working-class man who had come into a considerably large amount of money after the death of his mother.

Initially, I had some concern that the new owner of the land was a property developer who planned to build ten brand houses on the two-acre plot of land he'd bought. It turned out that he wasn't, but the new land owner was the most eccentric and strangest person I'd ever met! He was a single man called Brian who had no family apart from one sister of ill health. Devoid of friends, Brian's only interest was attending the local rifle club in Hopton, Mirfield. Although Brian had never before built a wall, his mother's legacy made it possible for him to build his dream house with his own hands; unaided by joiner, plumber, electrician, plasterer, window installer, roofer, or building contractors. Everything he did, he did himself, even joining his drains to the main sewer. The only professional he deemed to use was the architect, whose services he dispensed with after he'd secured planning permission to start building and whose plans he loosely followed and departed from at will.

Although initially described as a bungalow, Brian soon developed signs of 'losing the plot.' The dwelling grew like Topsy until it gradually grew taller than any other house in the whole of Mirfield and had an elevated roof that was steeper than 'The Great Wall of China.' Brian's roof contained six skylights to go with the six upstairs bedrooms and its eves came within two feet of touching my roof and creating a fire hazard. It took Brian almost five years to construct his house. He only built on summer evenings and weekends. His penny-pinching methods and lack of building expertise was in grave danger of making his giant-sized dormer bungalow the largest Yorkshire folly ever constructed. As to the two acres of potential garden which surrounded his property, not liking plants, Brian tarmacked every inch of it over.

During these five years, the side of my house looked like a permanent demolition site. Brian had the capacity of breaking every building regulation in the book and getting away with it. On more than one occasion, his tunnelling beneath ground broke into the main sewer and we got an infestation of rats. On other times, his underground work damaged our own water pipes and electric cables, making us live as cave men until we got it repaired. When his giant-sized dormer bungalow was finally finished, Brian who lived there alone, had six bedrooms, one giant-sized lounge bigger than a ball room, one kitchen as large as half of my own detached house, three bathrooms and six reinforced bunker-cellars underground, in which he stored his collection of over twenty guns and where held his nightly shooting practice.

For over five years, Brian became 'the neighbour from hell'. Despite my many attempts to talk things over with him at the beginning of our disagreements, he always refused to discuss the issue, except to say, 'If you've owt to say, say it to my solicitor.' Fortunately for Brian, having established myself in Europe as the founder of 'Anger Management', I could not give true vent to my emotions or do what I really felt like doing. After all, it would never do to be seen resorting to physical violence or criminal damage during his absence at work, by demolishing his property with a JCB excavator or engaging in fisticuffs upon his arrival home. I was therefore obliged to contain my mounting anger level and instead, I spent five pointless years wring letters to the Planning Department, The Department of Works, the Kirklees' Councillor for our Ward and my local Member of Parliament. I spent hundreds of pounds exchanging numerous solicitors' letters threatening legal action and still no improvement came. Brian's dangerous work eventually caused me thousands of pounds when his extended house foundation led to a large crack in my rear-house wall and ruined the downstairs wall tanking and damp course we'd only just had installed at great cost. The final straw was the traditional bad neighbour's boundary dispute. Brian claimed a two-foot width of my boundary around the rear of my property and built a long water channel to drain any excess water away from his property and towards the flow of mine.

Needless to say that these five years passed by without the exchange of Christmas cards between us, the utterance of one civil word or the giving of one friendly glance each time our paths crossed in town. Indeed, a silent rule quickly developed whenever we approached each other. The one who first spotted the looming personality collision, would make a quick crossing to the opposite side of the road, ensuring that they kept their eyes to the ground until both adversaries had gone beyond a distance where it was possible to inflict deadly harm with a gun.

Towards the start of my sixth year of being Brian's neighbour, a new washing machine we had bought developed an electrical fault and caught fire one day. Despite being on hand mere feet away to spot the smoke, the fire quickly took hold. The new washing machine had been housed within an enclosed area which made the new kitchen fittings look perfect (something I later learned one should never do). Within five minutes, my house was at dire risk of being burnt to the ground. As it turned out, over forty thousand pounds of damage had been done to the ground floor. The firemen, who arrived within five minutes of the fire breaking out, did their job. This involved putting the fire out, rescuing my daughter's stick insect from her bedroom, but naturally did not include cleaning up the mess created by the fire. My wife and three children were put up in alternative accommodation for the next month by the insurance company while I began a mammoth clear-up job that involved hundreds of hours of clearing the debris, washing down the ceiling and walls, and many hours lamenting about the state of my lovely house. My employers kindly allowed me two week's compassionate leave to get straightened out at home, which I added to one week's leave I was still owed.

With so much work to do, I made it known to a number of friends and neighbours that I would greatly appreciate any help they could give me over the next two to three weeks, but with their daily occupation and family commitments, none were able to substantially help me.

One day after I'd started tidying up, a knock came on the charred remains of the back door and I opened it to find Brian standing there. He was dressed in his old working clothes and had just arrived back home that Friday evening from his job as a maintenance worker on the railways. 'I heard about the fire. I'm so sorry. What rotten luck. I've come to help. I'm on night shifts next week, but can help all this weekend and will give you whatever time I can during the day next week' he announced. While my brain was still spinning round in jackpot motion at seeing 'the enemy at the gate', Brian invited himself in and rolled up his sleeves to commence work.

We started our new relationship with a cup of tea he poured from the flask he had filled and brought with him. For most of the next four weekends, Brian worked alongside me, as well as giving me help any time he could during the evenings mid-week when his day's work at the railway yard had ended. When he was on late shift, he would always give me around three hours assistance after waking up and before starting his railway job. Brian was the only neighbour who lent such a hand, as all the others had too busy a life to contend with and only appeared on the scene with offers of their help 'after the work had been done by Brian and me.'

Needless to say, Brian and I became good friends over the years ahead; not necessarily 'best friends,' but nevertheless good friends and good neighbours. In my hour of need, it was he who rolled up his sleeves and showed up to help. He was the one to offer the olive branch, and it was he who insisted that I let him enter my house. By that single act of his during my time of need, Brian was demonstrating the greatest amount of consideration that any neighbour of mine had ever shown. It was a kind of considered love that no enemy could ever expect; it was a love that redefined and transformed our relationship from that of constant enmity to one of friendship.

Brian threw me completely off guard by his Christian and neighbourly actions in my hour of need. He always remained a strange man in the eyes of other neighbours and I seemed to be his only known friend. I was the only person to have a good word to say about him when other neighbours attempted to put him down by gossipping behind his back and laughing at his eccentricities; and I always made sure I said it! I reminded all those folk who ridiculed Brian what he had done for me during the month after my house had almost burnt down; I reminded them forcibly what he had done and what they hadn't!

Brian was probably the last person on the face of the planet who would ever believe in the presence of a God or follow any religion, as he was to tell me many times. He always elected to work at the railway job he held every Christmas Day and eat nothing else but his work sandwiches. He didn't send Christmas cards or celebrate Christmas in any way because he felt it would have been hypocritical, but that didn't stop me sending him a card annually. Each Christmas Eve thereafter, when he was asleep and I'd returned from attending Midnight Mass, I'd quietly open his letter box and drop the most potent image of Christianity on his mat for him to see first thing when he arose on Christmas day; a beautiful Christmas card with the image of the child Jesus in the manger. The inscription would always be the same, 'Happy Christmas Brian.Those who help a friend will always have a friend.' Bill and family.

Though I have lived in Haworth for a number of years now, most Wednesdays I return to Mirfield to have a beard trim or a haircut at 'Rogers,' the barbers who's cut it for the past 47 years. Two months ago, I passed Brian's property and saw a 'For Sale' sign up. I don't know if he has died or is just moving house, but two things I know for certain and believe with every breath in my body. If there is a heaven, he will most certainly be there when he dies. I also know that if he's still alive and has just decided to 'downsize' from mansion to more modest property in his later years, wherever he goes next to live, his immediate neighbours will have the best neighbour living next to them they've ever had!" William Forde: March 16th, 2016.

March 15th, 2016.

15/3/2016

Thought for today:
"The challenges of life is most often the best therapist to take us towards the wind of change; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

There will be many times in life when we find ourselves out of our depth or out on a limb. However learned I think myself to be, however many books I've written and read, when it comes to learning lessons which have lasted me for life and survival skills that have kept me going, I look towards my parents, grandparents and all the teachers of my childhood years. Indeed, I might never have reached old age had I not been blessed in times of youth to have known them all.

My mother and grandmother, whenever they dropped a slice of bread on the floor, would pick it up, scrape it clean if needs be and remind me that before I died, 'I would eat at least three stones of muck, so I may as well start now.'

Mrs Walsh was one of the strict school teachers of my youth at 'St Patrick's Catholic School', Heckmondwike. She would berate any pupil who did not put away their books in their desk at the end of the lesson. I can still clearly hear her voice, as if it was today instead of 65 years ago, 'Don't leave things lying about, you silly boy or you will trip someone up. No one trips over mountains, it is the small thing underfoot that trips one up!' If a pupil forgot, Mrs Walsh would go into a rage and throw the blackboard rubber at the offending child and would show little concern which part of your head or body it hit.

My school years were a time when all teachers were allowed to cane pupils on the palms of their hands and anyone getting 'six of the best' was always the one in the teacher/pupil war who came off worse. I recall getting caned around four or five times at junior school. The first time, I made the foolish mistake of complaining to my dad that evening as I told him what the teacher had done. I showed him my weals. Instead of missing work the next morning as I wanted him to do, and go into my school to sort out the bully teacher, dad gave me an additional punishment and said, 'You must have deserved the cane or you wouldn't have got it in the first place!' These were the days, when indeed, the word of any adult was believed before that of a child, even one's own!

In my youth, many adults still believed that all children should be seen and not heard. At Dewsbury Technical College, a physics teacher, nicknamed Tex, who caught any pupil talking, would sneak up behind them and clout them on the head with his twelve inch ruler saying, 'I only want to hear you talk boy when I ask you a question, so button it up now.' If you verbally protested, you would be hit with the ruler again before you'd finished your sentence.

Mrs Brennan was a teacher whom I greatly admired. She was a woman who knew how to get the best from all her pupils and how to encourage all abilities of any child to reach their potential. She was the one teacher whom I kept in contact with during adult life. She lived opposite Batley Park and I never passed her house without calling in for a cup of tea. Mrs Brennan naturally loved children as much as she loved education and was fortunate enough to work daily with both of her loves in life.

Mr Armitage was the Head of 'St Patrick's Catholic School' and like all heads of school, he was proud of all the school's achievements. There wasn't anything which made him prouder than if a pupil from his school passed their 11 plus examination to gain entrance to the Grammar School in either Heckmondwike or Bradford. I was a very bright scholar and in my time, the school taught a pupil in the class year of their competence and ability. At the age of 11 years I passed my grammar school examination, but because of a sense of inverted snobbery in which I viewed all the kids at grammar school to be 'toffee nosed,' I turned down the scholarship. Mr Armitage was angry when he learned of my intention to go to Dewsbury Technical College instead, and feeling that I'd let the school down, he took his revenge in a way that only a Catholic Head could have devised. Instead of leaving me with all my class mates, he moved me up two classes to be taught in the top class with the 14 and 15 year olds. Pupils had been moved up or down one class before, but never two classes! As it happened, within two months I'd incurred a serious traffic accident and was absent from school for almost three years.

By the time I eventually returned to school, I'd missed three years education and started at the Dewsbury Technical College for the final year of the two-year course. All my other class pupils had already had one year to make friends, establish enemies and readjust, so when I started term, I was the new kid on the block. Having missed so much schooling over the previous three years, I found myself being better than half the class and worse than the other half. Having been used to being the 'number one' or 'number two' pupil in class since the age of nine at my old school, my oversized ego would not now allow me to be settled somewhere in the middle!

My response was to hand in my books to the Headmaster on the day of the school Christmas Party and to start work labouring in a textile mill one month later. Instead of hanging on in there, I'd let go of the reins of education and instead, took hold of the reins of mediocrity and ran away. For the next five years I hid in a textile factory, before escaping to Canada for a few years before eventually running away from a loving romance and returning to England and textiles. I became a foreman and then a mill manager before my 26th birthday and it was only then, that I decided to stop running away and return to school to complete my education and obtain the necessary certificates to go on to college or university.

When I arrived as a Probation Officer at the age of thirty, I knew I'd found my vocation. I was now able to help people who ran away from this or that in their lives, I was able to help them stop running away and reassess their lives in the ways they wanted to change. I never found it hard working in a middle-class occupation with predominantly working-class offenders. I was working class, I had offended in my youth and until later on in life, I'd run away from this and that. It was much easier for me to work with such people, because they were my people.

As we go through the storms of life it takes guts to not give up. It takes courage to try, fail and try again. As The author, Mary Anne Radmacher reminds us, 'Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, I’ll try again tomorrow.'

So whatever be your trials and tribulations, whatever storm of life engulfs you in its wake, hang on to all of life's teachers, hang on to the coat tails of family members past and present, hang on to your self respect, determination and courage and you will emerge victorious. Remember that life's challenges are not meant to paralyse you; they come your way to help you discover who you are." William Forde: March 15th, 2016.

March 14th, 2016

14/3/2016

Thought for today:
"Never sacrifice your class to get even with someone who has none. Let them have the gutter, you take the high ground. Maintaining body beautiful is the most perfect revenge; soundness of thought and simplicity of dress, the ultimate sophistication in fashion." William Forde: March 14th, 2016.

March 13th, 2016.

13/3/2016

Thought for today:
"My mother used to tell me when I was young, 'Billy Forde, I always know when you're lying to me because you never look me in the eye when you do.' She was correct in her observation as it is harder to lie and get away with it when you look a person directly in the eye. In my later life as a Probation Officer, I never forgot this truth and used it as the first step in building up my repertoire of body language signs that reflects dishonest and stressful responses.

For over twenty five years I researched and studied patterns of human response in order to assist my work in 'changing the behaviour' of offending clients. At first, I focussed upon 'what they said' in interview to help in my assessment of them. Then, I eventually came to understand it was just as important, if not moreso, 'how they said it.' I finally settled upon allowing their 'body language' to become the predominant instrument of my assessment; using it as my visible measurement of truth and stress level within their overall response.

Over the years I became so proficient at being able to suss out someone who was not telling the truth within a minute of meeting them, simply by observing various factors about their body language as they spoke to me. It mattered not if they stood looking directly at me or were standing with their back to me; if they lied, I knew instantaneously. I would know because any one or more of a number of factors would indicate the presence of stress and deceit in their responses. Their shoulders and overall body posture would show it, along with the pace and pattern of their breathing and the tell tale signs of their unconscious gesticulations, whether a scratching of one ear, a toss of the hair, a nervous cough or whatever their tell-tale-sign of dishonesty and stress their body automatically adopted.

Learning to read body language not only helped me perform my work much better many years ago in a professional capacity, but it still helps me enormously today whenever I play scrabble or cards with my wife, Sheila. Let me explain. Sheila is every bit as good a scrabble player as me. We are very keen in competition and we tend to win as many games as each other. Where she does have one distinct advantage over me however, is whenever using words that I have never heard of, particularly in the culinary and cooking areas. With cooking her penchant and area of expertise, she knows the words of foods and cooking ingredients I've never heard of, let alone spell. Consequently, when she plays such a word, I cannot be sure of the accuracy of her spelling of it and could lose five penalty points for an incorrect challenge, or indeed gain five penalty points if I correctly challenge its spelling.

I needed to even up the odds in our evening games, so instead of depending upon my own knowledge of such food words and their spelling, I now rely instead, upon my assessment of her body language when making her play. I still may not know if she is being accurate in her word spelling, but I do know with 100% certainty, whether or not she believes herself to be accurate! If her body language reveals that slightest shadow of doubt exists in her mind about the spelling of the word she has played, I challenge the word and if it doesn't, I let it pass instead of forfeiting five penalty points for an incorrect challenge. As we are often very close in our eventual points score, the odd five or ten points lost or gained can make one winner or loser.

At this precise moment, I am the king of the household as I hold both the scrabble and rummy titles under my belt. My current taunt to poor Sheila as I pass her is to smile and say, 'Make way, make way, make way for the King. Make way for Billy the King, Billy the King of everything. Make way!'

The suspicious mind always has one eye turned towards the unexpected." William Forde: March 13th, 2016.

https://youtu.be/SBmAPYkPeYU

March 12th, 2016.

12/3/2016

Thought for today:
"This week I received a Facebook friend request from Tony Walsh from Carrick on Suir, County Tipperary. The fact that Tony has been a friend of mine for sixty years and we haven't had contact for nearly ten, made the contact all that more special. Last year I made contact through Facebook with five friends with whom I went to school over sixty years ago, three friends who I worked with in my teens, two old girlfriends and over one hundred people who knew my mother and grandparents in Portlaw Waterford, Ireland where I was born and one hundred and thirty people from Windybank Estate where I lived between the ages of nine and twenty six who knew me growing up or were friends with my parents.

Good friends help you find important things when you've lost them. The friends listed above helped me find some of my heritage and family roots, but mostly they helped me find happy memories of good days past. Like the stars above, you don't always see good friends for many years, but you know they are there in your background.

Our friends are special to us for many reasons. All the friends who knew me as I grew up on Windybank Estate are special because they know what I did and got up to in my wild days and they still love me. They know all my stories and a few (some still alive and some deceased), even helped me write them. Though I have not seen many of them since my youth, I know our bond of friendship was strong enough for them always to think well of me and if necessary, defend me in my absence.

The language of friendship is all encompassing; it has no words to adequately describe it, it is all meaning. All friends are different, both in the type of experiences they are prepared to share with you and the length of time they are prepared to keep your most embarrassing of secrets, like Geoffrey Griffiths (now deceased) a juvenile partner in crime and numerous wicked deeds, or Silvia (last name protected for all eternity), who shared with me at the age of ten, that vital body organ which enables women to give birth to babies that men do not possess. In short, a good friend will help advance your understanding considerably. Through one helpful act and small revelation, Sylvia removed my ignorance upon the most delicate of subjects like no other would. However, a best friend like Geoffrey was prepared to go much farther. Geoffrey would have helped me move a dead body, if needs be, and bury it in the deepest recess of his memory bank and more latterly, in his grave!

Then there are the friends who have the courage to hurt you once in a while, and you must forgive them for that when they do. I do not speak of those 'pretend friends' who will know your partner to be cheating on you, but will never tell you and thereby allow you to continue living a lie. I refer instead to the true friend who is prepared to hurt you with the truth, even at the expense of risking your friendship. This type of friend believes such silences between you to be no longer comfortable and believes that any friendship that ends at the first sign of discomfort never really began.

A friend is someone who can see the truth and pain in you, even when you are fooling everyone else. They are the one who is there for you in the early morning hours when you cannot sleep and phone them for a chat. Such friends believe you without need of explanation and are there for you night or day, because you need them. Wrap such friends around you with hoops of steel, keep them forever close and nourish their friendship, for they represent the rainbow between both your hearts; they are the one that faithfully reappears after each of life's storms that pass through your life.

All best friends are good friends to have, but when a person becomes their own best friend, life becomes much easier to navigate and happiness and contentment are more often stored" William Forde: March 12th, 2016.

December 31st, 1969

11/3/2016

March 11th, 2016.

11/3/2016

Thought for today:
"I'm sorry you're not feeling good today, Buster. Mum says that every friendship hurts sometime and I just have to find the ones that is worth suffering for and stick with them.

It is my sister-in-law Linda's birthday today. Linda shares her birthday with her daughter Sam. My brother Peter and his wife Linda have three daughters and to see them together, you know that they're not only family, but also good friends. Like all families, each have had their difficulties, but whatever the suffering involved, they stick together through thick and thin. Happy birthday sister-in-law and niece." William Forde: March 11th, 2016.

March 10th, 2016.

10/3/2016

Thought for today:
"My father never completed his formal education and left school at the age of twelve to enter work. He never prized the benefits of school learning; my mother became the advocate in that department of my development. Instead, my father preferred to gather his worldly knowledge from his daily experiences and believed that these would serve him better than any book learning or educational theory ever could!

He was a man of few words and firm action and once his mind was made up, he would never change it! His favourite sayings were ones I did not always agree with and usually came from the mouth of his favourite film star, John Wayne, such as: 'The first is first and the second is nobody' and 'A man's got to do what a man's got to do.' There was one one saying he often repeated however, that stayed with me throughout my life and which I wholeheartedly endorse. It is about the importance of a worker's tools and it has been said to me by so many industrious and conscientious men and women I have known in my life, 'A good workman never blames his tools.' I can still recall my father's explanation as to why this saying held truth, 'Because Billy, a good worker will always look after them properly!'

I can remember as a child that after digging his garden, my Irish grandfather would never go back inside the house until he had scraped the muck off his spade, washed it down and cleaned it. Likewise, after cutting the lawn, my father would always clean the cutting blades of the mower, oil the machine joints and leave the mower in the pristine state in which he'd found it. As a child, I can still recall every mum and grandma I've ever known to tell us, 'Leave the place as clean as you would wish to find it.' Indeed, I have known my sisters Mary and Eileen, both of whom take care of their homes better than they brook argument from their husbands, have a holiday in a rented cottage or caravan and refuse to go on the morning of their departure without leaving the place far cleaner than it ever was upon arrival!

I can only think that such attention to one's work tools originates from the times when a worker needed to buy their own tools in order to be taken on by an employer. There was also the old saying that lived throughout the Victorian Age right up until the Second World War years, 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness.' Such a saying was responsible for women's obsession with home hygiene. Was it this cleaning obsession that led to housewives washing down their door step and whitening it during the Second World War years, to leave a good impression in the event of having visitors to their home? Or perhaps sweeping down the public path immediately in front of one's house and scrubbing clothes so vigorously on the wash-board that the garments would not be considered done until she'd also rubbed the skin off her hands? I remember my mother washing the lino of our kitchen floor every day. She would scrub it so much that it would often shrink in size, but it would be left clean enough to eat from!

Is it little wonder that many of our young today cannot look after their toys for more than two minutes, when they know that mum and dad will replace them as quickly as they break or discard them? We should learn from childhood years, as our parents and grandparents were taught, 'If we look after the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves.' They knew that from all things small, big things grow, and that if we respect our tools, we shall respect both the person and property of others along with their opinions and beliefs; we shall also respect ourselves!

Learning for life is not a thing which happens to be picked up along the way; it starts in the cradle and ends at the grave. I believe that the discipline of climbing a ladder safely is best done when it begins with the first step. I also believe that the child who does not look after their toys will not look after their work tools and will be most unlikely to look after their own affairs as they travel through life or look after their own mum and dad in their old age." William Forde: March 10th, 2016.

March 9th, 2016

9/3/2016

Thought for today:
"I never thought a kiss could feel like this, when hearts collide and soul meets soul on lovers' lips. Everyone deserves to be kissed often by someone who knows how, for we are all mere mortals until our first real kiss. Kiss me and I'll show you the stars, but love me and I'll hand you one. What better way to die than to use your last breath kissing the one you love.

Kissing is at the centre in the tenderness and art of love making. First, look into your intended's eyes and gently stroke his or her cheek with the back of your hand. Lovingly slide your hand into their hair or along their jaw line. When you sense their breathing gather an urgency of pace, lean in slowly, staring longingly at their lips and anticipate the touch of love to come. When your lips meet, let them linger awhile; savor, taste and enjoy the moisturising of that magic moment. Nothing in this world tastes so good. It beats banging a coconut black and blue any day of the week as you try to break into the goodies!" William Forde: March 9th, 2016.