"The Spanish violinist and composer, Pablo Sarasate lived until the age of 64 years and died in 1908. He reminded me very much of our own previous Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who famously declared when someone dared to wish her good luck that 'luck had nothing to do with it!' Both Sarates and Thatcher were reported to exist on as little as five or six hours sleep a night. When Sarsate was in the latter part of his life and was declared 'a genius', he was equally as indignant and as dismissive as Maggie. He merely remarked in a tone of loftiness, 'A genius! For thirty-seven years I've practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius.' I think that both knew deep down genius is nothing but labour and diligence, and that even when one possesses the skill, only practise, practise and more practise makes perfect.' " William Forde: April 30th, 2013.
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Tales from Portlaw
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- No Need to Look for Love
- 'The Love Quartet' >
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The Priest's Calling Card
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- 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
- Bigger and Better >
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Sean and Sarah
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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'
- Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
- Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
- 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 >
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The Life of Liam Lafferty
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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
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The life and times of Joe Walsh
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- 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'
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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'
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The Last Dance
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- 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' >
- Fourteen Days >
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‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’
>
- Author's Foreword
- Contents
- 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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Thoughts and Musings
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Bill's Personal Development
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Thought for today:
"The Spanish violinist and composer, Pablo Sarasate lived until the age of 64 years and died in 1908. He reminded me very much of our own previous Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who famously declared when someone dared to wish her good luck that 'luck had nothing to do with it!' Both Sarates and Thatcher were reported to exist on as little as five or six hours sleep a night. When Sarsate was in the latter part of his life and was declared 'a genius', he was equally as indignant and as dismissive as Maggie. He merely remarked in a tone of loftiness, 'A genius! For thirty-seven years I've practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius.' I think that both knew deep down genius is nothing but labour and diligence, and that even when one possesses the skill, only practise, practise and more practise makes perfect.' " William Forde: April 30th, 2013.
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Thought for today: "We shall get so few opportunities in our lives to make a significant impact upon the world in which we live. So when such opportunity arises, we should be ready to abandon all doubt , 'reach for the sky' and 'fly with it,' for the chance to truly shine may come but once. Those who dare to dream their dream do and those who don't are destined to remain in dark obscurity." William Forde: April 29th, 2013. Thought for today: " Acquiring knowledge is such a dangerous pastime, especially for pussy cats who don't know how to handle it. Too little knowledge leads to the presence of unnecessary fear, whereas too much knowledge can lead one on to reckless bravado. Life for the permanent teaser and prankster is no more than a game of cat and mouse, in which the prankster (the cat), sets the trap and you (the mouse), takes the bait. However, as life teaches us, one cannot always take at face value what one sees. Things are not so simple to judge and are invariably the opposite of what they appear to be. So as demonstrated in this picture; is it a scared cat hiding from the threat of his pursuer or is it a sneaky sniper waiting for his treat to pass close by before he pounces?" William Forde: April 27th, 2013. Thought for today: "Today is the 27th anniversary of my mother's death. I still miss her and know that I always will. When I was growing up the eldest of seven, the one thing she would constantly remind me of was the inheritance that she would leave me when she died. She told me, 'Billy, I shall leave you the most that any mother could leave her eldest; your six brothers and sisters.Treasure and protect them always and they will never leave you alone or see you go without.' ( I think she meant to say that they would never see me 'lonely' when she referred to them 'never seeing me alone.') Well, I can say that mum was true to her word. My siblings have been my greatest asset, comfort and treasure and true to mum's word, 'they have never left me alone,' even when I didn't want pestering. There are many deprivations experienced in this world, but the greatest poverty of all for any person to endure, is never to have felt the warmth and sweet embrace of a loving mother. I love you Mum x." William Forde: April 26th, 2013. Thought for today: " One is never too young to learn, and where best to do that you might ask? Why, in the home of course and from the best two role models you will probably ever have; your mum and dad. In the process of learning however, one should never overlook the task with awful expectations, and attention should always be given to the blatantly obvious. As the famous Mrs Beeton declared in her recipe and instructions for cooking rabbit pie: First, catch the rabbit! Are we ready children; if so, we'll begin!" William Forde: April 25th, 2013. Thought for today: "According to some locals, our bus drivers in and around Haworth are as proficient as they come when a narrow stretch of road has to be negotiated in a decent bit of snow. As a standard of basic competency during 1947, a licence to drive a bus in and around Haworth would not be issued until the 'L-Driver' was able to demonstrate they they were able to pass another bus coming in the opposite direction along Black Moor Road without stopping or colliding with them. Those wishing to pass their advanced test had to pass a steam roller flattening the cobbles coming up Main Street while driving a double-decker bus down it. Those were the days when drivers were drivers, all baked bread came unwrapped, Betty Grable had the best legs for miles around the Hollywood Boulevard and liars were liars!" William Forde: April 24th, 2013. Thought for today: " Often when we look out into the future and wonder what it will hold for us, we are left with a bag of emotional uncertainties that are nigh on impossible for the young mind and body to make sense of and reconcile. On one side, the thought of exploration of far off lands beyond the street where we were born excites us and stirs our imagination into great expectations of things to come. On the other side of the futuristic coin, the fear that we may never travel beyond the end of our street torments our minds and sours our level of expectation. Deep down, we possess that horrid dread that our life explorations will be confined to the streets and town where we were born; a living purgatory in which we shall find our lot in life:our lifelong friends, school, job and future wife. Such dread of being able to spit from cradle to the grave alarms our senses and roots us firmly in the soil of cultural clay and social stagnation; making all movement upwards or progressively forwards no more than a dream. Let us hope that the world treats us well, brother, when we are grown up; for it has always been the aspiration of parents since the Dark Ages that their children will be born into a better station in life than they and their forefathers enjoyed. How sad it would be, were our adult condition to be one without prospect of free health care, free education, a house to live in, a job at which to earn one's living and retain one's self-respect and the preservation of the welfare of the old-aged-citizen. How horrible it would be to be governed on English soil by bureaucrats from Brussels and laws from Europe. How ghastly it would be to attend a church that preached politics instead of God; to have a government of the politician for the politician and an amalgamation of bigger banks for the bankers themselves. I pray the day shall never come when we live in a land that legislates one law for the rich and another one less favourable for the poor and where we find oneself on the wrong side of a wide social divide between the 'haves' and 'have nots' and are denied the freedom of speech or that of religious practice. Such a Mad Hatter's world would be a horrible reliving of all that was bad in the Dark Ages, brother. I hope we never see that in our lifetime! Surely not?" William Forde: April 23rd, 2013. Thought for today: "'Perhaps if we get them listening to the wireless every night before bed, we might just be able to keep their minds off other things for once, dear,' Mummy rabbit said to Daddy rabbit. 'But...... isn't that my wireless you are giving them dear. Whatever shall we do if you give them my wireless; I'll have nothing to listen to in bed before I nod off?' Daddy rabbit replied. Mummy rabbit just smiled and said,' Don't worry your little cotton socks, my dear. I'm sure that we'll think of something. I'm ready for up now. Are you?' I used to love reading about Br'er Rabbit and his adventures when I was a young boy, so much so that I thought I'd write a little episode before I went to bed. 'Coming Sheila, and turn that radio off'" William Forde: April 22nd, 2013. Thought for today: "Some people believe in the experience of 'Love at first sight.' Others believe that choice plays no part in one's destiny and that our fate is written in the stars, even before our birth. Wherever the truth lies, of one thing I am personally convinced and that is, that one has to be receptive to love in order to pick up the signals of its presence when it arrives knocking on your doorstep. I also believe that one can truly love more than once in a life time and that the vast majority of loving relationship have a 'time limit' or a 'best before' date line to observe. Even if one is lucky enough to find true love, it will only thrive and continue to fruitfully exist if it is kept nourished and fed with truth, trust, faithfulness, understanding, sensitivity, humour, forbearance, forgiveness and lots of hugs. Oh, and for good measure, never tell him that he is smaller than he believes himself to be or that she is actually bigger than she looks!" William Forde: April 21st, 2013. Thought for today: "Today is the birthday of my oldest son, James who lives in France with his wife and their two children. His mother and I were separated and divorced early on in his childhood and although his relationship with me was as close as that of any father and child could possibly be prior to the separation, the circumstances leading up to the separation and the subsequent acrimonious ...time that followed between me and his mum exacted a heavy price upon the close relationship that had previously existed between us. There is undoubtedly an emotional distance that prevails between child and access parent, and all of the care, love, forethought and attention the access dad has at his disposal to give, cannot prevent the child feeling 'deserted', (and it is usually the dad who finds himself in the access position). Whatever the access parent does invariably proves insufficient to bridge the emotional void that emerges between him and his child, who now only sees for a few hours a week. Furthermore, when that short access period is still a few hours 'too long' every week as far as the mother is concerned, the child/children are placed in an invidious position. This seems to be the inevitable price of too many parental separations when the children are young at the point of marital breakup. As adults, the separated parents often behave very childishly in their response to common-sense situations which are as clear as a snuff-pinched nose to those not involved. The children though, who have not yet developed the where-with-all to healthily express and process their emotions or exercise any control over an unhappy situation they did not create, do not want and are not responsible for, have no other sensible option than to follow their innate survival instincts and move emotionally ever closer to the parent who is now primarily responsible for their care and everyday control. Unfortunately, for a young child to be able to live with their decision to move emotionally closer to the warring parent they live with, involves them needing to emotionally distance themselves from the warring parent they don't. I can almost hear the armchair psychologists and perfect-parent-brigade instantly disapprove of my views not being representative of theirs, while they reassure themselves that they would do things far more responsibly, and only in the paramount interest of the child, if God forbid it ever happened to them. While I believe that they believe what they say, I don't for one second believe that they'd manage to do it without the creation of an emotional distancing between child and access parent taking place! Despite having being a Probation Officer at the time of my marital separation, and a person who prepared many Custody and Access Reports for the Matrimonial Courts when parents separate, my knowledge in this field was not enough to spare me any heartache I ever subsequently as an access parent. I love you James and I'm very proud of your achievements in life thus far. I am particularly proud of how good a dad you are to your two children. I am sorry that your mother (who is a good person), and I couldn't both be there for you and your brother until your adulthood arrived and you were better able to cope with parental separation. You have never left my daily thoughts since I became your access dad when you were only six. Have a happy birthday son and kiss my two grand children for me. Love you. Dad x " William Forde: April 20th, 2013. Thought for today: " Oh secret mountain of the land, allow the opening skies to beam down its smile upon thy granite face and gaping laugh. Save not thy mystery for the geological scholars of future generations, but instead share it among the weary traveler to your foothills today." William Forde: April 19th, 2013. Thought for today: " Dear God, thank you for all the blessings that you sent our way today. Thank you for giving me a smashing mum and dad who always kiss and cuddle after they have had cross words and think too much of the plates we eat off ever to break them in anger. Thank you for telling my dad and mum that I will soon have another baby brother who will be called Paul. Thank you for letting Granddad go to heaven when he was in hospital, so that he can now be with grandma again. And thank you for the jam tart pudding we had for tea. Love Paul Robin; aged 6 years, two months, one week and a day. Amen!" PS: "Oh, and Bernard says thank you God for letting us find him in the Rescue Centre and bringing him home to live here with us and he says thank you also for his chunky meat supper, Ame..........Oh, and our cat Molly says sorry she can't say her prayers with me and Bernard tonight, but she ate too much and feels sick and dare not open her mouth! AMEN!" William Forde: April 18th, 2013. Thought for today: " When I was an 11-year -old boy who'd just had an horrific traffic accident in which my small body had been wrapped around the drive shaft of a large wagon that had run over me, the doctors told my parents that I'd be dead by the morning. I heard these words as I drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness and like the film star Kenneth More playing Douglas Bader in the film 'Reach for the Sky,' I recall thinking, 'Oh no I won't, Buster!' I remember actually living this scene in the hospital, two years before the release of the Douglas Bader film, so know that it isn't a false memory. Then when I didn't die and had been left with a spinal injury that left me with no feeling beneath my waistline, the doctors told me that I'd never walk again.When these words were spoken, my heart sank. There was an orderly called Gwen who cleaned the wards of the old Batley Hospital and she both heard the dire medical prognostication of the consultant surgeon doing his rounds and saw my inevitable tears at receiving the news. When the consultant had left, she puffed up my pillow and gave me a humbug and said, 'Don't believe them lad. What do they know about it? They don't know everything there is to know!' From that moment when western medicine offered me no hope of ever walking again, I became a disciple of eastern practices and disciplines that did. At the moment when I did not want to hear and believe what the hospital consultant was telling me, I instead opened my ears to the hospital orderly, Gwen, and believed what she said instead. Details of how I regained my walking mobility can be be found on my website http://www.fordefables.co.uk/ but suffice it to say that I did manage to walk again some three years later. While there were many things that were responsible for me being here today in the state I now find myself, it was the soothing words of a Welsh hospital orderly called Gwen who was my inspiration. It was she who taught me 'To reach for the sky' and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that she also taught Douglas Bader and the rest of our brave pilots during the Second World War to do the same!" William Forde: April 17th, 2013. Thought for today: "The beauty of a child's smile can power the warmth of a thousand hearts and light up the world. The innocence of a child's happiness stirs the very compassion of one's soul and should be preserved at all cost and safeguarded from the touch of all vulgarities that taints humanity itself. For it is only by their very presence in our lives that children act as a constant reminder as to the reason of life itself. They are the prime purpose of love and marriage and the only human justification for war and peace.They are the eternal guardians of our love and the enduring harbingers of our happiness. Only through our children of today can the parents of yesterday pass on their genes for the grandchildren of tomorrow." William Forde: April 16th, 2013. Thought for today: "It has often been noted in life that the tragic death of one's spouse can spur the surviving partner on to do great things in their memory that result in remarkable feats of endurance being displayed. Dashrath Manjhi's wife died without receiving medical care because the distance from his village to the nearest hospital was seventy kilometers. To ensure that no other person like his wife died because of this great distance to travel, he carved a 360-foot-long (100 meters) through-cut that was 25-foot-deep (7.6 meters) in places and 30-foot-wide (9.1 meters) to form a road through the mountain in the Gehlour hills; reducing the travelling distance between village and hospital from seventy kilometers to just one kilometer. He was born into a poor labouring family in a village in Bhar, India and by the time of his death in 2007, his national acclaim had given him the name of the 'Mountain Man'. Falguni Devi, the woman whose death spurred her loving husband on to toil night and day for the next twenty-two years to complete the task between 1960-82 must have felt like an angel above to see her soul mate work so lovingly and relentlessly below.What greater memorial could any man provide to illustrate his love for his wife? When he died on August 17th, 2007, the Government of Bihar gave him a state funeral. I feel sure that as soon as he arrived inside the Gates of Heaven that he would have been met by another surprise to discover that his wife had carved out a permanent place for Dashrath to sit beside her forevermore." William Forde: April 15th, 2013. Thought for today: " One of the imaginary exercises that all children grow up with since the very first moment they become acquainted with Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Superman, Batman and Spiderman etc is the image of being able to fly. One of the nicest songs that we have had in recent years was, 'I believe I can fly;' the success of which was largely due to our childhood belief in the power of magic and the capability of making the impossible come true. Being 'grown up', if it is ever to ever mean anything, ought to mean having one's feet planted firmly on the ground at all times; rooted in the soil of cold reality, whilst leaving 'flying with the fairies' to the fanciful imaginations of the innocent child along with those adults who have lost all manner of rational perspective and reasoning. Yet, we know that there are some adults who just feel unable to leave their childhoods behind and who prefer to carry on with their lives today in the 21st century as though Looby Loo was Queen, Hovis Brown bread was still baked as scrumptious as in the 1950's and Elvis still lived. When I think upon this, I have to conclude that whilst these loopy adults might be accurately regarded as being an 'odd bunch' , there's no denying that they still have fun and experience some sense of beneficial escapism at the end of the day. That being so in these uncertain times, makes them a bit less daft than they initially appear to be. One is therefore obliged to ask, 'Why worry about a society filled with economic doom and social disaster hovering above our European heads when Mary Poppins and the Snowman of Raymond Briggs can take us away from all of this?' There are times, I'm sure, when each one of us wouldn't mind seeking a bit of refuge sitting alongside Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole. Hey, budge up there and make room for me. I believe I can fly!" William Forde: April 14th, 2013. Thought for today: "In the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed with thoughts of a new day ahead; a day to taste the sweetness of friendship and to savour the sharing of laughter and other light pleasures that fill us up with so much happiness and contentment. William Forde: April 13th, 2013. Thought for today: "This is a good week for the birthdays of siblings. Yesterday it was my sister Susan and today is my brother Patrick's birthday. Our distinctions apart are very easy to discern. I still have my own teeth, hair and dignity. He and I share two things in common. We were each the Shop Steward of 'Harrison Gardner's Dyeworks', Hightown, Liversedge, which closed down in 2006. At the age of 18 years, I became the youngest textile shop steward in Great Britain. I held the post for two years before I emigrated to Canada and Patrick was Shop Steward for twenty-five years after me. Secondly; in its 150-year existence, Harrison Gardners experienced only two strikes. I called the first strike and my brother Patrick called the second strike, some dozen or more years later.We often joke about it and I tell him that the strike I called was one of 'principle' whereas his was purely 'monetary.' In 1960/61, colour prejudice and racism was rife in Great Britain. Indeed; it was even sanctioned by law. Landlords were allowed to advertise rooms and place signs in their windows stating,'No blacks or Irish.' Employers often refused to hire non-white workers. When Harrison Gardners refused to hire a West Indian man who'd applied for a job (despite having advertising two vacancies), I asked over 200 men and women to come out on strike. To their everlasting credit they did. The strike lasted less than a week and in the end, the West Indian was offered and refused the job. Given the time however, I regard this as one of my proudest achievements. Me and Patrick both loved working at Harrison Gardners and serving our working companions as their shop stewards.While I hopped it across the sea to Canada, my brother Patrick fought for his working companions for the next twenty five years. The mill no longer exists and before it was demolished, Patrick managed to salvage the original sign which had been fixed to the outer wall of the building before I'd started working there in 1958. I was surprised to receive the sign as a present from him recently and have had it framed and placed in a position of pride in my house. I may have been the first Forde shop steward at Harrison Gardeners, but Patrick was certainly the most enduring and the best. I couldn't make this birthday post however, without reminding Patrick and the world how he used to wreck his bicycles. He and brother Peter got their first bikes at the same time and within a month, the front wheel of Patrick's was buckled; thereby preventing it being handed down to the next sibling in line. I had that bike before him and never once scratched it. One month in his hands though and he'd knackered it! Happy Birthday, Patrick. I love you. Brother Billy x " William Forde: March 12th, 2013. Thought for today: "Today is the birthday of my sister Susan, the youngest of seven siblings. Because we were born during different times in the marriage of my parents and occupied opposite ends of the hierarchical pecking order, we naturally had widely different experiences of being brought up. Also, being 14 years older than Susan, she was a mere 7 years old when I left the family home for the shores of Canada. Though we were born to the same mother and father (hopefully), it often strikes me as strange that my experience as a child was infinitely happier than hers seems to have been, despite the family being materially wealthier when Susan was a teenager compared to the years when me and my next two sisters had to endure wearing hand-me-down clothes and ill-fitting shoes that had initially been bought for another child of another family. And the reason for this disparity of home experience was down to nothing more or less than parental happiness or sadness. You see, when the first three children were growing up, my parents were deeply in love and we were all a happy family, in spite of any material deprivation experienced. But our Susan's formative years were at a time of marital dissatisfaction, when the natural by-line of my father and mother's happiness had been crossed and would never be the same again. It was as though we had been brought up in two entirely different families. Happy Birthday Susan. I love you. Your big brother, Billy x ." William Forde: April 11th, 2013 Thought for today: " Just look upon the sheer beauty of this creature and tell me how anyone with an ounce of discernment can admit to not liking cats or indeed any other animal for that matter? People have often asked the question if there was an animal heaven where pets go to when they die? I'm sure there is and I wouldn't mind guessing that it's the same heaven that humans experience." William Forde: April 10th, 2013. Thought for today: "Yesterday saw the sad death of Margaret Thatcher. She was born the daughter of a middle-class shop proprietor in Grantham and as Napoleon would have added, into a 'nation of shop-keepers.' She lived a life as a person and politician of total conviction and died a lady and baroness of the country of which she was proud to serve. She was a person to whom the mantle of 'indifference' could never be applied. One either loved her or hated her, and whatever one's politics, she commanded the respect of all those who had personal dealings with her. There is not a shadow of doubt, (albeit for good or bad), that between coming to Office for the first time and finally leaving Office, that her policies had changed the economical, political and social fabric of this country more within any twenty-year period than it had ever been changed since Henry the Eighth fell out with the Pope and declared himself 'Defender of the Faith' or Oliver Cromwell chopped off the head of King Charles the First. Indeed, she was an enigmatic person with a strange sense of morals when it it came to doing 'the right thing', as the comparison of her response between something huge and something small in her life reveals. She had agreed to publicly read one of my children's books that I'd written (Nancy's Song), in a West Yorkshire school during the early 9O's. The book had been written to raise money for the Roy Castle Appeal. Some short time prior to Roy's untimely death, Margaret Thatcher and Roy Castle had met at a social function. Margaret Thatcher had offered to shake hands with Roy but he pointedly declined. Despite having been snubbed by Roy, Margaret Thatcher felt it to be 'proper' that I be appraised of these circumstances, as my book had been written in Roy Castle's honour and for the benefit of his charity after his death. During the phone call to inform me, she indicated that while she was still prepared to read from my book at the school assembly, she felt that if Roy was still alive he would not have wanted her to. I thanked her for her candour and withdrew the book-reading invitation. It is ironic that from the 850 plus famous names who read my books in Yorkshire schools between 1990 and 2005 that Margaret Thatcher and Cherie Blair are the only two cancellations that I ever had to make. (See the article on my web site for fuller details of this story).http://www.fordefables.co.uk/the-one-that-got-away.htm I have since often tried to reconcile this image of a highly sensitive and respectful lady with perhaps one of the few politicians who was capable of creating so much social upheaval and class division within the country that she led. How could someone who displayed such sensitivity and common respect about a relatively small matter square with the architect of the much-despised poll tax, the scourge of the trade unions and the decimator of the mining industry in which my late father worked? How could someone care about the feelings of what a deceased foe might think, were he still alive to express a view, with the sinking of the Belgrano by a British nuclear Submarine on the 2nd, May, 1982 upon her instructions, and which resulted in the death of 323 crew. And while the Belgrano was certainly 'for turning' at the time of its sinking with heavy loss of life, the Iron Lady unfortunately wasn't! Ever since the merciless onslaught of Boudicea against those invaders who dared to attack her people, I doubt if our country has ever seen the like of a Margaret Thatcher battling her way through the ranks of European leaders, brow-beating them into submission with her handbag as she demanded, 'Give us our money back'. Such tall oaks only grow but once within one's lifetime. God rest her soul. I thank God that the history of countries are written upon the broad backs of political giants and never through the memoirs of political pigmies. My only regret is that this country was never allowed the opportunity to either re-elect Maggie to Office again or throw her out on her ear. I'm pretty sure that is the type of end to her political career that she would have preferred to one of having been stabbed in the back by the Brutuses of the Tory party." William Forde: April 9th, 2013. Thought for today: "There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good and it is as though we must hunger after them. If only I could capture the trust that a loving child gives its mother without condition and place it in the hearts of two fighting nations negotiating a treaty of peace, there would be no more war between them. If only I could realise by day all that I dare to dream by night, then all my ambitions would be achieved and my objectives accomplished without struggle. If only.........if only I could be to you, all that you are to me, I'd make you the happiest woman in the world, Sheila, and crown you in a moorland sprig of Haworth's heather and thus fashion a halo for your head." William Forde: April 8th, 2013. Thought for today: " True friendship can not be measured. It's worth is inestimable, it's meaning transparent and and its purpose unquestionable. One would die for a friend, but never live or lie for one. One would carry them to the ends of the earth and back again should it prove necessary, but never shoulder their burden and do for them, that which they ought to do for themselves. A true friend is one of life's Godsends. They are someone who will keep you soundly moored to common sense. They plant your reason firmly in rationale and during times of deep distress, even starve off insanity itself. A true friend is a priceless treasure. Don't waste the gift if you have been given one!" William Forde: April 7th, 2013. Thought for today: " There is a time when each one of us, however tough we profess or would like ourselves to be, needs the degree of comfort that only a loving cuddle can provide, whether we be human or creature. And as far as the benefits go, a cuddle from either pet or person to any other is just as powerful and as positive. It is a vital ingredient of everyday life which sustains and endures from morning to night and cradle to grave. " William Forde: April 6th, 2013. |
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