Blog Archives - FordeFables

August 30th, 2014.

31/8/2014

Thought for today:
"On times like today when men's magazines and page three girls strip bare for all and sundry to see, isn't it refreshing to see women who are prepared to show their breast (note not breasts) in an attempt to provide others with the courage to live on after mastectomy.

Are they not also deserving to be seen as persons in their own right and not sex objects? Why should they hide away their beauty beneath the prosthesis of false hope?" Good on you, ladies!" William Forde: August 30th, 2014.

August 29th, 2014

29/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be married to a spoiled brat?

While I have known a few women who I would take every opportunity of not renewing contact with because of their negative character traits, I have only ever come across one whom I felt like dumping in a trash can.

Her name was Maureen; a name that had always been dear to me as it was my mother's name. This Maureen however had been born with a general dislike for anything in this world that normal everyday people might like. She was in short an insufferable snob and was seemingly proud of it!

Nothing was too good for her because nothing was ever good enough for her! She wore the finest clothes yet dressed like a hussy on heat. She ate in the best restaurants and always complained about the service received. She wore high heels that heightened her seven inches to help her look down on others and she was constantly moving house and changing husbands in the hope of better prospects.

Her second husband once told me that holidays with her were a pain in the butt as the only thing that seemed to please her was upsetting others along the way. When the sun shone it was too hot, the rain was too wet and the golden sands of the Jamaican beaches had this annoying habit of sticking between one's toes.

Life inexorably went on until one day the woman got her come-uppance. One year when in France, she visited a cafe which was an high-class establishment. The French Cafe was called the Les Deux Magots in St. Germain. It had established itself as a legend for fine food and was positioned opposite the St. Germain Church tower which dates from 1090.

As the lady devoured her third plate of fresh oysters and before the last oyster had slid down her slimy throat, she died from some raw oyster fatality. Only six people were said to have attended her furneral service and three of them were ex husbands who'd no doubt come to finally see her off before having a nice seafood meal together on Southport seafront." William Forde: August 29th, 2014.

August 28th, 2014.

28/8/2014

Thought for today:

'Vulnerable Beauty' : Copyright William Forde.

"There is no vision so vulnerable, no sight or sensation so sensuous than that of a beautiful woman at the mercy of a wild beast.

For when such beauty surrenders to her innermost desires, a fusion of man and beast is facilitated and love and lust are blended in wanton harmony and abandonment of all restraint.

Awake to the growl of your heart, give vent to the sacrifice of your soul and your body shall know eternal bliss for one moment in time." Copyright William Forde: August 28th, 2014

August 27th, 2014.

27/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Never underestimate the worth of a good book. I used to think that books were made only for those times when people involvement appeared too hectic and unpredicable and where a bit of escapism was required instead to still the mind and settle the soul. However, I have long ago learned that books are designed for all manner of person and situation.

Ever since spending one year in a hospital bed led me to read my first picturelss book from cover to cover at the age of eleven years, I have been hooked on the magic of books and have loved the written and spoken word. Books have grown my imagination and have represented landmarks in my life and development. They have nutured, stimulated , sustained and supported me in times both happy and sad where a degree of emotional distancing from the world and the cruelty of reality was required.

By the age of twelve years I was reading medical books to better understand why I was unable to walk and why I had no feeling below my waist. Between twelve and fifteen I read every classic adventure book I could get my hands on. Being unable to walk with the prospect of always remaining immobile, I learned how to mentally run alongside the book characters. Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen I read all manner of meditational book to get me walking again and to minimise the effects of a limp that had been created by over fifty three operations on my left leg which had stunted its growth; leaving a three inch disparity between the two. By eighteen years of age I was the youngest shop steward in Great Britain and was reading about the Jarrow March, The Todpuddle Martyrs, the Luddites and all manner of industrial and trade-union history, dispute and tradition.

My two years in Canada and the USA during the early 1960's led to me reading all of their most renown writers, along with some of the most obscure ones. During my late twenties, I read around five books every week; mostly classical, historical or biographical. It may have been a character flaw of mine, but I loved reading about men and women of small and common stature who went on to do rare and great things for the betterment of humanity.

I was in my late twenties when I read a book which was to have a profound effect on me and was to put me back on my path to destiny; Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables.' This book was to change the course of my life again and eventually lead me to stop being a Mill Manager and guided me towards a career in Probation Officer work. As a child I had grown up learning to steal and to stretch the truth with the best of them and by the age of twenty-two years, I vowed never again to steal or to deliberately tell an untruth; a promise I have been able to maintain with some great difficulty ever since.

My years as a Probation Officer between the ages of thirty and fifty-three led me into the disciplines of behaviorism, emotional disturbance, relaxation training, hypnotism, assertion training, fear reduction, anger management and stress management consultancy, and almost all my reading had to be obtained from either France or America as I was involved in pioneering work and needed to keep abreast of research studies around the world as I engaged myself in closely examining the essence and composition of behavioural response patterns. I needed to learn more about the functioning of the human body and so much of my reading involved medical papers and books on psychology and neurosis; most of which needed to be obtained from the USA and which cost an arm and a leg to purchase.

At the grand old age of forty-eight years I was asked to provide relaxation training to children of Primary School level. Given the complexity of the concepts to be communicated to the 5-8 year-old to make this possible, I found that the best way of getting them into the process of relaxation was through telling them a story which I had constructed. Having a higher than usual public profile from my pioneering work in the field of Relaxation methods and Anger Management which was daily attracting increased regional publicity and national attention, I was then asked by the Probation Service to write a children's story book which covered themes and emotions that children found difficult to deal with or healthily express like bullying, jealousy, bereavement, homelessness, separation and loss etc. I wrote my first published book for children called, 'Everyone and Everything' in November 1989 and after selling over three thousand copies to primary schools in West Yorkshire within the space of four weeks and allowing all £10,000 profit to go to 'Children in Need,' I've been writing for children, young persons and adults ever since.

During my earlier years of getting my work published and more widely read, I never actually saw myself as being a writer; more as a 'social crusader' masquerading as an author in disguise. Not only was I doing something that I loved, but apart from the £200,000 profits that my published book sales made for charity, my reading and writing continued to nurture, stimulate, sustain and support me at all times ever since.

It is only in later years that I have been more prepared to take on the mantle of 'author'. Since 2010 when my wife Sheila persuaded me to take up the pen again, I have been writing short stories for adults which can be freely read on my website www.fordefables.co.uk under the umbrella title 'Tales from Portlaw'. I recently had my first two 'strictly for adults' novels entitled 'Recbecca's Revenge' and 'Come Back Peter' published. They can be purchased from www.smashwords.com and all established e-book providers, or if you prefer it in hard copy from www.lulu.com and amazon.

I have just had my sixty sixth book published and cannot wait to start writing my next story. For the past two years, all of my previous published books have been made available in both e-book format and hard copy, with all book sale profits pledged to charitable causes in perpetuity. Have a nice day and good reading." William Forde: May 1st, 2017.

August 26th, 2014.

26/8/2014

Thought for today:
"I remember the very first group that I was part of. It was called 'The Windybank Wailers' and was made up of Tony Walker, Peter Lockwood, Geoffrey Munt and me; all residents of Windybank Estate. I recall the day that we decided who would take the lead up-front as singer. I won; not because I had the best voice, but the loudest. And besides, I was also the gang leader of Eighth Avenue. Oh, and I was also the only group member without an instrument to play!" William Forde: August 26th, 2014.

August 25th, 2014

26/8/2014

Thought for today:
"As Jane Lee Logan aptly reminds us,'Don't forget to water your dreams today!'

I love this thought. It is simple yet so meaningful to all of our lives. So often it is too easy to nuture the weeds of the past than to grow the seed of tomorrow.

In my life's experience I have seen too many misspent emotions sap away the positive life energy of good people who may be experiencing some emotional instability. It is so sad a loss to become the empty vessel of past regrets and lifelong remorse. Far, far better to try to move on however hard such movement proves to be and to hear the sweet song of the birds once more at first light each morning.

Nature is there to nuture the parts that materialism can never reach." William Forde: August 25th, 2014.

August 24th, 2014.

24/8/2014

Thought for today:
"What a wonderful aroma gang. It looks like Sheila is cooking again. Hurry up there, Sheila; we're starving out here!" William Forde : August 24th, 2014.

August 23rd, 2014

24/8/2014

Thought for today:
"When I first came across to England from Ireland in 1945, I lived with Aunt Eva in Bradford. At that time dad worked as a face worker in the pit. He had given up his place in the Irish soccer squad so that he could make a fresh start for mum, me, and younger sisters Mary and Eileen in a new land. Until the colliery gave dad a rented property, mum and my two sisters stayed in Ireland and me and dad stayed at his sister Eva's house.

About two years later in 1948 when I was five years old, the five of us were re-united as a family unit. Me, mum,dad and my two sisters Mary and Eileen started off life in a beautiful country cottage with its own fields and chickens and ducks to supply us with plenty of eggs. I remember getting bathed in a tin tub which would be hung on the wall between use, but the water was never hot enough. We stayed in that country cottage for about four years until we were allocated a brand new house with an inside loo and bathroom on Windy Bank Estate. By this time mum had given birth to brothers Patrick and Peter. My two youngest siblings, Michael and Susan started off life on a council estate and they sadly missed the delights of our country cottage experience.

When I first became a father in my 30s, I recall taking my two eldest sons James and Adam to see the 'country cottage' of my youth where the Forde family had started off life together in England. Until then, I couldn't believe just how far the mind and memory was capable of stretching and distorting the essence of the reality we had once lived in. The 'country cottage' had been demolished during the interim years and in its precise place now stood one single garage that was capable of housing one ordinary-sized family car.The expanse of homestead land where our poultry stock used to freely roam turned out to be adjoining farmer's fields belonging to someone else in which our hens and geese daily trespassed.

It felt like raw and bitter realisation had instantly destroyed my precious childhood memories; leaving my treasured and idyllic early experiences crushed with the cruel sensation of butterfly wings being torn apart. I found it almost impossible to visualise just how a family of five children and two adults could occupy a dwelling comprising of one single room for a number of years in which we ate, slept and lived and which my childhood memories had previously retained as having been no less than 'a country cottage' with its own surrounding land.

And yet, I'd never remembered our happy country cottage and homestead this way. It hurt to learn that 'our land and country garden' wasn't really attached to 'our cottage', but were farmer's fields which surrounded it; fields that we encouraged our fowl to squat in and forage from. The chickens and hens were ours though, along with the exclusivity of the biological outside privy; a hole in the ground with a wooden sheltered surround. And please don't ask me about toilet paper as my recollection seems to recall such luxuries as being sheets of cut-up newspapers strung together like a paper concertina.

There have been so many times since that I've regretted returning to look at the 'country cottage' where we had lived so happily during the formative years of my life. If only I could go back to that day when I decided to take my two sons to show them where daddy had first grown up in West Yorkshire, there is simply no way I would have taken them. If only I hadn't starkly awoken from my childhood dream, that idyllic illusion would have fondly stayed with me throughout the rest of my life and would have happily accompanied me to the grave.

Instead of proudly showing my childrfen my romantic past, it would have been much better had I taken them to the park instead and bought them a big fat ice cream. They wouldn't have minded in the least and I could have carried the dream of my idylic country cottage with its extensive rural gardens where I once lived with me from cradle to grave. How cruel reality can sometimes be when the garden of childhood dreams is revisited by the twisted memories of an adult!" William Forde: August 23rd, 2014

August, 22nd, 2014

22/8/2014

Thought for today:

"A recent review showed that one in five women has been a victim of a sexual offence, which includes the most serious crimes such as rape and other offences like indecent assault and flashing. Around 69,000 women are estimated to have been raped in the last year, while 90% of victims knew the perpetrator.

The study showed that just 15% of women reported the offence to the police, with the most common reasons for not coming forward being 'embarrassing', 'didn't think the police could do much to help' and 'didn't think I'd be believed' etc. While some progress is obviously being made in the conviction rates, the number of offences against women continue their upward climb.

Having worked with a number of rapists and sexual offenders in the past as a Probation Officer, I have always seen 'power and the exertion of fear over the victim' as representing their most common motive for the commission of this heinous deed. I have never been able to form the view whether fighting back and vigorous resistance helps or hinders in all situations however natural a response it may appear to some, but of one thing I am certain. If the woman comes across as being fearless from the outset, the rapist rarely pursues the commission of their offence as it denies them of their primary element of satisfaction; the exertion of fear over their victim.

All that being the case ladies, onwards and upwards is what I advocate. Put down those gin and tonics along with the munching of crisps and the devouring of your favourite chocolate box; take off your little black dress and don some more suitable attire and book yourself on the next Everest expedition. Do this and you can bet your sweet life that the next time your clothes goes on and comes off, it will be by your choice and nobody else's design." William Forde: August 22nd, 2014.

August 21st, 2014.

21/8/2014

Thought for today:
" When one looks at how well the other half of the world gets on and seems to manage in the face of all the material, economical and political hardships they face; only then can one truly appreciate the power of possessing a positive attitude towards one's work and daily life. It is only through the labour of such courageous women that the rest of mankind is fed and prospers and the cogs of western commerce continues to turn. The very least that we in the West can do is to buy 'Fair trade' goods wherever possible." William Forde: August 21st, 2014.

August 20th, 2014

21/8/2014

Thought for today:
" When you have had a hard day's work at the office, all you want to do when you get home is to put your feet up, have a rest and to give yourself a bit of well deserved therapy.

Beware though of all calorific comfort craving and stick to the low calorie stuff. Don't overindulge on the gin and tonic or the chockies. Far better to go for a refreshing walk, play Scrabble or chill out with a nice book with some soothing music in the background and keep your gorgeous figure." William Forde: August 20th, 2014.

August 19th, 2014.

19/8/2014

Thought for today:
"I have always been brought up to acknowledge my mistakes once they have come to my attention and to apologise for any wrong I occasionally commit.

Not saying, 'Sorry' is like trying to put your arm around a regretful memory. Far far better to give the offended person a real hug today. Far better still for you when you become the midwife of a lost soul who has regretted past wrongs.

However, I have come across folk in this life who find the word 'Sorry' too hard to say. I don't know precisely what makes folk this way, but I do know that when this word is not a regular part of one's daily vocabulary, life becomes all the harder for both the oppressed and the oppressor, fewer things appear tolerable, the coarseness of insensitivity remains unrefined and raw emotions become ensnared within a barbed-wire mentality that keeps one trapped in the past.

I include one of my favourite songs which a friend initially introduced me to ; someone who has helped me out in my charity work on many occasions, the great Eric Clapton. It was written and sung by Elton John and is called, 'Sorry seems to be the hardest word.' " William Forde: August 19th, 2014.
http://youtu.be/uL6MsiwaRMo

August 18th, 2014

18/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Motivation is the movement of the soul when the spirit is weak. People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents. The future belongs to those who dare to do; to those who are prepared to get their hands dirty, to those who are prepared to stray from their usual path and to move outside their comfort zone.

Motivation is an essential aspect of creativity. It embraces the hope to remain a postive painter of all images along with the art of not being afraid to fail because life becomes temporarily uncharted. Life starts at the edge of your comfort zone. Allow the bridges you burn to light up your way to a brighter future and to bring you home to a new dawn.

Motivation enhances the hope and art of all life. Remember that without hope and art, the earth would become less smooth in its rotation of perpertual motion and appear nothing more than the accumulation of unachieved things and heaps of disappointment in a mound of failure." William Forde: August 18th, 2014.

August 17th, 2014.

18/8/2014

Thought for today:
"When Great Britain was first led by its nose into the Common Market by Ted Heath on January 1st, 1973, he said, 'It is going to be a gradual development and obviously things are not going to happen overnight.'

Well, that is about the only true statement he ever uttered. Let me tell you as we are now forty one years down the road, it didn't happen overnight and it never will happen! Ted Heath lied to the electorate along with every other Prime Minister who has been elected to Office since 1973.

Only one person outside Nigel Farage ever understood the British people and that was a French man named Charles de Gaulle. The French president vetoed all membership applications by the UK to join the EEC between 1963 and 1973. His stated reason was that 'he doubted the UK's political will.' If Charles de Gaulle knew that the British people didn't really want to join the EEC as far back as forty one years ago, then why oh why can't David Cameron or any other politician 'get it' today?

For the past forty one years, the British electorate has been lied to by its political leaders; all of whom have walked us cheerfully to market, knowing full well that once we got there, they'd be no coming home again as we'd end up in the European knacker's yard!" William Forde: August 17th, 2014.

August 16th, 2014

16/8/2014

Thought fore today:
"When it comes to sheer sensuousness, the daughter of the great Judy Garland, Miss Liza Minneli, could look sexier draped around a simple chair and make it look better than any Chippendale ever looked as a lady called Christine Keeler was to later discover during the sixties. " William Forde: August 16th, 2014.

August 15th, 2014.

15/8/2014

Thought for today:
"The true price of civil war and internal conflict is the baseness and savagery of mankind at his worse." William Forde: August 15th, 2014.

August 14th, 2014.

14/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Freedom unfortunately doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches. It can in reality be denied yet exercised in rebellious action or granted without ever being truly expressed.

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. It is not a thing that is freely given and must be fought for to both achieve and maintain.

Freedom is found and is given life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and women and so it must be daily earned and refreshed; else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. Once obtained it must be nourished and secured. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition. Freedom cannot be experienced by you if you deny it to others.

There is an irony in the freedom of so called democratic states. Men fight for freedom; then once acquired they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves and others. All freedom comes with responsibility. There are essentially two opposing freedoms; a false and a true freedom. The false is where the person is free to do as he desires and the true is where he is free to do as he ought!

So guard your freedom which the soldiers of the last century fought for you to have in the great World Wars. Guard your freedom of ideas, your freedom of speech and your freedom of expression at all cost. Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others, to oversimplify and to divide and rule. Finally, don’t regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to exercise public and unhampered expression in return.

For myself, Nature shows us freedom in unbridled form whether it be the simple frog 'hanging out' in the sun or the hare who knows freedom best when it is easy in its stride and is without harness at the break of day." William Forde: August 14th, 2014.

August 13th, 2014.

13/8/2014

Thought for today:
Everyone knows that the former American President, Theodore Roosevelt was primarilly responsible for the introduction of the word Teddy Bear into the vocabulary of the western world. What the general public is less likely to know about him is that he had a number of 'firsts' which made him a most unusual man for his time.

He was the first president ever to travel outside the continental United States while in Office. He was the first American ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize; he was the first president ever to fly in an airplane when the Wright brothers took him on a four minute flight in October 1910, and he was the youngest president at the age of 42 years to assume Office. Even John F. Kennedy who was the youngest president to be elected to Office was 43 years old when he eventually assumed Office.

Of all the facts I ever learned about Roosevelt however, the one that has always endeared me to the man has been having his name attached to our much loved teddy bear. The teddy is probably the most cuddled thing that the world has ever known. It is introduced into our lives during our childhood and often remains there from cradle to grave. Even the fact that Roosevelt became blind in his left eye as the result of a boxing injury he sustained while in Office makes him just one more teddy who lost a limb or an eye during the fray of everyday life!

If there was only one thing from the whole of creation that I could claim responsibility for, I would clearly love to have been the person responsible (however indirectly), for having introduced the world to the practice of giving and receiving 'cuddles.' What a thing to be remembered; for when all the water has drained from the cooking pot and life's balanced sheet is eventually accounted for." William Forde: August 13th, 2014.

August 12th, 2014.

13/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Life is too wonderful and magical to waste upon worrying or to be rushed through. We are granted our time on this earth but once. Even a mere second needlessly spent can represent an eternity of repentance.

Fasten tight around you therefore like hoops of steel, your family, neighbours and good friends. Take not advantage of others kindness and generosity, but instead learn to always give out more than is received and never give less than is required. If you can establish the habit of granting others your respect even before they have earned it, you will be well on your way to becoming a happy and contented being. Always be prepared to change in the progress of life for without change the butterfly in you will never emerge. Above all, you must smell the flowers as you go by as you may not pass this way again." William Forde: August 12th, 2014.

August 11th, 2014.

12/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Today I wish my son William who lives in Australia and my younger (yet bigger) brother Peter a very happy birthday. While their are many similarities of character between the two such as sharing the same birthday, the most obvious one is that they each carry the Forde gene of 'rebelliousness' deep within them. Both have interests that involve the love of words and a general hatred for being told what to do by their employers. William is a rap singer and song writer in his spare time when he isn't working as an accountant and Peter is a poet when he isn't working as an educational psychologist.

If the truth be widely known, neither enjoy working for anyone or anything that loosely resembles 'an organisation'. Both are free spirits whom display a propensity to p... off their bosses far to often and too easily yet, being wedded to the responsibilities of marriage, pension and mortgage commitment usually prevents them throwing up their job every Monday morning when they report for duty.

Have a good birthday son and brother. Remember to remain positive at all times if you seek happiness and never hold a grudge against another person, as 'holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent free inside your head.' Give your work boss a big wide smile when you next see him. It will drive him mad to see you so happy in the workplace and if you learn to keep your thoughts about him to yourself, your bosses may never know what you truly think about them and their 'oh so organised lives.' Have a nice day. Love you from dad and big brother." William Forde: August 11th, 2014.

August 10th, 2014.

11/8/2014

Thought for today:
"When Jadav Payeng from India found that the soil of his land was even too hot and lifeless to even encourage snakes to crawl over because of the absence of any tree cover, he sat down and wept about the carnage of dead livestock and other creatures.

He alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said that nothing would grow there. He was advised by the authorities to go away and plant a few bamboo to see if they would grow. Jadav did much more than suggested.

Over the next thirty years he planted a 1,360 acre forest by himself! When asked about this labour of love, Jadav said, 'It was painful, but I did it. Nature has made a food chain; why can't we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?'

With such love of the planet as expressed by Jadav, we should sit up and take note and recognise that in all our interests we need to be planting more trees than we currently have; not cutting them down at an unsustainable rate!" William Forde: August 10th, 2014. For the full story from 'The India Times' please log on to http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/stoi/deep-focus/The-man-who-made-a-forest/articleshow/12488584.cms

August 9th,2014.

10/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Few of us ever consider the ultimate consequences of our actions upon the lives of innocent others. I have frequently wondered if the scientists who masterminded the construction of the 'A-bomb' and the 'H-bomb' which killed 200,000 innocent civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th August, 1945 respectively and which brought Japan to surrender were able to live with themselves thereafter.

I am also disgusted by the somewhat innocuous and derisory names that are given to such weapons of mass destruction by supposedly civilised nations such as the United States of America. The uraniam fission bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the 6th August was ironically code named, 'Little Boy', and then as if to rub salt into the wounds of war, the plutonium implosion-type fission bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th was code-named, 'Fat Man.'

Irony is defined as the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite; typically for humorous or emphatic effect. I know from my own ideep interest in history that many of the soldiers of Japan were capable of inflicting the harshest and cruelest and most barbaric treatment on their prisoners during the Second World War, but surely the Americans need not have stooped so low in the face of obvious victory!

Historians will continue to debate if these two bombs should have been dropped and how many more of the Allies would have lost their lives had they not. Of all the images that have haunted me throughout my life, the one with the running child whose skin is peeled from his back with radiation burns will never be dispelled from my mind. No war should ever be glorified or its dead forgotten." William Forde: August 9th, 2014.

August 8th, 2014.

9/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Who can remember their very first bike ride? I will never forget that moment when I realised that I was propelling the bicycle under my own steam and that its balance (however wobbly) was all down to myself.

Do you remember your very first girlfriend or boyfriend? I'm not referring to the one who gave you your first biology lesson behind the school bicyle shed, but the one you first kissed and shared your chewing gum with.

Then in your teenage years when restraining your hormones bursting forth from your inner clothing garments was almost impossible, can you recall those marvellous holidays at Butlins without the immediate presence of your parents where one couldn't possibly dodge the opposite sex whichever way one turned?

Ah years of unbridled folly, youthful passion and happy dreams of the 1950s and 1960s, I miss you often. I frequently wonder if the fast pace of life for today's young, the many employment and accommodation uncertainties they continuously encounter and their growing need and expectation for instant gratification is their greatest ball and chain that the young of my day were never asked to carry? Whereas my generation was reared on idealistic yet more realistic hope factors grounded in realism, this has been supplanted in today's youth by the dream of overnight celebrity, instant fame, a lottery win or becoming a football star as representing the only road out of poverty and depression.

Unfortunately when one's best hope is hung on a distant star, the chances of it ever falling to earth is infinitesimal. Far better to remain anchored in safer harbours of health, happiness, community spirit and the love of family and friends. You will have more heavenly experiences if you dream upon a star and live in positivism and hope upon the earth." William Forde: August 8th, 2014.

August 7th, 2014.

8/8/2014

Thought for today:
"Today I go into hospital again to start my fifth monthly cycle of cancer treatment. I am slowly learning as I go along that as the six-month course develops, the good days grow fewer in number and the poor days increase in number.

It is like a friend of mine who has experience in this told me, 'Towards the back end, the treatment is worse than the illness itself!' Still; two thirds of the way through it now and for the first time since I started the course, I will be truly glad to see it ended. I look forward to having a normal appetite back and being able to mix more freely.

Thank you all for your support throughout. It has truly been appreciated by me and Sheila.I was once told that people never truly appreciate what you do for them until you stop doing it. Don't stop." August 7th, 2014.

August 6th, 2014.

7/8/2014

Thought for today:
"When I was 12 years old, I came out of hospital after a traffic accident and numerous operations and was unable to walk. Being unable to walk for over two years however, didn't prevent me from getting out and about with the help of my father and sisters Mary and Eileen.

Dad made me up a bunker (now called a go-cart) from four old pram wheels, an orange box and a piece of string. Going down hill I could free wheel and then wait for someone to pull me back up again.

The bulk of looking after and fending for me came from my sisters Mary and Eileen who used to pull me wherever I wanted to go. I was part of a large Irish family on a council estate and these were the days of no television in the home; only a permanent line of washing hung out to dry or in the process of being ironed. We made our own fun and invented our own games and activities from the availability of everyday items found within every home with no more than a bit of imagination borne out of a mend-and-make-do mentaltity of the times. As for treats, the occasional penny for some lemon sorbet, a gobstopper or a penny lolly was sufficient to satisfy our needs; along with a gang of mates and an abundance of fresh air and grazed bones which kept one occupied every evening and weekend from dawn until dusk when bedtime arrived.

Initially, upon leaving hospital I had a spine injury and was unable to move my body below my waist. I was told that I'd never walk again. I was determined not to stay in the house though while the other boys and girls were having fun. A time did eventually come when I did get my mobility back. It returned gradually, but because I enjoyed my sisters carting me around everywhere, they were the last people to discover that I could stand and walk very slowly again. When Mary and Eileen eventually learned of this deception they dumped me on a low-level wall on Third Avenue and ran off home laughing their heads off.

Incidently, these were also the days when estates were counted in Avenues one to twelve and all the fancy-named roads weren't invented until the Jones' families of the 60s and 70s came onto the scene. I miss that old bunker, but even by the age of fourteen years, my sisters Mary and Eileen ensured that I was getting used to being 'dumped' so that if it ever happened again (which it did), I'd be acquainted with the experience and would be able to take it in my stride.

I go into hospital again today for another Cat Scan to see if the chemo treatment I am receiving has reduced or removed the presence of the cancerous nodes throughout my body. While I know that my terminal condition means that even if they have gone and I am in a temporary state of 'remission', that they will one day return with a vengeance. However, I pray that time will be a long way off as I have yet too much to do with my life.

Tomorrow will also be spent in hospital on my drug drip which will commence the fifth month in my six-month chemo course of treatment. It is strange how a sixty year gap can still bring instant recall to those days when the hospital worked miracles with me. Who knows what the future holds for any of us from one day to another as 'there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy'." William Forde: August 6th, 2014.