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.