Blog Archives - FordeFables

August 31st, 2015.

31/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Being alone with oneself is often the only means of finding the peace to think things out. In fact, being alone is the best way I know of taking time out from the stresses and pressures of everyday life. We all need to become reacquainted with ourselves, to reach deep within and become reconnected with the essense of our being.

I learned long ago that it is only when we can sit with loneliness and can truly embrace it for the gift it is, do we have the opportunity of learning how right or wrong we've been and how strong we are or can become. Human strength comes not from the ability to lift great weight or move huge objects unassisted. It is built from the wrongs we find in in our lives and make right, along with the wisdom we discover in our circle of friendships.

While it is possible to 'find oneself' from a situation of solitude, to 'know oneself' will rarely come from a position of abstraction or isolation. Only in a tangible relationship can one really come to know who one is and can be. It is only from within a choir of friends that man's song is sung sweetest and is more widely appreciated. The simple truth is that you are a part of all you have seen and done, every introduction to man and beast you've had, every success and loss you've ever felt, every disappointment and pleasant surprise you've met; and every dream you've dared to dream.

The best part of travelling through life will come once you have found yourself along the way. If you find yourself to be a person who cannot see and understand the beauty in life, it will probably be because life has not yet seen or understood it in you! When however, you come to 'find yourself,' everything else of significance shall follow and fall into place.

So go out into the world and do battle to seize your identity and individuality within it, because when you fight to find the 'real you', there can only be one winner! " William Forde: August 31st, 2015.

August 30th, 2015.

30/8/2015

Thought for today:
"There are some who take their dog for its morning walk and then there are those whose dog takes them! Who leads whom in this life is invariably indicated by whose course is followed!

Leaders are born to lead. They do not arrive by accident. Some are reluctant to take hold of the reins of power, whereas others willingly choose to head the pack. A wise leader will possess the vision to gather the thoughts of all around and mobilise united action into single purpose. Should however, the path forward prove unsuitable, they are endowed with the courage to change course. If they get lost en-route, they are unafraid to seek the help of another.

Many leaders tend to emerge in times of indecision and popular crisis, and they appear on the scene like a vacant lifeboat in troubled seas. Whereas leadership will not wear the harness of compromise in a bid to travel the road of popularity, a good leader will be admired by their followers for their understanding, sensitivity and unending consideration.

There are so many folk who would never conceive themselves as a leader and think themselves unskilled and lacking in cleverness, courage and confidence to ever sit up front in the bus, instead of automatically taking a back seat. Deep down, what truly holds them back is an absence of self worthiness and fear of failure.

From the many kinds of leaders in this world, the best leader of all is the one we can all become. We don't have to lead armies into battle, head large companies, enact laws or invent some new technology in order to become a leader of significance. We need not discover cures nor find new ways of making man live longer in order to consider ourselves a success as a leader! All it takes to be a 'good leader' is to a 'good person'. Be that and you will erect a tower of respect which cannot be pulled down by man or machine.

I have personally known one man and one women of simple means and average schooling who filled the cemetery to the brim with mourners on the day of their burial. These people were not famous faces, celebrities or persons of political distinction. One was a butcher, who was known to give free pork pies to the down and out and the other, a woman who spent the whole of her life without ever having had a bad word said against her. Both had served their neighbours and community in unselfish ways that would never be forgotten by those they left behind.

The very best of all Leaders in this life is the person who can lead a good life. By taking the opportunity to do good at every turning we make, we can rest assured that happiness will always come into view. Leading a good life is within the realm of each of us, and if we can leave this earth knowing we have lived one, we will leave behind many, who because of our example, will gladly follow in our ways.

The opportunity to do good is missed by so many people today, simply because it is dressed in overalls and looks like hard work. Often being a leader involves following a particular path at a specific moment in time, but it can also involve one travelling a new road where there is no path and leaving a trail for others to follow.

As one of my children's books points out, there is a Solo in every Soloman, a wise man in every fool and a leader in every follower." William Forde: 30th August, 2015.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/225068

August 29th, 2015.

29/8/2015

Thought for today:
"I was once told that the power of the spoken and written word transports one's mind and body into a meeting with a new world, which once entered knows no return. I wonder how many men and women have started a new era in their lives from the reading of a book. How often has the turning of a page led to a great change in one's life or the theme of a book been responsible for the movement of ideas from one plane of thought to a different dimension?

There has never been a sword fashioned that was as sharp as the mind forged in any thinking man or woman. There has never been a weapon that could floor an opponent quicker and more effectively than a carefully crafted insult spoken in public gaze. There has never been any instrument as powerful as the pen and its transcribed emotions; from love letter to death warrant or peace treaty to declaration of war, the outcome can change the course of life.

So read on and read more often."William Forde: August 29th, 2015.

August 28th, 2015.

28/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Being good towards others, pays dividends in spades. A person's feeling of good will towards another person is the strongest magnet for drawing support and good will towards oneself. Put plainly, if you want someone to take an interest in you, take an interest in them first. If you want them to relax in your company, be relaxed in theirs. It's no big secret; people will treat you as you treat them.

Learn to hear, touch and see with your heart the goodness that surrounds you and you will know a peace which no noise is loud enough to break." William Forde: August 28th, 2015.

August 27th,2015.

27/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Some creatures love a full moon and take full advantage of its very presence. They see it as the perfect time to stalk their unsuspecting prey up one alley and down another. Walking around the neighbourhood under the cloak of darkness can reveal all mankind's secret assignations and their nocturnal excursions.

I see the poacher with his concealed game, the burglar effecting break and entry, the drunk slowly fumbling his way home, the teenager kissing her boyfriend passionately outside her house after an evening out on the town, the patrolling police constable on his beat and the siren of the racing ambulance as it attends the closure of life.

Look ever closer amid the shadows of deception and you will see Rory Hardy, who is furtively making his way to the back-door entrance of number 43 where his best-friend's wife admits him with a tender kiss and a look of sensuous anticipation that her husband on the night shift will never know.

And then...........and then there are us cats, the favourite pets of pharaohs, evil witches and suspicious spinsters. We walk by all manner of activity and none of you human participants give us a second glance. You believe you can do what you want in our presence and that your secret will remain safe with us. If only you humans knew what we get up to on our nightly prowl under the influence of a full moon, you'd never dare sleep through the night again!

When I saw this image, it reminded me of my books, 'The Kilkenny Cat Trilogy.' When planning these works, I disliked cats intensely and then after five years of researching their behaviour, I came to love them. I wanted the type of book characters who saw society for what it was and so chose a gypsy band of stray cats who travel lands and cross seas and encounter all manner of discrimination wherever they go. These three adult books are allergorical (all cat characters have human characteristics), and are a must for all cat lovers, pharaohs, evil witches, suspicious spinsters and budding authors who start off hating the canine species and know not their cleverness. They are available in e-book format from www.smashwords.com and in hard copy from amazon and www.lulu.com. All profits go to charity. The stories contain violent scenes which are not for the squeamish reader. You read them at their peril when the moon is full and there is no acknowledged liability or refund if you have a heart attack doing so!" William Forde: August 27th, 2015.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/william-forde/the-kilkenny-cat-book-one/paperback/product-22043154.htm

August 26th, 2015.

25/8/2015

Thought for today:
"There is no feeling like the 'first feeling' to know that you hold the world in your hands and yet sense the tenuous nature of life so much that you want to enjoy every moment of it before letting go of your dreams.

I will never forget my first school, my first communion, my first pair of long trousers at the age of ten, my first party kiss, my first girlfriend, my first sexual encounter, my first job, my first marriage, my first house, my first child, my first death in the family and my first divorce. All are events in my life which had a significant impact upon me at the time and shaped the person I now am.

My greatest of twin impacts came however in old age. Around my 70th year of life I found Sheila, my first soul mate in life, and shortly after we married, I first received news of my terminal illness. What a tragic thing to happen you might think, but let me honestly assure you that you couldn't be farther from the truth. For it was the finding of my soul mate that led me towards truly finding God in my life once more and finding a greater peace and happiness that I have ever known or any man could hope to own. As I go into hospital again today for my three-weekly blood transfusions, I know that I hold the world in my hands and my life in its balance, and I intend to hold on for as long as God wills it." William Forde: August 26th, 2015.

August 25th, 2015.

25/8/2015

Thought for today:
"We in the west often declare our state of want as though our very life and continued existence depended upon its satisfaction. While every person in the country will eat at some time throughout today however, there will be millions......yes millions of poor people across the world who will not taste nourishment between dawn and dusk.

Some will go hungry and some will be beaten mercilessly while others, not yet old enough to have learned the alphabet will have their childhood imagination stifled by totalitarian regimes and be trained how to become good soldiers of the future. We often speak of poverty here in the west, but thankfully we will never know it in its rawest form and never have to understand it.

The next time you see a charity box on the counter of your local store, put your change in it instead of back inside your purse and believe me, you and another will have a much better day in consequence. We should seldom resist the urge to do something good in our day, however small.

We are enough of a realist to know that our few pennies cannot possibly feed every child who hungers, but with God's help we should remain enough of an optimist to get up each morning and try to do our bit. It only takes only a mouthful of food to keep a starving person alive for one more day." William Forde: August 25th, 2015.

August 24th, 2015

24/8/2015

August 24th, 2015.

24/8/2015

Thought for today:
"I've never considered life on earth to represent anything more than being 'a work in progress.' Whatever we manage to do and achieve in this life is but one small fraction of what we are capable of being. We are much more than mere skeleton, skin and bone that is electro-chemically wired to a brain that instructs the muscles how to respond in given situations and under certain conditions. We have souls; that part of each of us which cannot be x-rayed or located inside the body and yet, which undoubtedly resides in all men and women with a conscience and a destiny. The soul, like the body lives upon what it feeds. Starve it of goodness and it will not serve you well, but feed it with an abundance of generosity and good will and you will never be lost to love or far from home.

We each strive to become a complete individual and if possible, to attain a wholesomeness that keeps us who we are and true to self. We give thought to the requirements of others, knowing our reflection on their needs to be a flower of the mind giving out wholesome fragrance to barren ground in want of tender nourishment. We make our wholesomeness not a matter of intensity, but more a part of perfect peace in a world that is filled with too many broken promises and too few words of gentleness and love that are left unsaid.

My daily prayer is: From head to toe, help me make my wholesomeness an indelible part of me and forever house balance, order, rhythm and harmony in my world." William Forde: August 24th, 2015.

August 23rd, 2015.

23/8/2015

Thought for today:
"To hold on to one's anger and hate is like trying to endure a fiery furnace that refuses to be quenched. Anger and hatred are weapons of emotional destruction. Wield them at your peril, for while you hold on to these negative emotions, you will allow all the good things in life to fall away from your grasp and your mind will not know peace. The pain of your body shall experience ever-increasing darkness of spirit, leaving behind a desolate soul to slowly smoulder in a furnace of harsh forgiveness.

Hatred is an emotion that ultimately leads to the extinction of all positive values. It is a form of inveterate anger; it gives you nothing, but destroys everything! There is no greater human waste than a passionate hatred that is being used to give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Hatred is the gravest of all self-punishments. It eats away at the will to live and destroys the core of one's compassion. It can only be dispelled through a love of self that refuses to hold on to it any longer.

Throughout my life as a former Probation Officer and counsellor working with many people who were unable to control their anger or dispel their hatred, I was left in no doubt that these twin emotions have the potential to destroy the person holding them. Through observing their devastating consequences, I became determined in myself never to allow another to pull me down so low as to hate them. I also came to understand that love is given, but hatred is acquired. We cannot hold hatred because of another's actions, but because of our desire to possess it. It is an emotion that we take unto ourselves, often in response to a perceived wrong we incurred; and because we take it on, only we can dispel it!

Two of the most important things I learned throughout my lifetime have been, 'I make me angry and I choose to take on hate...me and not anyone else!' My work and research into the field of 'Anger' essentially led me to conclude that the emotions of anger and love cannot simultaneously reside within the same body as they are diametrically opposed, and that the only way to get anger out of one's body and keep it out, is by putting love into it! This finding was to become the theme of my most popular and best-selling children's story for the 7-11 year old reader entitled, ‘Douglas the Dragon.'

My greatest of all life achievements was to found the process of 'Anger Management', from which countless people have benefited across the English-speaking world. It will not be this work however, what I will be remembered for when I am dead. What I will be remembered for will not be for the Anger Management 'process' I founded in 1972, but a children's book I wrote about an angry dragon in 1990 called 'Douglas.' This book came to prominence and received national media and press coverage, not because I wrote it, but because the late Princess Diana read it to her children, Princes William and Harry when they were aged 7 and 9 years at their bedtime! I know this because HRH approached me and requested I send her a copy for this specific purpose.

The words on one's gravestone may be chiselled out after one's death, but I strongly suspect that one's epitaph is determined during one's lifetime. If I were to select only one of the children's book I have written above all others of mine, which I consider to be the most instructive and helpful to a developing child, it would be, 'Douglas the Dragon.' This book was read in over two thousand Yorkshire school assemblies by over eight hundred and fifty famous names between 1990 and 2002, and which along with my other published books has raised over £200,000 for charity through their sales.

'Douglas the Dragon' is available in e-book format from www.smashwords.co.uk and in hard copy from amazon and www.lulu.com. All profits go to charity. All four stories can also be heard for free in the audio section of my website and have been recorded by professional actors. In addition, any school musical drama group can find the 'Douglas the Dragon Musical Play' on my website which I wrote, accompanied by six origional songs and backing tracks that were professionally recorded. This musical play can be read, heard and dramatised free. The musical play was paid for by the National Lottery for the benefit of one thousand schools and libraries in Yorkshire, along with amateur drama groups worldwide. The stories and musical play reinforce the theme that to get anger out of our body, we put in love." William Forde: August 23rd, 2015.
http://www.fordefables.co.uk/douglas-the-dragon.html

future.

August 22nd, 2015.

22/8/2015

Thought for today:
"All of the very best teachers and instructors in life know that something 'shown' instead of 'told' to a pupil, aids learning so much easier and better. Demonstration however, will never promote better teaching than inspiration can.

Whenever we think of those teachers who were our greatest instructors, they are the ones who made us feel good about ourselves and whose enthusiasm enabled us to see beyond the horizon. I remember a woodwork teacher in the technical college I attended who had this effect on me; not because he taught me how best to make a chair, but through the love of his craft, he taught me how to sit on one properly as they were fashioned to be sat upon.

While this may not on the surface seem so great a learning, believe me it was. What he was effectively instilling in me was the inspiration, followed by the vision and concluded by the mechanical construction. For instance, had he wanted his class to build a ship, he wouldn't have secured the required number of hands to carry out the labour and gather the wood; nor would he have divided the work and given the orders. Instead, he would have inspired in us a yearning to sail the vast and endless seas. You see, he knew that a good teacher is someone who makes himself progressively unneccessary in his pupil's lives.

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery and a good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instil a love of learning. Effective teachers know how to bring out the best in us as students. They affect our eternity to the extent that their influence in our lives never stops. We never forget them. There is so much in my education that I was taught and have since forgotten, but never the lesson from my first inspirational teacher. Her name was Mrs Brennan and I was 6 years old. I can still hear her as though it was yesterday: 'There are five continents class: America, Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe.'

My mother always warned me against thinking myself too clever by half by deceiving myself that I knew it all, as there was always something new to learn that nobody yet knew about. I have always tried to practice this truth with my own children, telling myself that I cannot teach them anything they do not want to learn; I can only make them think. Whenever they come back at me in heated discussion with new ideas, I check myself and remember that we should never confine our children to the extent of our own learning for they were born in another time and should know more than us by the time they die." William Forde: August 22nd, 2015.

August 21st, 2015.

20/8/2015

Thought for today:
"There is frequent discussion about the morals and behaviour of different times and much disagreement as to which was the better or worse era for men and women to have lived through. As someone born in 1942, as well as having studied the history of Great Britain as a lifetime hobby, I hold views which vary with many contempories about certain aspects of an age in which we grew up. Let me say from the start, that all of my comments in this post refer to the British native and not any other nationality or culture born outside the British Isles.

I would like to look at one aspect of society only; 'that of the prevailing and changing sexual attitudes of men towards women since I was born.'

Back in my time of growing up I recall that game of 'Doctors and Nurses' which was innocently played as children during our primary school days of the 40s and 50s. Then, when one advanced towards the age of nine or ten, the game of 'Fathers and Mothers' was regularly engaged in by the bold and boisterous among us. The learning involved in the playing of this latter game was gradually codified by the Department for Education and emerged on the school curriculum in the 60s and 70s as lessons in 'Biology.'

As we grew older, one's interest in the opposite sex didn't wane; instead it got stronger with the passing of time and the customary party kiss for all kids was the prize of 'Postman's Knock'. Only the most daring of early teenagers engaged in that dare-devil party game of 'I will if you will' and one had usually left school and started work before getting down to a serious snog on the back row of the local cinema.

The mid teens required the obligatory reading of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' and it was only towards one's twenties when the 'unspoken promise' was understood through the acceptance of obtaining that last dance at the local Mecca!

How times have changed; some might argue for the better with many of my generation proclaiming the worse! I hate to shatter any illusion reflecting back to a nostalgic past where males respected females more than they do today, but I don't believe they did.

Most men who are now aged 70 were brought up in an age where 'No did not always and necessarilly mean no' as far as they were concerned in many instances of their dalliances with a young lady. 'No' was sometimes thought to mean 'Maybe' and 'Maybe' was invariably thought to mean 'Yes'. And as far as 'Yes' was concerned; well that was simply taken as meaning, 'What are you waiting for then?'

This wayward and wrongful male attitude may not have been practised by all young men whatever their beliefs, background or social upbringing, but for most boys brought up in a working class household, I'm afraid it was fostered and came into practice far too often. The common response of a young man who had got a young girl pregnant then was 'to do the right thing by her.' Please note, that his professed intention to 'do the right thing by her' only came into play after he had 'done the wrong thing with her!'

Nobody should condone this male attitude which undoubtedly prevailed in much of society then or seek to excuse it now. Indeed, to refuse to accept it existed at all, is simply to deny the reality of the times one lived in.

I recall during my first year working as a Probation Officer in West Yorkshire during 1971 of going into the communities and homes of hard-working men who continued to treat their wives as second rate citizens and who believed in their right 'as the man of the house and bread winner,' to do so! I recall a time when it was not rape in the eyes of the law if a man made love to his wife against her expressed wishes to the contrary. I remember during my early years as a Probation Officer when the police would not attend so-called 'domestic disputes' if the couple were married, however violent the rows and assaults got; and on those occasions when they did investigate, rarely were the courts called upon to prosecute the man. I recall back in the 70s and 80s when women raped by a stranger were interviewed solely by male police officers and consequently few went on to prosecute their attackers! I remember during the 1980's and early 90s, the social distinction that was made between rape by a stranger and rape by a boyfriend; the latter of which became known as 'date rape'. By society making the distinction, it was generally implied that because the person being raped had dated her rapist, the action was therefore more understandable and of lesser consequence; essentially inferring that if consensual sex had previously taken place between the two parties, the consent was to be taken as an automatic 'carry over' regarding any future meetings between the couple!

There is much that I cannot agree with today concerning the attitudes and behaviour of many young men towards women, but generally I do not believe that we men are much better or worse than the males of my days or even earlier times. On the surface there appears to exist greater equality between the sexes today as the decades have advanced, but be in no doubt that genuine equality between the sexes has never existed. Sexism has simply been swept under the carpet and can still be found in all social classes. It remains present, albeit in more subtle form and is masked under the token umbrella of equality and discrimination law nowadays. And if it isn't openly practised by the males in today's society towards women in general, it is only because of its legal and financial consequences!

Wise women don't doubt or deceive themselves that the world they live in is still very much a man's world, made for men and protected by laws, mostly made by men. Wise women know deep down that the sexist edifice which man took thousands of years to build is most unlikely to have been deconstructed by the men in less than a century, just because women were eventually 'given' the vote or the pill. Indeed, I would argue that it is never likely to be willingly demolished by men. This is why I would advocate that women combine in purpose and push down the rotten structure themselves!

Of course there will be exceptions to what I have described in this post. There can be vast differences between the attitudes, beliefs and practices of one person and another. We all know that all men and all woman aren't the same; never were and never will be!

All that being the case however, I'm still glad that I was born in my year of 1942." William Forde: August 21st, 2015.

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August 20th, 2015.

20/8/2015

Thought for today:
"We all fear something or other in life and get angry from time to time. None of us is immune to these emotions. The expression of fear and anger can be healthy or unhealthy, helpful or unhelpful and rational or irrational. The most unhelpful and unhealthy fear and anger are all the irrational ones (IE fear and anger that serve no useful purpose). The overwhelming majority of group members I worked with over twenty five years of running hundreds of groups in Probation Offices, hostels, prisons, hospitals, psychiatric wings, churches, educational establishments and in the community were either too fearful or too aggressive in their behaviour. These two opposite response pattern types strangely enough cured themselves of their inappropriate behaviour by the same process and means.

It took me over twenty five years of practice and research before I was able to establish what I now tell you in a few minutes. People who express fear in profusion rarely express their anger and people who express anger in profusion rarely express their fear. Consequently, in such problematic types, the expression of one emotion leads to the repression of the other!

As my research findings and work methods in 'Anger Management' became more established and widly known both in this country and across the English speaking continent, they became acceptable to workers worldwide. With regard to modifying the behaviour of people whose response patterns contain either too much anger or too much fear, the process is as follows:

PROBLEM: The expression of too much fear in my life in all types of situations adversely affects my health, happiness and social functioning and makes me too tense, too often.
SOLUTION: Practise acknowledging and expressing your anger in all situationss that make you angry, and learn Relaxation or Meditation methods, so you can imagine a successful outcome before you practise one for real.
OUTCOME: The more you learn to express your anger in a controlled form, the less you will express your fears in an uncontrolled way and the healthier and happier you will become.
PROBLEM: The expression of too much anger in my life in all manner of situations adversely affects my health, happiness and social functioning and makes me too tense too often.
SOLUTION: Practise acknowledging and verbally expressing your fears in all situations that make you fearful, and learn Relaxation or Meditation methods, so you can imagine a successful outcome before you practise one for real.
OUTCOME: The more you learn to express your fears in a controlled form, the less you will express your anger in an uncontrolled way and the healthier and happier you will become.

Should you happen to fall into the response pattern of either of the above two types above ,the means resolution is at hand. " William Forde (Founder of Anger Management): August 20th, 2015.

August 19th, 2015.

19/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Mercifully, the human body works slowly in the presence of trauma; first it experiences the blow and then the bruise gradually follows. The mind however, knows no such delay and shock is instantly registered!

Because I grew up in a different age, I grew up with the naive expectation of people always doing the right thing and therefore I am shocked by every violation of mankind towards each other. I believe that at the core, most people are good at heart and overall, there are far too few bad apples in the barrel to contaminate the goodness of the whole. Consequently, I am surprised when we don't act good in situations demanding of consideration.

It disturbs me that many people are not moved by the cruelty and brutality that frequently surrounds us in the world today and are able to more or less get on with their lives without so much as a second thought to those who need our help and cannot survive without it. I tend to feel that if others aren't shocked like I am, then they cannot truly understand the injustice taking place all around us, yet know deep down that this cannot be so. With today's easy access to instant news across the globe, one would have to be blind, deaf and totally without feeling not to understand the plight of so many in need.

What therefore makes a good person understand what is needed, yet suppress their natural feelings of compassion and do nothing except get on with their own life? What makes mankind desensitised to the penury, pain and plight of others?

For some folk, a shocking occurrence ceases to be shocking when it occurs daily, but not for others. I strongly suspect that the people who do not become immune to the heartache and cruel situations of others actively work against ever becoming immune to world suffering. I believe such sensitive people treasure the true value of empathy; of needing to 'feel with' others in need. Such people want to feel shocked, need to feel shocked and will always be shocked, because they know that to be distanced from the pain of others is to be removed from the goodness of oneself and any goodness in the world.

I have come to the conclusion in my old age that it is proper and productive that we are shocked when we see and experience the selfish, the cruel, the unjust and unspeakable acts against each other: for it is only such shock that is capable of shaking us out of this complacency of our comfortable existences and encourages us to give expression to the charitable side of our nature. I genuinely believe that it is only through our charitable acts towards our fellow man that our humanity is preserved and we are redeemed." William Forde: August 19th, 2015.

August 18th, 2015.

19/8/2015

August 18th, 2015.

18/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Thought for today:
"When we first met, I wanted a fairy tale romance. Instead I found a dream that took a lifetime to unfold. I found you, my love, at a time when I thought all love to be lost within a world of temporary things and past regrets. Love is often of a tenuous nature, but my love for you will stay permanent, for in this world of temporary commitment you are the one perpetual feeling I desire. In a world full of temporary things, you are my eternal treasure, the one love that death cannot steal. Death may take our bodies and God may own our souls, but my heart will be yours until it ceases to beat and will remain yours until we next meet in the life thereafter. I love you so much, Sheila Forde, more than any man has ever loved a woman or any woman has been loved." William Forde: August 18th, 2015.

August 17th 2015.

17/8/2015

Thought for today:
"I'm a 'rock and roll' fan who was brought up in the 1950's and 60's when winkle pickers were found on a chap's feet and not on the beach and a D.A. described the rear end of a duck in hairstyle fashion and not a District Attorney.

Being one of the original Teddy Boys, I'd no time at all for the so-called Mods and the motorised mirrors they rode to Brighton and back. Place me astride a mighty 1000cc Vincent, show me the open road and I'd show you how to get from Bradford to Blackpool in less than an hour!

In glorious 1956, I remember dancing in the ailes of Cleckheaton cinema to the sound of Bill Hayley and his Comets at the film 'Rock around the Clock' and then dancing in the coffee bar to 'Heartbreak Hotel' by Elvis. The song and singer that got my feet stomping like no other however, was the Big Bopper singing Chantilly Lace one year earlier in 1955.

Then in February, 1959, following a plane crash in Iowa, along with singers Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper was tragically killed. In large part, that was the day the music died and it was never quite the same again for me.

After being baptised in the songs and music of such greats, I ended my teens as the Punks came on the British scene with their spiked hair, wearing fashion-torn trousers with dangling chains, S&M garments festooned in badges with anti-authority slogans. This was the most anti-establishment group I'd ever seen whose prime purpose was to offend everything decent and polite. They sung fast-paced songs and their greatest propensity was to spit and shout. Rebel though I was, I could never tolerate the loud music and vulgar mannerisms of the Punk Rockers and when their turn came to occupy the scene, I emigrated to Canada for two years to escape all that was 'Rotten and Vicious' about them.

My time in Canada took me back to the land of the cowboys and for the next two years I was introduced to the sound of Country and Western. I quickly grew attached to these songs, mostly because of my love of the spoken word and the fact that the country ballads always told a story; often the same story of love, hardship, betrayal, loss and death. For a time, I even suspected that it was the same song writer behind this vast market.

When I returned from Canada in 1964, a new animal breed was heading the pop charts with The Beatles and The Animals etc. I was now in my early twenties and getting ready to settle down with a steady girl friend and a regular job that offered prospects which would enable me to get married and own my own house.

Around my fifties, I developed a taste for Classical Music and often used to read and write with Mozart quietly playing in the background. Then when I was aged 68 years, I met my wife Sheila. She had a family of nephews and nieces, all musicians, and had been reared in classical style. I also renewed my past interest in Rock and Roll, and over the next three years, me and Sheila went out weekly Rock and Rolling in Batley. When the car radio wasn't tuned into Classic FM, it was rocking with the beat of my past heroes and the songs I'd danced to in the house as a sixteen year old boy, with a tie attached to the door knob as a partner when my sister Mary wasn't around to take the floor with me.

I have since developed the taste for all manner of music and song, but however old I get, I will never be able to stop my ears pricking up and my feet starting to tap when I hear the Big Bopper take the floor." William Forde: August 17th, 2015.
https://youtu.be/4b-by5e4saI

August 16th, 2015.

16/8/2015

Thought for today:
"On days such as today when I'm afloat with my own thoughts, the world seems so strange to me. How can mankind allow war between nations to break the calm of heaven's quiet or let the struggle for food suffocate the tranquillity of spiritual nourishment, without which none can survive? How can we let the pursuance of more money than one needs to live by, use up time that could be better spent seeking cures for the world's illnesses or in search for greater contentment ? How can one small part of the world deserve to own so big a chunk of it, while those countries of greater populations and need have to make do with the smallest slice of the cake? Don't we all need food, shelter and warmth to keep us alive? Is not hunger, disease and famine the cause of similar pain and discomfort to all humans who experience them? Are not our seasons and tides controlled by the same moon?

If the sun shines down on us in equal measure, then why are we all so unequal from east to west, north to south, across continents and seas and between mountains? I wish someone would tell me, for it troubles me so!" William Forde: August 16th, 2015.

August 15th, 2015

15/8/2015

August 15th, 2015.

15/8/2015

Thought for today:
"A man's travels will never take him farther than the scope of his imagination and the extent of his expectations." William Forde: August 15th, 2015.

August 14th, 2015.

14/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Until we are brave enough to turn the corner without knowing what is around it, we are destined to do little more with our lives than be content watching others live theirs.

As Socrates discovered, the trouble with any body of knowledge is that it is never complete. Too many people claim to know what they don't know. Their feel can't feel your feel, their pain can't match your pain or their experience mirror in true relection what you experienced. At best, they can listen and hear what you say, be there and do as you ask, and throughout it all, try to understand.

What waits for each of us around the same corner will always be a different experience. Our happiness and grief in similar situations of gain and loss will manifest itself differently. Though our situations may look alike, our experience will differ and its touch and effect may vary enormously. It is sad but true, that the death of your husband, wife, father, mother, son or daughter can never feel precisely like the death of mine to me, nor yours to you. At best, our feelings of loss can approximate each other's state of enforced change and produce a tenuous understanding through our willingness to share. We are all made differently and cannot therefore rule in equal measure. Though others may possess the power to stir our imagination, only we can dream our dreams and live our lives!" William Forde: August 14th, 2015.

August 13th, 2015

13/8/2015

Thought for today:
"If ever you feel overwhelmed with your daily responsibilities and reach that stage when you cannot face tomorrow or take any more without blowing a fuse, then sit down for five minutes, take a few deep breaths, have a cup of tea and give thought to the men and women of Britain during the Second World War of 1939-45. Think briefly about them and the country we once were and the greatness we seem to have lost; particulary our capacity as a nation of individuals to cope with struggle and our dogged determination to stick things out until we won through.

'Where there's a will there's a way' is a saying that my mother often reminded me of whenever she saw me struggle with some situation that seemed to better me or sensed that I was in danger of succumbing to the danger of defeatism.

I was instantly reminded by mum that if the British people during the Second World War years had run into the house, shut their doors and never opened them again at the first sight and sound of an enemy plane flying overhead, that old Hitler would have buried this nation before its time and had his storm troopers march merrily over our graves.

But the British were made of much sterner stuff, I was reliably informed. My mother told me that the adversity we faced as a nation brought out in us an inventiveness that was born in the seeds of creation and courage. When the country starved, we uprooted our lawns and flowers and grew vegetables in our gardens and allotments. When our clothes were damaged and torn, we darned and mended them. Wounded soldiers sent back from the war with part bodies were made whole again wherever possible and those left scarred and crippled were treated as heroes and cared for by community love in Cheshire Homes when the war was over. When we wanted but couldn't get, we made do with what we had. When a neighbour was in greater need than ourselves, we willingly shared what little we had and were glad to do so. When anyone in the street lost a loved one on the battle fields or during the bombing of our towns and cities, all neighbours felt the loss of one of their own and all grieved.

When children played and had no toys, they used their imagination. With little more than pebbles and chalk, they drew hopscotch squares upon pavements and roads, while inventive young women without denier stockings to wear drew seams up the backs of their legs to kid their men folk.

Growing children learned through their neighbourhood games of the combined strength what could be achieved by becoming one in purpose. One of their most popular games of the time which mimicked the bombing air raids of the enemy was called 'Leap Frog'. Like the war in progress, this game required two sides; with the aim of the aggressor being to crush the other under mounting pressure as the bodily bombs landed with force from upon high. If the backs of the line taking the pressure collapsed, the other team won. The only difference between the reality of war and the game we played was whether we collapsed in a heap of dead bodies or one of crumpled laughter!

There was no adversity that the British people ever allowed to overface them. My mother once told me that she once read about a woman in London, who during the Blitz, lost her mother and two of her three children in a night-time bombing raid, along with the total destruction of her house. At the time of the bombing, she and her oldest child had momentarily popped out to the end of the street and had returned to find their house reduced to rubble and the rest of their family dead beneath the burning ruins.

The woman naturally grieved her loss and buried her dead. Two weeks later she was seen sorting through the rubble of her destroyed home after she had sent her only remaining child off to school. During her search she retrieved her doorstep which had adorned the house entrance ever since it had first been built and which she had washed and whitened daily as a sign of being house proud.

One of the neighbouring children who was being taken to school by his mother saw the bereaved woman in the ruins of her bombed house and asked why she was sending her Tommy to school two weeks after his two brothers and grandmother had been killed in the bombing raid. His mother reportedly replied, 'Nay lad, what else can she do, but to get on and live her life out the best way she can. To do less would be to give way to old Hitler! In fact, knowing her as I do, I wouldn't be surprised to find her washing down and whitening her old doorstep again tomorrow for future use, if it's still in one piece. Now, you get off to school and do your bit for the war effort. We'll not let old Hitler wear us down. Where there's a will there's a way and we'll find it. We'll win through, you'll see. Now get theesen off to school before I get the Inspector on you!'

If only this country could recapture the courage, character and the fortitude of the British people that existed during the Second World War years, we'd soon get ourselves out of this economic mess we are now in! If only this country could once again develop broad backs in a line of unity, we could bear whatever weight we needed to in order to win through! If only this country could find that proud identity we once possessed as a nation which enabled us to endure the harshest of adversity and austerity for six war years, and which we have since lost down the European plughole; if only.....we would be great again!

Any child above the age of 9 years or adult wishing to learn more about England in the Blitz, my book, 'Robin and the Rubicelle Fusiliers' is an ideal introduction to these times. It is available from www.smashwords.com in e-book form or from amazon or www.lulu.com in hard copy. All profit goes to charity in perpetuity." William Forde (Born in Ireland but bred in England, and proud of it!): August 13th, 2015.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/william-forde/robin-and-the-rubicelle-fusiliers/paperback/product-21872593.html

August 12th, 2015.

12/8/2015

Thought for today:
"It is a well accepted fact that the person who swims against the current of one's thought will never know the strength of it. Existence is an unending stream of extenuating circumstances which invites us to go with the flow. When we flow with the river, we do so in the knowledge that water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows and therefore our experiences will shape our learning.

There will be times to surrender and times to resist, yet nothing shall ever vindicate one's refusal to experience the stillness of life's waters, particularly when storm clouds gather and emotions rage. Only when you can place your hand quietly upon your problem without creating additional ripples of distraction will you know where the answer lies." William Forde: August 12th, 2015.

August 11th, 2015.

11/8/2015

.

Thought for today:
"Today is the twin birthdays of my son, William, who lives in Australia with his wife Eve and my brother Peter who is now 65 and lives in Dewsbury, West, Yorkshire with his wife Linda. William and Peter have more in common than most nephews and uncles would ever guess. Anyone wishing to be kind to them might see them as being oddballs who are prone to do stupid things without forethought and then plead innocence in intention when the shit hits the fan! To me they are simply born rebels who refuse to conform to almost any set of rules or guidelines that genteel society follows.

I can never recall a time when my younger brother Peter wasn't big in size for his age, and yet, despite his size, he was never aggressive and was overall seen as being 'a gentle giant'. Indeed, apart from putting dead wasps inside his brother Patrick's sandwich once and laughing loudly as Patrick ate them, he rarely did wrong to man or beast. At the age of eleven, a bossy bus conductor demanded that Peter get off the bus at Hare Park Lane instead of the next stop, because his bus pass took him no farther without additional payment, which he didn't have. Under normal circumstances Peter might have complied, but due to the conductor's officious manner and offensive tone of voice, Peter decided otherwise. When he didn't alight the double decker bus at the proper stop, the pint-sized conductor who stood no more in height than giant-sized Peter yelled, 'Get off, boy! Get off now!' Our Peter simply placed his arms around the conductor's waist, hoisted him up and after putting him down on the pavement, he smiled and rang the bell; leaving the bus conductor high and dry! I remember all the school kids on the bus cheering and no doubt wishing they'd had the nerve to do the same to some bossy adult in their lives!

In a time before mobile phones had become the extra ear of every child, our family home had telephone extensions in every room. I remember an occasion when I had grounded my then thirteen-year-old son William for some misdemeanour he'd committed, only to discover that he had exacted his own revenge. He removed his parents' bedroom phone, and by use of his own extension was calling his friends for hours nightly from the secrecy of his bedroom. When I saw the next quarterly phone bill I exploded. I seized the phone from his room and put it where he'd never find it, after totally immobilising the socket in the wall. It was about two months later when I noticed a loose wire floating around above his bedroom window. This was the point where BT had connected the wire from the telegraph pole across the road to our house. Unknown to me, William, who was a whizz kid with all manner of electronics and computers, had secured himself another phone and had illegally wired himself up to our next door neighbour's phone line. Our next-door neighbour, the Stuarts, were now secretly sharing a party line with William which they never once suspected and were also unknowingly being charged a hefty amount for his phone calls that the Stuart children were being severely chastised for, despite their firm protests of innocence!

The final straw, however, was when a policeman knocked on our door one day when I was the only one at home and the children were at school. He said that he'd been walking up the road and had seen something strange in one of the bedroom windows. It turned out that it was William's bedroom he referred to. William had told me and his mother months earlier that now he had reached his teens he required his own privacy. He requested that in future me and his mother refrain from entering his bedroom ever without first knocking and awaiting permission to enter. Out of respect for our adolescent son, and in recognition of the need of testosterone fuelled teenagers to find occasional relief, we foolishly agreed. Upon entering William's bedroom, accompanied by the policeman, we discovered he'd even fastened a bolt on the inside of his door in case we broke our word and tried to effect forced entry when he was there. We then discovered that with the aid of his creative talents, a green-leafed plant I'd last seen in Jamaica and some silver-card backing that reflected light to spur on growth, he'd been growing his own cannabis factory in his window sill for many months. The policeman told me that being an established Probation Officer married to a professional therapist at the time was no excuse for parental neglect and lack of prudent oversight of one's offspring. When he arrived home from school that day, our Wiliam was duly cautioned and the smiling bobby left.

It's strange how one's own brother and son can be so like each other in some things, isn't it? Then, I started thinking about all the Forde family; my deceased grandparents, mother and father, aunts and uncles, my brothers and sisters, my own children, their children and no doubt all their children yet to come. I was obliged to conclude that we are all eccentric! We are all of independent mind, all control freaks and have always been rebels to one cause or another all our lives! Come to think of it, we are all crazy to some extent!

Happy birthday to my son William and brother Peter. I love you both dearly, but don't you think it's now time to settle down to a more normal lifestyle and stop the commission of Forde Follies?" August 11th, 2015.

August 10th, 2015.

10/8/2015

Thought for today:
"Society is full of free loaders; many more it seems now than ever before. I think in some ways it's to do with people having grown more accustomed to instant gratification. Many people have grown up possessing a belief of their natural entitlement to automatically have this or that without any attaching responsibility. Some people are not concerned in the slightest as to the consequences they produce for others by their irresponsible behaviou, so long as other taxpayers pick up the tab.

I was watching a programme on television recently about a married couple who had parented ten children. One parent was blind and had additional needs and her husband acted as her carer. They lived in a four bedroomed house which was overcrowded and was seeking a six-bedroomed house from the council, which naturally would be paid from their housing benefits. They had their needs assessed, were granted one and appeared genuinely grateful.

So far so good you might be forgiven for thinking, despite probably holding a few reservations. The thing I found unacceptable though was while it was mentioned that the family also housed five dogs and eight cats inside their council house, only once was this mentioned at the beginning of the programme and never again referred to.

Allow me to be perfectly clear. I love children and all animals and as the eldest child of seven I know the benefits of being brought up in a large family. I am registered disabled and have been so for many years. I have always subscribed to the view that with opportunity and choice comes a responsibility to exercise our choices fairly.

I do not believe that even disabled people have entitlement to be freeloaders under any circumstances or to make choices that gravely impinge upon the lives and welfare of other disabled people and able-bodied citizens. While I believe in the right to parent as many children as one wishes or own as many animals as one wants, I do not believe such to be an entitlement by anyone to be funded by the taxpayer; especially when austerity across the country adversely affects the lives of all.

There is only one pot of money to draw from whatever the country's needs are. Necessary drugs for dying people cannot any longer be funded without rationing. Over twenty cancer drugs which are known to save lives have recently been withdrawn on account of cost. Old people who live alone and saved all of their lives, never claiming a penny from the State, can no longer receive more than 20 minutes Home Help daily. Our hospitals are greatly understaffed. Millions of people who want jobs cannot get work. Millions who want to own their own home never will, while many more live in exceptionally overcrowded and delapidated rented properties of exhorbitant rent. Countless homeless people live rough nightly, many infants die because insufficient research has been funded to find possible cures and the suicide rate of people suffering from substance abuse, mental illness and depression increases year upon year.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in our Welfare budget that grows exponentially, however well the country fares. David Cameron said that we are all in this together. All? I think not!" William Forde: August 10th, 2015.