FordeFables
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    • Strictly for Adults Novels >
      • Rebecca's Revenge
      • Come Back Peter
    • Tales from Portlaw >
      • No Need to Look for Love
      • 'The Love Quartet' >
        • The Tannery Wager
        • 'Fini and Archie'
        • 'The Love Bridge'
        • 'Forgotten Love'
      • The Priest's Calling Card >
        • Chapter One - The Irish Custom
        • Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
        • Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
        • Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
        • Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
        • Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
        • Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
        • Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
        • Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
        • Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
      • Bigger and Better >
        • Chapter One - The Portlaw Runt
        • Chapter Two - Tony Arrives in California
        • Chapter Three - Tony's Life in San Francisco
        • Chapter Four - Tony and Mary
        • Chapter Five - The Portlaw Secret
      • The Oldest Woman in the World >
        • Chapter One - The Early Life of Sean Thornton
        • Chapter Two - Reporter to Investigator
        • Chapter Three - Search for the Oldest Person Alive
        • Chapter Four - Sean Thornton marries Sheila
        • Chapter Five - Discoveries of Widow Friggs' Past
        • Chapter Six - Facts and Truth are Not Always the Same
      • Sean and Sarah >
        • Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
        • Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
        • Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
        • Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
        • Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
        • Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
        • Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
        • Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
        • Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
        • Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
        • Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
      • The Alternative Christmas Party >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
      • The Life of Liam Lafferty >
        • Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
        • Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Four : Early Manhood
        • Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
        • Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
        • Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
        • Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
        • Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
        • Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
        • Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
      • The life and times of Joe Walsh >
        • Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
        • Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
        • Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
        • Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
        • Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
        • Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
        • Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
        • Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
        • Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
        • Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
        • Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
      • The Woman Who Hated Christmas >
        • Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
        • Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
        • Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
        • Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
        • Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
        • Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
        • Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
        • Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
        • Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
        • Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
        • Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
        • Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
        • Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
      • The Last Dance >
        • Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
        • Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
        • Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
        • Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
        • Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
        • Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
        • Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
      • 'Two Sisters' >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
      • Fourteen Days >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
      • ‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’ >
        • Author's Foreword
        • Contents
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
        • Chapter Eighteen
        • Chapter Nineteen
        • Chapter Twenty
        • Chapter Twenty-One
        • Chapter Twenty-Two
  • Celebrity Contacts
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      • Shining Stars
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    • More Contacts with Celebrities >
      • Judgement Day
      • The One That Got Away
      • Two Women of Substance
      • The Outcasts
      • Cars for Stars
      • Going That Extra Mile
      • Lady in Red
      • Television Presenters
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      • Eulogy for Uncle Johnnie
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      • 'Growing up with grandparents'
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      • The Greatest
      • Arthur & Guinevere
      • Hands That Touch
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      • Walks along the Mirfield canal
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Thought for August 31st.

31/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Never ever underestimate the importance of a kiss. A kiss is much, much more than an act of cordial friendship, pleasurable re-union, sexual desire or eternal gratitude.

A kiss can signify the vast difference between one's conventional sociability and also be the symbol of one's most endearing vulnerability. It is given in good faith that it will be accepted in the spirit of its true intention, for its refusal can be most hurtful.

Knowing when to kiss and how to kiss can be a minefield to tread during these times when the slightest perceived error of behaviour is capable of bringing charges of sexual harassment as quickly as a falling slice of buttered toast will land on the floor wrong side up. Do I give her a peck on the cheek/cheeks, a handshake, a hug, or am I supposed to kiss air and smile politely? And as for dating a woman, when to make one's first move is a nightmare. Do I attempt to kiss her on the first, second or third date, or will she consider me unexciting and unambitious and dump me for more daring game if don't even attempt a goodnight kiss?

Having loved reading and writing since childhood, I grew through my teenage years into adulthood perceiving a kiss as an action used to punctuate whatever relationship a couple shares. It can assume the form of a comma, which is a suitable place in the early stages of courtship to pause and go no farther. A kiss can act as a question mark upon which any further action requires certainty of mutual satisfaction and permission to continue. A kiss can also be as expressive as an exclamation mark, meaning, 'I really do like you-want you-or love you!' All these meanings should be known to any man or woman, and yet they seem to become more blurred daily.

During my lifetime, things have changed so much that it is almost impossible to conceive how any chap is ever expected to form a close relationship with a woman today without breaching some expectation, social convention or even the law. All men of my age grew up in a time when 'Yes' really did mean 'Yes' but 'No' didn't always mean 'No!' This was a time when well brought up women were supposed to never say, 'Yes' when first asked for fear of being perceived by the male as an easy catch. Not surprisingly, back in the 50s and early 60s sometimes when a woman said, 'No' initially, she was perceived by many males as not meaning 'No!' but instead, 'Maybe?' Fortunately, I have always believed that when someone said, 'No' they unequivocally meant 'No!', but you younger ones, please accept my word that it wasn't always considered as being so by all and sundry in whatever class of society one was bred, way back in the 50s and early 60s. On the estate where I grew up in the early 60s, many young men would only accept a second 'No!' in quick succession as really meaning 'No!'

When a couple arrives at the autumn of their life and approach old age together, the physical sexual side of marriage seems less important and as much pleasure is obtained by the holding of hands, a loving embrace, a cuddle or a kiss at the start and the end of one's day. It seems right that 'a kiss' is invariably both the start and the end of a lifelong relationship between man and woman or in some instances, man and man or woman and woman. However, please never allow yourself to get so busy in the rush of life that you ever leave the house and your partner there alone without giving them a small kiss.

I have during the course of my life met too many people who sadly lost their partner without ever having had the opportunity to say a loving goodbye. Never let your loved one leave the house in the rush of daily life without giving them their daily kiss, for should an accident or any other fatal incident prevent them from ever returning to you, the knowledge that when you last interacted with them, your parting kiss sealed their departure. Such a kiss will remain a lifelong support in the fondest of memory."
​Love and peace Bill xxx


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Thought for August 30th.

30/8/2018

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"Thought for today:
"I once recall a woman telling me that there are too many conflicting roles in her life for her ever to feel comfortable as 'one person'. She was referring to the woman she was expected to be, the woman she wanted to be and the woman she was!


I often feel that women have a harder time in life living the roles that they adopt and those ascribed to them by their male counterparts. As the bearer of children, they carry an enormous responsibility for both the advancement or decline of civilisation. As the mothers of future generations, since the moment of creation, they have borne too heavy a responsibility in society and the home for the overall functioning and happiness of that nucleus.


In an ideal world, girls would be provided with every available opportunity to grow naturally from childhood into the responsibilities of adult, worker, lover, wife, mother and yet, far too often before their minds and bodies are ready for it, they miss out large sections of their youth and have to abandon their playthings and childhood dreams to more adult chores of life. Even before they have barely reached the stage of puberty, they experience male pressures to be a certain shape and weight and find themselves being sexualised into 'baby dolls' and 'bunny girls' for no other reason than to gratify male urges and sensual pleasures. To resist such pressure is often to stand out as being labelled 'odd' to the other girls as opposed to the more accurate description as being 'different'.


Next comes boyfriends, babies and marriage; quite often in that order and infrequently as the result of any planned execution. In times of economic depression, there is often no job to work at, no place to live that can be called home and very little nourishing food to eat. With a child/children sometimes younger than three or four to daily care for, the only jobs that are readily obtainable and will put bread on the table is the part-time occupation that the woman can obtain on minimum wages, working the most inconvenient of hours when she feels guilty about not being home with her children.


Not surprisingly, years of accumulated stress that accompanies such a life exacts the inevitable price of advanced ageing, robbing woman of her previous good looks and attractive mannerisms. Such change often prompts the husband to turn his eyes elsewhere. He tells himself that 'because she has let herself go' she cannot be bothered about their marriage and their relationship; so, he too 'lets her go' and invariably runs off with the younger woman with no 'stretch marks' from multiple childbirths who still exhibits the capacity to dream of a happy life and future with her man.


In this grossly, unfair society of ours, which is still predominantly male run, I have met too many females who have never experienced the privilege to master one role in their life before they have had another thrust upon them, and I know too many women who still have too much of the little girl inside them because they were rushed out of childhood before their time. I see far too many mothers whose overbearing level of responsibility prevents them ever discovering the individual they were meant to be, and I have known too many wives and partners who would have been happier to have mothered one or two children instead of the four or five they gave birth to and the immature husband/partner/partners they found themselves saddled with.


With such confusion of roles and the 'guilt' that women are encouraged to experience when they are physically unable to carry out all these responsibilities competently, is it hardly surprising that finding one's 'individuality' for a heavily pressurised, overworked and overmanaged woman in today's world is harder than grabbing a hole in the centre of a doughnut?


Over twenty-five years of working with groups of unassertive and angry people who were lacking in self-confidence and too fearful to engage socially with strangers, or finding themselves unable to trust and love oneself or others, I have witnessed changed group members move mountains. Through numerous twenty-four-week courses of assertion training, trust and confidence building programmes I have operated, I saw the transformation of hundreds of group member's lives; the vast majority of them repressed or subjugated females. It was wonderful to see one woman help another woman through their struggles to succeed. I discovered, that just as the black oppressed in years gone by were the ones to help the black advancement in a predominantly white-controlled world, then so is a woman better able to help another woman in a man-made world than any man ever could. It was beautiful to see the most amazing of things happen when women help other women to stand up for themselves.


Many female group members often had to end their relationships/marriages when they discovered that their intransigent male partners were unprepared to change with them. Whenever faced with this situation in the group, my response was invariable to tell the woman that if they wanted to stop being treated like a doormat, then they must get up off the floor!


Having been born in 1942, and brought up in a large Irish family, my mining father, like most men of his day valued the somewhat macho image of men to be admired and emulated by most growing boys. Dad's hero was the film star, John Wayne; the roughest, toughest, no-nonsense cowboy who always beat all odds, and every cowboy blocking his way to win over his woman's heart. One of dad's often mimicked comments to mum was from the mouth of the film star he looked up to. One of his oft-repeated comments to mum was, 'A man's got to do what a man's got to do!' Whenever dad taunted my mother with this put-down one-liner from one of his favourite John Wayne films, mum would wryly smile and mutter, 'And I've got to do what you either can't or won't, Bud!' (Mum's pet nickname for my father was Bud, which she borrowed from the comic Bud Abbott of the American comic duo of the time, Abbott and Costello).


'Great is the man who never ignores the woman he cares about, but beautiful in mind and heart is he who never ignores the feelings and ambition of any woman! Below is my dear mother-in-law, Elizabeth who died in May 2017. Both Mum Elizabeth and my own dear mum lived entirely different lives and experienced widely different circumstances, but each was, in essence, strong women who left their mark on the children they reared and the paths they trod, despite having been married to dominant husbands. May they both rest in peace.' William Forde: August 30th, 2018.
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August 29th, 2018.

29/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"While I have written many stories and have had numerous books published over the past twenty-nine years, occasionally I come across a few notes of a story I planned to write at a future date, but had somehow overlooked or have just never got around to. Please allow me to share a few snippets of a story that I once loosely sketched out with the possible intention of someday writing. The story isn't about me and the love of my life, Sheila, but parts of it could so easily have been, as with most lovers and soul mates I'd guess. The story would probably have started by something like this:

'I will never forget the day I decided to rest in the cornfield after a traumatic break-up with my first love. I silently cried myself to sleep, not knowing that a few feet away to my left, another person had done the same for similar reasons. She awoke and stirred the sheaves of corn which startled me. I rose to locate the source of the movement and I was startled to see another person standing so close to me that we could almost have shaken hands. We had stood up from our corn-bed together and was at first surprised, and not knowing where to put ourselves. Then, moments later, after jointly arriving at the same conclusion that we had innocently shared similar circumstances, we smiled across at each other before breaking out into gentle laughter.

After a few quickly exchanged words, something told each of us that the coincidence of us meeting under the precise circumstances we had was so great not to have been anything less than an omen of the stars; a fateful message that two lonely and bruised hearts would be hearts would be foolish to ignore. I swallowed my fear of rejection for the second time that day and invited my new acquaintance for a coffee. Without any expected hesitation, she smiled warmly and accepted. We went for a coffee, and a few refills, and over the next hour and a half we shared our worries and woes with the new stranger in our lives. Ironically, we discovered that we'd always lived very close to each other and had no doubt passed each other on the street from time to time. Further conversation between us revealed how close we were in need, values, interests and characteristics; much more than any two strangers were ever meant to be and still remain strangers.

We arranged to meet again the following weekend and before having been in a relationship for more than a month, we knew that our search for a lifelong partner had proved successful.

Two years down the line we married and our lives remained blissful and unmarred for the next twenty-two years until one dark Tuesday in the month of January, when at the height of our happiness I learned that I'd contracted a terminal illness. To tell my sweetheart the bad news was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my life as, over our years of marriage, we'd come to depend upon each other as only true loves ought. Upon hearing of this sad news, my wife was immediately stunned and her body suddenly sagged as the emotional consequences sunk in. She cried on my shoulder, and although I comforted her, I felt angry to have been robbed of years of future happiness we'd hoped to happily share. There were also all those precious plans that had been spoken of often about things remaining for us yet to do, and places we longed to see before we retired gracefully into the blissful comfort of our rocking chairs of old age; relaxing across from each other in front of a blazing open fire as the wind howled outdoors and forecast snow started to fall and cover the ground in a white blanket of winter. Old age was never once feared by either of us so long as it was shared between us, she listening to the classical music channel on the radio while I either read a book or completed my weekly newspaper crossword.

After finally accepting the cards that fate had dealt us and some semblance of emotional stability returned to our bodies, we managed with some difficulty to positively apply ourselves to the difficult months ahead prior to one of us sadly having to leave this life. The night before I died, we cuddled in front of the open fire in the sitting room with a blanket draped around my shoulders, and we just talked and talked of happier days when we were much lighter of foot and heavier of earthly desires. Though we both knew that death was an imminent visitor to all in our lives, neither of us feared it any longer and only resented it because only one of us had the fatal illness which would temporarily part us.

When the time came for me to depart this life on earth, my body was warmed by that last kiss that passed between us as a loving man and wife. As the oxygen of her last earthly kiss travelled through my lungs, my final breath was softly expelled from my mouth and brushed her tearful cheeks. As it did so, I sensed a sad stillness of loss reign in her heart and soul as her bright eyes watered up and sank in pain.

Mere minutes after my passing, although all of her emotional strength had been drained from her body, she knew that she'd need to organize certain things during the immediate hours and days ahead. So, she thoughtfully put all her remaining crying to one side until these things had been done. Funeral arrangements swiftly followed my earthly departure and on the day of my burial, the earth seemed to open up for both man and wife as one was laid to rest while the other remained above the soil.

Although greatly loved and comforted by her enlarged family of brothers and sisters-in-law she had inherited upon her marriage, she nevertheless felt that she alone would be left to carry the crucifixion of heavy loss during many lonely days and cold nights ahead, especially in the emptiness of her bed.

Paradoxically, two months after her husband's funeral, the grief-stricken widow learned that she also had contracted a serious illness that would prove terminal if left untreated. She was informed that certain treatment was available that could provide a complete cure and restore her life expectancy to normality. The hospital consultant expected to witness an immediate look of relief that is only ever seen in a person of her precise circumstances hearing such news, or in the gladdened face of a condemned prisoner who was minutes away from being hanged, when, at the eleventh hour he receives a reprieve. But the facial expression of his female patient remained unchanged as she heard the medical announcement of the hospital consultant. One minute later, she declined the offered life-saving treatment with a smile that the consultant found totally impossible to comprehend.

Five months after the death of her husband, the widow also died and was placed alongside her husband in their joint grave-plot. Earlier arrangements involving additional financial cost had been made for each coffin to be laid side-by-side and not one above the other as is usually customary. The couple's gravesite was not the local cemetery but the cornfield in which they'd first set eyes on each other. Arrangements had also been made by the woman and her appointed solicitor with the local farmer in whose field the couple had first met, for both her husband and herself to be buried there. She felt it only right and proper that each of their final resting places should be the very same spots where they had first lain in side-by-side.

To bring her burial plan about, and having no child dependents to leave the matrimonial home to, she purchased the farmer's field before her death at double the going rate for the price of land. She pre-ordered a headstone to mark the spot where they would again lay side-by-side. At the precise middle distance between both places where the couple were buried, a joint headstone was constructed that simply read, 'We're in the middle, lost in the spin of loving each other.' The remainder of the field was planted with wildflowers and was turned into a wild-flower meadow.'


In the years that followed, the grave of man and wife was maintained by the kindness of nature plus an underground landslip which resulted in the two coffins colliding with force, breaking open the wooden caskets, and bringing the contents of each coffin closer together; providing the couple with an eternal embrace of love. They had first met side-by-side in the cornfield and had moved closer in their affections every day since finally resting in each other's arms below ground.


Beneath the ground, they embraced as they had always done at the start and end of every day until the time came when they were eventually reunited in spirit and soul, trapped within their heaven of contentment for the rest of eternity." William Forde: August 29th, 2018. ​
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August 28th, 2018.

28/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Since the moment of my birth and the very first cry I made, 'anger' has played a great influence in my life. One of my mother's often-told tales was how I disliked my cot so much that before my third birthday, I had shaken it to bits in order to escape its constraints.

I grew up as the eldest of seven children within a materially poor household where this week's food was paid for by next week's wages that my father had yet to earn. When seven children converge on the breakfast table each morning to find food that will feed no more than three or four adequately, survival instincts soon teaches one to raise one's voice above the others. To most outsiders, such loud voices often come across as aggression, but we from large families know it as being no more than healthy argument and fierce discussion.

At the age of twelve after a traffic accident in which I incurred multiple injuries, I was unable to walk for three years, after having been informed that I would never walk again. This state of affairs left me angry with life, fearful for the future and devoid of all manner of loving expression towards myself or others. The amount of anger in my heart helped to fight off my mounting fear and carry me through initially. My anger also helped to determine my unflinching and disciplined resolve over the next eight years as I regained my legs and re-entered a more normal pattern of activity.

At the age of eighteen years, I was an angry young man and the youngest shop steward in Great Britain. I was angry by the low wages paid to poorer folk for their eleven-hour-days working in appalling conditions and became determined to fight the bosses any way I could. When I looked around me outside the factory gates, I saw an underclass of non-white people being racially discriminated against in work, accommodation and social circles and I even saw signs in boarding houses that blatantly read 'No blacks, no dogs, no Irish!' Spending two years in Canada and America during the early 60s revealed such colour prejudice to be even worse in America then it was in Great Britain.

During the 1970s as a young Probation Officer in Huddersfield, I found that I was coming into contact with more and more aggressive offenders daily; offenders who had allowed their anger levels to break the law, break bones, break up families, wreck their lives and shatter all future prosperity. After many years of meticulously researching behaviour patterns, I was very fortunate to develop the process of 'Anger Management.' My research into the behaviour patterns of six hundred offenders revealed that at the heart of all inappropriate behaviour was a body imbalance of anger, fear and love. The 'Anger Management' process I founded, showed how persons who displayed anger levels which they had been previously unable to control under specific circumstances, could now learn to manage and control their aggressive behaviour. Within two years, the benefits of this process had mushroomed across the English-speaking world.

From my early thirties to my sixties, I took advantage of the learning I had made in the field of 'Anger Management' and greatly improved my own disposition gradually to the man I am today. During this period of self-improvement, the greatest discovery I was to make was not to place the blame on others who influenced me in childhood for any bad behaviour I eventually patterned and displayed in my adult years. Whatever our background, experiences or upbringing, we must all, as adults, own responsibility for our own bad behaviour. Yes, it is true that as children we are significantly influenced by the example of how significant adults in our lives behave towards us and around us, but as adults, the overwhelming majority of us have the ability 'to choose' the type of behaviour and characteristic we wish to retain and display. In short; I chose to keep for myself the good influences of my parents and significant others while opting to distance my own behaviour from any bad behaviour they may have displayed.

As the poet, William Ernest Henley wrote in his poem, Invictus:


'It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.'

During my 70th year of life, I was informed that I had a terminal illness that was treatable, but not curable. While I didn't consider myself neither a brave person nor a man resigned to die, I expressed no anger upon being diagnosed as such. I was greatly annoyed and possibly p...... off for a brief period that my marriage to Sheila, a mere five months earlier, would not last as long as we both had initially hoped, but such anger was more a disappointment than feeling bad with the world and the cards that fate had dealt me. Over the past thirty-five years, my anger levels have been controlled and have always worked in my favour. While on the outside I have often been angry with this or that, my anger has been appropriately and healthily expressed and I have subsequently behaved non-aggressively within the situation I found myself. As I have aged, I now know that anger will never eat away at me again.

What has happened over the years, however, is that I have allowed my anger to work for me instead of against me. Sometimes it has been transformed into a steely determination to fight some cause, injustice or more recently, face and confront my terminal illness. This has only proved possible, however, by finding more 'love' daily in my heart and in the heart of others than I found the day before.

You see, it is physiologically impossible to get the anger out of your body until you learn to put love there in its place. Love and anger are mutually incompatible bedfellows and cannot co-exist within the same body; hence the presence of one will produce the absence of the other and vice versa. There is a 'Dragon of Anger' and a 'Dragon of Love' which fight for space within our hearts, minds and soul. Whichever one resides inside a person essentially governs the quality and precise nature of the behaviour that the body displays through its mind, mouth, hands, feet and other expressive organs.

So the next time you hear someone's anger roar out, instead of roaring back at them, which will only worsen and aggravate the situation, offer some love and support instead; unless of course the roar springs forth from the mouth of an angry man-eating tiger looking for its lunch, in which case forget everything I've just written and run for your life!" William Forde: August 28th, 2018.
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August 27th, 2018

27/8/2018

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​Thought for today:
"During mid-September, 2016 our beloved Rough Collie, Lady died. As the anniversary of her death approaches, I have found my thoughts going to pets and dogs this week more than usual. I absolutely hated having to live through the last two days of Lady's life, especially as her Mistress and my wife, Sheila, was in Singapore at the time having a 40-year reunion with some of her schoolmates. I was in a terrible dilemma as Lady was in considerable pain for two days before she had to be put down and Sheila was two days away from returning home to me and her beloved Lady. Lady did as I asked and hung on until Sheils'a return. Within the hour of Sheila returning home, we were making our last journey to the vets with our beloved dog. I still miss her and know deep down that I always will.

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This memory got me thinking about how important we often see last minute dashes to be at the deathbed of a loved one during their final moments and how disappointed we feel when we arrive minutes or a short time after they have breathed their last. The subject is one that is ripe with controversy. Just as some people are happy to look in the coffin of another for their final glance and farewell, others prefer to avoid the coffin ritual and choose to remember how their departed friend looked in happier times.

When my father was found dead at his home, he obviously spent his last moments alone. As he'd been in considerable pain for a year prior to his death, all his children, were greatly sad yet relieved when he died, knowing that he no would experience no more severe body pain. We realised just how much dad had missed the presence of mum after she'd died.

Mum was in the hospital when she died very young and unexpectedly at the age of 64 years. I left her after my hospital visit on a Friday evening, and being extremely occupied elsewhere the following day, we laughed and joked at her bedside before I left. I promised to visit her again in two day's time on Sunday afternoon and smilingly asked her not to die on me before I came back. My last sight of mum was her waving to me from her bedside window. She was smiling broadly. The following night witnessed a dramatic and unexpected decline in her health and she died early the following morning while all her seven children and her husband slept. On this occasion, I chose not to view my mother laid to rest in her coffin before her burial service. I am so pleased that I decided to keep my enduring memory of her as being one of a smile on her face and devilment in her eyes as this is how I always recalled growing up as a child.

I also had a close friend called David who died many years ago. He had been very ill for some considerable time and had been using an oxygen cylinder in his home for 18 months before dying. David was always smiling and wryly joking and for nearly twenty years after Sunday Mass in the coffee room, we would set the world to rights. When he eventually had to go into hospital for the final time, I was naturally concerned and being retired, I visited the Leeds General Hospital daily. David's wife, Patricia, had passed away from cancer some years earlier, and his two children lived at the other end of the country and couldn't visit him regularly. So, I became his number one visitor so to speak.

I recall the very last time I saw David alive. I'd visited him in the hospital, and as I walked into the ward I saw him chatting up an attractive looking nurse. David always held an eye for the ladies, and even when his wife was alive and sitting next door to him in church or the pub, she would frequently be seen tugging his arm with an audible 'tut-tut', to tell him to stop ogling some young woman. As David saw me arrive at his bedside, he apologised and said he had just ordered a bedpan. A nurse delivered his bedpan seconds later and drew the screen around his bed to give him some privacy. I naturally stayed on the outside of the screen as we continued to chat away cheerfully. For fifteen minutes we chatted before the ward nurse approached me and said,' He is often a good half hour on his bedpan and you might be as well going to the canteen for a cup of tea meanwhile'. Hearing these words, David said, 'Thanks for popping in, Billy (He and his wife went to the same Catholic First School in Heckmondwike and he's always called me Billy like my family members), call it a day and come back tomorrow. I've a bit of constipation and I'll be on this bedpan another half hour yet!' I left the ward smiling and the following day when I returned to visit David, I found his bed stripped; him having died an hour earlier. Today, I would much prefer having last seen and spoken to the David I knew so well. I was proud when his two children asked me to present his eulogy at his funeral service, as I'd also presented his wife, Patricia's.

One of the most poignant deathbed scenes I had to deal with was my dear Mother substitute, Etta Denton. I had met Miss Denton when she was 82 years old. She was visiting her friend, Mary Milner, a widowed neighbour of mine in Mirfield whose gardening I weekly attended as she was housebound. Upon being introduced to me by Mary, Miss Denton formally said, 'I live at Gothic House, Mr Forde and am in need of a regular gardener to tidy my garden. I'll gladly pay you for your services'. Being a mutual friend of Mary Milners I agreed. That decision was to prove momentous for me.

Having been introduced into Etta's life, I remained an important part of it until she died at the age of 94 years. We grew closer daily, and with my mother having died a number of years earlier and Etta never married, she effectively adopted me as the son she always wanted and never had, and I was more than happy to fill this role in her life. Etta had always feared having to one day enter an Old Folk's Home. I will never forget the day I informed her this would never happen if she didn't desire it and that she would be taken care of in my house and if necessary, be allowed to die there when the time came if necessary. The children already regarded her as an honorary grandmother.

When Etta was 94 years old, she fell and entered the hospital briefly. For the next six months, she didn't seem to properly recover her confidence. When it became apparent that she was near her end of life, I stayed and slept at her house for the final four weeks of her life. I recall her last night alive. It was around 2.00am when I suddenly arose from my sleep. I sensed that this was the moment so I entered Etta's bedroom and found her still. She had died with a smile on her face. Being her ' Enduring Power of Attorney', it was left to me to make the necessary funeral arrangements. I was as sad at Etta's death as much as I had been at my mum's passing. She kindly willed me 'Gothic House', a dwelling in a poor state that sounded far grander than its overall condition. It was around autumn and the apples from her four Braeburn trees that had stood there for forty years lay fallen in the overgrown grass. For a month I grieved and found that I was too sad to tidy up her garden one last time. Eventually, when the grieving was done and the time had finally arrived to 'let Etta go', I cut the grass, collected the fallen apples, cleared the leaves and sold the house.

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There is a time to be happy and a time to be sad; a time to hold on to what is dear in your life and a time to 'let go'. I have always loved dogs ever since my early childhood. A wet nose and a sloppy kiss when one returns home is literally as good a welcome as being greeted inside the front door by one's beautiful wife, barely clad and waving a finger in your direction before grabbing you by the tie and leading you to the bedroom in her most seductive manner!

All of us who have a loving pet that has been a great part of our lives for so long will naturally resist making that final decision to end the relationship until our pet's pain becomes too much to bear a moment longer. My own view is that a pet owner starts preparing for their pet's death as soon as the signs start to show. They instinctively begin to grieve from that moment, so that when that final journey to the vets is made, although very sad and filled with loss, the act of putting down own's loved one becomes more 'bearable'.

Ever since first learning that I had a terminal blood cancer, I instantly decided to tell my family and friends the actual situation so that during my journey of the final steps of life (however many it takes), when it eventually happens, it will not come as so great a shock, although a sense of loss will undoubtedly be there. I think that humans (who are notoriously bad for preparing for death and attending funeral services) should respond exactly as we do when coping with a pet's death, knowing that process to be a healthy one.


Those of us who have been privileged to know a creature who knows our very mood even before we openly express it and who is undoubtedly our main provider of unqualified love whatever the occasion or circumstances, will know how hard it is to 'let go' of such strength in our life. Yet, learning to 'let go' of significant things, events and people is essential to our coping mechanism and 'moving on'.

And when it comes to the death of a pet, partner, family member or close friend, 'letting go' is sometimes the kindest of all pain to feel. We will be left with fond recollection and eternal gratitude to have been lucky enough to have known such a noble creature who will forever remain a prime source of constant remembrance." William Forde: October 28th, 2014.
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August 26th, 2018.

26/8/2018

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​Thought for today:
"My name is 'Buster' and I am a very content pet who has learned never to make a mess on his own doorstep. I am probably the happiest dog I know today, but it wasn't always the case. My owner got me from a Refuge Centre three years ago. It was Boxing Day when my owner visited the Refuge Centre and first saw me. I was cowed down in the farthest corner feeling sorry for myself and very much unloved. For some quirky sense of logic, my owner, who was a 30-year-old woman of single status, decided that if one was to get a dog from a Refuge Centre on 'Boxing Day', then there was only one breed to select for a companion; a Boxer!'

For my part, I was naturally pleased with my owner's choice, as she could easily have chosen the Irish Setter in the next cage who was smiling at her and drooling with affectionate glances as she walked by. I heard my owner ask the Refuge Warden about some history pertaining to me. The Warden told her that I'd been found inside a dustbin where I and my six siblings had been dumped in a sack. All my brothers and sisters had smothered in the sack and when the sack was open to reveal me whining to get out, I was surrounded by the smell of death which still haunts me on occasion. Had I not struggled and strove to survive, I would never have attracted the attention of the bin man. After opening the sack to discover the source of the noise, he was extremely shocked and surprised with what he found. Thinking the noise to have come from a rat which had been trapped inside the bin, the kind man started to cry when he opened the sack and found me gasping for air as I lay surrounded by the corpses of my brothers and sisters. He kindly took me to the local Refuge Centre, where I stayed for six weeks before I was homed on Boxing Day.

Although the Refuge Centre Warden didn't know any further background details pertaining to my parents, I recently met an Old English Sheepdog at the park whilst out on a Saturday morning walk. The Old English Sheepdog, who was approaching his 16th birthday, had always lived in the same neighbourhood and there wasn't a piece of doggy news or gossip that had ever failed to pass his ears. The second time I met the Old English Sheepdog, he told me that he'd made some enquiries and had eventually learned from a Cocker Spaniel called Charles that my mother had initially been purchased for a spoiled child as a Christmas present by her overindulgent parents. It would seem that they kept my mother for six months before deciding that looking after a pet dog was far less attractive and was definitely more demanding than they'd originally thought. So, one summer's night in June, the spoiled brat's father placed the Boxer Bitch in his car and abandoned her on the moors, some five miles out of town.

For the next month, my mother walked the moors during the day and entered the nearby village of Howarth every evening where she would search and scavenge for whatever left-overs she might find. She would often sleep close to the wall of Maughn's Bakery, to keep warmer during the early morning hours when the temperature fell.

One month after mum had been abandoned on the moors, she happened to meet another stray in the doorway of 'Gascoign's Cafe'. Her new friend was a mongrel who was three-fifths Boxer and two-fifths Bulldog. Almost immediately, mum could sense that the two of them had lots in common. They not only looked alike, but they thought alike and also liked the same places and activities. Most importantly, they had always dreamed of that special day when they would meet their ideal partner, shack up together and start their own family. The upshot was that they soon grew as close as any two dogs could ever become, and nature being nature, one night as they shacked up in an old shed in some nearby allotments off West Lane, they cuddled and kissed. One thing led to another, as it invariably does, and myself and five sisters were born nine weeks later at the back of the allotment shed, off the Bronte Museum car park.

My parents were reportedly over the moon with their family litter whom they planned to proudly show off to the other dogs in Haworth just as soon as they grew old enough to walk out with mum and dad. Within four days of our births, tragedy struck our family unit a bitter blow. My father was hit and killed by a large bread van in the Main Street as he was out searching for food to feed his enlarged family.

As dad lay dying on the cobbled street, up at the allotments, mum and her six puppies were discovered by a cruel allotment holder who couldn't stand cats and dogs. Mum was chased away from her young; all of whom were bound and then bagged up by the cruel allotment holder in one of her old potato sacks, before being dumped in a nearby dustbin close to the Bronte Museum car park entrance. When mum thought it safe to return to the allotment shed where she'd given birth to her six pups, she found us all gone. Not having seen my father since he'd gone searching for food earlier that day, she felt so alone in her concern. She frantically searched high and low throughout Haworth for both her partner and their pups in despair, and it was only at 10.00 pm that she discovered from a stray whippet that my dad had been knocked down and killed in Main Street earlier that day by a bread van.

Stricken by grief, once mum discovered the next day that her six pups had been bound and bagged in an old potato sack before being dumped in the public dustbin where they suffocated, she lost it and had a full emotional breakdown. That night, while being of unbalanced mind, my dear mum walked two miles to Sladen Reservoir and drowned herself, never knowing that one of her pups still lived; me!

After my new owner selected me at the Refuge Centre and took me to her house on Boxing Day, she did everything possible to make me happy. By the end of January, five weeks later, I was starting to feel 'at home' for the first time in my life. However, after the Christmas holidays, when my owner had to return to her part-time work each weekday morning, it felt very strange and frightening to be left alone. However many pats and cuddles she gave me as she went out the front door saying cheerfully, 'I'll be back at 1.00pm, fella. Be good. Love you!' I never felt reassured that she would return.

When my owner left me on my own that first time, I feared that she had abandoned me, and was never coming back. I started to feel rejected, alone, uncertain and unloved all over again. I worried myself sick and in my concern, I chewed up the carpet, messed up the settee and had a 'little accident' on the kitchen floor.

Then, when my owner came back in the door and I heard her cheerful voice and saw her smiling face again, my heart lit up in immense relief. Then, her face changed for the worse as she noticed all the mess I'd made in her absence, and I feared rejection for the second time in one day.

It took two months before I learned to call my owner 'you' instead of 'her'. It took a further month before I stopped pissing in your shoes or stopped jumping up on your bed each night after you'd changed into your pyjamas and slipped beneath the sheets. I like your smell in your bed and I only wish that you liked mine enough to let me in, even if its on top of the sheets and bed blanket.

When I was six months old I had never been so happy. You and I held eyes for no other and the loving presence of each other daily was all we seemed to desire to remain completely content. Then, when I was at my happiest, you saddened and frightened me when you brought that strange man into our lives; first into our house and then, into your bed.

He wasn't expected to sleep on a rug near the bedroom door or even above the sheets and bed blankets uncovered! No! You let him kiss and cuddle you and play tents beneath the sheets as you both rolled over in excitement expressing shrieks of pleasure, saying 'No! Oh, no! Dear God, no!' when you obviously meant​ 'Yes! Oh, yes! Dear God. yes!' I subtle changes starting to take place. On the second occasion you let him share your bed, he brought his toothbrush with him, and before the week was out, he'd started leaving some spare clothes in your wardrobe. Within two months he'd moved in completely and started to treat our home and everything in it as much his as it was ours!

Then, when the occasional full bed and breakfast became a daily feature, it started to look like he'd never move back out. In the brief time I've been alive; still less than one year, I've learned from a West Highland Collie in the park the pointlessness of pushing against a closed door, or swimming against the tide or even trying to push a jelly up a steep hill! So, when I saw the unmistakable look of love in your eyes as you stared at each other in fawning admiration, I knew that this was becoming too serious to continue to ignore, and if I wanted to remain your lifelong pet, I'd better get used to the idea of you also having a lifelong human partner and bedtime companion who didn't have to sleep on the bedroom rug like me. So, I quickly decided not to bite the hand that fed me and that I'd better get to like him or else I'd soon lose your affection. After all, I loved you more than anyone else in the whole wide world and if you liked him as much as you obviously do, then I reckoned that he must surely be 'lovable'.

Now, I am pleased to report that I am happy and content once more. My days are filled with food, fun, daily walks and regular cuddles. I still won't pretend to like it when you both go out to work on a morning and leave me, but I don't feel frightened or rejected any more, or doubt that you will come back home to me. Hurry home you two; I miss you both. I love you both, even the smelly one....and I'm getting hungry!" William Forde: August 26th, 2018.

PS. Any dog lover who enjoyed this post would undoubtedly enjoy my book 'Tales of Bernard' which tells the story of a stray St. Bernard who roams the streets and gets bullied by Boxer and his pack of stray pedigree hounds who terrorise the town and its residents. This book is suitable for all dog lovers, be they nine or ninety. It took two years to research, during which time I read over thirty books on pedigree dogs and was assisted by one of the country's leading show judges and dog experts when describing both looks and behaviour of each breed of character in the book. The story is told through the eyes of the dogs and was a firm favourite in Yorkshire homes and schools between 1990 and 2005. It was praised by the late Alf Wight, the acclaimed author of the James Herriot books that spawned the tv series and film, 'All Creatures Great and Small', along with Christoper Timothy (the actor who played James Herriot in the film and television series. Indeed, Christopher Timothy liked the story so much that he read from this book to assemblies of Yorkshire school children on six occasions during the 1990s and promised to be the reader were it ever professionally recorded for the purpose of radio transmission.

During the early 90's, I was going to sign a contract with a Leeds publishing company to produce a number of stories for national school radio transmission. Bridge Forsyth, the Thelma character in 'The Likely Lads' actually recorded one dozen 'Action Annie' stories and Paul Daniels recorded two stories, plus other famous people like Tom Conti the film star, and Christopher Timothy was also on the verge of being signed to record some of my stories. Before all the contracts could be signed and the deals struck, I withdrew, as my charitable contacts were viewed as being obstructive to the potential profits and earning capacity of the publishing company. I was asked to cease my charitable work for four years, but this was a commitment I was not prepared to make, having promised my Maker at the age of eleven years as I lay in a hospital bed in Batley dying that if He spared me I would do good things for the rest of my life. He kept his part of the bargain, and no book recording deal was ever going to deter me from keeping mine, although I must confess, being human, I did'thinking about it' for a brief period.
'Tales of Bernard' is available in e-book format as well as hard copy from www.smashwords.com or www.lulu.com or amazon and amazon kindle. As with all my published books since 1989, all profits from their book sales are given to charitable causes in perpetuity. I am pleased to say that all the profits from book sales between 1990 and 2002 raised over £200,000." William Forde: August 26th,2018.
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August 25th, 2018.

25/8/2018

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August 25th, ​Thought for today:
As a lover of history, particularly the history of Great Britain, I frequently look out at the way we live today as a society and make comparisons with what it might have been like living then. While there are many folks who still yearn for a return to the past, when I consider what life for the common man was like in the 18th and 19th century, I have not the slightest illusion that we are happier and much better off today. As a nation, we now live much longer, are in better health and enjoy a standard of living never envisaged. Indeed, compared to two centuries ago, what the vast majority have now would have been classified as 'rich', yet is now often seen as representing 'poverty' and being on the breadline by some. Compared to some third world countries, Great Britain knows little true poverty. True, there have been increasing use of food banks by many over the past decade, but whatever the reason for their existence, it still doesn't change the status of 'free food' into one of 'starvation'.

I can still vividly remember learning at school about men who were transported to the colonies for stealing a loaf of bread with which to feed their starving families, newly born children often dying from consumption and scarlet fever before they were five years old, and eight-year-olds working down mines and climbing up factory chimneys to clean. Women were second-class citizens and were considered the property of their husbands. For centuries, women were deprived of the vote, the decision of how many children they had, meaningful roles in society, or the right to be educated in higher learning institutions because of their sex. Their roles within society were whatever men decided, be it wife, mistress, breeding machine or simply a domestic slave. It wasn't unusual to see a married woman giving birth to a dozen child or however many she could possibly have before she lost her good looks and her husband tired of her; or before she died in childbirth! Impending brides had very little to look forward to from the vows of marriage apart from the commitment 'to obey'. She wed him, bed him and bred for him! These were the days when men never allowed women to forget that it was essentially a man's world whom they were born to serve. Men made the rules while routinely forbidding females to do 'this' or 'that', and those women who dared disobey were constantly reminded by court and custom that as women, they were the property of their husband.

I often wonder about the conventions and customs of the past and how so many of the old ways seem so alien in today's 'progressive' world. Even when I was born in 1942, although women had now got the vote, there was still so much yet that they didn't have in order to place them on an equal footing with their husbands and other men in society. Times may have been on the brink of revolution during the post-war years of the 1960s, but during the 40s and early 50s, inequality between the sexes was still too prominent a feature in both the country and on the home front.

That was a time when maintaining the family's good name and being regarded as 'respectable' and 'Godfearing' represented a status that even the poorest of families could aspire to. Unfortunately, it was also a time, when to have a child outside wedlock would cast a mark of shame upon a maiden's brow that could never be erased and 'bastard' became the lowest status and most vulgar curse in the land. These were also the days when women remained trapped in unhappy marriages and when to leave their marriage partner against his will meant penury, the loss of all contact with one's children and a life of destitution as a social outcast. Right up until the 1950s, divorce was as uncommon as women becoming the head of industry and large corporations today. Male hypocrisy ruled supreme and a married man could beat and ill-treat his wife without fear of police intervention, or even force sexual intercourse on her; there being no such offence on the statute books of 'rape between husband and wife' then. As a young Probation Officer in the early 70s, I still recall the clear distinction policemen drew between the vicious physical assault on the street between strangers or in the home behind closed doors between a man and his wife. I even remember how the newspapers and media reported such incidents, 'Wife dies in a domestic dispute'. The fact that the poor woman was beaten to death and had such sadistic behaviour described by responsible sections of society as being no more than 'a domestic dispute' says it all.

It was only in the late 60s and the introduction of 'the pill' into women's lives when freedom from male want and masculine desire started to become possible. Advancement in sexual equality has continued gradually, along with equality of race, religion and the workplace; and yet, there is still far to go. It would seem that however good the intentions of a nation, it can take a complete century for the wheel of justice to spin around a mere once!

There are of course many things about previous generations going back centuries that I regret the passing of. I regret the practice of looking after one's elderly parents in one's own home instead of paying strangers to do the job instead of in Old Folk's Homes. I regret families, be they rich or poor, common or high born, not sitting down around the family table to eat their main meal of the day. I also believe that there were a neighbourliness and sense of community spirit before 1960 that is sadly lost forever. It wasn't just a mere matter of cleaning down one's path and whitening one's doorstep in order to maintain community standards and display respect for one's own property. And it was much more than ever eating from the plate before a visitor to your home had the opportunity to eat their second sandwich, even if it was the last sandwich on the plate and you hadn't eaten your first! These were the days when community concern extended to keeping an eye out for each other and each other's children. When I was a child, we would be allowed out to play during school holiday periods from dawn until dusk. Few really bad things ever happened as everyone kept an eye out for everyone else, and what we might call 'nosey parkers' today might then have been simply known as 'good neighbours'.

Of all past customs though, the one I sadly regret the passing of more than any other is the ability of people of 'keeping one's word'. I grew up at a time when to break it meant an instant loss of Office for any politician and the withdrawal of all community respect from the man or woman in the street. Not only was a person's word their bond, but to break it was nothing short of a personal disgrace. I always remember my parents telling me, ' Billy, I would prefer you to break the law, break a leg or even break your neck before breaking your word. A poor person has nothing in this world that is worth keeping except their good name, and they will forever hold on to that if they keep faith with their word.'

All in all, while my love of history will always enable me to place a favourable slant on times now long past, I prefer to read and 'look out on the past' these days than to have ever been obliged to live it." William Forde: August 25th, 2018.
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August 24th 2018.

24/8/2018

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​Thought for today:
"Have you ever thought what Queen Elizabeth would look like if she lives on to the grand old age of 110 as she's likely to; especially if she can manage to stop putting butter on her crackers and give up the fags and the booze?"

She started her reign on the 6th February, 1952 after the death of her father, King George VI and was crowned on the 2nd June 1953. When King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand died on the 13th October, 2016, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest- living serving monarch. For such a small person in height, our queen has the constitution of the fittest filly in her royal stables and looks like she will outstay all of the present royal family. Born on 21st April, 1926, she is currently 92 years old, and yet despite looking more like a creaky gate with the passing of every day, her husband, Prince Philip, who has always been accustomed to eyeing the rear end of an attractive filly finds himself out in front at 97 years old, and is pipping Her Majesty by a red nose.

When one thinks about the difference in lifestyle, between aristocrat and commoner, it is little wonder that monarchs tend to reign longer than any one of us common folk is ever likely to live. Indeed, I'd go so far as to include the vast majority of British aristocrats in this longevity of life's honour roll. We'd live twenty and thirty years longer also if, like Prince Charles, we never rose before 11.00am and had one man servant available to dress us and another to cook us six boiled eggs, and top them and taste them for poison content and temperature before being spoonfed by his wife, Camilla.

Meanwhile, Camilla may become the only woman in history who married to a King-to-be, and who will never wear the title of 'Queen'. She and Prince Charles ruined this opportunity of their marriage ever receiving universal acceptance by the British after their infamous bedtime conversations of 1989 were picked up by a radio ham in his garden shed. The intimacy of their 'private conversation' reveals that even royals having affairs speak in images that require no explanation to either man or woman. Still, being the wife of a King, should Prince Charles ever succeed his mother, Camilla will continue living a life of privilege to which she has always been accustomed. For anyone who prefers riding horses and princes and hates housework, the wife of a future King is as good as any to be stuck with.

Other Queens that have made their mark on history is the indomitable Dolly Parton, the unquestionable Queen of Country Music. I swear that Dolly doesn't look a day older now than she did when I first saw her in the 1970s. She admits to being an age of 72, and I'd love to see her the first thing on a morning or the last thing at night without any make-up or her wig on. She once remarked that it was lucky she'd been born a girl or she would have become a Drag Queen. She has often publicly commented on how expensive it is to maintain her image and 'to keep her looking like white trash from the wrong side of the tracks' (her words, not mine).

And then there was the Queen of all 'Queens', Quentin Crisp, writer, raconteur and actor. From a conventional suburban background, Quentin Crisp was a proud advocate of being 'Gay' when homosexuality was an imprisonable offence and behaving queer in public was to invite almost certain assault and arrest. Quentin refused to knuckle down to the expectations of the moral, straight community by not being himself. He would wear make-up in public and flaunt his painted nails at any person who showed disdain. He worked as a rent-boy in his teens and died in 1999, one month short of his 91st birthday. His birthday was on December 25th; the same day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Quentin wrote 'The Naked Civil Servant' which was made into an acclaimed film starring John Hurt. A very witty and intelligent man, Quentin never suffered the indignity of having to live up to the misfortune of his birth name, 'Pratt' before he changed it. A born wit, I could happily quote him for hours, but my favourite quote of this lovable 'Queen' was when he said, 'If love means anything at all, it means extending your hand to the unlovable''. Despite professing his atheism to a northern Irish audience, I feel sure that the Almighty himself (the King of Kings) would have shared this sentiment with Quentin and that the King of Heaven would never have sought to make this queen anything other than a good person. "William Forde: August 24th, 2018.
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August 23rd, 2018.

23/8/2018

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​Thought for today:
"'Instead of procrastinating for the rest of your life, why don't you just take a deep breath for once and simply 'go for it!' You've been farting about on that old glacier for the past four years saying, 'Will I.....Won't I.....Will I.....Won't I?'

Well if you don't test out the water now, it's your loss, Buster. Test it out now while you've got the courage to bounce back if you hit rock bottom. Haven't you ever heard that the desire for safety is what stands against every great and brave act?

Come on, Buster, I believe in you! I know you can do it if you try. Don't let perfection of performance stand in your way. If you can't dive, then just allow yourself to fall, Falling has never been an indicator of failure, but merely a prelude to getting back up.'

Everyone usually gets to a stage in life when they are prepared to throw caution to the wind and ''Go for it', especially when the 'it' should have been pursued long ago but fear and caution of leaving one's comfort zone held one back. This is invariably a time in life when, 'Going for it' is more important than winning or losing, and becomes a matter of self-respect.

During thirty years of running groups of anxious, frightened people who lacked self confidence and a belief that they were capable of doing things or ever amounting to much in the eyes of others, the one thing I always sought to get across to them was that we only become capable of reaching new horizons after we are prepared to lose sight of the shore. It mattered not whether it was a housewife who dreamed of running her own business, a stressed city worker who would love to live a simpler life and hold a less stressful job in the fresh air of the countryside even if it meant a significant reduction in income, or a young person wanting to leave home to set up in their own flat without a parental safety net; all these people types naturally fear having to step out of their comfort zones as it is far easier to stay with what one knows. I always knew that at the moment of decision to significantly change one's life, one had the clear choice of choosing courage or comfort; never both! It takes courage to become who you are and confidence to discover what you are truly capable of doing.

Why not try giving yourself permission to do something you have never done before; something you have always wanted to do but dare not? Have you ever wondered what would happen? Well, there is only one way to find out and that is to 'Go for it'.

People who fall into the cautious categories identified above are usually the very same people who find it too risky to give love a chance, or even 'a second chance', particularly if they have been hurt in the past or experienced prior rejection. Let me tell you from my own personal experience that to get the best, one must be prepared to risk being dumped by the best if they do not find you up to scratch. I believe in Bertrand Russel's sentiments when he said, 'Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.'

I have always held the view that going for one's dreams doesn't require a bigger safety net, rather larger wings. I will end today's post by quoting the French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire:
'Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew.....'

" William Forde: August 23rd, 2018.
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August 22nd, 2018

22/8/2018

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'The Value of a Moment' by William Forde: Copyright: William Forde: August 22nd, 2018.


'The value of a moment is never truly known until the time has passed and it becomes a memory of instant recall.

The heart of a gentle breeze cannot be sensed until it crosses one’s face in a whispered embrace of touching grace.

The cry of a silent tear is never shed without a suffering soul to stifle its outlet of despair.

The laugh of forced happiness will not deceive the truly content nor gather forth anew folk who are not superficial shells of fake friendship echoing false tones of praise designed to please.

The value of life can be seen within all pearls of wisdom that the fishermen throws back into the sea. It can be tasted in the sweetness of honey and felt within the breast of an expectant mother’s stomach longing to bring forth tomorrow’s crop from once fallow ground. 

The value of a moment is soon gone the more precious it is. The longer it remains, the greater the sense of loss inflicted upon the sufferer when it eventually departs.

The full worth of any life is of no more value than the happiness of one's best moment.'


Copy right William Forde: August  22nd, 2018.

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August 20th, 2018.

20/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Thanks to Lynnette Skelton Birch for the enclosed photograph of 'The George Hotel', Cleckheaton she posted on Facebook. It brought back fond memories of my younger and wilder days.

When I was 21 years, I came into £2,000 compensation in respect of an accident I'd incurred during my youth. That was a large sum of money and is equivalent to over £60,000 today.

Looking up the price comparison sites, I recall that during the early 60s, a house could be bought for £1,000, a new mini cost £500 and one could get four gallons of petrol for less than £1, and a loaf of bread for a shilling. The average weekly wage for a working man was £18 tops and a packet of cigarettes cost pennies.

Because my compensation had been awarded as the result of a traffic accident when I was 11 years and couldn't walk for a further three years, my 21st birthday really did give me the key of the door. I wanted it to go off with a bang, especially as I'd planned to sail for Canada to work and travel there a month later, in the New Year of 1964.

So after giving my parents one-third of my money, I spent £200 on a 21st birthday bash that I wanted my large circle of friends to remember. The Rock and Roll group had been paid in advance of the night and received double the going rate to put on a longer turn. The group started at 8.00pm and the agreement was that they would perform until I told them to take a break. It was also agreed that they would not conclude their performance before midnight. I recall needing to get a special licence for extension hours from the Magistrates Court. Being a bit of an inverted snob at the time, I wanted to show the upper classes how the working classes from 'Windybank Council Estate' partied when they pushed out the boat.

On the night in question, as each guest arrived at 'The George' they naturally sent over a drink (I drank whisky then) for the birthday boy. The Rock and Roll group went on stage at 8pm. Having drunk so much whisky too quickly, by 9.30pm I was as drunk as a skunk and finished laid up at home in my bed in Windybank Estate snoring my head off. By 10.30pm, as I slept soundly, everything was kicking off at my party. The group was knackered from singing so long in their first spot of the night, having not taken a break for two and a half hours since they'd sang their first number. I later learned that the group leader kept looking for my sign to have a break, but with me having had to retire from my own birthday bash by 9.30pm, there was nobody empowered to give them permission to break. Then someone threw a pork pie at another party guest for a laugh which started the first scuffle of the night. Uproar broke out around 11.00pm when a mate (whose name I won't disclose because he is still alive), couldn't wait for another second to punch a chap who'd spilt beer over his brand-new, canary-yellow Teddy Boy suit and then compounded the public insult by bopping with his girlfriend for two consecutive rock and roll numbers.

By 11.00pm a number of uninvited young men wanting a free buffet, a dance and a reason to cause a fight with the 'Windybank Wild Boys' (a name we were given after fighting and winning a big bust-up in a Halifax dance hall a year earlier), decided to gatecrash the birthday bash. Within five minutes of the gatecrasher's arrival, the dance floor resembled a bloody arena as chairs were smashed over the backs of some gladiators while bread rolls, pork pies, trifles and sandwiches were thrown across the floor. Throughout this entire ruckus, the band played on. These were the days when a gentleman's agreement wasn't broken between the person paying for a particular group performance and the group meeting their buyer's expectations! By midnight, over a dozen young men and women had been arrested and were kept in the police stations at Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Batley overnight; and when they looked for the Teddy Boy in the canary-yellow drapes and blue suede shoes who'd started the first skirmish, they found him at the back of 'The George Hotel'. He'd been literally hung on a washing line, suspended by his hands that had been tied with his boot-lace rock and roll tie. While I couldn't possibly reveal his full identity, he shared his first name with the pub venue of my birthday bash.

When I heard the news the day after and visited the landlord at 'The George Hotel', being a gentleman, I settled up with him and paid for damage of £78. I later heard that the rock and roll group split up shortly after, and when I returned from Canada two years later, I dare not enter 'The George Hotel' for some time after. It was over five years and two changes of the landlord before I dared show my face in 'The George Hotel' again.

Still, it had been a good party by all accounts until that stupid guy spilt beer over George's new canary-yellow Teddy-Boy suit and compounded the insult of dancing two numbers with George's girlfriend. I only wish I had been there. It was widely thought after my 21st birthday celebrations, that the venue was responsible for coining the phrase that is now common, 'Birthday bash'" William Forde : August 20th, 2018.
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August 19th, 2018.

19/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Whoever you are, whatever misfortunes befall you in life, you will always succeed as long as you can bring happiness into your day. To do that requires something so simple to do that its immediate effect to self and others far outweigh any other treasure you have to bestow. Never underestimate the importance of a smile in your day. It does you the power of good and makes so many others who meet you feel good also.

A smile is the most disarming of weapons in one's armoury whenever signs of trouble are looming. A smile is always the beginning of love; it a friend maker, an icebreaker between strangers and a waker of the mind to more positive things. My mother always had a smile on her face, however onerous a task she was about and when I asked her why she was smiling doing hard and tedious housework she would reply, 'Billy, you smile with your heart and not your mouth. I'm just happy, son'. She would also indicate that nothing we wear ever looks more attractive or as fetching as a smile. Indeed, Chinese custom tells us that each smile makes one look a day younger and always works as it also makes the observer feel a day younger also. So, whenever you happen to see someone without a smile, give them one of yours!

I once knew a woman who would warmly smile in remembrance at funeral occasions, when often the rest of the congregation was either crying, close to tears or lost in feelings of sadness. She preferred to smile because she knew the deceased when he happily lived, instead of crying because he'd died. Young women concerned about looking their best for the boys should never forget that however attractive they are, nought but a smile will ever add more to their beauty.

As a former Relaxation Trainer and Stress Management consultant for half my life, I used to tell anxious group members to start disarming all anxiety levels with a smile, as smiling effectively resets one's mood. Just as it is impossible to continue being angry if one repeats, 'Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, etc!', so smiling make the presence of continued anxiety impossible. Smiling is free therapy.

Smiling is also the most infectious of human actions. A mum and dad who teach their children to laugh out loud teach them the best lesson of all, and the more often a smile arrives on one's face the less likely it is ever to depart it; the more likely it will decide to live there. If you don't believe me, let me introduce you to my Facebook friend, Heather Bates, who hasn't stopped smiling since the age of 4 years old and her happiness is still as infectious today as it ever was (as seen in the black and white photograph) with her mother, brother and sister at Ogden Water.

Many people chose to hide behind a cloud of doubt and uncertainty instead of a smile. Smiling is known to make a hurt person feel better sooner than they otherwise would have. If ever you lose your smile, don't despair, as you can find it hiding just beneath your nose. Never forget that just one smile between strangers can make the earth turn more smoothly on its axis of love.

I would also like to tell you about a man who came across a distressed woman on a London Bridge one autumn evening. The woman looked as though she was contemplating jumping in and killing herself and was working her mind up to the final moment when she would throw her body over. At the crucial moment, before she leapt, she heard the footsteps of someone approaching and turned to see a man nearby. She expected him to try to deter her from taking her own life by talking and appealing to her not to jump. Instead, of saying anything, the man just smiled and walked on by. Dumbfounded by the unexpectedness of his response the woman decided, 'Not today' as she wryly smiled to herself and walked away from the bridge.

Of course, this story isn't true to the best of my knowledge as I've this minute made it up; just to demonstrate that smiling is capable of saving lives as well as changing them for the better. Love and peace." William Forde: August 19th, 2018.

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August 18th, 2018.

18/8/2018

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​Thought for today:


"Finding a moment of peace during a hectic day, can to most folk seem nigh impossible, especially amid the hustle and bustle of modern-day existence where attention spans tend to measured in matters of moments and time seem to go faster than it ever did in days gone by.


The British man and woman were once renown for their patience in waiting in all manner of queues: waiting to be served in shops, queuing orderly for buses and even queuing around the block to get into cinemas or picture houses as they were then called to see popular films of the day. They were prepared to delay their moment of gratification in all manner of things by developing the custom of 'waiting'.


I was brought up in an age when everyone at the 'family table' would discuss how their day had gone. For those of you younger ones who are unacquainted with the concept of 'the family table', this was the place where all the family sat down and ate the same meal together at the same time of day, every day! Mum always served the same food for everyone from the same pot and preparing different meals to suit individual taste buds was unheard of; one either ate what one was given or went without!


When one got a girlfriend/boyfriend and started to go 'steady' (note the distinct absence of rush in the process), at least six dates would go by before the young man was allowed to kiss the young woman. A year of regular dating between the couple would then be followed by a three year formal period of engagement, which if broken before 1971, Breach of Contract to marry would become actionable and the aggrieved party could sue for damages through the court. Usually, a period of two or three years might pass before the couple got formally engaged after their first kiss. Once a couple got engaged to marry, it was not unusual for another three years to pass before marriage between the couple occurred. As for sampling the wares before the marriage night, forget it! Were he lucky, the most that a young man might hope for would be a distant promise of things to come, but as for seeing his 'bride-to-be' in a state of undress before the wedding night, there was no chance. He'd have found it easier pushing jelly up a mountain or breaking into Barclay's Bank;those were the days when it was not uncommon to see two Barclay Banks on the same street!
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In my days of the 1950s and 60s, everything one wanted badly, one was prepared to wait for, and nobody who ever aspired to become anybody would ever contemplate buying anything other than what they could afford, and never before they had saved for the full cost of the item. Borrowing from other than one's family members was distinctly frowned on.


After the 'Second World War', the virtue of patience became lost to a whole nation during the post-war years of the late 60s. No longer was the country prepared to wait for what it wanted or delay its gratification in virtually anything. Hire purchase became a cheap and cheerful system that powered Britain's postwar boom. In came the 'never-never' consumer loan where the newlywed on tight budgets could buy now and pay later.


Between 1970 and the New Millennium, Britain was taken to Hell and back in a 'hired' handcart. The 'never-never' loan of the 1960s shifted to personal loans, credit cards and eventually ended in visits to loan sharks and the taking on of pay-day loans and their extortionate interest rates. Personal debt increased year-on-year until eventually, the Government of the day saw fit to withdraw university grants and make the students pay upwards of £50,000 for the right to a university education that had always come free for most of the country.


I was brought up in the years when every working-class family had the opportunity of their own council-house home. Today, the nation's council-housing stock has been sold off, and a large house owning society has been reduced to a rental one. Even the houses for rent today are so exorbitant in cost that no young person can afford to live in their own room unless of course, it happens to be the same bedroom they always inhabited in the family home. Indeed, it is not unheard of today to see 30-year-olds still living at mum and dads.


Employment has also suffered from the similar demise. Whereas jobs are there to be found, the wages attached to them are too often insufficient to make work worthwhile, especially for couples with young families. The increase in Zero Hours' contracts makes any certainty that is left in an ever-increasing uncertain world, less certain for those workers obliged to operate them.


As for the nation's prevailing customs, sitting around the family table and eating the same meal is virtually unheard of these days. The practice became extinct so long ago now that is no coincidence it mirrored the dramatic decrease in any meaningful conversation between parent and child. Manners of many young have flown out of the window, along with the automatic respect that was once shown towards adults and senior citizens by the young. Ironically, the age of both victim and offender in society is getting both younger as well as older, as morals appear to be more readily abandoned.


As for relationships between young men and young women, identities and roles are today, frequently blurred, and are no longer defined to any degree.Today, a choice is actually offered which enables any male or female of any age to elect the nature of sexual identity and preference they choose to adopt as a lifestyle. As to those who choose to remain heterosexual, no longer does the young man have to wait for six dates for his first kiss, as it is estimated that the couple has full sex after the third date and are regularly sleeping together within six months of first meeting. Those couples that choose to get married, stay married for only as long as they are instantly gratified by all their unrealistic expectations and unnatural needs.


Fewer people are going out and engaging in cultural activities today; often unable to afford or more often preferring to stay at home and drink indoors, while all they want to see in entertainment can be obtained from 'Netflix' or 'Amazon Prime'. As for any relaxing that doesn't involve crashing out on a soft sofa after consuming some fast food after arriving home, forget it. The common cry is the very same cry that I heard for thirty years as a Probation Officer/Relaxation Trainer whenever I came across any hyper-tense person: 'I haven't time to relax'.


My way around this entrenched viewpoint was to give them the type of relaxation training that did not involve their use of any additional time. In fact, if they did as instructed, they would actually make more time in their day through increased body efficiency! I simply informed them that as they were breathing, moving, standing and operating their thought processes and muscles anyway, albeit wrongly, I'd teach them a more relaxed and efficient way of breathing, moving, standing, operating their muscles and thinking etc.


The difference in attitude, behaviour, expectations and lifestyle that six months Relaxation Training was able to make to so many people was amazing. For the first time in their lives, many were able to find moments of perfect peace and a strength unknown to negativity and doubt that can only be found in 'goodness, trust and positivism'.


After these people had learnt to relax during their busy days and even find moments of perfect peace, a strange thing happened to the overwhelming majority of them. They found themselves being able to delay their gratification desires in all manner of their everyday lives and they started communicating more with more and more people daily. Their relationships with their families and spouses greatly improved, and not only did they make time to talk to each other more, they often did this over a meal together. It turned out to be just as my mother used to tell me as a child, 'Billy, don't be impatient, boy. Good things come to all those who are prepared to wait', and she was right.": William Forde: August 18th, 2018.
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August 17th, 2018

17/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Nature forged, Nature crafted and Nature real; all three aspects of Nature can astound and make one marvel, but remains wonderful in whatever form it is presented. Nature is a spirit that is formless and free. It often hides itself, is sometimes overcome but is never extinguished.


The top LH corner shows the Tunnel Falls in Oregon along the Eagle Creek Trail. It is an epic 13-mile one-way trail; one way because passing is impossible coming from opposite directions.


In the top RH corner, we can see the decorative and collage work created by the world-famous body painter, Johannes Stotter where five women models are made to look like one amphibian.


The bottom image is a stunning valley of flowers from northern India's state of Uttarakhand which borders the Nepal and Tibet.


Ever since I was unable to walk for a number of years after a childhood accident, Nature became an essential ingredient of my daily life as I gazed through my bedroom window. When eventually I regained the use of my legs, I would walk to a local wood daily and relax beneath a large oak tree in its centre. This favourite place of mine became a sanctuary for me. Whenever I entered the wood, I was aware that I entered a sacred place, my Sanctum sanctorum. As soon as I embraced the trunk of a tree, smelled the rich aroma of the forest fern, felt the coolness of the woodland stream as I allowed the flowing water passage through my fingers, and heard the song of the birds or the sounds of other woodland creatures, I knew that place possessed the marrow of all life. Since those precious years when I took 'time out' from the hustle and bustle of life enforced upon me by restricted mobility, Nature and its country fields, hedgerows, meadow streams and woodlands became my real world.


When I became a father in later years, rarely one weekend passed by without me taking my children for a walk and play in Hopton Woods. During these weekly walks I would try to impress on them we are made up of much more than ourselves; much more than mere flesh and bone. Mankind has never been of himself/herself only. He/she is all they see and all that flows to them from a thousand natural sources. He/she is the land, the lift of its mountain lines, the reach of its valleys, the depth of its seas; we inter-breath with the rainforest and we drink from the oceans. Taking my children into the classroom of the woods turned their immediate wonder into lifelong wisdom. I remember telling my children, James, Adam, William and Rebecca that to hold a seed of the ground was to hold infinity in the palm of one's hand. Taking the children on their weekly walks to Hopton Woods throughout the four seasons of the year was not only educational and exciting for them, but it provided myself with an inner peace that passed all understanding. These woodland journeys reminded me of Albert Einstein's belief that 'if one looked deep into Nature, all would be understood'.


As the great Shakespear himself said, ' One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin'. Since my early teens and my regular daily journey to Bluebell Wood where I would relax beneath the tall branches of an oak tree at its woodland centre, I have always believed that our deepest roots lie with Nature. No matter who we are where we were born, whatever our circumstances or what kind of life we live, we remain irrevocably linked with Nature and the birth of creation.


My daily relaxation beneath the large oak tree in Bluebell Wood was to form the central image for a professionally produced relaxation tape I was to produce in the 1970s entitled 'Relax with Bill'. I was once offered many thousands of pounds to sell this tape for market production but refused; preferring instead to give away many thousands of copies of it to stressful people over the past forty years. This tape has never been sold and is freely accessed from my website by following the link http://www.fordefables.co.uk/relax-with-bill.html


Despite all the wonders of the world, created through time, art or effort, none can ever match the sheer bravery and beauty of a butterfly as it happily soars through its life oblivious to the mere knowledge that behind that next wall can lie a person hell-bent on capturing it and breaking its wings apart. And yet, knowing the risk it takes, this creature of freedom still flies towards the next wall. Those who have been hurt through giving love unreturned take heart and heed from the butterfly whom despite the brevity of its life on earth dares to fly." William Forde: August 17th, 2018.
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August 16th, 2018.

16/8/2018

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Thought for today:
I recall when I was a Probation Officer, every month or two, we would have a supervisory session with our Senior Officer. The ultimate purpose of this monthly meeting was to check out how one was coping in the job and to offer the opportunity to discuss any cases which were presenting difficulty or to deal with any other pressing matters. During such monthly supervision sessions, whenever things were right on the home front with my wife, children, parents or other family members, then I always felt things to be right on the work front, and vice versa. In short, the welfare of my family controlled my prevailing happiness and contentment during my daily life; it always did and always will! I always found that my quality of life involved finding a happy balance between work, friends, leisure activities, interests, and most importantly, family.

A happy child is one where the enduring memory into adulthood is of a family where you come as you are, stay as long as you can, and where the motto above the fireplace reads, 'We're all family here; there is no seating plan'. Indeed, I'd have to say that my own family upbringing, and especially my relationship with my mother never once left me feeling unloved, lacking in confidence or unworthy. Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that mum exuded love from every pore of her being. She automatically loved all others with whom she came into contact without ever once stopping to inquire whether or not they were worthy of her affection. Our parents never mollycoddled us; dad was often strict and mum always said it as it was while having the wisdom to know when best to leave certain things unsaid. Between our parents, they forged the Forde Family for what we are today. Dad toughened up his seven children so that we would possess the strength of character to face an often cruel and heartless world, while mum saw it as her role to raise her children under a constant umbrella of love and to teach us those things that will make the world a little less cruel and heartless. Today, when I think of love, compassion, buckets of hope and belief in one's fellow man, I instantly think of mum. She never spoke bad of another or expressed envy towards what they had materially and she didn't. It was as if she was always too busy working on her own family grass to notice if anyone else on the estate was greener. She knew that the tragedy of one's life wasn't death, but what goodness we let die inside us by lack of use in our everyday life.

Overall, our parents taught us that the most important work that every man, woman or child, and every parent, spouse, brother or sister shall ever do will be within the walls of their own home. I include below, a poem I have written about 'Family'.


'We are Family': Copyright William Forde: August 2018.

"Sometimes I think the time is now, but it's really then;
and the place is here, not there, and where is when.
Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes pouring out.
Then when I reply, it is my father's voice I hear from way on high.

I often walk in my father's footsteps and speak his word.
I sometimes have his angry feelings and make still emotions stirred.
I am never alone in my world; how could I be?
As long as my family remains a part of me,
they influence every thought, word and deed and all I see.

My happiness was always there,
but without close family, parents, brothers, sisters, wife and children,
life would be forever bare.
I am one and I am me, I am also you, and I am we.
We are many, we are family."

William Forde: Copyright: August 16th, 2018.

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August 14th, 2018

14/8/2018

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​Thought for today:
"Given the patience and the will, one will usually find a way out of problematic situations. Life is too short a time to spend with a head full of troubled thoughts and a heart lacking the courage to leave the past behind. One must relieve oneself from previous bad experiences, past regrets and emotional baggage!

Mark Twain wrote in 'The American Claimant',' Drag your thoughts away from your troubles, by the ears, by the heels or by any other way that you can manage it; it's the healthiest thing a body can do.'

During my many years of running numerous groups in Probation Offices, Prisons, Hostels, Hospitals, Psychiatric Units, Schools, Educational Establishments and Community Halls, I always included some programming content which dealt with effective ways of problem-solving. Without going into the many techniques and methods one can gainfully employ to problem solve, I would place the distancing of oneself from the original thoughts and emotions that surrounded 'the problem' to be essential in creating the best conditions for resolving it. Note that this doesn't imply running away from the problem, but simply taking a breather. You need to put sufficient time and space between your old thoughts that got you into trouble in the first place and the kind of thoughts that will get you out of trouble!

Another way that one can create this essential mental space is to learn to get rid of the 'distraction' within the problem situation which is preventing you from focussing on a possible solution to it. Every problem has a distractive element to it and once we discover the source of that distraction, we can remove it and create the space for resolving the problematic situation. Please note that the distraction can be a person, an activity, a thing or almost anything imaginable; even a wrong or unhelpful attitude of mind or an irrational belief can blind you to finding your way out of your mental maze. Find out whatever it is that is taking your mind away from the thoughts required to correct the situation. If you are in an unhappy or abusive situation, you may need to leave the person (the distraction) in order to make the space to make the right decision about your future. If you are attempting to relax and there are workman crashing and banging about outside your house, you are better leaving the place you are in and distancing yourself from your noisy distraction and finding more quieter surroundings before you attempt to relax again.

So, whatever the distraction to your problem solving happens to be, first, get rid of it. If you are a slow-moving tortoise dying from thirst and who needs to get to a water source quickly and find that a high fence, one mile in circumference, is separating you from the cool water just yards away, what do you do? The surviving tortoise recognised the distraction of resolving its situation to be an irrational belief that tortoises do not and cannot climb high fences. So, instead of dying of thirst before it could travel the one-mile circumference of the fence, the tortoise abandoned its irrational belief and decided it would be faster to climb over the fence!

I'm with you, Mark; upwards and onwards!" William Forde: August 14th, 2018.
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August 13th, 2018

13/8/2018

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Thought for today:
" I was listening to 'Radio Four' in bed one morning a few weeks ago, when I heard this chap who had spent a number of years researching 'dreams' tell the listeners that our earliest memories are invariably 'false memories'.The long and short of his findings is that the things we can first remember happening in our lives are either things we've been told by others as we grew up really did happened or they are events and circumstances that we would like to be true, so we make true!

My father and I came across to England from Ireland in 1945, and for the first year, we lived with Aunt Eva in Bradford. Dad had left mum and my sisters Mary and Eileen behind in Ireland. He brought me to temporarily live at Aunt Eva's house while he sought work in one of the local coal mines. His plan was to get a job and a place to live before sending for mum and my two sisters to join us. Dad eventually secured work as a face worker in the pit, which also provided him with some tied-living accommodation. 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 I and dad stayed at his sister Eva's house.

About two years later in 1948 when I was five years, going on six years old, the five of us were reunited as a family unit. Me, mum, dad and my two sisters Mary and Eileen started life in a beautiful country cottage with its own fields and chickens to supply us with plenty of eggs. I recall going on a long bus ride to Bradford Market and bringing back half a dozen chicks in a large cardboard box. I instantly became friends with my cuddly feathered friends, not knowing that in the years to come that they would provide meat as well as eggs for the family table. I distinctly remember mum picking the feathers from a dead chicken one Christmas time, not knowing at the time that one of the feathered friends I daily fed had changed roles and was now feeding me.

I remember getting bathed in a tin tub which would be hung on the wall between uses, but the water was never hot enough after dad had used it or clean enough to luxuriate in. Yet, because we bathed in the same water in a natural order of ascendancy, and as my younger sisters, Mary and Eileen, jumped in the tin tub after me, the water was dirtier for them!

We stayed in that country cottage for about four years until we were allocated a brand new council house with an inside loo, outside 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 the council estate and they sadly missed the earlier delights of our idyllic 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 West Yorkshire, England. Until then, I couldn't believe just how far the mind and memory were capable of stretching and distorting the essence of the reality we had previously experienced. 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 family car, no larger than an Austin 7. 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 daily trespassed.

This raw and bitter realisation 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 in which our poultry freely roamed and foraged.

That day during my 30s, I was obliged to accept the sad truth of our first English home. It was a reluctant acceptance that shattered that early memory I'd treasured since childhood. It hurt to learn that 'our land and country garden' wasn't really 'our land' but were farmer's fields which surrounded it. It also hurt to learn that the lovely country cottage we'd lived in wasn't ours also, and was on loan to us (for a weekly rent), for only as long as my dad continued to work down the pit. The chickens and hens were ours though, along with the exclusive use 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 necessary items as being sheets of cut-up newspapers strung together like a paper concertina. At the time, my father would frequently read the 'Daily Mirror'; I must admit, a newspaper worthy of little more than wiping one's backside on.

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 been 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 children 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 lived and died with the memory of my idyllic country cottage and its extensive rural land where I once lived. How cruel reality can sometimes be when the garden of childhood dreams is revisited by the raw realities of an adult attempting to recapture their youth!" William Forde: August 13th, 2018.
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August 12th, 2018.

12/8/2018

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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 nurture the weeds of the past than to grow the seed of today for the flower 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 that has knocked them for a six. 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.

Next Wednesday, I go into hospital for the day to have two skin cancer biopsies performed. The consultant has placed me on the emergency waiting list. Seemingly, my terminal blood cancer makes me infinitely more prone to contracting skin cancer, which I did last year. It looks like it may have now re-appeared and they wish to test the facial area where it was treated last year, along with the new skin-cancer mole that has appeared on the other side of my forehead. Unfortunately, the skin-cancer consultant told me when I recently saw him that each time I contract skin cancer, the prognosis worsens. I won't pretend that the prospect holds no fear for me, especially as I love my life, but I know that facing my fear is infinitely easier to cope with than mentally trying to avoid it. Another avenue of the terminal blood cancer I have is that it can and undoubtedly will, one day, travel to any/every major organ of my body. This is a thought I have had to reconcile myself with since I first contracted my blood cancer.

It is natural to be sad sometimes, but foolish to waste ones' thoughts and emotions upon regrets. It is normal for each of us to be frightened of possible outcomes which none of us is immune to, yet we must live for today if our life is to hold any quality of all.

When the day arrives that all medical science has to offer proves insufficient for our survival I have always found that the only natural place to take comfort from and refuge in is Nature, Family, Friends and God. Nature is there to nurture the parts that materialism and scientific advancement can never reach." William Forde: August 12th, 2018.
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August 11th, 2018.

11/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"Today is the birthday of my son, William who is out in Australia living the life of a free spirit as he travels from place to place teaching yoga and doing whatever else is required to eek out a living that suits his chosen lifestyle. He obtained his degree in Economics and Buisness Studies at Huddersfield University and then followed this up with a Masters in Perth, Australia. Having obtained his qualifications, he soon abandoned the suited and booted way of life, and instead, decided to opt out of the conventional 9.00 am-5.00pm rat race. In his own way, Will (as he prefers to be called), is really illustrating that one doesn't have to burn books or rebel against the teacher to rebel, but to merely own one's own self.

My son, William , also shares his birthday with my brother, Peter, who a been an Educational Psychologist all his working life. Both William and Peter have the distinguishing 'Forde rebellious streak' which all my siblings have always displayed. None of us have ever followed the conventional path along any destination we have sought to reach. Although brother Peter has reached the age of retirement, although he may hang up his working boots, he will never hand in his guns! It is as though the rebel in him simply refuses to die. I strongly suspect that he just needs some time off and a reason to go back to work.

Both William and Peter have always had barriers to break down/through, rules to resist and ways to rebel against, and I dont expect them ever to change. They are ideally representative of John Milton's words in 'Paradise Lost' when he writes, ' Awake, arise or be forever fallen'.

A very happy birthday, William and Peter. May this special day be filled with much happiness, peace, love and generosity for you. Never lose your enthusiasm for life nor your respect for self and others. Love from Dad and brother.xxx" : William Forde: August 11th, 2018.

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August 10th, 2018

10/8/2018

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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 unpredictable 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 pictureless 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 nurtured, stimulated, sustained and supported me in times both happy and sad where a degree of emotional distancing from the world and the cruelty of circumstances 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 and 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 Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Luddites and all manner of industrial and trade-union history, and master/worker dispute in the textile mills of Yorkshire.

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 re-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 reminded me of the crucial importance of 'second chances' in life and was to change the course of my life again. It eventually led 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, but often 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 behaviourism, emotional disturbance, relaxation training, hypnotism, assertion training, fear reduction, anger management and stress management consultancy. During this period of extensive learning, 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 or Europe, 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 storybook 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. I have just published my 67th book.

During my earlier years of getting my work published and more widely read, I never seriously thought of 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 between 1989-2005, my reading and writing continued to nurture, stimulate, sustain and support me at all times ever since besides providing occasional comfort to others.

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 know that the financial circumstances of many people today do not enable them to afford to buy books and most of my book profits today go towards providing free books to individuals and cash-stricken organisations. Indeed, six months after I have had my latest romantic novel published, I always make it freely available to read on my extensive website under the 'Tales from Portlaw' section of my books.

I have just had my sixty-seventh book published. It is, without a doubt, the best romantic story in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series of books and is called 'The Postman Always Knocks Twice'. What makes this book better than most of the other 'Tales from Portlaw' stories I have written is because it is the most meaningful to me. When I was a child, my mother told me every day of my life that I was 'special' This secret was revealed to her before I was born by a peg-selling gypsy who knocked on her door in Portlaw. At the time, my mother was two months pregnant but wasn't showing. The travelling Romany told my mother that if she crossed her palm with silver that she would tell her about the 'special child' she was expecting. My mother told me this story almost every day of my growing years and every time I managed to achieve something or do something unusual, she would remind me that it was because I was 'special'. I naturally believed every word my mother told me in my youth, even those that had been stretched towards the bounds of incredibility. All of the first half of my life I believed that I had been born a special child and it is only in the second part of my life that I learned to understand that every newborn is 'special'. The book is obtainable in e-book format from www.smashwords.com or in hardback or paperback from Amazon or www.lulu.com.

It is said that everyone has a book inside them worthy of penning and I believe this to be true. Over the past years since I developed a terminal blood cancer and have started attending my allotment daily with my wife Sheila, I have gradually reduced the number of books I normally write and have published yearly from three to one. For the rest of my life, I intend to plant flowers and potatoes in my allotment between March and September and to write my annual book for publication during the colder winter months. I have always allowed the sales profit from my books to go to charitable causes ever since my first publication and shall continue adding to the £200,000 they have raised since 1989 by enabling all my book-sale profits now and after my death to go to charitable causes in perpetuity.

I am often asked to recommend suitable books I've written and I, therefore, include a few details and indications below. For my youngest readers (those children between the ages of 5-9 years), I would recommend the 'Action Annie Omnibus'. This tells a story suitable for each month of the year that the late Dame Catherine Cookson and her husband Tom paid to have first published. If you have a child or grandchild between the ages of 5-11 years, please allow me to recommend either 'Douglas the Dragon' or 'Sleezy the Fox'. These are my best sellers for children and the late Princess Diana used to read them to her children William and Harry at bedtime. If you like ethnic stories, I would strongly recommend 'The African Trilogy' that Nelson Mandela phoned me up and praised in 2001. If you are a dog lover (child or adult), I would recommend 'Tales of Bernard' that James Harriot and Christopher Timothy praised. If a lover of cats, I would recommend my longest trilogy of books in which every character is a breed of cat, 'The Kilkenny Cat Trilogy' (for teenagers and upwards). If you are a romantic, then read my latest 'Tales from Portlaw: Volume 13: 'The Postman always knocks twice'. If you like stories about the Second World War, I would recommend, ''Butterworth's Brigade' and 'Robin and the Rubicelle Fusiliers' that Dame Vera Lynn praised and read from in a school in her village. If you would like to read a gritty Northern tale about a woman who leaves her child and spends years fighting to regain access to her, or a rags to riches story about rape, murder and revenge, then my only two (strictly for adults novels), 'Come back Peter' and 'Rebecca's Revenge' should make good bedtime reading, but please keep away from anyone under 21 years old or the eyes of the sensitive. Should you like to read the book I enjoyed best writing in the style of my favourite author, Thomas Hardy, then I would recommend, 'Tales from the Allotments'. I feel certain that in this list that there is a book there for you or a loved one of you to read and enjoy.

If, on the other hand, you would like to read a book by another author than myself, I would refer you to 'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo, or any book by Thomas Hardy, or 'The Barchester Chronicles' by Anthony Trollope, or 'The Five Towns' by Arnold Bennett. As for poetry, my favourite would be Seamus Heaney who died in August 2013. The power of his imagery and descriptive phraseology is sheer music to this Irish ear of poetic discernment. Whatever you read though, please read! ": William Forde: August 9th, 2018.

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August 9th, 2018

9/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"C.S.Lewis once remarked 'Badness is only spoiled goodness'. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the parent or sibling to a spoiled brat, or worst still, married to one?

Conventional wisdom informs us that adult spoiled brats just doesn't magically appear on the scene one day out of nowhere, but are cultivated by an overindulgent parent throughout their childhood. Adult brats are spoiled by daily parental acts of overindulgence when they are children; not kindness. Such children are spoiled because their parents substitute presence for presents and things instead of touch. No child will ever turn out a spoiled brat due to having been lavished with a surfeit of love.

Two things I particularly remember about my own upbringing was a ploy that my mum used often to keep me happy and content, along with her warning about the personal dangers of materialism if we are surrounded in life by too many things that were too easily acquired. She essentially believed that providing a child with 'too happy a childhood' where they want for nothing can spoil a promising life. The second and most important thing I recall was the importance of loving and feeling loved in one's life in establishing contentment at the moment. When food and new clothes were scarce, she gave us love and reassurance in abundance. While she had few worldly possessions to give, she always gave of herself. A good ploy of hers in helping all her children to improve was to let them overhear the good things she told others about them.

While I have known a few women who I would take every opportunity of never 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 along with the rest of her values.

Her name was Maureen; ironically, a name that had always been dear to me as it was my late mother's name. This Maureen, however, had been born with a general dislike for anything in the 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 'lesser mortals' and she was constantly moving house and changing husbands in the forlorn 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 that they frequently visited had this annoying habit of sticking between one's toes.

Life inexorably went on complainingly with this adult brat, until one day she got her comeuppance. One year, while in France, she visited a cafe which was a high-class establishment. The French Cafe was called the 'Les Deux Magots' in St. Germain. This eating place was daily filled by the richest of patrons. Every single detail was taken care of by its staff from the moment of each patron having one's coat taken from them by the waiter upon entering, to having an attendant bring one's luxurious car around to the front upon leaving. It had established itself as a legend for the finest of foods and wine 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 funeral 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 while they swapped horror stories of their husbandly encounters with the brat.

​If you happen to be one of those people who are prone to the envy of seeing others materially well-off while you have to financially struggle to make ends meet, think briefly on the spoiled brat mantra that constantly says 'I just can't live without this or that' and remind yourself reassuringly that we can live without anything that we weren't born with or won't have alongside us in our coffin when we die." William Forde: August 9th, 2018.
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August 8th, 2018.

8/8/2018

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Thought for today:
"The last time I was without my internet connection, I used the opportunity to sample more of my own silence and digest more of my own thoughts than usual. I have to admit that I have many interests; far too many to be able to religiously follow any exclusively. In many ways, I have never been a gadget person and it was very late in life before I discarded my dinosaur suit and dared to sit in front of a laptop. Indeed, my first fifty published books were all written in longhand and re-written up to three times each.


I must confess that it angers me, especially as it signifies the height of bad manners and gross discourtesy, to witness people playing with their phones and sending text messages when they are in conversation and the company of another. Just as it is dangerous to use a manual phone while driving, and can lead to loss of life, using a mobile phone while in the company of others can also lead to loss of partner, friends and family members! At the very least it will communicate to them that having continuous access to your phone is more important in your life than having access to them!

So, please bear in mind that being without your phone or the internet isn't in the same league as being without friends, family members, partners, purpose, hope or the will to live. To see some people panic without these instruments of modern-day progress constantly at hand and invariably in constant use, whatever the occasion, is to seriously ask oneself the question,'What is it all about when the absence of any object becomes more important in one's daily life than the feelings or circumstances of another.'

I like the positive things that the internet offers me and I, like thousands of others, gain much from being on Facebook and being involved in the lives of my Facebook friends and contacts. Keeping abreast of the ups and downs of their lives keeps me in contact with the outside world, especially during large parts of the year when illness or infection keeps me confined to our house because of my blood cancer condition and having no effective immune system to risk stepping outdoors.

But, make no mistake, I would swap every message that I receive and send on Facebook for few words of conversation with some person face-to-face at a meaningful moment of their life or mine. I would rather see them smile up close than to see a lovely photograph of them smiling. I would willingly swap the exchange of a carefully crafted communication on my laptop for a talk with them on Skype: better still to have them stand close enough to me to kiss, hug or touch.

I recall visiting my grandparent's grave in Ireland the last time I returned to Portlaw, County Waterford, the village of my birth. Upon one of the graves nearby were some paper flowers which I guess had been placed there by some child or adult who did not have access to the real thing at the time. To me, the internet, Facebook and telephones are like paper flowers on a grave; they serve their purpose, but at best can never be more than a poor second to any real-life face-to-face experience.

And yet, I have to admit that using one's laptop and mobile can easily become an addiction in one's daily life and once firmly established within one's routine, can be as difficult to break as giving up cigarettes, alcohol or chocolates! I have often thought, 'When I can no longer use my laptop and access my Facebook page daily, how will I ever know what is turning you on and off out there or is making you angry, agitated, content or all hot and bothered? I never thought that I would ever get to like any machine that was so much beyond my control. I suppose that like all pleasures we indulge in, it remains okay as long as it stays a pleasure and doesn't become an addiction.

During our recent European holiday when we were away from home for a month, I went without using my phone, laptop, or reading a newspaper, watching television, listening to the radio or reading a book: and I found the experience totally relaxing! For a whole month I was totally engrossed in the places I saw, the people I met and in particular, my wife, Sheila. Despite us having a good relationship that involves honest expression and talking to each other a lot, we nevertheless talked to each other more and more during our holiday month than we usually do.

Test yourself by leaving your phone at home more often when you next go out or leave it switched off when you are in the company of others, or not answering it when you are engaged with others. I can already hear you start making excuses about 'needing to be available for this or that or him/her/them etc', but surely we and our present company at any part of the day also need some quality time without outside gadgets interrupting the flow of our conversation and activity every few minutes. We turn our phones off in church or at a wedding or funeral out of respect. Where is the respect then when we are eating or in the company and joint conversation of another if the phone is switched on by our side; constantly at the ready to seize when it is activated? And despite our pleasure of being on Facebook 'x' number of hours daily, is that also at the expense of others around us, and is it preventing us from doing more urgent and satisfactory things?

I don't have the answers to these situations; I merely make some observations. What do you think? Replies kindly received to this Facebook 'Thought of the day'; that is unless you've decided to have yourself a little break and do something else." William Forde: August 7th, 2018.

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August 7th, 2018.

7/8/2018

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William Forde
Thought for today:
"What is achieved in life if you leave nothing behind for the worms to digest when you're gone? What purpose has your life served if it has served no other but oneself? How can you ever find out why you were given life in the first place if you refuse to engage in each moment of your existence with an open mind and a willing heart?


I was once told by a wise man that every relationship we make in life is a valuable experience and can be learned from. He advised never to enter any situation or leave any relationship without having taken one thing from the experience that will serve you well in the future. Everyone has something valuable to offer and when we embrace all that life offers, we can achieve success both personally and professionally. God may have given us the gift of life, but it is up to each of us to give ourselves the intention of benefiting from all that is best in our lives and living it well. Winston Churchill once remarked, 'No one ever finds life worth living; one has to make it worth living.'


When I was told six years ago that I had a blood cancer that was terminal, I found myself refining the positive attitude I have always held to take account of my new circumstances. Many years ago my attitude was greatly influenced by a book I read called, 'How to win friends and influence people'; a best-seller that is still widely read. This book was written by an American developer of courses in self-improvement; Dale Carnegie. One of his core ideas in many of his publications is that it is possible to change other people's behaviour towards you by changing your behaviour towards them. This thought appealed to me, especially as it finds its basic roots in the core of Christianity and the heart of reciprocity. After reading that book, I understood more clearly that there is many ways of going forward but only one way of staying still. I was also reminded that life's governing composition is made up of 10% what happens to us and 90% to the challenges it throws up and how we react to those tests of life. Life's ultimate success isn't defined by how fast you can run, how high you can jump or how steep you can climb, what degree you obtained or job you have, but how well you bounce when unexpected circumstances hit you for a six and emotionally knock the stuffing out of you.


Much of one's success invariably comes from design and little from chance. Life is hard and if we don't design our own life plan and set our own targets of achievement, the likelihood is that we will finish up falling into someone else's plan; and so often what they will have planned for us is not what we ideally want. So many children with frustrated parents who never quite achieved what they wanted and now push their child to achieve on their behalf will recognise this emotional trap. This is why it's so important to find a satisfactory purpose in one's life; something that is invariably one's own purpose.

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We begin by acknowledging that 'today' is our life, the only life we are sure of, the only life that matters! That is why we need to make the most of every moment we experience and every day we live. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake to all possibilities that surround you. Develop a pleasurable hobby. Make and keep as many friends as possible and let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you as you live your day with gusto, open heart and a broad imagination. Remember, especially anyone who is pessimistically inclined to make today real in the moment and not a regret of the past or an unrealistic goal for the future. Remember that 'today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday'. Learn to live in the present.


Purpose and design are such important factors in establishing one's happiness. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, "He who has a 'why' to live can bear almost any 'how.'" For me, some of my most important purposes for living have been to experience love, to be happy and satisfied with each day lived and to be helpful and feel wanted. I have found all of these things possible, but only after I found 'the true me'.


However far I've travelled in life, I have never been able to ignore or escape the romantic in me; a trait I blame my encourageable mother for when she lived. While I would never choose to have been without this distinctive trait, it has, on occasions, not always served me as well as I'd initially hoped. For instance, romanticism can be the greatest of deceivers. Often, the romantic in me has led me into believing that my first love was my last love and my last love my first. I now know that the only thing that really matters is that my present love is my best love. Despite any difficulties being a romantic dreamer can throw up, however, I have decided to stick with love, as I find loving being much more preferable than its counterpart, and hate too great a burden for any living person to bear.


Please take on board any suggestions I have made today that makes sense to you. If you adopt just one change in behaviour I have mentioned, you may be surprised how big a change it can represent in your overall level of happiness and satisfaction. My final message is that the tragedy of life is not that it ends too soon, but that we wait so long to begin it in earnest and with enthusiasm. Our time on earth is too precious a thing ever to waste one fleeting moment, and however difficult the circumstances one is faced with, it is never too late to plant new seed or give root to a new thought.": William Forde: August 7th, 2018.
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August 6th, 2018.

6/8/2018

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August 6th, 2018.
6/8/2018 0 Comments
Thought for today:
"There are those who were born to make harmony with the world and their fellow being; perfect peace shall be their eternal reward. And there are those who administer faith, hope, charity and love. By their good works of example and their footprints of passage, a better life and way will become known to all who follow. Such human travellers are earthly beings clothed in humble garments. They have not yet donned their heavenly robes or assumed angelic form, yet they are destined to one day dine at the top table with heavenly hosts.

Too many good people in this world naturally and routinely emit 'goodness' in all they think, say and do, and yet, know not how good and worthy a person they really are. They consider themselves as being just 'ordinary' people, doing what any decent person would naturally do in such circumstances. The very source of 'goodness' that lives within their bodies from cradle to the grave is rarely acknowledged by themselves as being outside the range of human 'normality'.

And when examined closely, what precisely does such 'goodness' consist of that these earthly angels with their invisible halos daily express as a matter of course. Strangely, they represent the simplest of behaviour, and yet they are the most important things a person can do or have done to them. Indeed, their importance is considered to be of such heavenly magnitude that their continuation of such good behaviour is the only requirement that can automatically gain admission inside the 'Gates of Heaven' when their turn comes to depart this earthly life. Their body may take up residence at the other side of the green sod, but as their spirit is transported into more heavenly surroundings, their passing is greatly mourned by those who truly knew them and had been often touched by their 'goodness'.

And what are such virtues that guarantee heavenly admission and earthly remembrance? They include the willingness and ability to express love, to give, to take, to share, to forgive, to believe in self and others. They include conducting ourselves honestly in our expression and dealings with others. They involve having and showing faith in the 'goodness' of mankind, forever spreading hope where it is needed and is thin on the ground, and being always willing to give of oneself to others whenever the need of another is greater than ours.

Each of these essential human ingredients is possessed by all of us, though they may lay dormant and are not always displayed in our daily lives. That is why the 'finding of self' will always lead to the discovery of one's intrinsic 'goodness' and thereby grant natural access to, and expression of, that very same 'goodness' of character and wholesomeness of intentions.

As my mother frequently told me as a child, 'Billy, if you want to be a good friend, be a good neighbour and be a good person, all you have to do son, is to be your good self'. Some of the greatest qualities Mum possessed was her capacity to recognise the 'specialness' in us all and to believe in God, life and humanity.

Before I went on holiday in mid-May I attended the funeral of a friend called Michael who was a regular attendee at the Rock and Roll Club in Batey that Sheila and I went to weekly before my cancer and advanced immobility sadly curtailed the movement of my dancing feet. I'll never forget the very first time I met Michael as a stranger to the Rock and Roll Club. Upon entry, he took our ticket of admission, smiled, warmly welcomed us and throughout that first evening, he called across to our table and ascertained that we were okay half a dozen times. In short, he knew how to say 'Hello' and he knew how to continue to make a couple of strangers feel welcome. When he died, his funeral service was so packed that the mourners were literally having to queue in the cramped entrance hall and outside the crematorium. No better way had his friends of showing how to say 'Goodbye'.

In my 75 years, I have attended many funerals, but the sheer numbers of attendees always signify how many lives were daily touched through knowing and loving 'goodness' in their midst. Most of these much-loved and dearly departed didn't have medals or titles or civic honours, along with public recognition of their good works within their community. What they offered seemed little, but was in essence so much; deserving of a reward that no earthly power could ever grant. Yet, this gift of 'goodness' they daily offered to their fellow beings was one so great, that heaven itself can never fail to reward.

Love and peace. Bill xxx" William Forde: August 6th, 2018.
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August 5th, 2018.

5/8/2018

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​Thought for today:"Let the beauty of love be what we do, who we are, and take us where our hearts want us to go. Make the love of truth and the trust of your neighbour your sole intoxication, as it is only through truth and trust in yourself and fellow beings can you remove the burdens from your heart and fear not what lies beyond the next bend in the road.

Never let inactivity or uncertainty immobilise you. When you come to a bend in the road, remember a bend is not the end of the road........unless you fail to make the turn. So learn to 'follow through' with your positive thoughts and actions. Don't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands, grabbing hold of whatever comes your way. You need to be able to throw something back occasionally, and what better to throw back to the world than your confidence in self and love and trust in others?

Since my return from our European holiday, my only book this year has just been published. It is in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series of books and is titled, 'The Postman always knocks twice'. The title of the book is to essentially remind the reader that however bad circumstances may appear in one's life, we all usually get a second chance to put things right or have a second opportunity to get what we really want out of life.

The concept for this novel was born in my youth and has stayed with me all my life. Before I was five years old, my mother told me that 'I was a special child' and that this prophesy had been revealed to her for a few shillings by a peg-selling gypsy who had visited her home in Portlaw when she had just discovered that she was pregnant with her firstborn (Me). The gypsy, who claimed to be a true Romany asked my mother at her doorstep, 'Would you like your fortune telling, Missus. Only two shillings and I'll tell, you about your firstborn that you are having!' Having just found out herself that she was indeed newly pregnant, and with no sign of showing by her slender figure, my mother was naturally intrigued to learn more and paid the gypsy her fee. Not one day ever passed between first hearing this tale from my late mother and her dying did she fail to remind me that I was born a 'special' child. All of my life, I, therefore, grew up believing myself to be special and having everything I was to achieve to be no more than confirmation of the gypsy's prophesy and reinforced by my mother's belief in its truth.

While I always believed myself to be 'special' during the first half of my 75 years, I have spent the latter half of my life discovering that we are all 'special' and telling people of their 'specialness' at every available opportunity.
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'The Postman always knocks twice' is my latest story in my 'Tales from Portlaw' series, and it is undoubtedly my best story to date in this series of novels. It is available in E-book format from Smashwords or Amazon or hard copy from Amazon or Lulu." William Forde: August 4th, 2018.

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