FordeFables
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      • Rebecca's Revenge
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      • 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
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      • 'Growing up with grandparents'
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Song for Today: 1st September 2019

31/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my good Facebook friend, Anne Lister, whose birthday it is today.

Today’s song is ‘One Fine Day’. This song was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It first became a popular hit in the summer of 1963 for the American girl group, ‘The Chiffons’, who reached the top five on the ’Billboard Hot 100’ chart. In 1980, King covered it herself and it charted at Number 12 on ‘Billboard Hot 100’ with her version. The song has subsequently been covered by numerous artists over the years. 

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We each have wish lists of future intentions. How many times have we said, ‘One fine day I’ll ……’, half knowing that we are never likely ‘follow through’ with our half-hearted intention. It matters not if it is that unwritten book we have never got around to writing or that old neighbour and friend whose house we pass frequently and swear we will drop in to say ‘hello’ but never do, or that person we once offended and have never yet apologised to but wanted to so many times. Whatever our half-hearted intentions are that we failed to carry out when we could, know this: the day will eventually pass when the opportunity will no longer present itself and it will it no longer remain possible to carry out, even if you experience a change of heart to finally do that you should have done long ago.

I wonder how many people pass through their whole life between birth without once ever having said to a brother, sister, father, mother, son, daughter, or God forbid, even a husband or wife, “I love you”? They may have been non-demonstrative people who were brought up in families who didn’t show their emotions and therefore never learned to openly express theirs or deal with the expressed emotions of others.

In my professional role when I worked as a Probation Officer, I met many people who never learned to express their emotions and it often took me six months of weekly-group contact to successfully coach them to be able to look another group member in the eye, and without laughter or embarrassment say, ‘I love you.’ Once that had been achieved, I then gave the group member a homework task of telling their significant other (parent, sibling, spouse or child) tonight and every night thereafter, and to watch their relationship flourish and thrive in loving embrace.

For almost two years, I was to teach Relaxation Training skills to female prisoners in New Hall Prison in Wakefield. I worked exclusively with a group of women who had been both the victims or/and perpetrators of violence against partners, spouses or children. I have worked with women who murdered their child or who badly ill-treated child/ children physically. These were women who were treated as being the 'lowest of the low' and the 'scum of the earth' by other inmates and most of the prison guards.

I tended to work with women in violent relationships and whose lives had been governed by violent influences and hurtful behaviour. I will never forget when I gave the women the group task of saying ‘I LOVE YOU’ exercise to another female group inmate, I could not get one to comply. Every single woman in the group of fifteen or more women prisoners indicated in turn that their parents had never once told them, ‘I love you’ during their development. Murderers of children some of them might have been, but emotionally immature adults without loving childhoods, all had been. None of them had ever experienced a childhood bordering on ‘normality’; and all of them had unknowingly been thrust into the responsibilities and body of an adult whilst never having matured beyond the emotions of an unhappy child.

In my life I have received many letters and Christmas cards from famous people, including Prime Ministers, an Irish President, Royalty and even International film stars. I have even received personal telephone calls to my home from the late Princess Diane and the late South African President Nelson Mandela. But the letters and Christmas greetings I treasure the most are the ones I received from every female prisoner who was a member of my prison Relaxation Training Group at Newhall Prison, Wakefield during the June-December period of 1989. Their letters indicated that some had told their parents, other family members and their children ‘I love you’ since the prison group I ran for them had concluded. All the letters I received that Christmas time from around fifteen women contained Christmas greetings and gratitude for having bothered to come into the prison and help them to utter those magic words to significant others in their lives and to myself, “‘I love you’, Mr Forde.”

I dedicate my song today to my longstanding Facebook friend, Anne Lister, of Brighouse. Anne has always done so much for the many friends she has and the numerous contacts she knows to be in ill-health or in need of a visit by a cheerful face. She is the warmest of all spirits who grace this earth. Whether it is her gifts of beautiful marmalade or her comfort, cheerfulness and compassion she spreads around the world each time she visits somebody, it turns out to be 'the finest of days' for that lucky person. Every time you visit someone, Anne, as soon as you leave, they want you back again. In order to reflect that effect you have on people, I sing two versions of my song today for you. Just as we all want back the fine days that visit us, so we want you back!

God bless you, Anne, and may we all wish you the happiest of birthdays for this first day of September. I don’t know how old you are, Anne, (and wouldn’t dream of spilling the beans if I did), but can honestly say that when you visited me and Sheila last week and spent an hour up at our allotment in Haworth, you looked ten years younger and many pounds lighter than when we last saw you three months earlier! I can’t say you looked more beautiful than before, as there is only so much beauty a face can reflect, and an admirer can behold. The long and short of it, Anne, is that you’ve got the full package. Continue to be the loving Mary Poppins you are and to make the lives of all who know you and love you ‘A fine day’ every time you pop in and out of their lives. Happy birthday, Bill and Sheila xxx

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today; 31st August 2019

31/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Danielle O’Shea who lives in County Carlow, Ireland with her lovely husband and three beautiful children.

Today’s song is ‘Goody Two Shoes’. This song was by Adam Ant and was released on 7 May 1982. Following the dissolution of ‘Adam and the Ants’ in early 1982, Adam Ant pursued a solo career. His début as a solo artist, ‘Goody Two Shoes’ was written by Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni and was produced by Ant, Pirroni and Chris Hughes. The song details Ant's frustration with press intrusion, which was reinforced by the video and his clean-cut image.

The song was a hit, topping the ‘UK Singles Chart’ in June 1982 and later repeating the feat in Australia, where it topped the ‘Kent Musical Report’. Despite the success, this was his third and final Number 1 single. In the United States, the song was his first and biggest hit, peaking at number 12 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’. 

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I was 39 years old when Adam Ant released this song. I had always been an avid reader and I particularly enjoyed reading books by the American cartoonist, author, humourist, journalist, playwright and celebrated wit, James Thurber. James Grover Thurber (1894-1961) wrote about the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people.

Thurber came from a family of eccentrics. Thurber described his mother as a ‘born comedian’ and ‘one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known.’ He stated that she was a practical joker and, on one occasion, pretended to be crippled and attended a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed. His father was a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor. He was undoubtedly a Walter Mitty character and I always held the view that he was in Thurber’s mind when he wrote his short story ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ which has twice been adapted for film in 1947 and again in 2013.

When Thurber was seven years old, he and one of his brothers were playing a game of William Tell, when his brother shot James in the eye with an arrow. He lost that eye, and the injury later caused him to become almost entirely blind. James Thurber was unable to participate in sports and other activities in his childhood because of this injury, but he developed a creative mind which he used to express himself in his writings.

About the time that Adam Ant’s record was released, I was reading one of James Thurber’s short stories. The story title escapes me, but it was about a young boy who could do no wrong. Indeed, he was so good and proper in all he said and did that he was always getting medals pinned on his chest for being a ‘Goody, Goody Two Shoes’; a sort of American equivalent to an English primary school teacher pinning a ‘gold star’ on a pupil for their exemplary behaviour.

In Thurber’s moralistic tale, the ‘Goody, Goody Two Shoes’ boy is in the park alone when a man-eating lion or tiger (I forget which) escapes from the zoo and enters the park looking for something/someone to eat. The beast is very hungry. The boy sees the dangerous prowler, becomes terrified and hides behind a large bush. There are a small forest of large bushes surrounding the ensconced boy and he believes himself to be concealed in the safest spot. As the prowling creature approaches the bushes and smells human flesh nearby, it starts to growl in pleasurable anticipation of the human meal to follow. The creature continues to smell the direction from where the smell of human flesh is coming from and roars ever so loudly the closer it gets to its prey.

The goody-two-shoes boy panics and starts to shake with fear, and as he trembles in terror, all the ‘good behaviour’ medals pinned and worn proudly on his chest start to rattle loudly; thereby revealing his hidden location to the preying beast. The beast pounces on the goody-two-shoes boy behind the bush and gobbles him up!

For the life in me (bearing in mind that it was 37 years ago since I read this story), I cannot remember the moral of the tale which Thurber always concluded with. However, were I to give the story a moral, it would probably be a cynical one. I would have to say something like ‘Goodness doesn’t always carry its own reward!”.

I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Danielle O’Shea, whose Facebook posts reveal her to be a woman of ‘infinite wholesomeness and goodness’. Sheila and I called in on their farm a few years ago while we were holidaying in Ireland and on our way to Waterford, where I was born. The O'Shae family gave us a most hospitable welcome, along with refreshments on their terrace. Danielle, her husband and children represent one of the nicest families I have met with values that I wished every family had. I had never seen such well behaved and respectful children. In fact, the reason Danielle came to mind when I was thinking of a suitable person to whom to dedicate today’s song was that Danielle and my wife, Sheila, are so alike that it would be simply impossible ever imagining either acting improperly at any stage of their lives; or would it? Thank you for being my Facebook friend, Danielle. Our regards to you and your lovely family. Sheila and Bill x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 30th August 2019

30/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to our Italian Facebook friend, Giusy Lazzaretti, who lives in Rome, Italy.

Today’s song is a rare version of ‘Come Back to Sorento’. Sometimes known as ‘Torna a Surriento’, this is a Neapolitan song composed in 1902 by Italian musician Ernesto De Curtis to words by his brother, the poet and painter Giambattista De Curtis. The song was copyrighted officially in 1905 and has become one of the most popular songs of this traditional genre, which include others such as ‘O Solo Mio’, ‘Funicula’ and ‘Santa Lucia’. This version I sing you today was composed by Claude Aveling in 1911.

'Torna a Surriento' has been sung by performers as diverse as: Frank Sinatra: Beniamino Gigli: Elvis Presley: Dean Martin: Jerry Vale: Enrico Caruso: Jose Carreras: Placido Domingo: Luciano Pavatotti : Meat Loaf: Mario Lanza: Paul Anka and Alfie Boe, among many others. This song peaked at Number 17 on the ‘Billboard Top 200’.

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In 2017, Sheila and I had a month's holiday travelling through Europe by car, as having no immune system with my terminal blood cancer makes all flying in aircraft ‘off bounds’ to me now due to the recycled air factor, along with crowds in trains and on other public transport means. The last time I flew on a holiday to Crete, I was laid up in bed violently sick for half of my holiday.

My favourite European country (apart from my motherland, Ireland) has been Italy, ever since Sheila and I spent our first holiday there in Sorrento together in 2011. We also returned in 2017, as do all couples who have been smitten by Sorrento. Recently, Sheila discovered a rare version of this song written in 1911 by Claude Aveling. Sheila even discovered a rare recording of this version by the Irish singer Josef Locke.

I dedicate today’s song to the Italian friend whose home we stayed a few days at whist visiting Rome in 2017, Giusy Lazzaretti. Giusy and her husband were most generous to us during our brief stay at their house in Rome and couldn’t go far enough out of their way to help us. We met them as guests in their house and left their home as friends, with an open invitation to return free of charge anytime.

We were extremely happy when Giusy came to stay for two weeks in 2018. She loved Howarth and its beautiful surrounding scenery and its quietness. She spent a lot of her time walking up and down Main Street, around the entire area and across the moors. Giusy also helped us during her stay, humping hundreds of heavy paving slabs up to our allotment from my car at the roadside, as we were in the process of extensive improvements to it.

Just like the song invites the listener to 'return to Sorrento', Giusy, when are you going to ‘return to Haworth’ to stay with us again? Make it soon our friend. Bill and Sheila x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 29th August 2019

29/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friends, Stephen Bleunven and his partner, Michael, and Steven Spencer from Stalybridge, along with all my gay friends on Facebook who may or may not have declared their status.

Today’s song is ‘The Wayward Wind’. This is a country song written by Stanley Lebowsky (music) and Herb Newman (lyrics).

In 1956, versions were recorded by Gogi Grant, Tex Ritter and Jimmy Young, of which Grant's was the biggest seller in the United States and Ritters in the United Kingdom. The song reached Number 1 on the ‘Cash Box Chart’, which combined all recorded versions, while the Gogi Grant version reached Number 1 on the Billboard chart on its own. Billboard ranked it as the Number 5 song for 1956. It became a Gold Record. 

In 1961, Grant's recording was reissued and reached Number 50 on Billboard and Number 78 on the ‘Cash Box Chart’. That same year, Patsy Cline made a recording, which did not chart. In 1963, a new recording was made by Frank Highfield which reached Number 1 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’. The song made the ’Billboard Country Chart’ in the 1980s in a version by Sylvia, with accompaniment by James Galway. Members of the ‘Western Writers of America chose the song as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. 

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This song takes me back to my early teenage years. I was aged 13 years when I heard it on the wireless (the radio for you youngsters under 60 years of age). I loved the song instantly because the story tells of ‘a man who yearned to wander and who was born the next of kin to the wayward wind’. There is a time in the life of a young man when the wanderlust is prone to bite, and I started to get itchy feet after the age of 19 years.

In the generation before I was born, working-class men and women could be anticipated to be born and die within a ten-mile radius. In all probability, they’d be Christened, married and buried within the same church: they’d never travel beyond their county shire, and would marry a partner from the same village, and with whom they were schooled and even played their first street games.

From the 1960s onwards, something happened which seemed to tell the youth of the day that ‘they need not settle for what their parents once settled for’. A new age had dawned in which young men no longer wanted to dress in the fashion of their fathers (older men) as they once aspired to. The age of the ‘teenager’ had arrived. Young adults wanted to establish their own identities which were emphasised by their own distinctive dress sense, hair-cut styles and preferences of dance and music.

Television was becoming more popular, and corners of the world that had never previously been seen outside the homes of the upper-class or magazine illustrations were being brought into the living rooms of working-class homes. The British television documentary ‘Whicker’s World’ was a series that ran between 1958-94. Alan Whicker informed British society of the many changes taking place around the world; the mushrooming of hippy communes, the ways of the natives in Borneo forests at the other side of the world, a world of mass ‘ban the bomb’ protest and free love witnessed on the streets of San Francisco as hippies handed out flowers to passers-by between smoking a joint or riding a motorcycle down the free-way at 100 mph. Holiday travel shows started to appear on our television screens and the upshot was that this big wide world of ours didn’t seem as restrictive as it once did or beyond one’s imagination to travel.

In an age when young men approaching their twentieth year would have one time got married and settled down to start a family, joined the army or found some other way to push the boat out, I decide that I wanted a piece of this worldly action, so I decided to live abroad for a couple of years and to experience a different lifestyle and culture. Because of the amount of compensation I received from a traffic accident as an 11-year-old boy, this intention of mine became possible.

During the early 1960s, Great Britain was rife with racism and what was then defined as ‘colour prejudice’. I was disheartened, verging on sickened, that different cultures couldn’t get on with each other better, so, I emigrated to Canada. Ironically, the new country I’d chosen to explore and live in, along with the rest of the American continent I experienced was much more racist against people of black skin than was the country I had left! The main difference between America and Great Britain was that the white Americans rarely tried to hide their dislike for their black citizens whereas the more socially upper-class British person would tend to be more subtle and covert in their discriminatory practices against black and brown-skinned people.

I will never regret travelling around Canada extensively and seeing parts of the U.S.A. between the ages of 21-23 years that made those couple of years wonderful. Neither do I regret falling in love with the regularity of a Texan putting on and taking off his Stetson. I met so many interesting people who left a lasting impression on me, apart from learning a few important things about my own character in the strengths and faults department.

By the time I’d got rid of my wandering lust and returned to England, I was ready for settling down and starting a family of my own. In terms of needing to travel and see new places, one could say that my wanderlust had faded and I became ready to plant and cultivate my own garden instead of admiring and eating from the gardens of others.

I dedicate today's song to all my gay friends and in particular, Stephen Bleunven and his partner, Michael, and Steven Spencer from Stalybridge. Thank you all for being my Facebook friend. Bill x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 28th August 2019

28/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Cindy Sonday from Michigan, U.S.A.

Today’s song is ‘ Loco-Motion’. This is a 1962 pop song written by American songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. ‘Loco-Motion’ was originally written for Dee Sharp, but Sharp turned the song down. The song is notable for appearing in the American Top 5 three times, each time in a different decade: in 1962 by the American pop singer ‘Little Eva’ (U.S. No. 1); in 1974 by the American band ‘Grand Funk Railroad’ (also U.S. No. 1) and finally in 1988 by the Australian singer Kylie Minogue (U.S. No. 3).

The song is a popular and enduring example of the ‘dance-song genre’’. Much of the lyrics are devoted to a description of the dance itself, usually performed as a type of line dance. However, the song came before the dance.

'Loco-Motion' was also the second song to reach No. 1 by two different musical acts in America. The earlier song to do this was ‘Go Away Little Girl’ which was also written by Goffin and King. It is one of only nine songs to achieve this feat.

King and Goffin wrote ‘Loco-Motion’ in the hope to have it recorded by Dee Sharp, who had a smash hit with ‘Mashed Potato Time’. Sharp passed on the song leaving the opportunity open for Eva Boyd, who had recorded the demo. Boyd's version was released, and her name was changed to ‘Little Eva’. Boyd was actually Carole King's babysitter, having been introduced to King and King's husband Gerry Goffin by ‘The Cookies, a local girl group who would also record for the songwriters.

In the United States, ‘Loco-Motion’ was the sixth most successful single of 1962, according to Billboard. It was also the third most successful single of 1962 in South Africa. Little Eva version reached Number 2 on the UK charts. It re-entered the chart some 10 years later and almost became a top 10 hit again, peaking at Number 11. ‘Loco-Motion’ is ranked Number 359 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of ‘The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. 

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I’d been living in Canada around three months when I first heard this song being sung by Little Eva. The song instantly appealed to me. I was working on the National Pacific Railway (NPR) at the time and I lived in Montreal. My occupation with the railway was a modest job of low wages (waiter to the train patrons), but it enabled me to see many places far west of Montreal that I never would have otherwise seen, and at no travelling cost to myself as I visited them as part of my job.

The train journeys would comprise of both short and long runs. The long runs might take three days to reach their destination and then after an overnight stop or 24-hour stop-over, we might spend another three days returning to Montreal. Winnipeg was thousands of miles away from Montreal and going through Calvary (which is called God’s Country by the locals) was simply breath-taking. The train would pass through hundreds of miles of prairie without seeing one human dwelling, apart from an isolated farm. I would often see a ghost town of perfectly sound abandoned dwellings; huts built before the mines had been worked out and then deserted by their owners after the mine had shut down. With the mine being the sole source of employment (and the only reason to live there initially), all the houses became worthless and the town rapidly emptied; leaving tumbleweed and scavenging coyotes as the only future visitors to pass through.

When it snows in Canada, it snows! Coming from England, twelve inches of snow might represent a ‘depth’ that would cause many difficulties. There are parts of the American continent though, where houses in the more open spots might be entirely covered above the rooftop level. I will never forget seeing wooden homes where the snow had completely covered the chimney and where the occupants might be marooned for weeks until it thawed. Some have been known to be trapped inside their homes for a month or more, especially as many had no neighbours for miles. The Canadians refer to such snowy periods as ‘the baby months’ as there is nothing like a man and wife being marooned in their house for a month during a very cold spell for increasing the population count.

They say that whatever is being measured, America has bigger ‘this’ and better ‘that’ than any other nation striving to hold the position of ‘Top Dog’ on the international stage. While Japan pipped America to the post by having the world’s first high-speed rail line between Tokyo and Osaka in 1964 (the Bullet Train, which today can travel at 185 mph over 1,5000 miles across the country), America has always held the record for having the longest trains. There would be so many carriages on the trains I worked on that it would take me a full shift to walk down and serve each carriage of catering customers and then repeat the return journey. On long journeys, I would work 4 hours on, followed by 4 hours rest, and then four hours back on duty again.

When I was 'off shift' on lengthy train runs, I would sit in the storage compartment with the side-door open, dangling my legs in the open air as I gazed at the wild and beautiful landscape we passed through. I can well understand how some American country folk would hate to live in the towns and cities of the USA. It would be akin to making a true Romany traveller live a settled life in a three bedroomed house with a fenced garden.

Hearing today’s song reminds me instantly of my brief time working on the trains of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fond memories! I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Cindy Sonday from Michigan, U.S.A. Thank you, Cindy, for being my Facebook friend.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 27th August 2019

27/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Mary Forsey, from County Waterford, Ireland, along with all the other Facebook friends of mine I mention in this artcle.

Today’s song is ‘You’re the One I Want’. This song was performed by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John for the 1978 film version of the musical, ‘Grease’. It was written and produced by John Farrar.

‘You're the One That I Want’ is one of the best-selling singles in history, having sold over 6 million copies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France alone, with estimates of more than 15 million copies sold worldwide. In the U.S. the single reached Number 1 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ and on July 18 was certified Platinum for shipments exceeding 2 million copies. It was already Gold by April 12. It also topped the ‘UK Singles Chart’ for nine weeks in the summer of 1978; some months before the film had even been released in this country. As of 2018, it is still the fifth best-selling single of all time in the U.K., where it has sold 2 million copies. 

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There are certain people in this world that one would find hard to not have as a regular feature in their life. I am not only referring to soul mates, spouses, loving family members etc. All of us would miss such significant others from our lives. Neither am I talking about best friends who are always there for us, come hell or high water!

The people I refer to are those folks we consciously think about infrequently. They are the ones who enter and pass through our daily lives and leave it, without much conscious thought from us that they'd been here at all. They are the ones whose significance in our daily lives form a greater part of us being happy than ever truly registers in our mind. These people are our bedrock of humanity; caring clocks of our daily happy hours. They appear in our lives and alter it with an impact of compassion and influence that improves our character and overall sense of wellbeing. They are the ones who make our days all the brighter for the small things they do that mean so much to us.

We find them all around us and could not walk our road without bumping into them. If I were to stroll down the Main Street of my village in Haworth this morning, I would pass a woman (whose name I know not) who will give me the broadest smile I am likely to see in a month of Sundays. We have never spoken, apart from exchanging the time of day, but merely observing her cheerful passing brightens up my day immensely.

Most times I meet my allotment buddy, Brian Moorehouse, I will often find him in the process of giving some sought after advice or a helping hand to another Howarth citizen. Whenever I meet up with another artist friend of mine called George Bowden, he will warmly shake my hand, even though we see each other regularly as we live in the same village and we have known each other for the past six years. The mere warmth of his handshake says to me ‘It is lovely to see you, Bill’.

Such people are in the main, ordinary people of unpretentious nature, and whose overall behaviour provides extraordinary secret benefits to the disposition we carry forward towards the remainder of our day. In short, their very presence in and impact on our daily lives make us feel happy, welcome and wanted individuals. They immediately place acquaintances at ease in their company and unknowingly bring good things into the lives of others by simply being who they are and doing what they naturally do.

A few Facebook friends come to the forefront of my mind, although there are literally dozens whom I could mention in this message if time allowed.

Anne Lister is a veritable Mary Poppins who visits numerous people of ill health and always brings with her cheerful smile, a pot of her delicious marmalade. Facebook friend, Joseph Newns is a profound Christian, whom along with Mary Anderson, never fail to remind us of the goodness in the world. Facebook friends, Linda Sippio and Elaine Craven constantly keep us abreast of the many social injustices which society should constantly guard against. Facebook friend, Terry Balwinson, never fails to make me laugh with his jokes and quips on his Facebook page every breakfast time, and he remains a constant reminder to all us ageing citizens through his hard daily runs and his soft piano playing that life and culture can continue at sixty plus and that there is no need to resign our old bones to the rocking chair of mounting senility. I would greatly miss some beautiful classical music pieces if I could no longer access the pages of my Facebook friends, Jovanka Banjac and Bill Whitfield. I turn to their Facebook pages every time I seek a relaxing background. Should ever I start to think that I am perhaps doing more than my fair share of this or that, I remember the daily life of Facebook friend, Janice Jagger, who works ceaselessly and with good heart from dawn until dusk, every day of her life, loving, caring for and providing any comfort she can to her poorly partner and soul mate, Colin. Janice reminds me so much of my lovely wife, Sheila who tends to my every need from the first to the last moment of my day. Love oozes from their bodies and Colin and I remain so lucky to be blessed by their daily presence. Facebook friends, Matilde Antunes, Lynne Dransfield and Chand Mahtani each represent women whom I could so easily have loved in another life had fate and circumstances collided with our destinies in a different form.

I also refer to the many hundreds of people who have helped me survive six cancer operations, three years of fortnightly blood transfusions, two six-month periods of chemotherapy, twenty sessions of radiotherapy and many months of illness confined to my bed and home over the past seven years since I was diagnosed with a terminal blood cancer that leaves me without an effective immune system to fend off new illnesses. It is their prayers and constant moral support that has sustained me throughout this difficult passage.

I ask that anyone I have failed to mention in this lengthy expose of goodness that daily surrounds us, please forgive me; otherwise my list of Facebook friends and others in my daily life who mean more to me than I can ever adequately express would be never-ending.

The person I specifically dedicate my song today to is Mary Forsey from Waterford, the Irish county of my birth. Mary keeps me daily in touch with my beloved Ireland, and in particular, the village of my birth, Portlaw, and surrounding areas with her marvellous photographs she regularly takes on her daily rambles.

Thank you, Mary, for being my Facebook friend and for feeding my body and soul with the seasonal delights of your marvellous photography and the beauty of my homeland. When I next visit Portlaw in 2020 (God willing), you will be the very first person that Sheila and I will seek out to show us some of the rarer beauty spots. God bless you, Mary, and thank you ever so much for being my Facebook friend. Bill x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 26th August 2019

26/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friend, Christine Mountney, who lives in Greece.

Today’s song is ‘Let’s Jump the Broomstick’. This is a song written by Charles Robins and performed first by a black Nashville group, ‘Alvin Gaines & The Themes’, in 1959. It was subsequently covered that same year by Brenda Lee. Her version reached Number 12 in the United Kingdom in 1961. The song was featured on her 1960 album, ‘Brenda Lee’. The song is based on the popular custom and phrase ‘jumping the broom’. The song was arranged by Owen Bradley.

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This song was first heard by me at the age of 18 years. Brenda Lee had always been a favourite singer of mine and no sooner than I’d heard a few notes of the song I just knew it would remain a favourite song of mine.

I first came across the broomstick reference when I started work in the mill at the young age of 15 years. I overheard a conversation between two workmates one afternoon and heard one say, ’They’re living over the brush, tha’ knows.’ It transpired that they’d been talking about a Cleckheaton man they knew who’d hit it off with a Heckmondwike woman and within two months courtship, they’d set up house and home together to live as man and wife, only they’d never got married. Such unmarried couples were called ‘cohabitees’ in my youth and were generally frowned upon by most ‘respectable people’ and were often spoken of as ‘living in sin’ by the older citizen.

In later years, I became an avid reader and History was my favourite subject. I’d always been fascinated by the ‘Industrial Revolution’ period and the construction of the huge wide bridges spanning the rivers of Great Britain, the viaducts, the underground sewers, the railways, the canal tunnels and the building of the motorways. One book I read was about the navies who migrated to England to work building our roads and train tracks which cut and tunnelled through hillsides and rock mountains of our marsh and moorlands. As an Irish man, I learned that many immigrant workers were from Ireland and to save money, they would build humble shacks at the side of their working sites where they would eat, sleep and live with their wives and families. Other single women were also employed as cooks and laundry cleaners to the workers on site.

During the 19th century, should a couple from this humble working-class choose to get married, instead of paying for the usual marriage licence fee and going through a church ceremony, they would simply declare their love for each other in public and jump across a broomstick hand-in-hand which had been placed on the ground. Once the broomstick had been jumped, the couple were considered man and wife.

I have often wondered how such a marriage might have been later dissolved had it not worked out, and then an old working mate called Albert (whose tales we never knew to be true or false) told me one day when I raised the question. A few of us listened attentively for Albert’s explanation.

As usual, once Albert had gathered an audience to hear a bit of wisdom being spun from his lips, he’s string it out for as long as possible by getting out his pipe, tapping it on a hard surface and emptying it, carefully filling the bowel from his tobacco pouch, lighting it and taking half a dozen puffs of it before continuing with his explanation as his listeners eagerly awaited his tale.

“I’ll tell you how such marriages were dissolved to the satisfaction of the community!” Albert replied before lighting his pipe again and having a few more puffs. “The couple, who had once jumped the broomstick together but who now declared their relationship broken, were stood side-by-side in public sight of their friends, who again acted as witnesses to the ‘dissolution ceremony’. Only this time it would be the ending of their relationship they gathered to witness. A senior member of the community would then commence the ‘divorce proceedings’ by drawing the image of a heart in the sand, and then he would write the names of the man and woman side-by-side inside the heart”.

Albert would always puff on his pipe or light it again whenever he reached a crucial part of his story before concluding his tale.
“After their names had been written inside the heart”, Albert continued in hushed silence as we all waited for the punch line of the story, “ the couple would be handed (in turn), the broomstick they had once jumped over before living together (that had remained in their charge ever since their commitment day as a marriage memento). The man would erase the woman’s name from the heart with the broomstick before passing it to her. Then, she would erase the man’s name from the image of the heart. When this action had been carried out by the couple, the broomstick would then be jointly broken by the couple by them jumping on the handle of it together; thereby signifying the dissolution of their marriage.”

We never knew if Albert’s tale had been true or false, but by God, he knew how to tell a story and keep us all spellbound throughout its telling. I have since searched high and low in every book about the custom of ‘jumping the broomstick’ but have never found any explanation that told me how they dissolved such unions to the satisfaction of their communities. Only Albert knew if the story he told us during our morning tea break at the Brighouse mill was true or not, and he took that knowledge to the grave with him forty years ago.

Thank you for being my Facebook friend, Christine Mountney. Bill x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 25th August 2019

25/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Grace Chris Rumble who lives in Harlow, Essex.

Today’s song is ‘Do That to Me One More Time’. This was a song performed by the American pop duo Captain & Tennille. It was their 13th charting hit in the United States, and their second Number 1 hit on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart. The song was included on the duo's 1979 studio album, ‘Make Your Move’, and was written by Toni Tennille

After a decline in popularity from the height of their success in the mid-1970s, ‘Do That to Me One More Time’ was a comeback for the duo. According to ‘Billboard’, the song is about sex, specifically ‘male virility.’ ‘Do That to Me One More Time’ became Captain & Tennille's second and final Number-one hit (also their final Top 40 song in the U.S.) when it reached the pinnacle of the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart the week ending February 16, 1980. It was their highest-charting hit on the ‘UK Singles Chart’, where it reached Number 7 in March 1980.

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When I was training to be a Probation Officer up in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1970, the only feasible way of completing the course when my home base was in West Yorkshire was to share a bungalow in Morpeth with three other course members. One of us had been a vicar, another a sports instructor and I’d worked in textiles.

The fourth shared house owner was Matt, a 49-year-old miner who’d got the surprise of his life when the Probation Service accepted him for Probation Officer qualification and training. Within the space of one month, Matt had progressed from the pit face to Polytechnic College. He’s discarded his helmet, overalls and hob-nailed boots and was now daily suited and booted and adorned in white shirt and tie. His hands now held a pen, writing pad and study book instead of a pickaxe and shovel, although he often said “They will find coal dust in my lungs and under my fingernails the day I die, Bill” The entire mining village where Matt lived was proud of him, as was Matt’s wife and family.

As with all students, whatever or wherever they study, we would stay up until the early morning hours discussing the world and all its problems over a few bottles of beer and a smoke and not going to bed until we had set the world right. I will never forget one evening, the conversation eventually got around to sex and the youngest among us called Laurie started bragging that he and his young wife would usually have sex at least twice a night and had been known to make love five times one night before forcing themselves to get up the next day.

We were all married, and I would guess that I probably made love the least often with my wife (twice a week if I was lucky). The vicar among us, Max, wasn’t about to allow a young whippersnapper like Laurie to outdo him, especially as he’d frequently boasted that his bald head marked him out as the most virile of us all. The night concluded with Laurie and Max (youth versus experience) trying to outdo the other in the stamina stakes and come out as ‘Top Dog’. Whilst Max and Laurie continued to guild the lily, I sat back and listened in amusement.

Meanwhile, Matt, who’d been happily married for thirty years stayed very quiet. Matt was the most modest of men and was probably the most liked person on this course of mature students. He’d been married since the age of 17 years (almost 33 years) and had a family of four children and numerous grandchildren. Matt’s marriage span was longer than I’d been born and even stretched back to before Laurie’s parents had left Secondary Modern School. Matt was eventually invited to contribute his two penneth worth to the macho discussion taking place.

Matt had frequently talked about walking his wife along the cliff tops and the seafront where he lived during his weekends back home, and although we would only get a smile out of him when we used to press him if ever 'got a breezy bottom' on the cliff tops during his romantic weekends, we all guessed that they had gone the full distance on many a cliff-top stroll between Redcar and Middlesbrough.

After thinking a while, Matt smiled wryly and simply said, ‘It matters not one jot who did it the most. If tha’ does it right the first time, no second helpings are required!”, thereby revealing himself to be the wisest among all four of us.

I always think of Matt whenever I hear this song. Sadly, Matt never did complete the one-year course at Newcastle Polytechnic College. He lived in Redcar and would go home to his wife and family every weekend without fail and return for the first lesson (invariably late) on the following Monday; invariably. Approximately two months before the course ended, while driving home to Redcar for the weekend, Matt had a heart attack at the wheel and was found dead after his body was retrieved the crashed car. Fortunately, no other car was involved in this tragic incident.

Matt was ever so popular in his mining community where he and his family lived, and his funeral was attended by more people than I had ever seen gathered in one church. I cried throughout the entire service, as did most of the congregation. I remain proud of having known Matt and shared an important part of his life and year with him in 1971 at Newcastle. God bless you and all your family, Matt. Forever friends. Bill x

I dedicate today’s song to Grace Chris Rumble. As stated in previous dedications, the content matter of my dialogue which accompanies my daily song choice bears no relation to my choice of subject for dedication, and when it does, I clearly say so. Thank you, Grace, for being my Facebook friend.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 24th August 2019

24/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friends, Denise Gibson and Diane Howard who are two of the best dog lovers I know. I have far too many Facebook friends who are dog lovers to name all of them today, but I share this dedication with them all, wherever they are.

Today’s song is ‘Old Shep’ This song was written and composed by Red Foley and Arthur Williams in 1933, about a dog Foley owned as a child. The dog, which was poisoned by a neighbour, was a German Shepherd called ‘Hoover’. Foley first recorded the song in 1935, and again in 1941 and 1946.

The song was later recorded by many artists including Hank Snow and Elvis Presley and became a country classic; Hank Williams in 1942 and Elvis Presley in 1956. Others to cover the song included Johnny Cash, The Everly Brothers, Pat Boone and Clinton Ford, to name but a few.

On October 3, 1945, (at the age of 10 years), Elvis Presley sang ‘Old Shep’ for his first public performance. This was a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone. He came in fifth place, winning $5 and a free ticket to the fair rides. At sixteen years of age, in 1951, he again performed it for a talent show at ‘L. C. Humes High School’, where he was a student, and won an encore for his performance. Elvis' released his cover version in 1956.

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There is a wide held belief that men and women who have never parented children (whether through choice or circumstance) find their child to love in the form of an animal, with a cat, dog and horse being among the nation’s favourite pets. I would go so far as to say that the emotional bond which they have with their pet is every bit as strong as any mother or father could have with a child of their own. Like any good parent, there isn’t a thing that a loving owner would do for their pet if needs be.

I have known people sleep with their pets in their bed, on the covers, stay up and nurse them during the night if the pet was in distress for any reason, spend vast amounts of money on them in vet bills, give them their own special funeral, and mourn their loss for decades after they have passed away. When I lived in Canada 55 years ago, I would often pass one of the many pet cemeteries that had started to mushroom across the American continent from the 1960s onwards. I have even witnessed pet funerals with a cortege procession! Many people will get the same breed and look of dog in succession over their lifetime as a pet owner, and each time they look into the eyes of their current dog, they will still see the eyes of their very first dog staring back lovingly at them. And I will never believe that pets do not take on certain physical characteristics of their owner. How many times do we see both dog and owner side-by-side and half believe by their shared resemblance that the same mother gave birth to both of them?

I even know people, whom if given the unenviable choice of having to choose between the life and death of a human and a dog (each of whom risked certain death and there is only a split second to save one), that their automatic response (following their frozen pause) would be to save the dog and let the human die.

During the 1990s, one of the children’s stories I wrote was called ‘Midnight Fighter’. Like most animal books, the story was a huge success with children; so much that it was one of a few dozen animal stories I’d written to be selected for audio recording and radio transmission to primary schools across Great Britain. FREE ACCESS to the story with a musical backing track and professional read can be obtained through: http://www.fordefables.co.uk/midnight-fighter.html (any child between 5-11 will love it).

I remember that this was the most-costly audio tape to produce of all the audio tapes that were produced for school radio (almost £8,000 twenty-five years ago).

Incidentally, should any reader of mine want to read about the most popular dog story I ever wrote, they should look up ‘Tales of Bernard’ which is sold in either e-book format or hardback. The book is ideally suitable for 5-12-year olds plus any adult dog lover. They can be bought from https://www.lulu.com/, Amazon or www.smashwords.com by accessing: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353568

The story of ‘Midnight Fighter’ was based on a true story about the twin foal of a ‘Quarter Horse’ born in the stables of a Mirfield farm. Being both rare and dangerous for any twin foal to be born to a mare, one foal was stillborn and the other was left with severely damaged legs that indicated it would never be able to walk properly or run. The foal’s mother had Laminitis and was unable to provide milk for the surviving foal. The vet recommended that the owner immediately have the foal ‘put down’.

Faced with this dilemma (especially being a busy farmer on her own with no time to bottle feed the foal for the first few months of its life every four hours, and run her large farm), an infant teacher from Huddersfield (who was the female farmer’s girlfriend), said she would provide the necessary cover. The teacher was just starting her long six week’s summer holidays and agreed to stay with the poorly foal the entire summer. This involved sleeping in the foal’s stable with her 24/7 and bottle feeding her with milk every four hours. Within the six week’s school holiday period, the foal managed to survive but was still damaged in the legs. Still, the owner refused to put it down until she had exhausted every avenue. The owner then spent over £30,000 over the next eighteen months paying for treatments and two operations on the foal before finally realising that it was more humane to have ‘Midnight Fighter’ put to sleep.

This story is entirely true, and I was privileged to have a top photo graphist take snaps of ‘Midnight Lady’ and myself before she had her two operations on her legs. Afterwards, I supplied the photographs to Mary Jackson, who was perhaps the most distinguished horse painter in Yorkshire, and Mary painted me a beautiful painting that holds pride of place among all my paintings.

Being a children’s story that was suitable for 5-11-year olds listeners and readers, I knew that the chances of the ‘Midnight Fighter’ emerging from her operations would be very slim, so I wrote the story and gave it a happy ending while the foal lived, and before its first and final Christmas it would ever know. The book raised tens of thousands of pounds for cerebral palsy charities.

The true story of ‘Midnight Fighter’ did, however, reveal the extraordinary lengths a person/couple will go to and the amount of time and affection they will lavish on an animal they love. I have resisted singing today’s song until well into my second year of daily singing practice as it makes me so sad to sing the story and I always cry, whether noticeably or inwardly whenever I hear or sing the song. I hope that you enjoy my rendition ‘Old Shep’.

I dedicate today’s song to dog lovers Diane Howard and Denise Gibson plus all my other Facebook friends who are dog lovers. 

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 23rd August 2019

23/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Sally Codman from Huddersfield

Today’s song is, ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’. This song was written by Danny Whitten. It was first recorded by Crazy Horse and issued as the final track on side one of their 1971 eponymous album. It was Whitten's signature tune, but gained more fame via its numerous cover versions, especially that by Rod Stewart. In the United Kingdom, it topped the ‘UK Singles Chart’ as a double A-side with ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’ in 1977.
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All good marriages that last the length of time have effective communication at its heart. Space must always exist to position talking to each other at the top of the relationship agenda. Whatever occupies too much of your time and exhausts you, whether it be parenting children, looking after the needs of parents in failing health or working all the hours God sends either outside or inside the home, the less a couple talk to each other, the more trouble they are storing up in the long run.

Talking about what worries one is the main nutrient of any healthy relationship. Fail to talk with or listen attentively to one’s partner is a recipe for disaster down the line. So many people in stressful work positions come home and the first thing they do is to off-load the terrible day they have had to their partner. The last thing their tired partner wants to hear as they are preparing the family meal or is getting the children ready for bed, is their partner letting off steam in their ear, instead of having off-loaded their stress onto the person who’d caused it in the first place in the workplace!

While talking itself represents an essential start to establishing a good relationship, only expressing one’s thoughts and feelings honestly will maintain a healthy relationship between a couple.
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My own personal experiences have shown me that even when one always expresses oneself honestly in any relationship, such truth doesn’t always mean that one’s partner will do the same. Take for example one side of a marriage partnership who suspects their other half is being unfaithful and voices their concern honestly. Having been confronted with their suspected wrong deed doesn’t mean that the unfaithful partner will admit to having an affair. Indeed, the majority of confronted adulterers would be more likely to automatically deny it and try to brave-out their dishonesty the first time they were confronted and challenged.

As a Probation Officer of 27 years, who undertook the role of Marriage Guidance Counsellor for four years of his career, I know that the greatest reason for marital breakdown is a lack of communication between a couple, just as is the greatest reason put forward towards saving a rocky relationship is encouraging the couple to talk honestly to each other about ones’ positive and negative feelings, one’s fears, one’s hopes; anything that affects one’s overall sense of well-being.

Whatever the nature of one’s upbringing, no subject should ever be ‘off the agenda’. However threatening or uncomfortable one may find oneself in discussing any topic of a highly personal nature, staying quiet about one’s real concerns should never be a serious consideration. If you don’t discuss whatever is worrying you in an honest and sensitive manner, you are more likely to blurt it out during a future row, and at a time when you are less concerned if you hurt the other person’s feelings.

The two most threatening topics to discuss in all couple relationships are undoubtedly sex and money, with role expectation and allocation running a close third.

There are still too many households where austerity rules supreme. In my youth, the husband was the breadwinner who brought home the wage and his wife was the one who managed the weekly income and household expenditure. I will never forget my mother once telling my father on a short week when his wages had been reduced, that anyone can economically manage a household effectively if the wage earner brought in more than was going out, but nobody could perform this function in reverse!

It has become so easy to fall into debt today, especially by families who start off on the breadline. A recent study showed that a third of the country owes between £5000 and £10,000 on credit cards and other indebted means (excluding mortgages), and it is estimated that at least one-third of the country is less than two paydays away from not being able to pay their mortgage or rent on the property they occupy. One of the main difficulties when one partner falls into heavy debt (whatever the reason), is that they become more secretive in their problem behaviour, usually out of shame or to avoid rows and confrontations, and won't own up to having a problem until it can no longer be denied to all and sundry.

Regarding any sexual problems between a couple, the most common problems include frequency (either too often or too rarely) and the nature of love making practices engaged in (unacceptable to one partner)) to produce pleasure and satisfaction. 'Golden Rule Number One' of all marriage guidance counselling is that the only things which are ‘on’ or ‘off’ limits are those things that both parties agree to. In situations where sexual relationships have either ceased or is unsatisfactory for any couple, 'Golden Rule Number Two' advises the couple to have no sexual or physical contact of any nature in bed, between one and the next session. They are advised to talk to each other in bed though. After a few weeks, they are given permission to hold hands in bed but only while they talk to each other. When they stop talking, they are told to stop holding hands. By a few months along the line, communication between the parties in bed have been hopefully established and couples are more likely to tell the therapist or counsellor that they found themselves breaking the rules and making love. All of this is only relevant, however, in situations where both man and wife genuinely want their marriage to improve and where they are prepared to constructively and positively enter into the marriage guidance and counselling sessions.

I have started to dedicate each daily song to one of my Facebook friends. Please note that there is not an automatic connection intended between the subject matter discussed and the subject of the dedication, as I have every reason to believe that Sally and her husband are as happily married as Sheila and I are.

Today’s song to my Facebook friend, Sally Codman from Huddersfield. Thank you for being my friend, Sally. Bill x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 22nd August 2019

22/8/2019

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I jointly dedicate today’s song to three of my Facebook friends, Elaine Craven, Lorna Gregory from London, my American Facebook friend, Linda Sippio, and all my Facebook friends of non-white skin complexion who have been touched by the cruelty of racism and bigotry during their lives.

Today’s song is ‘A Change is Gonna Come’. This song has been sung by several artists, the most prominent being Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke. The song initially appeared on Cooke's album ‘Aint that Good News’ which was released mid-February 1964. A slightly edited version of the recording was released as a single on December 22, 1964. Produced by Hugo and Luigi the song was arranged and conducted by ‘Rene Hall’ as the ‘B’ side to ‘Shake’.

The song was inspired by various personal events in Cooke's life, most prominently being an event in which he and his entourage were turned away from a ‘Whites only’ motel in Louisiana. Cooke felt compelled to write a song that spoke to his struggle and of those around him, and that pertained to the ‘Civil Rights Movement’ and ‘African Americans’. The song contains the refrain, "It's been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come."

Though only a modest hit for Cooke in comparison with his previous singles, ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ is widely considered Cooke's best composition and has been voted among the best songs ever released by various publications. In 2007, the song was selected for preservation in the ‘Library of Congress’ with the ‘National Recording Registry’, deeming the song ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically important.’ 
‘A Change is Gonna Come’ was also chosen for the Spike Lee-directed movie, Malcolm X, for the scene at the end of the movie as actor Denzel Washington walks into the ballroom where Malcolm X will be shot and killed.

On October 8, 1963, whilst travelling to Shreveport, Louisiana, Cooke called ahead to the ‘Holiday Inn’ to make reservations for his wife, Barbara, and himself, but when he and his group arrived, the desk clerk glanced nervously and explained there were no vacancies.]While his brother Charles protested, Sam was furious, yelling to see the manager and refusing to leave until he received an answer. His wife nudged him, attempting to calm him down, telling him, "They'll kill you," to which he responded, "They ain't gonna kill me because I'm Sam Cooke." When they eventually persuaded Cooke to leave, the group drove away but when they arrived at the ‘Castle Motel’ on Sprague Street downtown, the police were waiting for them and arresting them for disturbing the peace. The incident was reported in ‘The New York Times’ the next day headlined, ‘Negro Band Leader Held in Shreveport,’] but African-Americans were outraged. In 2019, then-Shreveport mayor Adrian Perkins apologized to Cooke's family for the event and posthumously awarded Cooke the key to the city. Ironically, he was given the key to the city which had closed their doors to him and his family fifty -six years earlier because they were black-skinned.

Cooke incorporated his own personal experiences as well into the song, such as encounters in Memphis, Shreveport and Birmingham, to reflect the lives and struggles of all African-Americans of the time. The lines "I don't know what's up there / Beyond the sky" could possibly refer to Cooke's doubt for absolute true justice on earth. The final verse, in which Cooke pleads for his ‘brother to help him’, is a metaphor for what Alexander described as ‘the establishment’ and what most believe to be represented in his fellow man (meaning his white fellowman). The verse continues, 'But he winds up knocking me / back down on my knees’ reflecting that over centuries, the white race kept the black race on their knees each time they rose up to demand equality. Cooke was also aware of the significance on non-action and a failure to protest by many of his black brothers and sisters who kept quiet about such injustice. He viewed such failure to ‘speak out and resist injustice’ as essentially colluding with the whites; thereby ensuring that the black race stayed on their knees, and delayed the coming of change that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s heralded.

It is appropriate that a song that became an anthem for the ‘Civil Rights Movement’, and is widely considered Cooke's best composition, has garnered significant praise. In 2005, the song was voted Number 12 by representatives of the music industry and press in ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine's ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. The song is also among three hundred songs deemed the most important ever recorded by ‘National Public Radio’ (NPR) and was selected by the ‘Library of Congress’ as one of twenty-five selected recordings to the ‘National Recording Registry’ as of March 2007. Acclaimed Music ranked it as ‘The 46th Greatest Song of All Time’, as well as the third best song of 1964. NPR called the song "one of the most important songs of the civil rights era."

Despite its acclaim, legal troubles have haunted the single since its release. A dispute between Cooke's music publisher, ‘ABKCO’, and record company, ‘RCA Records’, made the recording unavailable for much of the four decades since its release. Although the song was featured prominently in the 1992 film’ Malcolm X’, it could not be included in the film's soundtrack. By 2003, however, the disputes had been settled in time for the song to be included on the remastered version of ‘Aint that Good News’, as well as the Cooke anthology ‘Portrait of a Legend’.

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Ever since my life was saved by the skilful hands of a West Indian surgeon at Batley Hospital in 1954 after a serious accident I incurred left me with multiple life-threatening injuries and a damaged spine that prevented me walking for three years, I have been a person who has fought against all manner of discrimination; and in particular, racism and sexism.

One saw very few black-skinned citizens in Great Britain during the 1950s, yet the black faces one did see were always viewed with unwarranted suspicion. By 1960, Great Britain was witnessing increased migration from the West Indies and Pakistan and racism raised its ugly head high. The irrational fear of being ‘culturally swamped’ by black migrants was fanned by white bigots as racism spread rampantly across the land.

I recall black workers being denied trade union membership during the early 1960s. I regularly witnessed black customers in shops being served behind a white customer they had been before in the queue, and I have even heard the shop keeper tell a black customer they were out of stock of a particular item they asked for, even when the said item could be seen in large quantity on the shopkeeper’s shelves for all to see. I have seen a black man refused entry to a Working Men’s Club and I have seen landlords place signs in their windows that said ‘No Blacks. No Dogs. No Irish!’ A common slogan by gangs of young racists who deliberately used physical violence on many new immigrants was 'Paki Bashing'.

When we went dancing in Halifax weekly (where they had a higher ratio of black citizens), the British had their own cultural divide separating white from black rock and rollers. All the black dancers would congregate and dance at one side of the circular dance floor and all the white boppers would be at the other side of the room. The strange thing was that, unlike America, where racism was more openly practised, this culturally divide had appeared in the Halifax dance hall, not through any official design. It was as though a cultural (unspoken) understanding had emerged telling the black dancers, ‘You’d better not hang around on our side’. The West Indians could out dance any white person on the floor and when some of the white girls (for some reason black girls never came dancing here) joined them and set up some inter-racial partnerships, the white girls were looked down upon and were thereafter considered persona non-grata (damaged goods).

At the age of 18 years, I became the youngest trade union shop steward in Great Britain. Within a few months of taking up the post, a West Indian mill worker who applied to fill a vacancy was refused the job by the mill owners because of the colour of his skin. Two days later, I brought the 300 mill workers out on strike; with one of the reasons being their refusal to employ a black man. The strike made the national press and although the firm eventually backed down and offered the black man the job, he turned it down.

I emigrated to Canada in 1964 and travelled around a lot of America over the following years. I was saddened to see that racism in the U.S.A. was even far worse than I’d ever witnessed it in England.

I jointly dedicate my song today to three Facebook friends of mine, Elaine Craven, Lorna Gregory from London and Linda Sippio from America; along with all my Facebook friends of darker than white skin who have experienced racism first hand. Elaine. Lorna and Linda are all ladies who are more than capable of taking care of themselves and defending their own rights. They are women of substance who have spent most of their life fighting for civil rights and equality of justice for all whilst serving their communities in their professional fields. I am proud to call them all friends.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 21st August 2019

21/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my sisters, Mary and Eileen.

Today’s song is ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ (sometimes known as ‘Stuck in the Middle’). This song was written by Scottish musicians Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan and was originally performed by their band ‘Stealers Wheel’.

When the band performed the song on the BBC's ‘Top of the Pops’ on May 1973, the song charted at Number 8 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’. It also became an international hit, reaching Number 6 in the ‘US Billboard Hot 100’ and Number 2 in Canada.

The song is used in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 debut film ‘Reservoir Dogs’, during the scene in which the character Mr Blonde (played by Michael Madsen) taunts and tortures bound policeman Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz) while singing and dancing to the song. In an interview with ‘Rolling Stone’, Tarantino recalled:

The song has also been covered by Leif Garrett: Juice Newton: The Jeff Healey Band: Grace Potter: Dawn and Hawkes and many others.

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Although I was 31 years old when this song was first released and was starting my Probation Officer career in Huddersfield, hearing the song instantly transported my memory back to my growing up years of between 4-10 years of age.

I was the firstborn in a large family of seven children. Not surprisingly, after my Irish parents migrated to West Yorkshire from Ireland during the early 1940s with their first three children, money was scarce and the tied-cottage property we occupied until I was 9 years old was very small; comprising of one room where the family ate, bathed in a tin tub and lived, plus one small bedroom that held one double bed, in which our parents slept top-to-tail with their three children. We used an outside chemical toilet.

Even when we moved into a three-bedroomed council house on a brand new estate when I was aged 9 years, the arrival of the first of three of my mother’s brothers from Ireland (followed by the arrival of my other two Irish uncles to live with us in succession) meant that me and my next two sisters down still didn’t have our own bed, let alone bedroom. Such family sleeping arrangements were more common in the poorer working-class households of the 1940s and early 50s, whereas today, the mixed sleeping arrangements in the same bed between brothers and sisters would never be legally sanctioned and we would probably have all been placed into Care of the Local Authorities!

At the age of 9 years, I slept in the same bed as my 8-year-old sister Mary and my 7-year-old sister Eileen. My place in the bed was to be ‘stuck in the middle’, which in truth, I preferred. Each night before we went to sleep, we would always scratch each other’s back 100 times. We would alternate by turning to both left and right after each 100 scratchings had been reached to ensure that each of my sisters on the end would get their back scratched 100 times. Being slower in brainpower than myself, it took them months before they realised that their big brother who was ‘stuck in the middle’ of them received 200 scratchings a night to their 100 scratchings.

My father was a miner, and being on the early shifts most mornings, he would retire to bed nightly by 9:00 pm, whereas it would be closer to midnight before my mother had completed the housework and all her chores for the day and prepared my father’s lunch box for the day after and her children’s clean clothes for school. Dad was a strict man who would invariably shout in at us to 'be quiet' if he heard us talking in bed in the adjoining bedroom. Me, Mary and Eileen would have a ‘Do or dare’ game that would invariably end up with one of us getting walloped or shouted at by dad. We would pick a word (usually a rude word like fart or pooh) and we would each say this word. Each speaker would utter the word clearly and louder than the one before them. The game would end only when the volume of the uttered word reached shouting pitch and my father heard it. He would then come into our bedroom angrily and physically reprimand the recognised voice he elected to punish. While one of us was being chastised by my dad, the other two would be laughing into our pillows whilst we pretended to be fast asleep.

One of the worst things my poor sisters had to put up with was my constant bed-wetting. It later transpired that I have always had a weak bladder and whatever I did, I was prone to wet the bed most nights between the ages of three and fifteen years of age when I left school and started work. Even when I had nothing to drink hours before going to bed, I would still wet it during the night. I have never been unhappy in my life and my memories of my family relationships and development hold no significant bad memories for me that would suggest that I had an anxiety problem which necessitated me seeing a psychologist. 

Anyway, it cannot have been pleasant for my two sisters to go to sleep cosy and warm on a night and to wake up in the middle of a morning puddle!

I dedicate this song to my loving sisters, Mary and Eileen. Thank you for having put up with your older brother during our childhood years and I do hope that your memories of me don’t go down like a wet blanket with you. I love you both immensely. Big brother Billy x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 20th August 2019

20/8/2019

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I dedicate today's song to our friend in Singapore, Chand Mahtani.

Today’s song is ‘Too Soon to Know’. This song was written by country singer Don Gibson (whose own recording of that song was released in 1958 on Gibson's album, ‘Oh Lonesome Me’) and was subsequently covered by Roy Orbison, who had a hit single in the UK, and more modest chart success in the US with the song in 1966.

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How do we know, how can we tell when enough time has passed between having loved one person who broke our heart and risking loving another? A week, a month, a year or even a lifetime? The simple truth is that the response of each person differs from that of another.

As a former Probation Officer for almost thirty years, I came across many broken-hearted men and women who found it almost impossible to trust again after being betrayed, let down, dumped by another. They had been hurt so badly that they found it impossible to invest their trust again; often for tens of years after the initial event.

Today, the courting grounds, as well as the conventional ground rules of society have changed so radically that one has to be very steady on one’s feet and cool and collective in one’s considerations before investing the love of one’s heart in a total stranger. Where once we often met our life partners in the workplace, attending our church or at a local dance, today it is more than likely to be on the internet where we experience initial contact with a cyberspace courtship.

The men and women in most danger today (mostly women as opposed to men) of being conned by a potential mate are the ones who have arrived at the mid-stage of life and find themselves materially wealthy but emotionally and physically deprived of a good man or woman to love and share the rest of their life with. It may have been a divorce from a previous partner or their death which left one feeling ‘lonely’ and ‘insecure’.

It is only natural for an individual to want to fill that void; that hole in their life which seems to get wider and deeper the longer it remains empty. However, it does tend to be more likely that the con-women and con-men of cyberspace are often much younger than the men and women they are scamming; a fact in itself that the scammed individual initially finds appealing. And while most studies strongly suggest that the initial attraction of the older man towards the younger woman is predominantly a physical/sexual one, the attraction of the older woman towards the younger man is invariably emotional; although not exclusively so.

The internet is one of the most-used methods of social media today and represents a perfect means for many men and women scamming easy targets in the ‘lonely-hearts’ category. However intelligent, well-educated or streetwise one thinks they are, a person with an emotional and physical void to fill is in greater danger of being conned than a person simply out for a good time with no strings attached. It is too easy, very quickly, to fall in love with the image of a person one has never seen or spoken to in real life, as the emotional components are blindly invested online in the hope of matching one’s dream and aspirations. By the time, money is being requested for one emergency or another, the man or woman being scammed may have already convinced themselves that they have found real love and suspend all critical faculties which may otherwise have been in play. Some men and women are scammed of their entire life savings, their property and their self-respect before the penny eventually drops. Most feel so foolish, gullible and ashamed for having fallen into such an obviously risky trap that they refuse to inform the police or even their family and friends, lest they leave themselves open to ridicule and disapprobation by the ‘I told you so’ and the ‘how could you have been so stupid’ brigade of acquaintances.

In today’s society where austerity and low-paid jobs are still commonplace with a third of the population who struggle to get by from week-to-week, it is becoming harder to rent decent accommodation within one’s means and it is not unusual for grown men to be still living at the home of mum and dad even beyond their thirties! I have known so many women with their own property become easy bait to the snares of such predators. I speak of those women living on their own. The wealthier ones may own their houses outright but even the poorer ones who live in more modest council flats are fair game to the male predators seeking a roof over their heads instead of forever kipping down on the sofas of family and friends. It is not unusual today for some women to develop a relationship with a man one week, whom within the month has wormed his way into their home as a permanent resident until a better offer appears on his horizon. One could even say that this is merely one level up of having a ‘friend with benefits’ and yet it is far more common a scam in austere Britain today than the women who are conned out of their life savings on the internet by a manufactured character of stolen identity.

Returning to one's 'heartbreak’. How can we know for sure when it is time to move on after a heart-wrenching experience and trust another again with one’s heart? The simple answer is that one can never know with certainty. Even when one marries a good man or woman, it still takes time, often years, to truly know if it was the right decision for you initially. The simple fact is that loving another implies trusting another and that invariably involves risking getting hurt by another if it doesn’t work out! That’s why ’It will always be too soon to know’ until the egg has been spooned, broken and sampled.

Love and peace Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 19th August 2019

19/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to all those couples in secret communication with each other because of one reason or another that prevents them from conducting an open relationship.
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Today’s song is ‘Knock Three Times’. This song was simply credited to ‘Dawn’. Tony Orlando was not named on the record. The actual singers were Tony Orlando, Toni Wine, and Linda November, prior to the creation of ‘Dawn’ with Thelma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson. The song was released as a single which hit Number 1 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in January 1971 and eventually sold six million copies. The song registered well at Adult Contemporary stations, reaching Number 2 on Billboard's ‘Easy Listening’ survey. Outside the US, ‘Knock Three Times’ also claimed the Number 1 spot on the ‘UK Singles Chart’.
The composers of this song, L. Russell Brown and Irwin Levine, were thinking of the song ‘Up on the Roof’ and they wanted to write a song with that kind of lyrical flavour, about tenement living. In the song, the singer has fallen in love with a woman who lives in the apartment directly below him but has no clue as to her interest, so he asks her to respond by either knocking three times on the ceiling (yes) or banging twice on the pipe (no), and the chorus includes sound effects of the two choices.

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When this song was first released, I had just completed a one-year academic course at Newcastle Polytechnic (since re-designated Newcastle University) and had secured a position as a trainee Probation Officer in the West Yorkshire Probation Service, based in Huddersfield. I would spend the next year as a trainee in the post, learning on the job before being confirmed as a fully-fledged Probation Officer. Today, only university graduates are accepted to be Probation Officers and the full training involves a 3-years degree course and I-year in a trainee position.
Having been given my wings, so to speak, I was eager to fly to parts that no other Probation Officer had ever dared to fly to. The world was my oyster and I intended to learn as much as I could about human nature and the reasons why people do the things they do, in order to better understand them and help them. I was soon to learn, however, that life’s learning curves don’t come straight at you, but instead, usually, send you off down a wrong path of thought so many times before you appreciate that nothing is simple in this life of ours and that there are no easy solutions to people problems.

I will never forget one young girl I worked with during my first year at the Huddersfield Probation Office. She was a 16-year-old who had got herself into a load of bother at school. She either failed to turn up to be registered in a morning or arrived late and missed the first lesson or absented herself from school part-way through the day. She frequently got into fights with other girl pupils and overall was not a happy youngster. There was reported to exist, a poor relationship between the girl and her father, and her father had always been the strictest of parents with his children.
The Social Services would normally have been allocated contact with her via the making of a court Supervision Order, but her mother objected strongly to the Social Services being involved in the case. The girl’s mum had been brought up in Care of the Social Services and had bad memories of her years in Care and her contact with ‘nosy social workers’ as she described them. So, the court made the girl the subject of a two-year Supervision Order under a Probation Officer.

Whenever allocating the cases of young girls to be supervised, the Senior Officer executing the allocation process would automatically select a female officer to supervise the girl. However, on this occasion, the Senior Officer allocating the case asked me to supervise the girl instead. His rationale was simply that because the girl had no positive male role-model in her life, he felt it was important that she learned to trust a male before she was likely to open up in respect of her feelings.

Three or four months into supervising the girl, I appeared to be getting nowhere. She hardly spoke during our meetings. She obviously seemed resentful of having to report to a Probation Officer weekly when she didn’t want to be there and had much better things to do with her life. It took about six months seeing the girl weekly before I decided to switch tact and start visiting her at her home weekly instead of having her visit me at the Probation Office after school was out.

It was the right choice to make, and after a few visits, it became clear that her parents objected to her seeing a boy who lived in the same village and was two years older than her. Her mother feared her firstborn and only daughter might get pregnant, as she had done herself at the age of 16 years. Her father (whom I later learned had married her mother but who wasn’t her blood father), threatened to kick her out of the house if he ever found out that she was still seeing the young man in question.

The girl was obviously not wanting me to continue my weekly visits to the home and asked me if we could revert to weekly office visits. I agreed, providing she started talking and entered into an honest dialogue with me. She agreed and kept her word to the bargain struck.

It transpired that she felt strongly and lovingly about the young man and couldn’t wait to eventually set up house and home with him. She then told me about all the times she would sneak off school or fail to attend in order to secretly meet up with her boyfriend as her parents kept her in every night. There were no phones in homes then and mobiles had not yet been invented. Unless she truanted or sneaked off school, she said they would never have been able to meet up.
During one office conversation, she told me about the elaborate lengths they would go to communicate with and see each other. She would place a light in her window if she intended to truant from school the following day and he would often speak to her through the school railings. He was reportedly three years older than her. Both would leave love letters secreted in a wall in Scholes, Huddersfield (close to her home) and they would secretly deposit and collect their exchanged correspondence whenever they could. It was like some story out of my good friend’s novels; the late Catherine Cookson.

This song reminds me of this young girl, whom I sadly lost contact with after one year into her Supervision Order when she left school and obtained work in a hotel somewhere up in the Lake District. I arranged to have her Supervision Order revoked early on the grounds of ‘good progress’ and stated to the court that its continuation would be an impediment and not a help in her new life. She never confirmed if her boyfriend would be moving up to the Lake District also, but I strongly suspected that he did.

Whenever I hear this song, I think briefly of her and a part of me wonders how she fared. Given all the years that have passed since we first met, she would be soon collecting her pension now, come to think of it!

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 18th August 2019

18/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my niece, Sharon Jones who lives in Hightown, Liversedge.

My song today is ‘Rocking Good Way’. This song was first recorded in 1958 by Priscilla Bowman Bowman was given vocal backing by ‘The Spaniels’.

In 1960, the song was recorded as a pop and R&B duet by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton. The single was the second pairing for the singers and, like their first single together, it went to Number 1 on the R&B chart and was a top ten pop single as well. The song was written by Benton, Clyde Otis and Luchi de Jesus.

A cover version of the duet by the UK's Shakin’ Stevens and Bonnie Tyler was released on 30 December 1983 and reached Number 5 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ and Number 1 in Ireland. It was included on Stevens' 1984 album ‘The Bop Won’t Stop’.

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I dedicate my song today to my favourite of all nieces, Sharon who presently lives within a quarter of a mile where I grew up with her husband and children. Like most of my nieces and nephews, the nature of my terminal blood cancer and the absence of any effective immune system has prevented me contacting them over the past seven years. In truth, the extended Forde family is so large that were I to stand next to every one of my nephew and nieces in the bus queue today, I would not be able to recognise more than a fifth of them, The Forde family meet up every Christmas Eve for an annual meal and a drink and this is usually the occasion when we met the newcomers to the extended Forde family, like grandnieces, grandnephews and their recent children, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends with benefits, partners, live-in-lovers, husbands and wives (both old and new) of Forde grand-nephews and grand-nieces.

I suppose we are no different than other large families, insomuch as we too experience our ups and downs, who’s in or out this year, and whose cupboard has the newest skeleton to rattle and gossip about. I would love to be able to come back in a hundred years and trace the family tree back to my own grandparents.

From the family tree my daughter, Rebecca had traced, I know that my paternal English grandfather spent some time in an Irish prison and when he was released, he had changed his surname by knocking the ‘e’ off the end of ‘Forde’, resulting in a line of ‘Fordes’ and ‘Fords’ thereafter emanating from the same bloodline. I know that my maternal grandfather was ‘on the run’ after the Easter Uprising in Dublin in 1916 before getting married and going to ground as a bicycle repairer in Portlaw, County Waterford and having seven children. And it is highly suspected by those Fordes who seek the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that there have been a number of distant past Fordes (before my parent’s birth) who were brought up by a woman who they believed to be an aunt, and who was, in fact, their unmarried mother posing as their aunt!

There are some Fordes who are 'badder' or 'better' than other Fordes at this or that and some who will undoubtedly make successes of their lives and others who will probably struggle to make anything at all worthwhile out of their lives. In short; the extended Forde family is not much different than most other large families in the land, perhaps with one exception: from the Queen Bee down to the humblest of workers, everyone has a rebel streak running through them.

I dedicate today’s song to my favourite niece, Sharon. Have a lovely day, Sharon and have a drink for me if/when you open the wine bottle. Lots of love from your Uncle Billy and Sheila x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 17th August 2019

17/8/2019

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Today’s song is dedicated to my niece Emily whose birthday it is.

Today’s song is, ‘The Best of My Love’. This was a song by American band ‘The Emotions’ from their fourth studio album ‘Rejoice’ (1977). It was composed by Maurice White and Al McKay of ‘Earth wind and Fire’ and was produced by Maurice White and Clarence McDonald.

Released as the album's lead single on June 9, 1977, the song topped both the US ‘Billboard Hot 100’ and the ‘US Billboard R&B Chart’. It also reached the Top 5 in the UK and Canada, the Top 10 in New Zealand, and the Top 20 in Australia.
‘Best of My Love’ won a Grammy at the ‘20th Grammy Awards’ (1977) for ‘Best R&B Performance by A Duo Or Group With Vocals’. It also won an ‘American Music Award’ for ’Favourite Soul/R&B Single’.

The song was ranked at number 87 on ‘The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs’. It was also the third biggest pop song of 1977 and the fifth-biggest R&B song of 1977. ‘Best of My Love’ has been certified platinum in the US by the RIAA and silver in the UK by BPI.

Recent reviews have been largely positive, and the song continues to appear on ‘Best of the '70s’ lists. In 2015, ‘Billboard Hot 100’ ranked the song at Number 1 on their list of the ‘Top 40 Biggest Girl Group Songs of All Time’. Billboard also ranked the track at Number 10 on their list of ‘100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time’. In 2018, ‘Best of My Love’ was ranked at Number 6 on Heavy’s list of ‘Top 51 Best Love Songs: The Heavy Power List’.

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I dedicate today’s song to my favourite of all nieces, Emily (but please don’t tell my other nieces, Emily, as I would hate for them to be jealous). I know very little about my niece Emily who is the daughter of my brother Peter and his wife, Linda. What I do know about her though is that she is very respectful and is a good mother to her son. It has always been easy to see a similar Forde face in both Emily and my daughter, Rebecca.

Have a lovely birthday, Emily, and know this; whilst I love all my nieces, I give the best of an uncle’s love to you, the niece I love most of all (but please don’t shatter the dreams of my other nieces by telling them this well-guarded secret). I hope that your special day brings much love, peace and happiness…and… lots of cake and wine. Love from Uncle Billy and Sheila x

Love and peace Bill xxx


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Song For Today: 16th August 2019

16/8/2019

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Today’s song is dedicated to all my Facebook friends who found it extremely difficult to trust another man or woman after being badly let down by someone they once loved deeply.Today’s song is, ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’. This was a 1967 song written by Cat Stevens and was originally released by P.P. Arnold in May 1967. Cat Stevens' own version originally appeared on his album ‘New Masters’ in December 1967.

The song has been widely recorded and has become a hit single for five different artists: P. P. Arnold (1967), Keith Hampshire (1973), Rod Stewart (1977), Dawn Penn (1994), Papa Dee (1995) and Sheryl Crow (2003).

Stevens made a demo-recording of ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’ in 1965 but originally hoped to become a songwriter. He wrote the song earlier to promote his songs to other artists but did not record it as his own performance until early October 1967 with guitarist Big Jim Sullivan. It did not appear until his second album, ‘New Masters’ when it was released in December 1967. He sold the song for £30 to P.P. Arnold, and it became a huge hit for her, as well as an international hit for Keith Hampshire, Rod Stewart, and Sheryl Crow. The song has won Stevens songwriting awards, including two consecutive ASCAP songwriting awards for ‘Song-writer of the Year’ in 2005 and 2006. 

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Written one year before my first marriage, by the time that Rod Stewart hit the Number 1 charts with this song in 1977, I was well established as a Probation Officer in Huddersfield. Many of the clients I worked with at the time had displayed suicidal tendencies in the past, some had eating disorders, many self-harmed, and a large number had an emotional disturbance, having been badly let down by a lover or marriage partner and finding themselves unable to give their trust to another.

I found this syndrome of ‘not being able to trust again’ as being one of their greatest impediments to emotionally resolving past negative experiences and being able to move on with their life. Indeed, I would say that the first year’s contact with any client I was eventually able to help, was largely taken up with earning their trust. This was crucial and represented the greatest worker hurdle of all to overcome. Before the worker could obtain the client’s trust, there was simply no way they would enable you to help them.

As I read the many accounts and comments of many of my Facebook friends today, I can tell that many of them are still stuck in this hurtful, non-trusting rut. It is important to understand that you essentially become the type of person you tell yourself you are.

We all engage in self-talk constantly. Indeed, 'self-talk' is a natural process of the mind. Such self-talk can be either positive or negative to one’s health, attitude, expectations and overall disposition. Tell oneself it can be done, and that you can do it, and your chances of doing it will significantly increase to the extent that you will most probably do it! Tell yourself that you will achieve a more negative outcome and you will be engaging in a self-fulfilling prophesy of failure. This is virtually true in respect of all things that are humanly possible within one’s personal resources at one’s disposal at any given moment in time.

The precise nature of our self-talk either weakens us or strengthens us! Self-talk reinforces the belief systems that we establish in our behaviour patterns and our belief systems (made up of both rational and irrational beliefs) govern our overall behaviour and greatly influence our response patterns (how one is liable to react in given situations). The simple truth with self-talk is that we can change it as quickly as we adopted it if we want to. Also, our self-talk patterns are carried from one situation to another in like manner. If for example, you tell yourself that you cannot stand this or that, not only are you telling yourself a palpable untruth, but until you change this irrational self-talk you will take your ‘I can’t stand it' attitude and irrational belief into the next situation/relationship, and the next after that! The lie that all holders of the ‘I can’t stand it’ belief tell themselves is that whilst they are whining ‘I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!’ the one thing they are indisputably doing is ‘standing it’. They may not desire it, they may not like it or even want it, but that is not the same as ‘not standing it!’

The same is true of all self-talk and all irrational beliefs (beliefs that cannot be factually defended). Our belief systems will hold many irrational beliefs; which although sometimes harmless to hold, can be beneficial to believe; even though they cannot be empirically proven to be factual. Believing in a God would represent an unharmful belief system that can benefit a person for instance by influencing their behaviour positively in a 'Christian' manner. On balance, however, the holding of irrational belief systems (such beliefs, for instance, that support racist and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour, is irrational, harmful and unhealthy).

So, if a person tells themselves ‘I can never love/trust again’, their actions will do everything humanly possible to ensure ‘that they do not love/trust again’. In short; think good or bad and you will feel good or bad and will probably do good or bad correspondingly. The views expressed in this paragraph constitute my entire life’s learning and research into human behaviour and response patterns over a thirty-year period which has been written about and reported on in continental social and medical journals and books.

This song reminds me of this belief syndrome and holding a rational and positive belief. The most pertinent line in the song says, “I’ll try to love again but I know that the first cut is the deepest’ (expressing a positive willingness to move on with one’s life whilst fully acknowledging their previous hurtful emotional experience). Trust me, in this respect, I know what I am talking about. Had it not been for a lifetime of positive self-talk, and the holding of a mostly rational belief system, I could not have achieved a fraction of the things I managed to achieve. Had it not been for my positive self-talk and belief pattern since I was medically diagnosed with terminal blood cancer in early 2013, I would not be alive today. Had it not been for my ability to believe in the power of goodness, there is simply no way that my body would have been able to deal with five operations under a full anaesthetic and twenty sessions of radiotherapy over the past 18 months.

I am not a miracle man, merely a positive thinking man whose belief system in self, God and my fellow beings acts for me in the most healthy and self-enhancing of ways.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 15th August 2019

15/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Terry Baldwinson.

Today’s song is ‘Hit the Road, Jack’. This is a song written by the rhythm and blues artist Percy Mayfield. It was first recorded in 1960 as an ‘a cappella’ demo that was sent to Art Rupe. It became famous after it was recorded by the singer-songwriter-pianist Ray Charles with The Raelettes vocalist, Margie Hendrix. 
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Charles's recording hit Number 1 for two weeks on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in October 1961. ‘Hit the Road Jack’ won a Grammy award for ‘Best Rhythm and Blues Recording’. The song was Number 1 on the R&B Sides chart for five weeks, thereby becoming Charles's sixth number-1 on that chart. The song is ranked number 387 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of ‘The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. 

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I was 19 years old when this song was first released. It was a very exciting time in my life. One year earlier, I had been elected the Shop Steward at the Dying Mill I worked at in Hightown, Liversedge, ‘Harrison Gardeners and Sons’. This was a family textile firm which had been in existence since the 19th century. It had 300 workers of both sexes, but mostly men.

For a young man aged 18 to be elected Shop Steward was unheard of. It eas a first and I was officially the youngest textile shop steward in Great Britain and made the national press.
The firm had never been on strike since it had first opened during the previous century.

Within six months of my stewardship, I was to call the firm out on its first strike that lasted two weeks and gained national press coverage again. There were two aspects to the strike; the first being for an increase in rates on the least profitable yarn for the workers to dye and the refusal of the boss to fill an advertised vacancy with a West Indian applicant. Despite being eminently suitable for the post, the applicant had been refused employment by the owners because of his skin colour.

1960's Great Britain was rife with racism and all blacks were discriminated against in the workplace, clubs, and all manner of institutions. Landlords often put up notices in their windows advertising vacancies but specifying ‘No blacks, Irish or Dogs’. I had long been an advocate against skin colour discrimination ever since my life had been saved on the operation table by a West Indian surgeon when I was 11 years old. The employees at Harrison Gardeners may have come out on strike for the ‘colour issue’ alone, but that was why I deliberately enjoined the two issues into one cause. Nevertheless, I was proud of my work mate’s response at a time when racial discrimination in the country was rife.

After the strike had been settled, coverage of the strike and the cause in the national and regional press brought me to the attention of the trade union bigwigs. They wanted to ‘fast-track’ me in the Trade Union organization, and I was offered a degree place at Ruskin College. I declined.

At the age of 19 years, I was also officially made the youngest paid part-time Youth Leader in the country, when the then Youth Leader of St. Barnabas Youth Club, Liversedge, Harry Field was ill for six months. Harry got the employment body and council to allow me to act as stand-in Youth Leader in his absence.

From 19 years of age onwards, I wanted to emigrate. I had reached that stage in life when a young man needed to do something different to push the boat out; either join the army, emigrate or get married and start a family. I had always been a good singer since my childhood and envisaged making a career out of singing when I went abroad. Everything within me wanted to travel; ‘to hit the road’ and knowing that I would come into a pretty penny in compensation when I reached the age of 21 years from a childhood accident, I determined to emigrate to Canada.

Four weeks after my 21st birthday, ‘I hit the road’ and made my way to Liverpool where I boarded the S.S.Sylvania. My plan was to make my living as a professional singer and I’d not the slightest of doubt that my talent would be quickly spotted after my arrival there. That was not to be, but ‘hitting the road’ at that time in my life turned out to be beneficial to my maturity as an individual in so many ways.

I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend from Leeds, Terry Baldwinson. Terry is a retired chap, whose daily quips I read without fail. I like his sardonic wit and even though we have never met in person, I envisage him being as fit as a butcher’s dog. He amazes me with all the weekly runs he does, and he thinks nothing about running five miles before he brews his first cup of the morning. As a man who is forever ‘hitting the road’, I hope you feel this dedication to be suitable for your lifestyle, Terry. Thank you for being my Facebook friend and for the many laughs you give me with your daily jokes on Facebook.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 14th August 2019

14/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friend, Matilde Antunes from Lisbon, Portugal.

Today’s song is, ‘Take My Breath Away’. This song was written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for the 1986 film ‘Top Gun’, performed by American new wave band, Berlin. It won the ‘Academy Award for Best Original Song’ as well as the ‘Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song’ in 1986.

The song peaked at number one on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’, and it also topped the charts in Canada, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Belgium. In 2017. Shortlist’s Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history".

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Apart from the obvious emotion of being deeply in love, there are not many things in one’s life that are literally capable of taking one’s breath away. Here are a few experiences of mine that took my breath away:

(1) Hearing my mother sing her songs every day of my childhood as she happily worked around the home being a wife and the mother of seven children; despite never being able to remember the proper words to the song or sing it in tune.

(2) Seeing my children born as they were taken from my wife’s stomach and hearing their first cry as they opened their lungs.

(3) Having two successive heart attacks in the space of one week; the second of which left me unconscious for four days.

(4) Maintaining my steadiness of voice as I told my daughter and other children that I had terminal blood cancer from which there was no long-term remedy or cure.
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(5) One and a half years ago, my absence of oxygenation in my lungs was proving very hard for me to exert any energy and I was bordering on the level of 80% lung capacity. I then read that singing helps to improve one’s lung capacity and decided to give daily singing practise a go. Nearly sixteen months later, I can honestly state that my lung capacity and the oxygenation in my lungs (which I have measured four times daily along with my blood pressure and body temperature over the past six years) has increased to ‘normal’ oxygenation levels of 98 or 99 average instead of the previous levels of 81 or 82 that existed since my second heart attack seventeen years earlier.

I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Matilde Antunes from Lisbon, Portugal. Matilde is certainly my type of woman as she is in love with the beautiful images of everything that surrounds her. I know virtually nothing of her private like (which suits me to the ground), as it enables me to imagine the kind of woman she is. There are certain women in this world who instantly appeal to the male eye; not because they are the youngest or most beautiful of woman within one’s gaze, but because one is able to sense a shroud of mystery and sensuality emanating from their unspoken promise, should one ever be fortunate enough to ever know them.

I often think that people born in Europe have a beautiful turn of phrase whenever they speak the English language. Often, Matilde will inform us that she will be ‘Facebook out’ for a few days, but being the woman of mystery, she is, she never gives any hint as to what she will be doing when she is ‘Facebook out’, or where she'll be or who she will be doing it with? You are a classy woman, Matilde; and you literally ‘Take my breath away’ with the exquisite manner you conduct yourself. Thank you for being my Facebook friend, Matilde. I hope you enjoy my song for you.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 13th August 2019

13/8/2019

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I dedicate today’s song to my American Facebook friend, Linda SippIo from the U.S.A.

Today’s song is ‘Cotton Fields’. This song was written by American blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as ‘Lead Belly’, who made the first recording of the song in 1940. The song was also covered by Odetta: Harry Belafonte: The Highwaymen: The Springfields: The Beach Boys and Petula Clark.

While barely making a dent in the US (number 95 Record World, number 103 on Billboard) the song succeeded across the Atlantic, reaching Number 2 in the UK's ‘Melody Maker Chart’ and listed as the tenth-biggest seller of the year by the ‘New Musical Express’. Worldwide (outside North America) it was Number 1 in Australia, South Africa, Sweden and Norway, Number 2 in Denmark, Number 3 in Ireland, similarly it was in the Top 5 in the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain and Rhodesia; Number 12 in the Netherlands, Number 13 in New Zealand and Number 29 in Germany. 

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My favourite recording of this song is by ‘Creedence Clearwater Revival’ on their (1969) album ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’. I had recently got married when this record first was released and was seriously considering obtaining the necessary qualifications at night school which I had avoided doing in my mid-teens so that I might do a degree in History and become a History teacher.

I left my education at ‘Dewsbury Technical College’ immediately after my 15th birthday and six months before sitting my ‘O’ level exams. Being the oldest of seven children at the time, I was fed up of not being able to replace school uniforms when they wore out or buy the necessary school equipment most of my peer group were able to have purchased on their behalf. I’d also missed nearly two years of schooling following a serious traffic accident at the age of 12 years, which laid me up in the hospital for nine months.

I was 14 years of age before I could return to school. When I eventually attended the technical college at Dewsbury (having taken and passed the examination whilst in the hospital over a year earlier) all the other pupils in my form had already commenced, six months earlier. Being in a constant state of educational ‘catch up’ frustrated me enormously, and my ego would not allow me to sit comfortably with being only number six in a class of twenty-four instead of number one or two (a class position I had grown accustomed to between the ages of 7-11 in my former school). Not being able to walk for almost three years after my accident, I was no longer able to participate on the sports field at the technical college or on the running track like my school peers. I was instead relegated to watching my peers from the side-lines.

Until I managed to turn my hobble of a walk into a more acceptable limp, I was often physically picked on by bigger boys in the class. After one such incident, when being picked on by a huge-sized pupil, I thought I would nip the bullying in the bud, so I hit him hard over the head with a chair and knocked him unconscious, sending him to hospital for stitches to his scalp. After that incident, the bullying and teasing of my ungainly walk stopped.

All in all, a constant lack of money, a bruised ego of not being number one or two in the class, loss of pride and my inability to walk properly, run or participate on the football and rugby field at; all these aspects told me that I was the ‘odd one out’ and I’d be better off getting a job and going out to work instead of continuing my schooling. That way, I could at least put some decent clothes on my back and a pair of non-leaking footwear on my feet if I earned some wages, besides contributing to the family coffers.

Over the next six years, I worked in two mills and spent four nights a week engaged in some sporting activity to improve my movement and ability to physically defend myself. I knew that it was foolish always to rely on a spare chair being on hand if ever my person was physically threatened by a peer. I emigrated to Canada for a couple of years at the age of twenty-one.

I’d become an avid reader of books after my lengthy period of hospitalisation as a young boy. Over the following years, my favourite subject was history; British, German, American, Irish and African, but mostly British history from the 17th Century onwards. The period of ‘The Slave Trade’, ‘The Industrial Revolution’, ‘The American War of Independence’, ‘The Rise of the German Reich’, ‘The Irish Easter Rebellion’ and the advancement of Civil Rights for black people in the U.S.A.; all these periods in world history fascinated me enormously and I couldn’t read enough on the subject to satisfy my thirst for historical knowledge.

I will never forget reading about the cotton pickers between the 17th and 20th century in Africa, Jamaica and America; the hard lives and abject conditions of poverty they endured before the first machine cotton picker was invented by John Daniel Rust in the late 1920s, thereby making manual cotton picking redundant. Ever since the 18th Century, in many societies, like America, slave and serf labour was used to pick the cotton crop, greatly increasing the plantation owners cotton crop. English plantation owners also made huge fortunes out of the slave trade and their plantations in Jamaica. Such wealth and vast profits buttressed the British economy and was an essential part of commerce for centuries before the slave trade was abolished. It is not stretching the truth to say that much of the wealth of Great Britain and the United States was built on the backs of poor cotton pickers and cane and sugar cutters of African origin; either serfs or slaves. It is these centuries of dominance by the white master over the enslaved black citizen what this song truly represents to me.

I dedicate this song to my Facebook friend Linda Sippio, from America. Linda is and has always been a strong advocate for the rights of all people and particularly abhors all aspects of racism and anti-feminism. These are two causes I have always strongly supported ever since a West Indian surgeon saved my life on the operating table after I received multiple life-threatening injuries as an 11-year-old.

From what I have read of Linda’s daily posts I believe her ALSO to be an astute historian of the ‘American Civil Rights Movement’. Thank you for being my Facebook friend, Linda, and please accept today’s dedicated song from your friend across the waters. The Atlantic Ocean may separate our presence but cannot distance the philosophy we share that is borne out of respect for our fellow beings and love for our family and friends. We remain part of the same wholesome value structure that spins this world of ours on its axis of love.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 12th August 2019

12/8/2019

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Today’s song is dedicated to my best friend and blood brother, Tony Walsh from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland. 

Today’s song is ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. This song was recorded by Elvis Presley and was written by Otis Blackwell in 1956. It was inducted into the ‘Grammy Hall of Fame’ in 2002. In 2004, it was listed Number 197 in Rolling Stone’s list of ‘500 greatest Songs of All Time’. The song is currently ranked as the 173rd greatest song of all time, as well as the sixth-best song of in 1956 by ‘Acclaimed Music’.

‘Don't Be Cruel’ was the first song that Presley's song publishers, Hill and Range’ brought to him to record. Blackwell was more than happy to give up 50% of the royalties and a co-writing credit to Presley to ensure that the "hottest new singer around covered it". Unfortunately, he had already sold the song for only $25, as he stated in an interview of American Songwriter.

Presley recorded the song on July 2, 1956, during an exhaustive recording session at RCA studios in New York City. During this session he also recorded ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Any Way You Want Me’. It is stated that Elvis insisting on 28 takes before he was satisfied with it. He also ran through 31 takes of ‘Hound Dog’.

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When this song was released, I was attempting to walk again as proficiently as possible, having incurred severe multiple injuries after a wagon had run over me two years earlier. This accident almost killed me and kept me in hospital nine months with a damaged spine and other injuries and prevented me walking for almost three years.

When I did regain my mobility of legs, I hobbled badly with a pronounced limp, due to one leg (and dozens of operations performed on it) being left three inches shorter than my other leg. Fearing that I would forever be a cripple, I spent the best part of the rest of my teenage years (14-21) exercising and engaging in any activity or sport that would improve my balance and increase the strength of my legs.

It was essential to improve my balance as much as possible as my short leg would so easily lead to my loss of balance and losing my footing. Such activities to improve my balance over the years included Relaxation Exercises: Transcendental Meditation: Auto Suggestion: Imagination Exercises: Indian Dance: Rock and Roll Dancing: Horse Riding: Judo: Amateur Wrestling: Table Tennis: Lawn Tennis: Lawn Bowls: Cross Country Running and Boxing.

Fortunately, I was to meet Tony Walsh who had come across to West Yorkshire from Ireland to stay at the home of a relative on Windybank Estate where I lived. Being both Irish and Catholic and attending the same Youth Club, we soon became friends. Tony had been a boxing champion of significance back in County Tipperary and he soon taught me to box a little. I was never quite good enough in the ring to win in a conventional manner by out-boxing my opponent, and as the World Champion, Rocky Marciano would do, I would take a dozen blows to the head and body merely to get one of my own knock-out blows in. It was in the boxing ring that I learned to outfox when one cannot outbox!

In return for Tony’s boxing instructions, I taught him how to bop better, how to hold a tune, and also how to hold a girl properly around the waist on the dance floor without getting his face slapped for the offence of ‘roaming hands’. I also gave him several valuable pointers on how to chat up a good-looking girl he was interested in and hold her attention for a night of romance. I must say in all truth that Tony turned out to be no better at dancing, singing and womanising any better than I was at learning how to box correctly. Still, the one thing we could do in equal measure was drink and fight.

I dedicate this song to my oldest and best friend, Tony Walsh and his lovely wife, Lilly. Have a wonderful day, and I promise, Tony, never to let on to your wife what you really got up to in your wild years on Windy Bank Estate. Your old friend, Billy.

Love and peace Bill xxx 

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Song For Today: 11th August 2019

11/8/2019

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I jointly dedicate today’s song to my son, William, and my brother, Peter, both of whom share the same birthday of August 11th. My son, William, is a Yoga Instructor who lives in Australia and my brother, Peter, is a retired Educational Phycologist who lives in Dewsbury with his wife, Linda. Brother Peter recently obtained a Doctorate which he has spent several years pursuing in his spare time. I am immensely proud of both son and brother.

The song I sing today is, ‘War’. This was a song recorded and made popular by Bob Marley. It first appeared on Bob Marley and the Wailers' 1976 Island Records album, ‘Rastaman Vibration’, Marley's only Top 10 album in the USA. (In the UK it reached position Number 15 in May 1976.) The lyrics are almost entirely derived from a speech made by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie 1 before the ‘United Nations General Assembly’ on 4 October 1963.

Bob Marley, along with fellow Rastafari, worshipped Haile Selassie 1 of Ethiopia as the incarnation of God and referred to him as ‘Ras Tafari,’ or ‘Jah’ or ‘The Lion of Judah’ which Marley does in many of his songs. To Marley, Haile Selassie was not only one of the most prominent African leaders of his time, but he was also identified as God returning to earth as ‘King of Kings, Lord of Lords’ (Revelation 19, 16); imperial titles born both by Haile Selassie and Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II before him. It was Menelik II, who created this self-styled imperial title in the late 19th Century after he succeeded in uniting Ethiopia. Marley did, however, accept Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity eight months before his death.

Haile Selassie gave the ‘War’ speech on October 4, 1963, calling for world peace at the 1963 ‘United Nations’ General Assembly’ in New York City. This historical speech was spoken a few weeks after the ’Organisation of African Unity’ (OAU) was founded in Ethiopian capital city Addis Ababa, where Haile Selassie chaired a summit meeting gathering almost every African head of state (The King of Morocco having declined the invitation).

This U.N. speech resounded even louder as Haile Selassie made a name for himself on the international scene in 1936 when he spoke at ‘The League of Nations’ in Geneva. There, Haile Selassie warned the world that if the members of the League did not fulfil their obligation to militarily assist Ethiopia against the invasion by fascist Italy, the League would then cease to exist as a matter of fact and the rest of the member states would suffer the same fate as his country. Three years later, ‘World War Two’ broke out. This visionary speech granted Haile Selassie much respect around the world, eventually leading to British military support, which helped free his country in 1941. Addressing the world again in 1963, Haile Selassie's words bore full weight.

In picking this utterance for his lyrics, Bob Marley thus projected two dimensions of the Ethiopian Emperor: the head of state as well as the Living God whom Rastafarians saw him as.

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‘War’ is probably the hardest of all Bob Markey’s songs for a non-Jamaican to sing. I first heard this song in the New Millennium when I twice visited Trelawny in Jamaica to work with 32 schools in this old Caribbean slave capital. I was setting up a Trans-Atlantic pen-pal project between 32 Yorkshire schools and 32 Jamaican schools to help increase a better understanding of the two cultures and to decrease, through greater awareness, discrimination between both black and white pupils. I also worked in liaison with the Jamaican Minister for Education and Youth Culture to get this project off the ground., along with the Custos of Trelawney (Mayor).

In conjunction with the pen-pal project, I wrote four books whose publication were funded by the 32 Yorkshire schools in the ‘Trans-Atlantic Pen-Pal Project’ along with the shops and business enterprises of Mirfield where I then lived. This funding enabled two thousand books to be shipped to Trelawney at the start of the New Millennium, which was sold and used to raise necessary funds to replenish school supplies and vital stock. We raised tens of thousands of pounds for the 32 Trelawny Schools and the Government even placed these four books of mine on the educational curriculum in Trelawny.

It seemed easier to attract the cooperation and assistance of the Custos of Trelawny and the Jamaican Minister of Education and Youth Culture after Nelson Mandela had phoned me personally at my home in Mirfield to say that he had read my ‘African Trilogy’ storybook and highly approved of it. He said that liked its contents immensely and considered all three stories to be ‘wonderful’. Soon after Mandela had personally endorsed my work, it was reported on ‘News 24 ‘. The Jamaicans loved Mandela and were, therefore, more than pleased to be associated with my books. By the time I arrived in Jamaica the first time, I was being approached by numerous educational officials and government dignitaries, who asked me to write a story that showed the Parish of Trelawny to be as important as New York in the record books. It took much research but I eventually discovered the facts that demonstrated this and wrote a story called 'Bucket Bill' (a nick-name that the Jamaicans in Trelawny affectionately bestowed on me thereafter).

While visiting one of the Trelawney schools out in a woodland part of the province, for the first time in my life, I got a sense of how uncomfortable and threatened one black person would probably feel in a crowd of white people in England. I was the only person in a town of black-faced residents that had a white face, and my educational guide (who was armed and employed to ‘protect me’) was at a nearby shack buying two bottles of pop to cool us both down in the hot afternoon sun. Everyone who passed me as I waited for my drink, looked at me suspiciously. This was the first time I ever felt ‘out of place’ because of my skin colour. The tables of cultural unease had been temporarily reversed!

Suddenly, a Jamaican carrying an extremely loud radio passed by, and booming from his ghetto blaster was Bob Marley singing ‘War’. As the other town residents heard the song blasting forth, they joined in singing in the wide-open street and banging anything that reverberated like the sound of a war drum as they gyrated their hips to the beat of the music. This behaviour was so usual that all residents who heard the song gyrated whether they were young or old and from a cross-section and strata of class.

When I got back to England, I made a point of reacquainting myself with the ‘War’ song of Marley’s and learning the words for my own personal satisfaction. My son, William, and my brother, Peter, have one significant thing in common with myself. All their lives, they have bucked the trend, resented the interference of authority for ‘authority’s sake’ and have rebelled in one way or another against the establishment and their employers. Then again; I would have to concede that all the Forde Family, from our parents down have!

Have a happy birthday, Will and Peter. Love from your father and big brother. x

Love and peace Bill xxx 


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Song For Today: 10th August 2019

10/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to Fiona. In memory of the good years, we shared.

Today’s song is ‘We’ve Got Tonight’. This was the fourteenth studio album by Kenny Rogers and was released in 1983. It is also his last with ‘Liberty Records’ before moving to ‘RCA Nashville’.

The title cut, a duet with Sheena Easton, was the debut single and became one of Rogers' signature hits, soaring to Number1 on the country charts and Number 2 on the ‘Adult Contemporary Chart’, and reaching Number 6 on the ‘Hot 100 Chart’.The title of the album comes from its signature track, written by Bob Seger and originating from his album, ‘Stranger in Town’. By comparison with Rogers' version, Seger's only reached Number 13 on the ‘Hot 100 Chart’, making Rogers' version better-known, five years after it was written.

The album hit Number 3 on the country charts and Number 18 on the ‘Billboard 200 Chart’. Despite lower rankings than many of his earlier releases, the album was still certified platinum in both the US and Canada.

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I was 41 years of age when this song was released and had recently separated from my wife 18 months earlier. I had fallen in love again with a lovely lady called Fiona and over the following years, we would have two children, William and Rebecca. My life and emotions were tested during these early years with Fiona when my first wife wouldn’t allow me access or any form of contact with my first two children, James and Adam, for two full years following an acrimonious separation and divorce which she initiated.

Without the support and ongoing love and understanding of Fiona during this period, my life would literally have proved unbearable. Fiona supported me both emotionally and financially during these times when money was scarce, but looking back, I would have to say that these were happy years as a loving couple.

I have always been an emotional man with strong physical needs and fortunately, I found myself in love with a woman of similar ilk. We both loved country and western music and Kenny Rogers, Crystal Gale, John Denver etc were favourite singers of ours whom we listened to often together.

Our relationship came to the end of its natural shelf life after both of our children had grown into adulthood, gone to university and flew the nest, Fiona felt the time to be right in her life to make a big career change and so she took up a high powered role as Head Counsellor in two of Northern Ireland's universities. For almost two years we lived apart and her return visits to the matrimonial abode became less frequent. By the time she indicated that she wanted a separation, we had both probably mentally prepared for a formal ending of our relationship. I won't deny that I felt sad for a few months but I eventually realised that the decision Fiona had initiated was right for both of us.

We separated after 28 years in the most civilised and amicable of ways and have remained friends ever since. We still keep each other informed about our two children and have fruitful parental telephone discussions from time to time as the need necessitates. We are ex-partners but remain good friends who recognise each other as good individuals and loving parents.

This song reminds me of those early years and romantic nights in our union that Fiona and I shared. As the song says, ‘We had tonight, who needs tomorrow’. True happiness always involves the ability to ‘live in and for the moment’ and that is why we were both able to emotionally move on with our lives without souring the better part of our shared relationship when we parted.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 9th August 2019

9/8/2019

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I dedicate my song today to my allotment buddy, Brian Moorehouse and his wife, V’ron.

Today’s song is ‘Hear My Song’. In 1991 a drama film was written by the actors Peter Chelsom (who also directed) and Adrian Dunbar (who plays the lead). The film was called ‘Hear My Song’ and the story was based on the story of Irish tenor Josef Locke. It was nominated for ‘Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 BAFTA Awards’. 

The story of the film revolves around an attempt by Micky O'Neill (Dunbar) to revive the fortunes of his Liverpool nightclub by promising his patrons that he will produce Josef Locke. After a series of unfortunate bookings (including, most notably, Franc Cinatra (a Sinatra impersonator), Micky books the mysterious Mr. X, a man who insists that he cannot be booked as Jo Locke due to the legal issues that would invariably ensue. The elusive Locke left England during the 1950s to avoid paying taxes, leaving behind ‘a beauty queen, a Jaguar sportscar, and a pedigree dalmatian; all of them pining.’ O'Neill's personal and professional life are left in ruin after the beauty queen, Kathleen Doyle exposes his Mr X as a fraud. O'Neill returns to Ireland to find the one true Josef Locke and bring him back.

The song is titled the same as the film and was the signature tune of Josef Locke.

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Singing has always been a big part of my life. During my development, as the oldest in a family of seven children, I never spent a day without hearing my mother sing one song or another as she happily cleaned, washed, cooked, darned and ironed for her children. Mum couldn’t sing for toffee. She would invariably sing the wrong words to a song and rarely sang in tune but singing made her day easier and happier by all accounts.

I once reproached my mum for singing out of tune and I will never forget her response. She replied,“Where is it written down, Billy Forde, that only good singers can sing? Show me and I will stop singing this moment and never sing again!” I was initially puzzled at her response, not fully comprehending its logic. Then, my mother was to say something so true that it took me years to fully comprehend the profundity of her reasoning. “We all have some talent, Billy. Some sing better than others, some cook better, dance better and some are better listeners and make better fathers and mothers. All these things make up our song of life, and it is our duty to ‘sing our song’ in the best way we can!” (This is approximately what my mother said to the best of my recollection in my own words).  My mother then asked me, “Do you know why birds sing, Billy?” to which I replied, “Because they’re birds!”  Mum said,” Birds sing for one reason only, Billy, because they have a song to sing. Now stop pestering me and get out of my way because I’ve work to do and a song to sing!”

All my life I have been following my dear mother’s advice and have been’ singing my song’ in every way I have managed to display my talents at whatever I turned my hand to. So, it matters not if it is singing itself or the art of writing, advocating, stewardship, communicating, counselling, advising, being a good friend, living, loving or dying with dignity; each and all these things represent a ‘song of life’. I ask not that you like my song today, merely that you ‘hear my song’ and that you start to sing your own 'song of life' by doing what you best do. 

Today’s song is dedicated to my neighbour and allotment friends, Brian and V’ron Moorehouse. Each night, for the past year, Brian and V’ron play my daily song from my YouTube channel on their big-screen television set. They like all music, especially the Irish songs and the old songs that are rarely heard too often these days. V’ron tells me that I look nice on the big screen but being such a loving and kind woman, she would never wound the pride of an old man, especially if that man was an old Irish man. So, it looks like I will just have to take her word for it with a pinch of salt.

Love and peace Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 8th August 2019

8/8/2019

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Today’s song is dedicated to my dear Facebook friend, Anne Lister.

My song today is, ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’. This song was recorded by Swedish pop group ‘ABBA’ in 1980 for their seventh studio album, ‘Super Trooper’. The original was released only as a 12-inch single in 1981 in limited territories, rather than as a standard 7-inch record. At the time, it was the highest-selling 12-inch record in UK chart history, where it peaked at Number 7. ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ appears on the group's compilation ‘Gold: Greatest Hits’. ‘Slant Magazine’ placed it at Number 60 on its list of the greatest dance songs of all time. ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ is an electro-disco song penned by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, with Agneta Faltskog singing lead

‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ is best known for a descending vocal sound at the end of the verse immediately preceding the refrain. This was achieved by sending the vocal into a harmoniser device, which was set up to produce a slightly lower-pitched version of the vocal. In turn, its output was fed back to its input, thereby continually lowering the pitch of the vocal. Andersson and Ulvaeus felt that the chorus of the song sounded like a hymn, so parts of the vocals in the choruses were run through a ‘vocorder’ to recreate the sound of a church congregation singing, slightly out of tune. The song was not originally intended to be released as a single but was issued in 12-inch form in the UK and a few other countries in 1981. ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ has since been much covered and is also featured in the ‘Mamma Mia’ musical (and its film adaption), that showcases many of ABBA's hits.
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I dedicate today’s song to my Facebook friend, Anne Lister who lives in Brighouse. Ever since I have known Anne, she has been a walking friend to literally hundreds of Facebook contacts, through her regular visits to their homes. Anne will visit her many friends at home, in the hospital or wherever best suits them, depending on their circumstances.

Anne is capable of disarming the grumpiest of people she might visit with little more than a gentle smile and a pot of jam. She makes the best Marmalade jam I have ever tasted. This is the one type of jam that my Sheila doesn’t make. Like a veritable Mary Poppins feeding the birds and caring for all and sundry, her constant cheer brings an instant tonic that reaches the parts others never touch base with. Anne’s charitable giving of her time and Marmalade is unflinching and is done in nothing short of the true loving spirit of a gentle soul. Anne gives without any expectation and receives in return the unqualified love and respect of everyone who knows her. She affords each person she has regular contact with ‘respect’ as a matter of individual right and makes them feel happier and special by her mere presence.

Despite her own health issues over the years (which she always plays down when she is visiting the homes of many ill friends), Anne continues to do her good works without complaint or any expectation of reward. She obtains her pleasure by simply making others feel wanted, respected and important in their own right. She is a highly intelligent woman who shields her worldly wisdom from those she visits and listens, and takes in more than hogs any conversation she is part of. She is in short, what my mother used to call ‘a good egg’. I would describe her as being someone who is sound mother material, and who was undoubtedly a good wife and partner to her deceased husband, Michael, who sadly died three years ago today. Michael had suffered from the bad effects of cancer for almost 14 years, and through Anne’s care of him and his own strength of character, he outlived all the medical time spans he was given during his lengthy illness.

Indeed, merely knowing from Anne that her husband was still refusing to be beaten by his cancer for well over a decade past his ‘sell-by-date’ gave me additional courage to withstand mine during its early stages. I never had the pleasure of meeting Michael, but I attended his funeral. He was obviously a man who was well thought of by all those who knew him.

Thank you, Anne, for having been there for me through your visits and friendship over the past seven years or so. I hope that today passes peacefully for you and it gives me the greatest of pleasure to dedicate my song today to a 'woman of substance' whose actions invites all whom she meets to ‘Lay all our love on her.’ If only you knew how much love of others you carry around with you through this life, Anne, you would realise that ‘goodness carries its own reward’, and that is why my late mother’s description of ‘being a good egg’ is most fitting for a lady such as yourself. Thank you for being our Facebook friend. Bill and Sheila x

Love and peace Bill xxx
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