So here we are, again, a day before the end of a year, when traditionally we look back and review. We then look forward and plan, pretend to make lists of things to give up or take up but most people know instinctively that by the end of January many of those ideas will have been diluted by other events that interfere. Some of those events we will have control over, many we will not, so we just have to make the most of the hand we are dealt!

A few days ago it was the Christian Festival of Christmas, the 25^th of December. Some Christians don’t celebrate Christmas, for instance Jehovah’s Witnesses which dropped its observance in 1928. If you are an Orthodox Christian, it’ll be in eight days’ time, on 7^th January 2023, the date on which, according to the Julian calendar, Jesus Christ was born. The Julian Calendar, named after Julius Caesar, was replaced in 1582 by the Gregorian Calendar, which reduced the average length of the year from 356.25 to 356.2425 days. It’s obvious these little things matter in the grand scope of our universe.

This year the Ukrainians celebrated Christmas Day on the 25^th as the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill blotted his copybook saying all Russians killed in the fighting will be cleansed of their sins. A good example of how God is often asked to support both sides in a conflict.

The remains of an Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Regular readers of these scribbles will know that I love the coincidences (note 1)  in life that stop me in my insignificant tracks and make me think ‘Wow! Did that just happen or is there someone pulling the strings?’ Well, on the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere, there were another two. Firstly, I had just added a little more interest to my PC 314 23^rd December, by going onto Google Maps and identifying a hospital in Derby that Melanie and Jim might have gone to, and chose The Royal Derby Hospital. Later that evening, a day of industrial action by Ambulance drivers across England and Wales, a BBC News reporter gave her piece from in front of one of the twelve hundred English NHS hospitals – they chose The Royal Derby! ‘Warms the cockles of me heart’ or so some might say!

The red blob marks Biloxi on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico

Later on, reading John Grisham’s latest, ‘The Boys from Biloxi’ which is, as always, a rollicking read, I am brought to an abrupt stop when I read one of the local corrupt police chief’s deputies is called Ruby Kilgore. On its own an unusual surname perhaps, compared with Smith or Jones, but the coincidence is that 24 hours before I had finished Peter James’ latest novel featuring the Brighton & Hove detective Roy Grace, ‘Picture You Dead’. The main criminal was an art collector and his enforcer was an American from one of the Southern States called Robert Kilgore!

We said goodbye to Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, who had been our Queen for over seventy years, a most wonderful example of duty, commitment and service to the Nation. Since then the Duke & Duchess of Sussex have rarely been out of the UK news, the nub of the issue neatly summed up by Times’ columnist Melanie Philips:

“In the great tsunami of grievances unleashed by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the latest one to wash over us is a meta-grievance, a grievance about grievances. They are now complaining that the family hasn’t acknowledged their complaints, apologised and sought reconciliation. Let’s get our heads around this. They have shown gross disrespect to the late Queen and reportedly upset her while nearing the end of her life. They have accused the royal household of racism, cruelty and indifference with no evidence to back up such claims and with numerous examples of demonstrable falsehoods or distortions. They have monetised their royal brand while disdaining and trashing its obligations. They have produced an interminable spiteful scream of jealousy, narcissism and rage with the intention to hurt and destroy. Yet now they expect the royal family to apologise to them?”

She has a certain turn of phrase, does Ms Philips, and personally think here she’s spot on.

I don’t think our Queen’s death on 8^th September was exactly unexpected, given that she was 96 and had lived a full life. Other names that jump out of the Obituary lists for 2022 are people like Meat Loaf (75 – I’ll Do Anything for Love), Olivia Newton-John (74 – Grease), Dennis Waterman (74 – The Sweeney), Hilary Mantel (70 – Wolf Hall), Robbie Coltrane (72 – Cracker), Mikhail Gorbachev (91- Glasnost), Ivana Trump (73 ex-wife of ex-US President), Sidney Poitier (95 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Madelaine Albright (85 – US Secretary of State and Kinder Transport survivor), David Trimble (78 – Northern Ireland politician and Nobel Prize winner), Christine McVie (79 – Fleetwood Mac vocalist), Bamber Gascoigne (87 – Host of University Challenge for 25 years) ,Jerry Lee Lewis (87 – Honky Tonk pianist), Pelé (82 – Football’s greatest hero) and Vivienne Westwood (81 – Grand Dame of Fashion)  – the comments in brackets just a memory-jog! 

Sunday will be 1st January 2023, New Year’s Day, unless you are Chinese, whose New Lunar Year (the Year of The Rabbit) will fall on the 22^nd January (Note 2). In Cantonese you could say “Gong hei fat choy” and in Mandarin “Xīnnián hăo”. If you’re Jewish you’d probably say ‘Rosh Hashanah’ and an Arab ‘sunuh jadidah saeiduh’.

But here in the editorial offices of Post Card Scribbles, it’s definitely:

“Happy New Year”.

Richard 30^th December 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Celina and I both tested positive for Covid over the Christmas period; the festivities got cancelled. My Christmas ribbon on our internal front door could have been taken to read: “Keep Out! The Plague!”

PPS In my last PC, 23^rd December A story, I mentioned Amanda the Shepherdess.  Recently a lexicographer estimated the average peasant in C19th used about 250 words. In a letter to The Times, Alison Brackenbury suggested her Victorian shepherd ancestor used about 250 words ‘just about sheep’.

Note 1 Coincidence: ‘A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.’

Note 2 It falls on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice 21^st December

It’s a very familiar sight in the United Kingdom, a group of friends sitting around a table in a warm pub in the evening, the atmosphere enhanced by a blazing log fire, the table strewn with open packets of crisps, Pork Scratchings and peanuts …. and a small pool of spilt beer.

And so it is in the Lamb & Flag in Folding Under Sheet in the Derbyshire Peak District, five individuals who had known each other since school, and that was not yesterday, chewing the fat and moaning about this and that: this year the rising costs of everyday items and how, for instance, a packet of crisps that used to have 30g of crisps now has 25g and the price hasn’t changed.

One of the gathering, a tall woman called Amanda, pushes her chair back and excuses herself, saying she needs to check on her flock of sheep high up on the hills. She’s a very successful shepherdess and lives in a farm tucked away between two rocky outcrops. 

“The cost of rearing sheep has become ridiculous” she says “and there are ruthless people looking to rustle both sheep and cattle (Note 1). And the sad fact is when I take my sheep to the abattoir I hardly cover my costs.”  As a parting comment she says she’s also going to take the opportunity of the clear cold weather and see the alignment of the moon and Uranus.

“Your anus?” exclaims Pete, slightly hard of hearing, “you need to be careful up there with ‘em sheep-shaggers about.”

Amanda raises her hand in the air as if to say: “Whatever, Pete!” and leaves.

Then Jim takes the opportunity to bow out as he has to take his very pregnant girlfriend to Derby the following day.

“You’re going to go by rail, Jim?” asks Pete

“No, the rail strikes announced this week make it too uncertain to risk getting stuck (Note 2); we’ll drive as we have to be there by tomorrow evening -the following day is Melanie’s due date. I am concerned as the Royal Derby Hospital has not been able to confirm she’s going to get a bed.”

“Do Melanie’s parents know she’s pregnant?”

“No! They don’t have a very close relationship but I’m sure they’ll find out; word gets about!”

The following morning as they prepare for their journey, Jim realises their electric car hasn’t enough charge for the 55 mile journey so, while Melanie huffs and puffs about her incompetent partner, he plugs it in and makes a thermos of soup.

A few hours later they arrive in Derby but find the Littleover Lodge Hotel, where they had been hoping to stay, was shut, with a large sign on the front door saying “Closed due to staff shortages.” (Note 3) Melanie rolls her eyes to heaven: “Why didn’t you book us a room? It’s not that difficult on-line and you know the town’s going to be full as there’s some important football fixture.”

By now it’s starting to drizzle, that fine rain that is very wet and the evening gloom is depressing. Eventually in desperation they find a B&B hotel in Mickleover which has no vacancies but they persuade the chap behind the desk to let them camp in the large garage, for a small personal consideration. A couple of camp beds and some blankets are found and they organise themselves, between a couple of dusty diesel cars forced off the road by the price of diesel. The receptionist says he would have offered some dinner but there’s no turkey as bird flu has decimated the national flocks. Deliveroo saves the evening with some Tandori chicken for Jim and some fish ‘n chips for Melanie.

Sometime after midnight Melanie feels her waters breaking.

“Can you call an ambulance, Jim, I need to get to hospital?”

After an hour two paramedics arrive and say there is no way they are taking Melanie to hospital (Note 4) and the senior one, Benedicte, starts organising for the baby to be delivered in the back of the ambulance, which is now parked up in the garage, out of the drizzle and cold. After a period in labour, eventually the baby arrives safely. Benedicte finds a blue blanket from a drawer in the ambulance and wraps the little mite snuggly with it.

“It’s a good thing he’s arrived today as two days ago we were on strike!”

There’s a knock on the garage door. “Pleased I’ve found you!” says Amanda who has just arrived bearing a little lamb as a gift. “I somehow knew you’d be here, must be some mystic power we shepherds have!” She turned to Jim and asked: “So, what are you going to call your boy?”

“Haven’t thought about a name yet” he exclaims.

“Jesus!” cries his long-suffering girlfriend and her voice echoes around the garage and out into the world beyond.

Richard 23rd December 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Cattle and sheep rustling in the UK is on the rise (valued at some £2.3 million in 2021) as the cost of living crisis calls for cheap (stolen!) meat.

Note 2 The current leader of the Rail Union is Mike Lynch, a surname which conjures up other images. His predecessor was a Bob Crow, again a surname which has sinister overtones. Just observing!

Note 3 In post-Brexit Britain some 4% of the working population are unemployed and that’s normal, but there are huge numbers of job vacancies, particularly in the hospitality and health care industries. Apparently many older people working before the Covid pandemic have not returned to the workforce.

Note 4 Caused by bed-blocking in hospitals. Some 13,000 patients are well enough to go home but there is not enough care and support at home, so they stay in hospital, blocking those in A&E from moving to a ward. The knock-on effect is that those in need of being seen by a medic are stopped from entering A&E, so the ambulances are being used as a safe place and then the response times for those outside, like Melanie, get longer and longer! Britain in the C21st!

It was an interesting exercise in PC 311, starting each paragraph with ‘I am lucky ….’ and seeing what appeared on the screen. It reminded me of another lovely example of letting the brain run, typing in ‘I remember …..’ and then see what, without too much thought or effort, appears. The trick is to start again as soon as you realised you’ve paused to think. Go on! Try it?

I am lucky; back in March 2009 I went to my first hot yoga class in Balham, South London. Seventy two strangers packed into a hot room, sweat everywhere, breathing and stretching and challenging. Gradually the practice of this sequence became an important part of my daily routine. So important that Celina and I moved to the city of Brighton & Hove as here there are two local studios offering this type of hot yoga. Almost fourteen years later I am lucky enough to complete 5 sessions a week. If you have never tried yoga, particularly hot yoga, give it ago; don’t if you really detest sweating!

I am lucky enough to have met, through the practising of hot yoga, Celina. We started chatting in the corridor outside the studio, waiting for the previous class to clear the room, and after a year and a bit decided to have supper one evening in London (Note 1). Thirteen months later we, together, moved into an apartment in Hove. I could easily have been on my own somewhere, so count my blessings and my luck that I have her in my life. I am also lucky she comes from Brazil and not somewhere like Walton-on-Thames. Regular readers will remember a great grandfather Richard Corbett of mine was born in Recife, in the north east of the country. I mentioned that the two numbers of my current age add up to thirteen, an unlucky number for those who are superstitious. In Celina’s case they add up to ten.

I am lucky to have had three fascinating careers that paid me for my efforts and now, my fourth career, where I do stuff but don’t normally get paid (Note 2). Now when someone asks what I do, I respond: “I do yoga, paint and write and look after my young love.” So much better than: “Oh! I’m retired.” which closes the conversation before it’s got started!

I am lucky I spent twenty years in Her Majesty’s Service. Sure it had its ups and downs, its excitement and its boredom, its opportunities and its constraints, its adventures and its challenges, but it was all about trying to get the best from others, to develop and encourage others to do well, to carry out whatever operation confronted us. And it instilled in me an attitude and values by which I live today.

I am lucky I was once made redundant after working for an aerospace company for six years, as the role I was fulfilling was no longer needed, or so the company thought. OK! At the time I probably was gutted, but in retrospect it was a lucky break. Everyone reacts in different ways but in the final analysis you have to take a good look at yourself; some honest personal introspection, however difficult, is essential to achieve some real fulfilment in life.

In PC 311 ‘I am Lucky’ I recalled that the inflation rate when I got my first mortgage to buy my first house was 14%. The house itself cost £29,500, an arm and a leg at the time. I have been lucky since: having spent 25 years living in South London I benefitted hugely from the explosion in its property values.

I am lucky technology doesn’t stand still and my generation, and yours, benefits from that. In ‘A Short Conversation with my Step Father’ (PC 96 May 2017) I looked at some of the developments he would have embraced and others he might have poo pooed. He probably would have been unhappy not being able to tinker with the engine of his car, being a Mechanical Engineer by profession. Frankly I feel extremely lucky that the reliability of car engines, drive trains etc is now so so good that it’s unlikely the engine will blow up, as did my Sunbeam Alpine’s on the M3 Motorway back whenever!

I am lucky that I have lived through a period when air travel became normal, both short haul and long haul, as experiencing the smells, sights and sounds of other countries, other climates and other peoples is, I believe, life enhancing. Recently Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of His Majesty’s Opposition here in the UK, admitted in an interview that his mother had only been on an aeroplane once, when she had flown from London to Manchester, for her honeymoon.

One outcome of my first marriage was my lovely daughter, Jade. I am lucky she has found her niche in the teaching profession, has three fine healthy sons …. and a great husband. I am lucky that through Celina I have gained another lovely extended family, living in both Brazil and Portugal.   

Those who have read the stories of AA Milne concerning a bear called Pooh will know that his friends’ characteristics reflect those found in us humans! I think I am lucky to be very much more ‘Tigger’ than ‘Eeyore’.

And finally I am extremely lucky to have been able to sail extensively, travelled widely and still have my health to pursue my current interests.

Richard 16^th December 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 She suggested we went for a drink, a sort of ‘first base’ in the dating game! I explained I didn’t drink alcohol any more so suggested we had supper somewhere; second base in the dating game! Lucky huh!

Note 2 An ex-client commissioned me to paint something for his wife, which had to include a pear tree, a single pear and the crooked spire of Chesterfield Parish Church of St Mary and All Saints. Lucky to be paid for doing something I love.

Susie is looking quite gaunt when I pop into The Hope Café, with an hour or so to gather my thoughts about this week’s PC and before I meet Sami, who had texted me to say he’s got some news! Never sure whether to engage with people obviously lost in their own thoughts, but I’ve known Susie for a couple of years so give her a querulous look when I order my double espresso. She looks down and then mutters:

“It’s one of my cousins. He was crossing the road in Clapham when an e-scooter knocked into him.”

“I thought they aren’t allowed on the roads.”

“Most aren’t, although there is a trial going on to help decide how this new form of transport can be regulated. (See Note 1) This one was being ridden illegally.”

“How is he?”

“Oh! Richard. It’s awful. He hit the kerb with his head and was knocked unconscious. They called an ambulance which took him to St George’s Hospital in Tooting but it’s not looking good. When they got to A&E it was some two hours after the accident and he was rushed into ICU.”

“God! In ICU! I am so sorry Susie.”

“The doctors think he had a bleed on his brain and are not sure how to reduce the swelling. My aunt and uncle are there and have been told to be prepared for the worst possible outcome.”

I left Susie with her worries and concerned thoughts about her cousin and find a table. The café has charging points as a way of encouraging more people to WFC (Work From Café – see PC 282 Back in The Hope May 2022) and plug in my laptop. My thoughts begin to flow, at last, and I’m in mid-sentence when Sami taps me on the shoulder. I hadn’t seen him come in and think he looks very well.

“Hello Richard! How’re you doing?” he asks, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

Sami, who you may recall was made bankrupt through the faults in the Post Office Horizon computer system, brings me up to date. Apparently those who were made bankrupt have been offered three options: take all the interim payments they have received but risk a company called Moore Recovery taking action against them, begin costly litigation themselves or accept 51% of their claim. These poor sub-postmasters, poor not in a monetary sense necessarily but poor as in put-upon by the power of the government and the Post Office, won a landmark case against the Post Office in the High Court and were awarded £55 million. Wow! Wonderful you might think; £100k each. But after legal fees were deducted they ended up with some £20,000. The current Public Inquiry was due to hold a special hearing on compensation this week.

If I understand this scandal correctly, the Post Office introduced a new computer system and it was very quickly recognised there were faults in it. Faults which caused sub-postmasters accounting errors. Over 12 years hundreds suffered. Surely the Government or its Post Office should foot the legal bills of the claimants?

We are in the midst of industrial action by Post Office/Royal Mail workers, complaining about pay and conditions (who isn’t!?). In the run up to Christmas, the busiest time for card and letter delivery, their action will not garner public sympathy and will exacerbate the decline in letter writing. In fact I now write my bread-and-butter ‘Thank You’s longhand, as always, and, rather than consigning them to an unreliable postal service, photograph them and send them via email or WhatsApp! Very C21st!

After some twenty minutes or so, Sami looks down at his watch and then towards the Hope Café door. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Ah! Her she is!” he exclaims and gets up to greet a gorgeous looking woman. “Richard, meet Lisa!” I get up, shake her hand and we all sit down.  Susie comes over and takes the drinks order.

Lisa lives in Folding Over Sheet up in the Derbyshire Peak District and is a writer. She’d come down to Hove for a few days, to see Sami whom she had met during his tour of the Indian Mutiny sites. (See PC309 November 2022). I haven’t seen Sami so animated in a while and sense this relationship is just what he needs.

“So why were you doing this tour Lisa?”

“Such a mixture of reasons. Firstly some of my ancestors had served in the East India Company, one as the Secretary at the Residence in Lucknow and I was interested to see its ruins, to put the family stories in context. Secondly India is an enormous country and this tour not only covered some interesting cities but also gave me a sense of the countryside and the rural way of life, all within two weeks. Being a writer I am always looking for ideas to weave into future stories.”

I needed to leave them to get on with other things but I hope to meet up for supper somewhere, sometime.

Richard 9th December 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Here in the UK, trials are taking place in four transport areas where, if you have a driving licence, you can rent an e-scooter and use it on the roads. You can only use an e-scooter outside of these areas on private land. The public desire to use e-scooters is way ahead of the current transport laws, so HMG is playing catch-up. Meanwhile thousands of individuals are buying and using them illegally. In Wednesday’s Times a news item on e-scooters reported that a 12 year old boy had died on Tuesday as his (illegal) e-scooter had collided with a bus and in the London Boroughs of Bromley and Newham two other children had died in the last year. “I didn’t know it was not legal” is not a defence likely to find favour for Giovanna Drago, who is suing Barnet Council in London for £30,000 over a pothole which caused her to crash her e-scooter, breaking her leg.

The dictionary says:  ‘Lucky: “Occurring by chance and bringing happy results …….. or something worn for good luck.”’ The latter reminds me of a rabbit’s foot that I found in a box that contained my step-father’s wartime ‘treasures’; maps and black-and-white photographs for example, from his time in Force 136, behind the Japanese lines in Malaya in 1944. It was well worn and it indeed brought him luck in that he survived the fighting and the horrific jungle conditions. I sense that these talismans are not used as much as they were.

When I think of the word ‘lucky’ I immediately think of ‘Lucky Jim’, a novel by Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), first published in 1954. I have never read it but it’s considered ‘as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the C20th.’ I had thought that Jim was his surname and that he’d been christened ‘Lucky’; actually his surname was Dixon! The American writer Percival Everett wrote a book called ‘I am not Sidney Poitier’. The main character had actually been christened ‘Not Sidney Poitier’ as he looked extraordinarily like the actor Sidney Poitier, who died earlier this year aged 94. His films included ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’, ‘To Sir, with Love’, ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and ‘Lilies of the Field, for which he won an Oscar.

But no! I am not called or known as Lucky, although a chap at the top of our road is so called. He has run three different food retail outlets in the same place over the last four years, so maybe his name does not reflect his business acumen?

Why am I scribbling this week about being lucky? Well, here in the UK the hot topic is the economy and the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, driven by the energy hike caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Unsurprisingly our government did not react well and we are now in an inflation spiral; currently some 10%! Wow! I bought my first house in 1979 …… when the rate was almost 14% …. and we all seemed to believe the best thing to do was buy, buy, buy as the cost of an item would be dearer the following day  Bring out the Credit Cards! But spare a thought for those living in Turkey where the current inflation rate is 85% (October 2022); aren’t we lucky!

I am lucky to be alive. My own great-great-grandmother Sarah Fosbery, who had married when she was 17, died aged 39 but she had given birth to nine daughters and her body must have been physically depleted of nutrients. Her husband Francis went on to marry again and died aged 86 in 1897. Seems unfair, I hear you cry, but I suspect in some parts of the world today this is not uncommon, women simply the producers of children. Life expectancy has dramatically improved in developed countries; at the start of the C20th in the United States it was 49 and it’s now 77, although the Covid pandemic has caused a plateauing of this trend.

I am lucky that I live by the sea and breathe in the freshest air there is. Like anything you get used to it but when we were flat-hunting, exiting the railway station I was aware just how different the air was to that of Central London. For thirteen years I lived in a basement apartment in a large house next to the busy South Circular Road in Clapham. Brake dust, a dark residue comprising iron particles and carbon residue, was an invisible contribution to the air from the constant traffic roaring past and it seeped inside. It was noticeable as a slimy film that settled on books in my living room. Good thing I couldn’t see my lungs!

I am lucky to be healthy, at least today!! The pessimist would say you never know what lurks beneath the surface, but being an optimist I simply count my current blessings and know that in an emergency our National Health Service (NHS) delivers big time. There has been a recent television documentary about the night patrols of our local Brighton police, what they have to contend with and how they react. Sadly there was only one conclusion you could draw, that if individuals didn’t drink so much and if individuals were more sensible in the drugs they took, there would have been no content for a programme! In addition to this work-load for our police, 80% of the cases our paramedics attend are alcohol or drug related.

I am lucky, I think, that I decided to give up alcohol. In the summer, when someone in Portugal remarked: “ You don’t know what you’re missing!”, I know exactly what I am missing and know just how many times I have been badly affected by alcohol in my past – and that’s the times I can remember!! Misuse of alcohol, according to a recent study in the UK, costs the NHS in England £3.6 billion and alcohol-related crime in England and Wales about £11.4 billion per year. “Alcohol can cause serious upset to others around us, damaging relationships and careers ……”

I am lucky! I turn on a tap in our kitchen, in the bathroom, in the hall loo or outside in the garden and good, drinkable water flows. It doesn’t smell and I love it, although many other people spend huge amounts of money to buy bottled mineral water; in the UK in 2021 they bought 2.5 billion litres, apparently spending some £1.6 billion. Some 70% of the UK population live in areas where the level of Fluoride is ˂0.2mg and water companies add the chemical to around 1mg per litre, a level which is found to reduce tooth decay. Of course water, so vital to life, will become a resource people fight over, particularly as our changing climate causes population shifts.

I am lucky …… or is it that I make my own luck? More about luck later maybe.

Richard 2^nd December 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS The Four-leafed Clover is reported to bring good luck!