Let me first acknowledge that I am aware Christmas 2022 is over, even for Orthodox Christians, otherwise you might think I am showing the early stages of dementia. Well I thought Christmas was over until we went through Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport last Wednesday morning, 11^th January, for our flight to Rio de Janeiro. Catching an opportunity to have a pee before going to the gate, I popped into the nearest loo, to be serenaded by “On The First Day of Christmas my true love sent to me …”. Fortunately this wasn’t in ‘Arrivals’, when it might have given those travellers coming to the UK for the first time the wrong impression of this great country!

   We’re now some days into 2023 and in previous years I have often wished people ….. “all of what you need and some of what you want” for the new year. The other morning, walking back in the dark from Rahmi the newsagent, I thought about what I might want this year. Of course the word ‘want’ and ‘Christmas’ bring to mind the song ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth’, first recorded in 1948 by American bandleader Spike Jones and by others since, including Alvin &The Chipmunks and a group called the Platters; well, for those of us of a certain age. There’s another Christmas song that starts ‘All I want ….. ‘, ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ and the latest recording’s by Mariah Carey and Justin Bieber in 2009.

So what would be my idealistic wants of 2023?

We are beginning to accept, somewhat reluctantly, that societies need to do something to reduce the impact of climate change, whether man-made or simply in the cycles that define the universe. The mild climate of the United Kingdom is likely to experience more extremes, hot, cold, dry and wet. In the latter case there’s going to be more rain in shorter bursts. Already last year Shoreham, a harbour a few miles west of here, had more that 200% of its expected November rainfall. (Note 1) I want the Green council who run Brighton & Hove to ensure all the drainage systems in the city are cleared of debris and fit for purpose. Currently they are not and flooding occurs; it will only get worse.

And on that subject of our changing climate, I watched David Attenborough’s ‘Extinction: The Facts’, a 2020 documentary, on the flight out to Brazil. I want its message, that one million out of the eight million species on this planet, are at risk of extinction, to be part of mainstream education worldwide. In the west we recoil at the use of wild animals for traditional medicine in some parts of the world. I hope that education will convince current users that, for instance, the scales of the pangolin, made from keratin, the same material that makes up fingernails, hair and horn, have no proven medicinal value. Closer to home, you remember when driving, particularly in the summer, the windscreen became covered in squashed bugs and any attempt with some screen-clean often seemed to make it worse? The bugs have disappeared and that is extremely worrying given the vital role each species plays in natures’ food chain, from the smallest microbe to the largest mammal.  

In the United Kingdom we are in the middle of wide-scale industrial unrest, covering most of our public services. The Union movement have rightly been agitating for better pay and conditions for their members; after all, that’s their role! I have never belonged to a union, but so often it seems they resist change, fight modernisation and are not really, in their heart-of-hearts, interested in the success of the company or organisation their members are working in. I want them to have a rethink, to stop saying ‘No!’ and to start making positive suggestions.

We had a strike by the Refuse Collection service in Brighton & Hove for weeks last year; people continued to throw out stuff, then simply on top of the overflowing bins. I want individuals to be more aware of what they discard, how they discard it and if they’ve had a delivery contained in large boxes, for those boxes to be flattened and put in the biggest recycling bin they can find, even if it means walking a hundred metres. I want the council to ensure such a basic collection service is guaranteed.

In the newspaper recently was a review of a book called “Sensational – A New Story of Our Senses” by Ashley Ward. James McConnachie found it ‘a serious and thoughtful book’ with some trivia woven into good solid scientific information, like how decibels are named after their inventor Alexander Graham Bell. But I want to know why ‘when dogs defecate they line up in a roughly north-south direction’? My lovely Labrador Tom is no longer of this world otherwise I’d be out with a compass to check out this claim. But if it’s true, I want to know why?

The Prime Minister here has recently suggested all school children should study Mathematics until 18, in line with some other forward-thinking countries. One newspaper gave some examples from Mathematics examination questions; all I can say it was a long time ago since I passed A level Maths!! But a great idea of Rishi Sunak, our current Prime Minister! I want something even more basic than the ability to understand percentages and statistics. What I really want is a promise from the Department of Education that all our children leave school being able to read and write properly. It’s disgraceful that in 2023 some will not and their lives will be hugely disadvantaged by that deficiency. For those within our prisons who can’t, reaching a certain standard of proficiency could be a condition of early release.

More thoughts to come ……

Richard 20^th January 2023

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Somewhere on the Ghan railway line from Adelaide to Darwin in Australia had 200% monthly rainfall in five days sometime in 2022!

Earlier this month I was moved to write, again, to The Times. (see PC 292 Dear Sir (1) July 2022 for the first collection)

January 2023

“Sir ….. I read with interest the French post office’s ideas for future first-class letters, writing on their website your ‘letter’, which is then printed off in the appropriate local post office, put in an envelope and delivered.

Wedded as I am to cursive script, I have a different 2023 solution. I write my bread-and-butter Thank You letters as normal, photograph them with my mobile phone, and send them free via WhatsApp. This is an instant first class solution, although my local postie Steve might disagree!”

So for this week’s postcard I have reprinted some of my previous efforts to get published nationally! Where necessary I have added a little explanation if the relevance isn’t clear or the passage of time causes me to add my own comment!

9^th November 2020

“Sir …… At the abbreviated (Covid-constrained) Remembrance Sunday service yesterday, the Bishop of London, as part of her prayers, remembered those who had given their lives for their country. It struck me that this should have been changed to ‘our country’?”

Now I am in conflict! They died fighting for the United Kingdom but they might well have come from Commonwealth countries so maybe it’s correct?

Much newsprint was naturally given to the international fight against Covid.

21^st April 2020

“Sir ……. In yesterday’s edition you showed a bar chart indicating Covid 19 patient outcomes but it failed to have bar for the 70-74 age group. At 73, should I be worried by its omission?

14^th April 2020

“Sir ….. Ben Macintyre, in yesterday’s article ‘Virus reawakens class conflict ….’, highlights the divisions in global society but suggests that these divisions exposed by the disease are reinforced by race. His ’35 per cent of our critically ill people were from a BAME background, despite making up only 14% of the population’ stands as a fact and nothing more. You surely can’t draw any conclusion without knowing much more?

Time Zones often cause confusion!

13^th February 2020

“Sir ……..In an article about Sinn Fein’s Irish poll success (Times 11th Feb 2020) there was a little embedded box about changes to the EU Times Zones. It rightly stated that an EU Commission has proposed an end to the biannual changing of the clocks ……. but you confused the story by saying that the EU switches back to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on the last Sunday of October. Currently the EU (less Portugal and Ireland) is on Central European Time (CET), adds an hour for Central European Summer Time and then reverts back to CET and not GMT. Here in the UK we move from GMT to British Summer Time and back to GMT. Clear as mud huh!”

19^th August 2019

“Sir …. A recent letter from HMRC was addressed to me as Mr RC Yates, but the salutation read “Dear Sir/Madam”. Maybe they had recognised that I live in the city of Brighton & Hove and were covering my future options!”

6^th October 2018

“Sir ……. Elizabeth Smith’s letter, ‘Useful First Words’ 4th October, mentioned a report that the first word the Queen Mother had learnt to spell was ptarmigan. It reminded me of the story from an Alaskan village called ‘Chicken’. The settlement, started during the Gold Rush years, grew to such an extent that it warranted a name. Everyone agreed it should be called after the local bird, the ptarmigan. When no one offered to spell it correctly, they opted for ‘Chicken’ instead!” (See PCs 44 and 45 about our trip to Alaska in 2015)

16^th May 2019

“Sir …… Helen Rumbelow’s piece on the osteopath Nick Potter, Times 2 15 May 19, was fascinating. His main assertion seems to be that pain in simply in the brain. I concur! If I stub my toe, my toe hurts. If I bend down to rub it and hit my head, it’s only my head that hurts! Mind you, being male, I can only concentrate on one thing at once.”

21^st September 2018

“Sir …… As a nation with as deep and rich naval heritage as ours, surely we can get the nomenclature right. The article in today’s Times concerning the death of an Australian on a Mexican billionaire’s yacht referred to the boat’s back and not its stern. And while we are at it, the pointy bit in the front is the bow.”

In a similar vein, two years earlier on 27th June 2016

“Sir …….. I do wish you would take more care with your descriptions of photographs. Back in May this year you captioned a photograph indicating that Putney was downriver of Tower Bridge, whereas of course by convention it is upriver. Today you show the yachts before the start of the Round The World Clipper Race up river of Tower Bridge, facing upriver, and yet the caption says “Approaching Tower Bridge” – backwards?”

17^th January 2018

“Sir ……. After Tom Whipple’s negative piece in Friday’s Times about Bikram/hot yoga being no better for you than ordinary yoga, now Kevin Mahler in today’s Times believes that everyone doing it farts all the time! So now it’s smelly and “frequently practised naked”! Really! What a load of rubbish and unbecoming of the standard expected of The Times. Why can’t they accept that millions of people around the world embrace yoga, in its many forms, on a daily basis and here in the UK the more we can encourage people to do some form of exercise, any form of exercise, the better?

Whilst I appreciate Mahler tried ordinary yoga, maybe they should both take a 90 minute hot yoga session, and then pass judgement”

 24^th November 2017

“Sir ……. Carol Midgley can’t see what’s wrong with spooning jam straight from the pot onto toast (Times 2 22 Nov). Then goes on to compound her problem by suggesting it’s better than ‘putting a disgusting butter-smeared knife into the jam’. No one wants butter in the jam or vice versa. The simple solution is to put the butter onto one’s plate with a ‘butter knife’ and the jam onto one’s plate with a spoon. Then you can lather your toast anyway you wish.”

Richard 13^th January 2023

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

When was the last time you used a bus? I am not asking about the one that takes you, in some airports, from the terminal to your aeroplane, or waiting, if you’re lucky, for you to deplane, but a public one? If you live in the country, I suspect not recently, as in not this decade; the paucity of a good timetable and routes means if you want to return the same day, you drive your car. Growing up in Balcombe, some 18 miles north of here, the only way to get into Haywards Heath, the nearest town about 5 miles away, was on a single-decker bus; unless you walked just under a mile to the railway station and caught a train. The bus took you past the Ouse Valley Viaduct and over a small hump-backed bridge that spanned the river. Sitting in the back gave you a lift!

Here in Brighton & Hove we have a good reliable bus service that uses both diesel and electric buses to cover the whole city. In addition there is a frequent service from the city west, via Littlehampton, Bognor Regis and Chichester, to Portsmouth, provided by Stagecoach and its Coastliner 700 buses.

From home in Albany Villas we can simply walk up the road and have the option of two bus stops, each on a different route, giving us four buses to choose from; spoilt for choice one might say! So most week days we travel into Brighton’s Churchill Square and walk the few hundred metres to the Yoga-In-The-Lanes Studio in Middle Street. Those who travel by bus are an interesting cross section of the city’s inhabitants, although not equally representative!  

I notice some individuals queue for a few minutes before the bus comes along but seem surprised they have to pay, so fumble in their pocket or bag for a bus pass or card. It’s always interesting how the passengers on the lower deck accommodate the differing needs of the wheel chair users, the walking sticks of those needing support and the mums with push chairs. One young mother has twins and her double buggy takes up a great deal of room. Most passengers are lost in their own world, interacting with some form of social media, staring straight ahead to avoid eye contact, or using their phone to talk to someone. I love eavesdropping on anyone’s conversation but if they’re not using English I just get irritated!

And what do you do when someone plonks their feet, encased in their shoes, on the seat? Despite the sign asking them not to!

One chap had his whole leg on the seat and his facial expression suggested no one should challenge him, irrespective of whether his designer trainers have poo on them! Nice huh! And little dogs I understand, as they are often in a small pouch (pooch in a pouch?), but a Labrador??

There remains a lot of ‘Covid’ about, laid on top of the normal winter influenza viruses and you might think individuals would take some responsibility for their own health and be aware of those around them. A week or so before Christmas a non-mask-wearing woman came onto the bus with lots of shopping in plastic bags and, wheezing and sighing loudly, squeezed herself into a seat. Five minutes later she sneezed and tried to restrict the spread of the mucous by putting her hand over her nose! Well, that’s OK because we all sneeze sometimes – having a handkerchief or not is another matter. I later observed her, I assume completely subconsciously, grab a vertical handrail with the hand she had sneezed into ………. (and here I should insert one of those little emoji things).

There are few masks in evidence even though it’s flu season and why wouldn’t you wear one? Maybe I am being ridiculous? We have lived with everyone else’s germs for millennia and generally our immune system copes well, but on my birthday last October I baulked at blowing out the candles on my birthday cake!! Don’t think about it too long, but you can understand the dilemma?

The route takes us through Palmeira Square, where we looked at an apartment to buy back in 2012, before we found our gorgeous one here in Amber House, and along Western Road. There’s a new sculpture of bronze-looking fish by the bus stop in Norfolk Square.

It was created by local artist Steve Geliot and is made of three 180 year-old cast iron dolphins which used to form part of the Victoria Fountain in Old Steine in central Brighton. The fountain was renovated in 1990 and the dolphins removed; obviously they didn’t fit the new design brief! They had been stored in Stanmer Park in Brighton ever since.

Further along the bus stop is named ‘Waitrose’, as it’s outside a branch of the supermarket chain, although every other stop is named after a local road or square. After Clarence Square and the announcement we should alight here for the ‘Brighton i360’, we arrive in Churchill Square, a mishmash of architectural styles dominated on the north side by a 1960’s modern building and on the south side by a shopping centre. 

Some of the buses on the route are electric and have USB charging points everywhere; these are extremely popular! And the city has an ‘ultra-low emissions zone’ to encourage more environmentally friendly means of transport. Mentioning electric-powered buses reminds me of a great BBC series on television – “The Secret Genius of Modern Life” where Professor Hannah Fry uncovers the secrets behind some of the technologies we have come to rely on. She investigates the Fitbit, Alexa, trainers and electric cars. Did you know that Thomas Edison drove an electric car? It is still drivable today.

          But being a child at heart, I was completely taken in by her simplistic demonstration of how to build a basic electric motor! So, if you’re interested:

Take a power source, say an ordinary battery

Attach some bent paper clips to each end with some masking tape

Take a piece of copper wire and wind it around something circular, say a biro. If the wire has some insulation, strip that back using some sandpaper or wire-stripper.

If you don’t have any little magnets (?) go down to your hardware store and buy some. Place the magnets on the battery under the coiled wire and Hey! Ho! It’ll turn!

This is the first postcard of 2023; there will be more!

Richard 6^th January 2023

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

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!

On my birthday last month I was treated to dinner at The Ivy in Brighton (see PC 202 Others’ Manners October 2020) ; it’s become a little bit of a habit and I admit I’m a lucky chap. (Note 1) After our main courses and whilst perusing the dessert section of the menu, I decided to go downstairs to the loo. As I entered I saw a chap standing in front of the left hand of two urinals, so walked over to the free one. During these few steps my brain started processing what this chap looked like …… but within the confines of a gentlemen’s loo too much obvious staring could be construed in different ways. There was no sound and no movement from him and eventually I had enough confidence to look at him directly. He was a mannequin dressed in an absurd costume.

Phew! Thank God I got that right as in Brighton anything goes, is acceptable and maybe it was his particular penchant. Having completed my own business I thought I should take a photograph of him, as he was just such a weird thing to find in such an intimate space. I got out my iPhone, stood back a little and …… and at that point another chap opened the door. To find someone taking a photograph of another ‘pointing Percy at the porcelain’ as the euphemism goes, well, I could imagine what instantly went through his head. He recoiled ever so slightly but recovered when he heard me loudly say ‘He’s not real!’, although he probably thought … “to be on the safe side I’ll go into one of the stalls: funny people in here!”

It seems every time you want to order something the company concerned need all your personal details, including your shoe size and how often you change your electric toothbrush head. This mining of our data doesn’t worry me, but sometimes I have a real problem filling out the questionnaire. For example, a few weeks ago I booked a dental appointment, at a practice I have used before, so thought they knew all about me. Not so! Before my visit I have to fill out a questionnaire. I was doing OK until I came to this:

“If you are female, are you pregnant or could you possibly be pregnant?” and the options were ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I could not leave the box blank!

So a ‘No’ answer could be I was a male, or that I was female but not pregnant.

Then further on, these two questions:

“How Did you hear About us?” Again a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ option, as it was with “What is your occupation?”

I was at the practice this week and asked the receptionist how I was meant to fill it out. “It’s a generic form, we have no say …..”!   

Three weeks ago the South Dorset village of Langton Matravers ……

…… joined a line up the length of Great Britain to Fraserburgh in the far northeast of Aberdeenshire as the three ‘norths’, true, magnetic and grid aligned.

True north, the direction of lines of longitude that all converge at the north and south poles, grid north, the vertical lines on maps, and magnetic north, the direction a compass will point in, will all be on one line. I find this stuff fascinating and vital in my past lives as soldier and sailor, where navigating by a magnetic compass was an important skill to master. You may remember in PC 209 (Off Arromanches) a skipper who I knew well asked whether he should have added or subtracted the magnetic variation, then some 4°, as they had missed the entrance for the French town of Trouville.

In PC 308 From Pillar to Post, I quoted a local guide John Cummings-Lee-Hynes and asked in a note whether anyone knew of a four hyphenated surname. My brother offered the name of his local South Dorset MP, a Richard Drax, as his full surname is Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. (Note 3)  Interestingly his grandfather Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax was an Anglo-Irish Admiral whose mother had extended the surname, initially to Ernle Plunkett-Ernle in 1905 and then adding Erle and Drax in 1906, both by Royal Licence. If you think the name Drax rings a bell, it’s because Ian Fleming was a friend of Sir Reginald and named his Moonraker character Sir Hugo Drax as a tribute!

In my innocence I had assumed it was a mixture of a God Father with a stutter and a hard-of-hearing Parish Church clerk at someone’s baptism.

“Who names this child?”

“I do and his names are Rrrreginald er er Errrnle Enrrle Drrrrax.”

So the clerk fills in the Baptismal Register incorrectly, a little like how Smith has been written Smyth and Smithe. You wouldn’t want to admit to not knowing how to spell someone’s surname so you just wrote it as it sounded!!

One’s age is, for some, a very personal thing and it was considered very rude to ask a woman her age. But the other day I thought, well, if you add the two individual numbers that make my age together you get 13. So there you are: what a disclosure! On that recent birthday my brother had sent me a slab of lovely chocolate Brownies by post from a Dorset company called Chococo.  It was only when the box was empty did I notice the cardboard lid:

Initially I thought it was amusing, using a little Dorset vernacular, dropping the ‘h’ but that didn’t make sense with ‘in’ – in where? Hey! Ho! No one is perfect.

Richard 25^th November 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note I This might be the title of my next postcards.

Note 2 Such a delightfully name originating from Langton from ‘long town’ and John Matravers who owned land there in 1281. There is another village, Worth Matravers, so named after a William Matravers who was Constable of Corfe Castle in the C14th.

Note 3 I feel sure his nickname at school was Peed (?)

I popped into the Hope Café this week as Sami had texted to say he was back from his Indian adventures (see PC 302) and wanted to show me some photographs. Grabbing my usual double espresso I made my way across to Sami’s corner table, where his iPad lay open in front of him. In these quasi post-pandemic times, a big hug seemed the right thing to do!

“Sami, so good to see you again; you must have been away three months or more?”

“Actually I got back in mid-October but I hadn’t been keeping my Covid Vaccinations up to date and caught a very mild dose! Fortunately my blood group is O Positive and statistically we have fewer symptoms than other groups; anyway I am now fully vaccinated!”

“Glad to hear it! How was your trip? Did you get to look at some of the Indian Mutiny sites?”

“Yes! I found a great travel agent, Float & Fly Tours and its MD JP Sangar who organised everything for me.”

“Excellent! You remember me telling you before you went that my great-great-grandfather had been in Patna during The Mutiny, commanding the Behar Station Guards. One of his sons, George and aged 7 at the time, remembers sitting on a roof and watching the rioters roaming the streets looking for trouble.

But Britain didn’t of course govern the entire Indian subcontinent, did it?”

“No, I found this map which shows parts of the country were run by Maharajahs. And the rest (shaded) was essentially subcontracted out to the East India Company, who was a quasi-governmental organisation whose army was recruited mainly from Bengal.

I flew to Delhi and learned that the tour would take in Meerut, Delhi itself, then down to Agra and on to Cawnpore (now reverted to its Indian name Kanpur) and Lucknow.  Here’s the geography.”

“You probably don’t want to do a blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute account but what are the immediate memories you’ve brought back?”

“Well, most people know the popularist reason for The Mutiny concerned the new Enfield rifle cartridge. The rifleman needed to bite off the end of the paper wrapping, said to be greased with pork and beef tallow; not good if you were either Hindu or Muslim! But there were other grievances throughout the army, which was a volunteer mercenary force officered by men of a different race and religion!”

“Ah! Yes! The British men who didn’t have the money to buy a commission in the army at home!”

“Exactly! We drove out of Delhi to Meerut where it had all kicked off on 10 May 1857. As you move away from the centre of Delhi, or any other city for that matter, the roadside stalls change in their offering. For example, first new cars, then second hand cars, then tyres and upholstery, then individual wheels, then wheel hubs and finally nuts. Everything is recycled, everything is for sale!”

Susie popped over, asking whether we wanted more coffee and, as it was a Thursday, produced some Brazilian Brigadeiros from next door to sample. With more coffee ordered, Sami continued:

“In Meerut the church has memorials to the officers and their families who died; here’s one to Veterinary Surgeon Charles Dawson and his wife Eliza – ‘killed by the mob’

We looked at where there had been fighting in Delhi but it was what happened in Cawnpore that I remember more; such a tragic story and its ramifications spread far and wide.”

“What happened?”

“In short, the British forces in the city of Cawnpore surrendered to the rebel army, with a promise of safe passage down the Ganges. As the laden boats pulled away from Satichaura Ghat, rebels opened fire, and hundreds died.

The survivors, some 197 women and children, were taken to a single storey house, the Bibigarh, in Cawnpore, to be used as a bargaining chip. Two weeks later, any negotiations having proved fruitless, five men hacked the group to death with swords and threw the bodies down a nearby well.”

“God! How awful!”

“Sadly this slaughter unleashed a wave of retribution on the Indian rebels and thousands were hanged or blown to pieces with the cry ‘Remember Cawnpore’ ringing in their ears.”

“I think we believe women and children should be spared violence but the war in Ukraine has reminded us that savagery knows no limits. Any nicer memories?”

“We visited a few Maharajas’ palaces. In the one in Agra we saw a huge mahogany dining table, so big that the condiments were moved around by a model train set, in solid silver of course!

While we were in Agra we joined the queues to see the famous Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum housing the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Such a British thing, to queue, but in India there is no idea of personal space; everyone is happy to be up against the person in front – I found this uncomfortable!

It’s been interesting going to India and to meet Indira and other cousins but I don’t feel Indian. My skin colour suggests a pigmentation darker than white, natural as my mother was English, but she never learned to cook curries! My father never cooked, it’s not the way an Indian family split responsibilities, so our house in Southall was never full of the aroma of spices.

The country is littered with ancient forts and palaces, some like the Red Fort in Delhi well maintained and others just rotting away with no budgets or current interest to maintain or care for them.  

The Indian Mutiny, or the First War of Independence, is now considered to be the start of the agitation for independence, which culminated less than 100 years later in the partition of the country into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.”

“Wow, Sami, you’ve had a wonderful time by the sound of it; love the photographs. Now all you need is a good outcome to the Post Office Inquiry and you will finish the year on a high.”

“Absolutely! And by the way, I went looking for the memorial to your great-great-great grandfather Stephen Nation (a Brigadier who died of cholera aged 48 in 1828), who’s buried in the Christian Cemetery in Cawnpore, but it’s all rather crumbled ……. and I couldn’t find it”

“That was really sweet of you.”

Richard 18^th November 2022

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS If you seriously want to know more about The Indian Mutiny, read some of these books: