42 of 50

Firstly can I say a quick thank you to those readers who have left a comment, voted in the poll or otherwise contacted me privately with views as to what should happen when the counter hits 50. The overwhelming response has been “don’t stop!”, with “we don’t care what you do, just don’t stop” coming a close second. I’ve made no decisions yet, but suffice to say I need to have a think and I’ll let you know in due course.

In the meantime here’s this weeks post:

Six years ago last week was the anniversary of my Dad’s passing. That’s the two of us up there I reckon I’m about 3 years old and he’d be around 38.

I’m really lucky because he was a great Dad, sure we argued quite a bit, especially when I had my difficult teenage phase, but he acted as a role model for me in so many ways that at the time I certainly didn’t realise what was going on.

He remembered the Second World War, being “evacuated” (really they went to stay with family in the countryside to escape bombing of Portsmouth) and gliders going out (never sure whether this was as a latter part of D-Day or Arnhem). He was a member of the British Red Cross (which was where he met my Mum), a Special Constable, a carpenter, worked for Timothy Whites (which became Boots), and for a good proportion of his life was a Post Office Telephone Engineer (which became BT).

He had many and varied hobbies. Gardening (probably where I get that from), making and not making things – he once promised my Mum he’d make her a sewing cabinet, which he never completed. When I was clearing out some of his things I found a copy of the woodworking magazine that he’d been using for the plans:

He was a radio ham, photographer, and general tinkerer in many things. He was heavily involved in the local village fair which was run for the village children and to raise money for projects for the village kids.

He did so many different things it is really impossible to list them all here. I miss him and in many ways regret that we didn’t have more time to talk and for me to listen.

If you have a family member that you haven’t spoken to in a while, take a moment to go and see them for a chat or pick up the phone and give them a call. Life is short and it’s difficult to know when it will be too late to do some of these things so better to do them while you can.

Thanks for reading.

41 of 50

As a kid I used to love the school holidays, they were the times when I spent most of a day in the woods (which I’ve written about before). There was always something to do. We didn’t have much TV and the internet was a thing of the future. There were games consoles but it wasn’t really until the Sinclair ZX81 and then Spectrum became commonly available that computers and games were really a thing.

So what did we do with all of that time? Well I compiled a little list:

• Kite flying

• Tadpole hunting (seasonal)

• Playing – Soldiers / Cowboys / Detectives (depending what we’d seen recently on tv)

• Riding our bikes for miles

• Building model kits

• Reading

• Playing music

• Playing boardgames (endless hours of monopoly weren’t uncommon)

• Building elaborate camps in the woods

I guess I could go on, but there really never was a shortage of things to do. I don’t think our parents ever felt that we were under their feet, although there were times when we would beg for a lift somewhere – the boating lake or cinema – but those both cost real money to do, so were more treats than time spent amusing ourselves.

I used to envy some of my friends as they had (mostly older) brothers and sisters, and at the same time they use to envy me because I didn’t, clearly with siblings there is no happy medium.

My impression is that today is quite a bit different, although I could be wrong. Obviously technology plays a bigger part than it did when I was a kid, but also the perception of safety is a big concern for many parents today. I don’t think we were ever really in much danger that wasn’t of our own making, but I’m not sure whether that is still the case today.

I think it’s also played an important part of how I perceive my “freetime” 50 years on. I don’t think I ever have nothing to do. There are lists both physical and mental of all the jobs that need doing around the house or chores and errands that need to be attended to. Doing nothing these days is a conscious choice and without it, I doubt that I would ever sit still. That conscious choice also comes with a pretty big mental stick which at times I know I can beat myself with for not doing “enough”. When I recently had Covid, forcing myself to slow down and recover properly wasn’t easy. It felt at times like I was being lazy, even though I would say in hindsight taking that time was most definitely the right thing to do.

So I suppose having said that I’d better stop writing this and go an do something that would be considered productive. The lawn needs cutting and there are still all sorts of boxes that we haven’t yet unpacked after our move. So what am I waiting for?

Thanks for reading.

Not one of fifty

Thanks for reading my Fifty from Fifty Newsletter, this isn’t one of the regular numbered posts, and all will become clear momentarily. A regular post should be out tomorrow.

We are clattering our way towards post no 50 and if you remember back to the welcome email I said that this would be a limited run. 50ish posts reminiscing on 50 years of my life. I still intend that to be the case but I have had some push back on stopping at post number 50. I also however feel a contract with you who read my ramblings so would appreciate your views.

I think there are five basic options:

1. Stop as advertised. Email addresses deleted, posts will remain as an archive.

2. Keep going as I am. Roughly a post a week along the same lines. I realise that you may be signed up thinking this was going to end, so there’s always the unsubscribe button or let me know and I’ll remove you from the list.

3. Start another separate newsletter. This is likely to be on the new garden and getting it into shape, growing stuff and cooking the produce. This would require a new sign-up, I wouldn’t just port your email details across.

4. I also have a blog. I’ve been writing much less there this year because of this newsletter, but could switch my attention back there. You can subscribe by email, but the content is more varied and would likely include content from idea 3, if I don’t do that separately. Again I wouldn’t port your email details over.

5. Keep going as is but look forward at the next fifty years and things that might happen (this was something of suggested when I mentioned this to him – Thanks Mason!)

There are of course probably other options that I haven’t considered so if you have a bright idea that you’d like to share, do leave me a comment.

As I said I’d like to know what you think, so if you have a favourite from the above please vote in the poll below. Realistically I think I only have the time to do one of them, as much as I would like to do them all, so ultimately the final decision rests with me. I would also consider the paid tier, although again, not sure how that would work in practice, but that would only be after the 50 posts. I do not intend to make any change along those lines with the current format.

So let me know your thoughts below or via the comments.

As always, thanks for reading.

40 of 50

Hello there, we’re into the home stretch now. Just 10 more posts after this one, and then what? I’ve been thinking about that, if you’ve been here from the start you’ll know that this is a limited run newsletter. Just 50ish posts to celebrate 50 years of life. I’ve enjoyed it and would like to continue in some way, but my agreement with you dear subscriber was to not use your email past the end of the limited run.

I’ve been toying with some ideas and will send out a separate (non-numbered) post in the next few weeks to see what you think about what happens next, but in the meantime back to your scheduled programming.

I wonder sometimes if I’ve always taken the path of least resistance, even when that might not have been the easiest path but because it was what was expected of me? For example when we were clearing out our loft to move I came across a picture of my university class. I guess there was about a hundred or so of us and I remember it being taken and sitting with a couple of my friends at the end of one row.

It was always expected that I would go to university. My grades were okay and I think I just went along with the flow at the time, taking the path of least resistance. It wasn’t as it turned out the easiest time of my life but I graduated with my degree, that is still kind of relevant to what I do today. I was one of the lucky ones in that back then fees were paid by the state and I even got a small living grant. Now I would have to pay the whole lot and saddle myself with debt for who knows how many years. I’m not sure I would make the same choices now that I did then. Although maybe I would because it would have been the easiest thing to do.

I can think of other times when I’ve done whatever is easiest, but not always. Choosing to take redundancy seven and a bit years ago wasn’t the easiest choice or the path of least resistance. In some ways I’d say it’s been quite an uphill struggle at times since then. Being self-employed, trying to make ends meet.

Our recent decision to move house is also not the path of least resistance, and it is proving to be hard work. I don’t yet know whether it is the right decision but it was right at the time is was made is about the most I can say about it for now.

So if I do take the path of least resistance I’d say I probably do so more often than not. Whether that’s because it’s the easiest decision or what is expected of me. The latter less so now. I don’t really care about others expectations (or at least very few), so if it is the easy decision I’ve made it’s been done for me or those nearest to me rather than anyone else.

What about you? The Path of Least Resistance or something else?

Thanks for reading.

39 of 50

I’m pretty sure that each and everyone of us can point to something that our parents did that we identified that we would never do.

I’d further postulate that there are a few of those things that we have subsequently done, although not all of them.

There are times that I’ve caught myself doing something or saying something that I’ve thought that is exactly what Dad would have done or said. I think I’ve been more conscious of this since he passed away, and I know I’ve certainly thought about things at times and asked myself WWDHD (What Would Dad Have Done), and also WWMHD.

I think some of this is natural ageing and reaching a certain point where I am no longer young by any stretch of the imagination and thinking of parents as the perennial older person, the way a child considers all adults over a certain age as “old”. I also wonder genetically what I might inherit from which parent in terms of latter day health. Certainly I’ll take my Mum’s eyesight and my Dad’s teeth, but to a certain degree some of this is already hardwired into my DNA.

Some is also learned by doing, because one parent or the other did something with you that means you’ve continued to do it. Certainly some hobbies are like this.

Of course not everyone is as lucky as I’ve been in having both parents around for all of my childhood and the majority of my life in total. It makes me wonder whether other adults leave the same imprint. Someone who’s brought up my a step parent or another member of their family? What about those who grow up in a care situation. Is there a defining period or length of time that’s required for this to happen?

Is the opposite also true are there things that no matter how hard you try you just can’t replicate the way a parent or similar did something. I think a lot of us would be able to point to practical things like cooking or handicrafts where we might be able to say that we’re just not as good as soandso. There’s also the contrary point of being very good at something and having no idea where we “inherited” it from, although in some cases this might be because someone spotted a talent early enough that they were able to encourage and nurture it even though they didn’t necessarily have any direct input. In this case I’m perhaps thinking of sports or acting.

Ultimately if I look back I’d have to say that I’m most like my Dad. There are facial similarities and certainly in terms of some of my mannerisms and traits, I can see we are a little alike. There are things that I can do that he could never master and vice-versa, but I think we’d both have a good try at most things. Sadly he’s not around for us to have some kind of head-to-head just to prove my point but I think if he were we’d have some pretty good complimentary skills too.

Thanks for reading.

38 of 50

Last week I hinted at how I once lost a penknife at Girl Guide Camp. To clarify at that time Brownies / Guides and Cubs / Scouts were single sex organisations for the kids, the “rules” are a little different now I believe but I’m not sure of the exact parameters. Anyway back then (mid-’70s) the former was definitely the case.

I was probably around 3, so this is really stretching the old memories a bit, but my Mum was a Guide Leader. For me this mostly meant that one evening a week she would go off for a couple of hours and I’d spend time with my Dad before going to bed.

Once a year however there was a Guide camp holiday. Tents, outdoor cooking the whole kit and caboodle. I’m not sure of the circumstances but I suspect it was for a lack of babysitting options at the time that I went along too. Or at least during the day, while my Dad was working, I don’t have any memories of sleeping in tents like the rest of the Guides were, so I suspect that my Dad came and got me after work and took me home. Although this was camping it wasn’t very far away from the village where we lived.

I remember mucking in with the Guides, or at least about as well as a 3 year old can. There were activities, and simple meals cooked outside and washing up with water boiled on the campfire. I doubt very much I was doing anything strenuous.

There was also another boy there, one of the other leader’s sons, I suspect looking back probably in a similar situation. Although a few years older than me, we used to get on well enough to play together when we weren’t doing Girl Guide things.

As a present before we went I’d been given my first penknife, a small affair that I talked about last week. Not really a knife, more of a blunt letter opener, but when you’re 3…

Anyway, I had this on a lanyard around my neck and tucked inside my t-shirt most of the time. I was very proud of it – I distinctly remember that – and how I came to loose it.

When I was playing with the other boy, he for some reason untied the lanyard behind my neck. I tried to grab the knife through my shirt but my chubby kid fingers obviously missed it before it slid off of the lanyard into the long grass. Despite trying to find it, retracing our steps and going back and forth over the area where we were, we never found it. I remember being very upset at it’s loss. A present from my Dad and I’d lost it in less than a couple of days.

I suspect he wasn’t too surprised that it had gone missing and a week or so later he took me to the village hardware store to buy a replacement. I remember they were marketed on a bit piece of cardboard with little elastic loops holding the different knives onto the card. I chose the exact replacement for the one that I had lost. As you know I still have that second knife to this day, and have a certain sentimental attachment to it.

Thanks for reading.

37 of 50

As you probably know in a few weeks time we’re moving house. At the moment we’re in full on packing mode: bubble wrap and cardboard boxes are my jam. By god we have so much stuff. Probably too much stuff and I can see some seriously rationalising that stuff as we move.

It’s got me thinking of the number of times that I’ve moved house before and the different houses / flats that I’ve lived in. Unlike my partner who was an army kid and moved house regularly as her father was posted to different places around the world, I think I’ve moved a total of five times and the house we’re living in currently is the longest I’ve lived in any one property.

As mentioned you tend to accumulate “stuff” over the years. Some of it has purpose, some not and some is sentimental stuff. If you said I had more sentimental stuff than most people you probably wouldn’t be wrong (I am writing this newsletter after all, where there is a heavy sentimental piece). But some of my sentimental stuff also has purpose. For example tools that I’ve kept that once belonged to a favourite relative.

As I’ve been packing boxes I’ve come across all manner of different things that I’ve kept for sentimental reasons. Some I’ve certainly had for a very long time, including what was the ceramic door sign above that was on my bedroom door throughout my childhood.

I also came across several old penknives.

Only three of these are mine. The top one belonged to my Grandfather and I was given it when my Grandmother passed away a few years ago. It had been stored in her desk (which I also have) and when I took it out I cut my finger on it. It probably hasn’t been used since the mid-1970’s but it is wickedly sharp. The next two are ones I had as a kid, the white sided one is my very first penknife (or rather my second as it is identical to my first which was lost at Girl Guide camp – which is a story for another time). The bronze sided one belonged to my Dad and was on his keyring for many years until the loop broke. The leatherman was on my belt nearly everyday at work through my twenties and into my thirties. I probably used it everyday. I no longer carry it on my belt but it still gets the occasional use.

I find it interesting that these things are all analogue things, there’s not a digital knick-knack amongst them. Even things like the cameras that I’ve kept, they’re all film cameras, the only digital ones are relatively modern, and ones that I’ve purchase myself. It might be a cliché to say it but it feels like the analogue stuff is timeless. How is it that a knife that hadn’t been used in nearly forty years can retain an edge like it has, I know that it’s because my Grandfather would have taken great care of it and kept it honed and it hasn’t seen use since the last time he put it away, but it feels like the years should have dulled it like the sides of the blade has lost its shine. The business end is still game.

These are all things that I am going to keep, they have a function, even though they probably won’t get much use and I fully accept that I am keeping them for sentimental reasons. The more disposable items are consumer driven trivialities that unless they serve a function will be going to a charity shop or recycling point.

We don’t intend to move again after this time, except perhaps to the crematorium in what I hope will be many more years. I suspect we’ll still have too much stuff.

Thanks for reading.

36 of 50

My Uncle Harry kept chickens, but he wasn’t really my Uncle. Uncle and Aunt were terms that were often used in our family for non-family members over a certain age who held a position that should be respected. So “Uncle Harry” was in fact my Godmother’s Father, there was a distant connection through second marriages but no direct bloodline linkages.

Each school holiday we would go and visit Uncle Harry and Auntie Dora and their chickens. At the end of their long garden was a purpose built (thinking back I wonder whether this was actually an old brick built air raid shelter that had been converted) brick chicken house and run which took up quite a bit of the garden.

He had around a dozen or so chickens in there and the highlight of a visit would be to walk down to the end of the garden and check to see if there were any eggs, which we would collect and take home a half-dozen. We had to be careful not to collect the china eggs (which were there to encourage the hens to lay) or let the hens escape from their run, and if we timed it right give them a scoop of feed.

On one occasion I got to go with Uncle Harry to collect some new hens. I don’t remember where exactly we went other than it was out in the countryside somewhere to a farm where there were hundreds of chickens all running around. I was told to wait by the car as I watched him and some strangers corral a few birds and place them in a couple of cardboard boxes which went into the car boot and back to Uncle Harry’s house, where they joined his other birds.

He kept his chickens for their eggs and as far as I know they were never kept for the pot, even when they got old and stop laying.

As you’ll know if you’ve been reading these posts for a while we will shortly be moving house. Although it won’t happen right away one of my goals is to have chickens of my own. It’s something I could have done before now, but it often felt like we didn’t have enough space or there was another reason why it wouldn’t have worked.

I know that our chickens will effectively become pets, so will hopefully provide us with eggs and be responsible for some pest control in the garden. I have some experience of chicken keeping but that knowledge is probably rusty, so I’ll be treating it as a learning curve and a new experience. As pets I suspect that all of the hens will end up with names and if we should get a rooster he will of course be known as Harry and if not I dare say there’ll be hens Harriet and Dora.

Thanks for reading.

34 of 50

This makes for pretty depressing reading so I completely understand if you want to skip this week’s newsletter.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

Carl Sagan

The comparisons between my childhood and now, are in many ways all too depressingly easy at the moment. Whether it be the Russian invasion of Ukraine, compared to the late 70’s and early 80’s when it felt to me like the possibility of a nuclear war was very real. Or the current cost of living crisis and the levels of inflation, power cuts and general strike also of the 70’s and 80’s. I can still remember my parents talking about mortgage interest rates that hit the high-teen percentage points when they were trying to raise me, provide food etc. Now we are contending with not only inflation levels moving in to similar domains but also fuel bills that are completely out of control. We still managed to have the odd “staycation” in the school holidays but I can remember never venturing very far from home during those years.

I’ve written before about comparison on the weather now and in 1976, and then there’s the sewage on beaches and rivers and a whole mirriad of other quite uncanningly comparable events. Does history repeat itself? Seems like whilst they might not be quite repeats they’re maybe reboots. Sadly you’d think with a reboot we might get a better outcome or perhaps even avoid the situation in the first place? No it seems that certain ideologies don’t learn from their past mistakes, they just make them all over again.

It might be that it’s far enough back that whilst many of us can point to similar times when the same experiences were had, our knowledge of them is vague enough or wasn’t experienced in the same way as now. For example I can remember planned power cuts when I was a kid, but I didn’t know they were planned, I just remember the power being off. If that happens this winter I’ll have a little more context as to why it’s happening and where the fault lies.

Similarly with the invasion of Ukraine, I have more knowledge of the background than I did in the cold war times when the two largest superpowers were trying to build the biggest arsenal of weapons to assure mutual annihilation and pop singers were writing songs about it (and re-releasing the same song now).

In some ways the media was a little obsessed with the idea, and trying to make people think about how close they might be to a “primary” target. I can remember hiding under the bed clothes at night worried about a so called “First Strike”, (not that I think I actually knew what that meant) but looking back now and remembering that if it were to happen hopefully the bed clothes would mask the bright light.

In truth it doesn’t really matter how close you are, if you’re unlucky enough to survive the initial blast then the resultant nuclear winter, fallout and general collapse of society will probably get you. That hasn’t changed in all that time and the media is still obsessed about it. Actually maybe you’d be better off being close to a primary target? Given that I live less than ten miles from one of the biggest naval bases in the country I probably won’t be able to come back on here and tell you whether I’m right or not.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Aldous Huxley

It’s impossible to know what the future will hold, and whether a mad man with a nuclear arsenal is more dangerous than historical precedent. It’s impossible to know whether a government that made the same mistakes before will learn from them and be able to turn the fate of a country around without having to be forced from office by the people at an election (assuming of course that they don’t try and prevent there being democratic elections).

The origins of the phrase “May you live in interesting times” are somewhat contested but given one alternative of its origin is that of an ancient Chinese curse it certainly seems fitting at the moment because although the times might be interesting they certainly ain’t fun.

Take care and stay safe, and thanks for reading.