Buxton Pavilion Gardens 1953 and Today.

We married at St John's, Beeston and spent a short honeymoon at the Alyson Hotel, Buxton, Derbyshire. That was in 1953. In those days there were many weddings just before the end of the tax year as it gave the husband a good rebate due to his new married status. It was a dull day followed by a sunny Sunday. The hotel was close to the Pavilion Gardens and we spent a little time there walking the footpaths. We did not have a car in those days. We often go to Buxton as we visit relatives and take holidays in Derbyshire. The gardens have now been restored to their former Victorian glory. Not only that but a great deal goes on there — antique and book fairs, Veteran car, and motor bike displays and many other things. The Opera House still continues with a variety of shows and plays, the swimming baths still operate as do the cafes and restaurant. But it is the gardens that fascinate us — how I wish they had such equipment for children when our kids were young! Incredible! And of course, the little train continues to delight its passengers as it winds its way around the park. I'm pretty sure the little waterfall is still the same one as on our honeymoon photographs. The little hotel we stayed at has changed hands a few times. It was rather amusing to find we were the only young people staying there. It seemed more like a retirement home for genteel ladies. In fact, when we were out walking, we passed close to an elderly pair of ladies and we heard one say heard one say to the other (elderly people do tend to speak with raised voices) “Look there's our young couple from the hotel.” I really liked the 'our' reference. Some years later it became a retirement home, but now I think it is a hotel again. Buxton may have super-markets and an indoor shopping mall, but it is still essentially the same as when we were on our honey-moon. The gardens, with the expensive Victorian uplift, are far better though. Sad about the bowling green loss, but with so much fun for the children, plus the renovated lake, the building and new bandstand far outweighs the loss. I assume it must have lost favour or surely it would have been kept. We always find it a great place to visit and often combine it with a walk along the Goyt Valley, which is just above Buxton. The poor quality of the black and white photographs is because they are enlarged and photographed copies of small snaps taken with a box camera 58 years ago.

Attenborough Nature Reserve — recollections of childhood 1940's

When we were children life was much simpler as were our pleasures. One place we frequented was the Atten-borough Nature Reserve, only when we were young it was just a gravel pit where nature was busy creating beauty from the torn up ground. With the River Trent close by, water soon filled the growing holes, and banks seeded naturally from the vegetation that must have existed from long, long ago. Birds filled the air with their song and swans glided peacefully on the water. Wild flowers delighted the eye and scented our walks. At Easter our mother would ask us to get her pussy-willows (I can still feel their softness) and bulrushes that grew aplenty between the river and gravel pits. We would also find sweet wild violets growing in the woods. Such delight! I never lost my joy of visiting that place. When we were in our teens, my friend Brenda and I would go there, both to the gravel pits and the river bank. We once carried a wind-up gramophone the entire distance to play the Swan Lake ballet music, while we watched the swans and had a picnic. On one occasion we had a picnic in the pouring rain, just sheltered by one of our macs. Sometimes we were treated to pure delight when a group of swans took off — noisily splashing their feet along the water before lifting into the air in sheer beauty of movement. And, of course, the day would arrive when a whole family of swans glided on the water, fluffy signets carefully protected by mum and dad. Swans mate for life and are a wonderful example of parenthood.
Returning to those gravel pits after so many years, we found it had become the Attenborough Nature Reserve. So many wonderful things going on there and all free to the public. What joy to walk again in an area that brings back so many happy memories of childhood. Wartime years they may have been but those gravel pits are reminders of how nature can bring back beauty to what man can so easily make ugly. Now my sister and I can sit in the Nature Reserve cafe, look outside at the wild life, and recall our childhood memories of Mother and our Easter offerings gathered by the waterside.

The Dark Mirror published by Dare Empire

Published by Dare Empire, The Dark Mirror is now available in pdf and Kindle. Cheap too! Paperback late April.

“Smoothly, expertly written, the author captures the essence and conflict of human love and religion as they struggle to coexist in a judgmental world.”

Powerful forces are at work in a group of country parishes undergoing renewal and charismatic revival, confusing reflections of reality. Emotions run riot. A supposed miracle birth during a previous revival haunts the present like a spectre at the feast. Weird happenings at midnight, desecration of the altar, accusations of rape, are just some of the challenges threatening the dedicated ministries of the handsome young incumbent and his secret rural dean lover. Can love continue to believe all things, overcome all things, in a judgemental world?

“A beautifully woven story of love, a story that will keep you turning page after page. Witness the accusations and heartache of this controversial work of art. This is a story that will touch your heart and keep you thinking long after you turn the final page. When a man believes he has to choose between the love of a man, and the love of God.”

Magpies Nest Publishing for ordering my print books, viewing chapters and reviews

Teenage Years of Long Ago

Teenage Years of Long Ago

It was a glorious time
as new friends came along
turning life into a song
ah, how we loved and played
dancing at the Palais
going to the ballet
playing tennis on the lawn
boating on the lake
drinking tea, eating cake
at Highfields Park pavilion

though we went our separate ways
I still recall those halcyon days

NHS ... babies and all that

People today have no idea how well off they are with today’s NHS compared with years ago. I recall quite clearly my first visit to our local hospital In Lough-borough. (I had been in Nottingham hospitals when a child: six weeks in an isolation hospital in a ward of adult women — no toys, no books, no visitors inside, only a chat through a window twice a week with my mum who had to make two bus journeys to get there; and a horrid ‘conveyor belt’ experience when I had my tonsils out a few years later.)
It had been established that I was pregnant and I guess the blood test, I was about to have, would determine whether I would qualify for a hospital bed when ‘delivery’ time arrived. It should be noted that unless you had a good case — problems expected or poor housing with no hot water or other essentials — your baby would be delivered at home in the care of a midwife and your own doctor. No matter that we were new to the area and had no one to help. Husbands did not get time off unless they took part of their two weeks annual holiday. Giving birth was no ‘big deal’ in those days. No classes to attend, no fuss, no social contacts — you saw your doctor only occasionally and given tablets for morning sickness. Being terribly ignorant and worried sick, I read a book. Looking at a diagram I was even more concerned. I told my doctor at my next visit that I did not think I had space between my pelvic bones for a head to pass through. He dismissed my fears and said I would be examined at the eighth month and that my build was all right. So I went on worrying.
The above hospital appointment was to take place in the Pathology labs. I found the guy in charge. He sat me in a room, stuck a hollow needle in my arm and left me to it, while drop-by-drop my blood dripped into a small phial he had given me to hold. I should mention here that I have a phobia (largely under control now) concerning blood and hypodermic needles.
I sat on that chair trying to take my mind off what was happening. When the guy returned I was trying not to fall off the chair. He pushed my head between my legs and removed the instrument of torture. I was taken to an examination room to lie down. Horrors! The bed had a sheet with a huge bloodstain that had not been washed out by the laundry. A consultant came to make sure my baby was okay. When feeling better I walked home. Shortly after I saw someone who told me that I had not been awarded a hospital bed, as my circumstances did not warrant it. ‘Even though you did apply before you could be certain you were pregnant,’ she added. No use telling her that my doctor told me to apply at twelve weeks.
In those days you spent at least a week in bed. I booked into the local nursing home, even though we could hardly afford it. They messed things up and I was sent to hospital as an emergency. Baby was born, with the help of a large episiotomy about 40 hours later — blue. I was sent back and baby kept for another day. How’s this for hygiene? When my next baby was born, also as an emergency, when I arrived at the hospital I was given an ordinary test tube and told to go to the toilet and pee straight into the tube! My bulge made things incredibly difficult — my hands, arms and legs were well wetted. BUT I was chased back to bed and not allowed to wash my hands. ‘You can do that when the bowls come round after lunch,’ I was told.
Because I had a huge bleed with the second baby my third infant was allowed to be born in hospital. Bond Street hospital in Leicester had been an old factory. Incredible. Caesareans were seldom done in those days; my huge baby (as was my second) was born (eventually) with forceps. My damaged uterus caused me problems for years until I had it removed.
How different today! Mothers take note — be grateful for all the good things on offer today (pre-natal and aftercare). My babies were born 15 miles away in three different hospitals. Dad was nowhere near. I was alone and frightened, especially when I had my first. On occasions I was left alone in a delivery room, distressed and lonely. At least a health visitor called a few times after my babies were born and I saw others at the weekly clinic. My story is not unusual.
Having had a number of operations, I think our NHS is fantastic. If you had been around in the early stages — corridors as waiting areas, crowded wards, cancer a death sentence, occasional scruffy toilets, smoke-filled ward-sitting rooms, you would feel the same way.

Death of a Bluetit

He flittered in the sunshine
And twittered in the trees.
Ate seeds with his little family
And glided on the breeze.
He gave us so much pleasure
Through weeks of winter snow,
But now we’ve found him lying dead
Just how, we do not know.
We’re grateful for that little life
That brought us so much joy,
A short life but a worthy one
That death cannot destroy.

A Gift From the Heart

There are times when nothing seems to go right. Times when it seems you receive nothing but adverse criticism when trying to do your best. When you work for many months on a project only for it to go seemingly nowhere, if not nowhere, then certainly haywire. This is when tiredness swamps your energy levels and you begin to wonder ‘why the hell bother?’ You lose sight of the good things that are also taking place, and of your achievements. To top it all, your baking is not up to scratch — smoke leaves the oven when you open its door (and the vacuum cleaner decides to take up smoking too!) The TV Arial goes on strike. Folk start treating you like you’ve gone non compos mentis. And you wonder why not give up and become a TV and chocolate addict. The problem with that is, since the good programmes are constantly repeated I would simply spend my days sleeping and eating — until my flesh became one with the easy chair, and ‘they’ would have to remove the big picture window to get me outside for a trim.
Guilt (because you feel you SHOULD be happy with so many blessings to be thankful for) builds up and depression appears like a black hole to easily slide into. After all, as doctors will tell us — this is the SAD time of year.
Then something totally unexpected happens. A gift of flowers arrive in the post. A good weep and the sun begins to shine once more.
Thank you, dear friend.