The 22nd of November 2013 was the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most shocking events of the twentieth century, the assassination of President John F Kennedy. I personally expected a deluge of TV documentaries about the assassination but in fact on UK TV there really weren’t that many. A re-showing of the Oliver Stone movie, JFK. A documentary about media response to the assassination which was really the media looking at themselves. But that was really it, there were no probing or investigative programmes, perhaps in 2013 it was far too late for that.
In 1988, twenty five years after John Kennedys death, a veritable wave of documentaries were broadcast on British television, including a rare showing on channel four of the 1966 film of Mark Lane’s ‘Rush to Judgement’. On ITV a documentary by producer Nigel Turner called ‘The Men who Killed Kennedy’ was aired, claiming fantastically that assassins from the French…
I wrote a post some time ago about the Hurricane Namer. It was actually about looking for my best ever job and I wondered about those whose job it is to name hurricanes. The thing is, once you start to think about the best job in the world, you automatically go to the other end of the scale and think about the worst job, the absolute worst.
My day job is a pretty good job. My employers are decent enough, working conditions are good and my fellow employees are a pretty good bunch to work with. When I’m working with new staff members I always like to boost the positive aspects of my work. I remember starting a new job years ago and all everyone could say was why did I want to work there? They complained about the conditions, about managers about pay and believe me, they really put me off the job.
Everyone has their gripes about work but it’s important to be positive. A positive mental attitude helps enormously and the worse thing about moaning about your job is that it just gets you into a negative mental aspect which is not good. I went through a phase some time ago when I was determined to get myself out of a dead end job and into something worthwhile. One of the things I did was use some confidence boosting tapes by Paul McKenna and using some of his simple ideas helped enormously.
One thing was language. Instead of saying ‘I hate this job!’ Say something like ‘I’m not happy with this job at present but it is paying my wages and soon I will be getting a much better job!’ Positive language will completely change your outlook.
If you cannot remember a name, for example, then saying something like ‘I can’t remember that fellow’s name’ is only sending a message to your subconscious not to remember the name. Its like a self fulfilling prophecy. A better idea is to say to yourself; ‘I can’t recollect that name at the moment but I’ll have a think and then I’ll remember it!’ That way you are sending yourself a different message, one with a positive outcome.
Anyway, I’m going off target here, I’m supposed to be writing about the worst job in the world and the thing that made me think about it is this. The other day I had a letter from the NHS inviting me to take part in a bowel screening which can help in detecting bowel cancer early. I read on thinking where do I have to go? Do I need an appointment at the doctors’ or at the hospital and hoping that the doctor would not be from the same school of doctoring as my physiotherapist! Anyway, it turned out that no appointment was necessary. All I have to do is produce a small specimen, place it in a plastic bag and send it off to somewhere for testing.
I remember that on my first day at work at an insurance company I was sent down to the mail room to open the mail, then I graduated to making the tea. I can just imagine the young man or woman who has endured years of training, exams, and university. Then comes their first day at the medical laboratory only to find they have been nominated as . . the turd tester!
I think I’d prefer opening the mail!
If you liked this post then when not try my book, ‘Floating In Space’?
Getting older is a strange sensation. Once you reach a big birthday like sixty you start to re examine yourself and start to silently ask lots of questions. Inside, I’m the same person I always was: The same in fact, that I have been since I was a child, at least to me, at any rate. It’s only the outer layer that has changed. The outer layer has got fatter, heavier, and somewhat grayer. But inside, the essence that is me, the real me, is essentially unchanged. What is my essence though? What am I? How did I come to be, what purpose, if any, have I served?
Those questions are ones which people have been asked over and over for millennia and of course, will continue to be asked over and over again. As for the answers, well that is something different. I could quite easily be an accident of fate, just like the rest of the population, like the insect and animal world, like plant life, like the earth itself. It could be that the Creator of All Things, God, Allah, or whatever you like to call Him created us all, and that every step we take has been pre-ordained in some way. It could be that when we die we vanish, or it could be that our spirits live on, that you and I have lived before and will live again. Who knows?
It’s interesting to think that in some eastern religions, they believe that we are all born with a finite set of breaths. Breath then, in such a religion, is life itself, and when our allotment of breaths has gone, we are no more. Yoga, the understanding and practice of breathing was understandably very important to ancient people, perhaps for that very reason itself, for by controlling breath, one can live longer. It’s an interesting thought.
Another interesting concept is Samsara. In the Buddhist faith there are three primary states, birth, death and rebirth. Samsara is the wheel of life and only those Buddhist scholars who can escape from the cycle of life by meditation are those who achieve enlightenment, which in its highest form is nirvana, freedom from rebirth.
Normally, I think I would have probably taken my new birthday and my age in its stride but the big six zero does have an effect. Recently I have been on the look out for new jobs. Something more challenging, something different to what I do at present. I’ve started looking at roles outside of what I do in my day job, jobs involving social media, blogging and so on. Of course things aren’t like the old days, in the 21st century you cannot get a job without a qualification and the fact that I’ve been writing this blog for two years now, and single-handedly producing the graphics and the videos and promoting it all on Facebook and Twitter doesn’t really mean anything, not to an employer anyway. A degree in social media is what employers want. Anyway, two letters I received lately stopped me in my job hunting tracks. One was from an old employer saying they were ready to pay my pension and how and when did I want it: A lump sum? Monthly payments or a combination? Interesting, I thought. Then I got one from my current employer telling me I could retire if I wanted to or go part-time; semi retired. Well, wasn’t expecting that.
Yes, the thought of working part-time is starting to appeal to me. I’ll have more time to write, to make my videos and to create my graphics. Time to finish that second novel. Perhaps even time to take up a social media course! I’m not sure what to do but, if I continue to think about life, the universe and everything, taking up a philosophy course and really looking into the meaning of life might be an option!
It may be that the only meaning to this life is the one that you yourself give to it. I’ve always taken inspiration from that fine poem the Desiderata that says in part, ‘no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.’
We can only suppose it is.
If you enjoyed this post, why not try my books? Both are available from Amazon as a Kindle download or as a traditional paperback. Floating in Space is a novel set in 1977. A Warrior of Words is a poetry anthology. Click the links at the top of the page to buy or for more information.
October 3rd was the birthday of Manchester author and blogger Steve Higgins.
At a press conference this past Monday morning at Wetherspoons in Southport Mr Higgins, reputedly now 60 years of age, was asked numerous questions about his advancing years. He was heard to ask “Pint of lager, please mate,” numerous times but did not seem willing to discuss his birthday further.
Although Mr Higgins seemed somewhat reluctant to engage with people, he responded to a question about television in the early years of the second half of the twentieth century.
He confirmed there were, in the 1960’s when he was a child, only two TV channels. There were further gasps from people when he mentioned, almost nonchalantly that he and his family were at one time forced to watch programmes in black and white!
As Mr Higgins moved onto his next pint he enlarged upon his theme. “Yes, in those days there was no colour TV, no Internet and no mobile phones.”
“How did people send messages?” One journalist asked.
“Well,” said Mr Higgins. “The only way was to get some paper and a pen or pencil and laboriously write out a message. Afterwards it had to be sealed in an envelope and posted after of course, adding a stamp.”
“What, you mean it wasn’t free?”
“Of course not!” snapped Mr Higgins, rather testily. “Not only that, you had to take it round to the post box and mail it yourself.”
“How long would the process take?” asked another.
“Well, it could be anything from a couple of days to almost a week”
A young lady reporter fainted and was revived by splashing cold water on her face. As she came round, she looked up at Mr Higgins and asked, “How did you carry on, how did you survive?”
“Well,” answered Mr Higgins. “I suppose we were a tough generation. It was hard then. You lot have things so easy!” Returning to the bar, Mr Higgins waved over to the bar staff and commented. “This lager is a bit naff. Have you got any dark beers? What about a pint of mild?”
Picture courtesy perfectpint.co.uk
“Mild?” replied the barmaid, a young Romanian girl of about nineteen. “What iz zat?”
Mr Higgins looked a little frustrated until the bar manager came over and revealed that Theakstons mild was one of the guest beers that day. Mr Higgins immediately perked up and called for a pint.
“Lovely jubbly” he commented, “cracking pint. Now, what else do you lot need to know? I’ve got some serious drinking to do.”
“What about films?” someone asked. Surely it was just like today; surely you could download a movie onto your tablet and watch at your convenience?
Mr Higgins, now onto his fourth pint seemed to jump on the word tablet and exclaim “Tablet? In my day that was something you took for a headache! If you wanted to see a film, you had to go down to the picture house, pay your money and go in and get your seat and watch the film.”
Someone asked if the term ‘picture house’ could be explained.
“The picture house! Cinema! A big place with a huge screen where they projected the picture!”
“Do you mean you had to sit with other people?”
“Of course you pillock!” replied Mr Higgins. He turned back to the bar just as his all day breakfast arrived. “Right, that’s it now. If you want to learn about the old days, like the seventies, just get yourselves a copy of my book, ‘Floating in Space!’”
It was a bright sunny day in Southport as we left Mr Higgins. He appeared contented and happy with a pint in one hand and his all day breakfast in the other. I did notice him quietly slip an iPad onto the table and he glanced back at me and commented; “technology, you’ve got to embrace it haven’t you? Otherwise you’ll just get left behind.”
This exclusive report was by Johhny Lizt
Find out more about Floating In Space. Click the links at the top of the page for information, video, and background.
Somebody once said that the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. The other thing that comes to mind are holidays. Yes they too must come to an end sooner or later. The time will come when you have to say goodbye to your holiday home or hotel room and hand it over to some other lucky holidaymaker. As you, the reader reads this, I will be well into my first day back at work, yes, Saturday – what a day to go back to work!
All holidays end with a certain amount of sadness, saying goodbye to new friends and acquaintances. Leaving behind memories of lovely places, beaches, or resorts. I’ve spent almost a month in France; three weeks in the Cher region and a final five days in the Loire valley in a place called Doué la Fontaine.
I began my holiday with a few set tasks to complete; in fact, here’s a quick scan through my itinerary, both the planned version and the actual:
08:00 AM Planned. Into the lounge with my laptop for some creative writing. Starting off with any blog post ideas then straight into my follow-up novel. Hoping to get a good few pages cranked off.
08:00 AM Actual. Sleeping.
10:00 AM Planned. Cup of tea and slice of toast.
10:00 AM actual. Still sleeping.
11:00 AM Planned. Cup of tea.
11:00 AM actual. Cup of tea.
11:30 to 12:00. Planned: More writing.
11:30 to 12:00. Actual: Sip tea while checking e-mails, surfing facebook and pinning various pictures to Pinterest.
12:00 to 01:00 Planned: Lunch.
12:00 01:00 Actual: Breakfast.
01:00 to 02:00 Planned: Swimming.
01:00 to 01:30 Actual: Swimming. 1:30 to 02:00 reading.
02:00 to 16:00 Planned: writing.
02:00 to 16:00 Actual: Dozing, reading and swimming.
16:00 to 17:00 Planned: Swimming
16:00 to 17:00 Actual: Swimming/ reading/ sleeping.
17:00 to 21:00 Planned: Barbecue preparation, lighting, cooking and dining.
17:00 to 21:00 Actual: Pouring of wine, barbecue preparation, lighting of barbecue, pouring of more wine. Drinking wine. Cooking and dining. Drinking wine.
21:00 to 22:00. Planned: Editing and review of days work.
21:00 to 22:00. Actual: Wine, chatting and Facebook surfing.
Looks like the follow up novel may have to wait until next year. C’est la vie as the french say. . .
If you liked this post, why not try my book, Floating In Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information.
Time changes everything. Even in this remote (well, remote-ish) part of the world (the Cher region of France, as I write this) there are changes. The great thing about this gîte is the rather lovely pool which last year was open to the elements with a large patio but has now been covered by an enclosure, an abri as they call it here. It keeps the water warmer and means that the pool is useable in the cooler parts of the year. It also means that the pool complies with all the bureaucracy that goes with having a pool in France. Every pool must be protected against the accidental falling in of children so a small fence has to encircle the pool to keep wandering and unescorted children out of the water. We used to rent a place in the Loire which had a sort of concertina cover, which was in sections, one fitting into the other which could be all pushed completely back, opening up the pool in hot weather. Sacré Bleu! Said the French bureaucrats, This cannot be possible! That pool soon had the mandatory fence erected covering the exits. The owner was a little surprised when we pointed out that when the concertina covering was pushed back the fence could be bypassed. Mon Dieu! The next day we found that parts of the concertina had been screwed down, meaning it could only be opened within the fenced area. C’est la vie!
This is how the pool looked last year
Health and safety has reared its ugly head here too. There is a metal hand rail that leads one down into the pool but of course when it is hot -this year in the 90’s and hotter- the metal handrail gets . . hot! One of the previous tenants complained so the owners added a sort of padding, wrapped around the rail to protect one’s hands and fingers in the hot weather. (Note to self: exposed metal gets hot in 90 degrees plus!)
It’s funny now to think back to the first ever pool I swam in. Well, swam isn’t exactly the right word as I couldn’t swim then. I’m talking about when I was a schoolboy at Sharston school in Wythenshawe, Manchester many years ago. Every Monday, I think it was, we walked down to the baths at Sharston and our teacher sent our small group of non swimmers down to the shallow end, issued us with a polystyrene float and that was the last we saw of him till the end of the lesson. He spent all his time with the ‘advanced’ swimmers down at the deep end and at the end of the year he expressed himself very dissatisfied with our group as we hadn’t progressed to the ‘advanced’ stage. I wonder sometimes, if he had ever thought why we hadn’t progressed? Did it ever enter into his tiny mind for one minute that my schoolmates and I had no idea how to progress, how to become swimmers when apart from being handed a float, we actually had no swimming tuition at all? Strange that.
Sharston Baths
One year, at the end of the term, our teacher was so disappointed with our group that he took us up to the deep end where our more advanced schoolmates were doing their swimming proficiency medals. They had to jump into the deep end wearing pyjamas, undress, and then pick up a weight from the deep end. It was so very, very, easy that even we, the non swimmers could do it, he said. That was how I was compelled to jump in at the deep end wearing pyjamas, hanging onto a very long wooden pole with our swimming teacher holding the other end. I grappled about underwater for the weight and couldn’t find it. Not surprising really with my eyes shut. I couldn’t get the pyjamas off. Not surprising either as I hung onto the pole with both hands as if my life depended on it -which it did actually- and when finally dragged spluttering and choking to the surface, I was beached on the side of the pool like a stranded whale. My non swimming pals escorted me back to the shallow end like a hero. I must have been a sort of hero, to them, although inside I was a gibbering wreck, although I do remember thinking that if, by some strange chance I had come into contact with the weight at the bottom of the pool, I would have seriously considered whacking our teacher over the head with it!
I’m not a great swimmer but I finally learned to swim, after a fashion, in the warm waters off the South of France many years ago and as for my swimming teacher, Mr George, thanks for not completely drowning me!
Sharston.
Some years later the local planners decided to run the M56 Sharston bypass right through the centre of Sharston. A deep trench was cut, completely obliterating Sharston High street and its shops and businesses. (Interesting idea that: Bypassing a place by completely obliterating it!) Some years afterwards Sharston Pool was knocked down too, as was Sharston Highways depot where my Dad used to work, and my old school, Sharston High, as was the school of our arch enemies, St John Vianney’s Catholic school round the corner. Yes, times indeed change.
Towards the top of Sharston, where Princess Parkway begins, is an area known as Royal Thorn. A pub bearing that same name used to stand there and an even older pub stood on the site in earlier days. Apparently the name dates back to the 16th century. The Royal Thorn was demolished a number of years ago though I still remember Sunday afternoon walks round the area which culminated in a drink in the large gardens to the rear of the pub. I, as a child, used to get a lemonade and a packet of crisps and would occasionally run to see the steam trains passing by.
The Sharston Hotel, once a local landmark is also gone. In its place stands an empty, unused, rather unattractive building.
The Salisbury.
Recently I was rather shocked to find, via Facebook, that an old haunt of mine, the Salisbury, a pub right by Oxford Road Station in Manchester, is in danger of demolition! Times move on, clearly, and the life of the city centre must change but why do we have to destroy those wonderful places of years gone by if it is not really, really, necessary? Shouldn’t the face of a great town like Manchester adequately reflect the past as well as the future?
The Salisbury is a lovely old pub and one that I remember from my youth. In the mid seventies I left school and started work at the Refuge Assurance company on Oxford Rd and spent many a lunchtime and early evening at the Salisbury. I visited the pub last year and clearly a refurb has been done but happily it was a sympathetic refurb and the pub looks very, very similar to how it looked in the seventies. The stone flagged floor is still there. The food serving area has moved, in fact the bar has moved a little and the end of the pub, where my old office workmates and I used to congregate is now either an office or a private area but substantially, the pub looks pretty similar to how it used to look. On the outside, the pub is exactly the same as it always looked, and every time I see it, it is almost like the past, welcoming me back again.
Manchester city council, please, please don’t knock this pub down!
Take a look at the picture just below. Not a particularly outstanding picture I know but that house is the one where I grew up. I took the picture a while ago after a sort of nostalgic drive around the old neighbourhood. Yes, the house with the white door, thats my old home. It’s changed a bit since I lived there. The privet hedge has gone and the car space is new. One amazing thing I found out on that visit is that the walk to my old junior school, which seemed to be a heck of a walk as I remember it; surely at least a 30 minute walk, was actually more of a ten minute walk: Well, it was a long time since I walked to my junior school. I stopped in the road, took my picture, thought for a moment as a thousand memories crowded my mind…
In the late 1930s a fellow called Patrick McDonald opened a fast food stand in California selling mainly hot dogs. Later, his sons took the business over and realising hamburgers were their top selling item they decided to revamp the entire operation, focusing on quick service and snack food that was served literally ‘fast.’ They reopened with their new concept in 1948 calling their fast food establishment simply ‘McDonalds.’ They franchised their operation and other ‘McDonalds’ started springing up over California and Arizona. In 1954 a man called Ray Kroc bought up the franchise for the rest of the United States and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers for 2.7 million dollars. He then went on to build the McDonalds Corporation bigger and bigger and to export the McDonald restaurants all over the world. Even to France.
The Grand National is one of those institutions of British sport, and coming in the early part of April like it does, it’s one of those events that herald the gradual warming of the days, the better weather and the move into the summer. It also heralds, at least where I work, someone going round with a card asking for money to enter the office sweepstake. Pay a pound, choose a horse at random and hope you are going to win some money. The National itself is pretty random. The nature of the event with its long course and numerous fences mean a huge amount of luck is involved. Maybe that’s why it’s so popular with the betting public. Anyway, it made me think about horses and their connection with my family which, when it comes down to it, is more considerable than I had originally thought.
Digital memories are pretty easy to save these days. Take a picture with your camera or smartphone and press the save button. That’s your picture saved.
Later you can transfer the picture or video to a laptop or a hard drive for safekeeping. Years ago it wasn’t so easy but at least today you can scan those old photographs into your PC and save them as digital media. Even old videos and 8mm home movies can be digitised and saved if you have the right software. Still, memories are not just pictures. There are all sorts of things that can trigger your thoughts and bring back some long forgotten moment or event, or just something you haven’t thought of for a while.
It could be a piece of music or passing some old haunt, some pub you used to go in when you were younger but haven’t visited for a long while.
Something that was a trigger for old memories for me was an old tape recording I made when I was in my teens.
I used to make lots of recordings when I was much younger. I saved up and bought a tape cassette recorder and apart from recording music –they call them mix tapes these days but I never heard that term years ago when I was making ‘mix’ tapes- I used to record little plays and sketches I had written. My brother was press ganged into helping with these enterprises and I used various techniques to get him involved:
Bullying
Threats and intimidation.
Violence
Bribery
Yes, they all worked to greater and lesser degrees. It’s funny to listen to the tapes now because I can tell pretty much by his attitude when he went along with me willingly or otherwise. One other inducement I used was swapping. He might want a particular record or something that I had so we would swap that and some weeks later usually swap back. Lots of times I used to swap a record for my bicycle and that’s where I felt I really had one over on Colin, my brother, because he couldn’t, and still can’t ride a bike! Yes, I was on to a winner there because I’d swap my bike for a record or book and I had full use of the item while he couldn’t use the bike because he couldn’t ride it!
One time he really got one over on me. I had swapped my bike for one of his records or something or other; I can’t really remember what. Anyway, one day I went to go out on my bike- OK, his bike- opened the shed and it was gone. What had happened? Had it been stolen, where was it?
‘The bike?’ he answered blithely; he had sold it to his friend because he wanted money to buy a new LP!
My Mother facilitated the removal of my hands from his throat with a firm whack to the back of my head and asked what was going on?
‘He sold my bike!’ I yelled.
‘Your bike?’ she replied. ‘Didn’t you swap it with him? Isn’t it his bike?’
‘Yes but, yes but,’ was all I could say.
The tapes were mostly comedy sketches on the lines of Spike Milligan who was then a hero of mine. One of them went like this;
CUE COWBOY MUSIC
ME: Hey Stewart, I’m gonna knock that chip right off your shoulder!
COLIN: That’s no chip –it’s a potato!
ME: King Edward’s?
COLIN: No, he can get his own, it’s one of mine!
(These are the jokes folks, as someone used to say!)
My brother wasn’t the only person I dragged into making tape recordings. My old school friend Steve was a music fan like me. Well, I say like me but his music knowledge was prodigious. Name any record and he would say with certainty- ‘that went to number 2 in July 1974’ or whenever.
There was a radio programme we both liked. It was My Top 12 on Radio 2 and it was something on the lines of ‘desert island discs’. Someone from the music world would be interviewed and would choose their top twelve records.
Anyway, Steve and I decided to make a version for each other. One weekend I interviewed him talking about his favourite music for which he provided full chart statistics, naturally. On another weekend we reversed roles and he interviewed me for which I provided limited chart stats, usually something like, ‘that one just nudged into the top twenty to which my friend would reply, ‘yes, actually number 23 was the highest chart placing in October 1975.’
We slagged off all the music we looked down on and praised all the music we loved. Poor old Barry White (the same Barry White whose Greatest Hits is sometimes played in my car) got something of a drubbing. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel were praised as a musical discovery of the highest order. (Steve who? Was he the guy who did ‘Come up and See Me, make me smile?)
Through the magic of the digital age I recently processed that old tape and converted it into a CD which I played in my car on the way into work today and it was lovely to listen to my old friend again.
Steve was the inspiration for the character of Matty in my novel Floating In Space. He was a lovely guy although something of a music nerd. We had a parting of the ways years ago when his brother came to rent a room in my house. He proceeded to wind up my bills; gas, electric and telephone, to such an incredible volume I could no longer afford to have him living with me. Steve took his brother’s eviction personally and alas that was the end of our friendship.
I always assumed one day we would have a pint together and talk about music, sci-fi and cult TV once again, just like we used to back in the seventies and eighties. We did keep in touch through an intermediary, my brother Colin. We last had a long telephone chat in the early 1990’s and talked about a reunion. I never heard from him again and when I enquired about him to his sister, whom I located on social media, she revealed he had been taken ill with cancer and had passed away.
Steve, as well as being a great music fan was something of an aircraft anorak too. He stars in my second most watched video on you tube, a documentary we made in 1986 with Steve espousing his love of aircraft. I think he’d be thrilled to find that over 11,000 viewers have watched it. Here’s another re-edited version with somewhat less views. I took out the chart hits of the 80’s and replaced them with copyright free music thinking I’d start to earn some money off YouTube. (No chance, they decided I had to have 1000 followers before shelling out!)
One tip just to finish with. Hang on to the recordings you make with your iPad and iPhone and all the other modern day gadgets. Keep them safe; invest in a portable hard drive to store them.
Get ready to invest in new software which will convert the files to whatever new application we will be using in the future because in thirty years time you’ll want to look back at those memories and relive those earlier times.
What to do next: Here are a few options.
Share this post on your favourite social media!
Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!
The 22nd of November 2013 was the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most shocking events of the twentieth century, the assassination of President John F Kennedy. I personally expected a deluge of TV documentaries about the assassination but in fact on UK TV there really weren’t that many. A re-showing of the Oliver Stone movie, JFK. A documentary about media response to the assassination which was really the media looking at themselves. But that was really it, there were no probing or investigative programmes, perhaps in 2013 it was far too late for that.
I wrote a post some time ago about the 
Getting older is a strange sensation. Once you reach a big birthday like sixty you start to re examine yourself and start to silently ask lots of questions. Inside, I’m the same person I always was: The same in fact, that I have been since I was a child, at least to me, at any rate. It’s only the outer layer that has changed. The outer layer has got fatter, heavier, and somewhat grayer. But inside, the essence that is me, the real me, is essentially unchanged. What is my essence though? What am I? How did I come to be, what purpose, if any, have I served?
October 3rd was the birthday of Manchester author and blogger Steve Higgins.
I began my holiday with a few set tasks to complete; in fact, here’s a quick scan through my itinerary, both the planned version and the actual:
The Swimming Pool.
The Sharston Hotel, once a local landmark is also gone. In its place stands an empty, unused, rather unattractive building.
Take a look at the picture just below. Not a particularly outstanding picture I know but that house is the one where I grew up. I took the picture a while ago after a sort of nostalgic drive around the old neighbourhood. Yes, the house with the white door, thats my old home. It’s changed a bit since I lived there. The privet hedge has gone and the car space is new. One amazing thing I found out on that visit is that the walk to my old junior school, which seemed to be a heck of a walk as I remember it; surely at least a 30 minute walk, was actually more of a ten minute walk: Well, it was a long time since I walked to my junior school. I stopped in the road, took my picture, thought for a moment as a thousand memories crowded my mind…
My Grandfather, George…
Digital memories are pretty easy to save these days. Take a picture with your camera or smartphone and press the save button. That’s your picture saved.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 