June 9

Tall story

Prices are rising at the fastest level for many years but there is another inflation, the height of young people.

I and most of my family are average but our grandsons and one great grandson are soaring above us. All four boys - young men - age range thirteen to nineteen - are taller than their parents by several inches.

Robert and Karen’s son Owen has achieved that before his thirteen birthday next month Mylo, my great grandson, is well over six feet, at 18.

Compare that with Rosemary, my wife, who was under four feet tall,  her father, five feet four. Perhaps it is all down to diet. 

June 8

Off the rails

This country seems to be falling apart. So many failings, few successes. much frustration leading to angry action.

The latest is the threat of a national train strike with London likely to be hardest hit in an ongoing tube stoppage.

It set me reflecting on the days when travelling by train was apleasure. 

Most of my rail journeys were for work, including one memorable  trip when  Rosemary and I took a group of  Caerphilly schoolchildren to Ludwigsburg ; there was panic when one boy opened the door at midnight.

Most exciting were trips on the Japanese 125 mph ‘bullet train’ enjoying sushi snacks, and the most embarrassing, being transferred from the military hospital in Aldershot to Chepstow when I was deposited on the floor of Reading station waiting room, cap and large rug I had knitted on my chest, and being lifted into the train through a window.

Regular working trips to London were among my happiest mainly Forrest breakfasts and three-course dinners with wine on office expenses.

My last visit to London was to a an Institute of Public Relations lunch on the House of  Commons terrace when Robert was awarded his Fellowship, forty years after I had received mine.

My longest journey? Two days with Rosemary, from Northern Australia to Perth, the most boring ever, with nothing to see, almost endless open stretches, including the longest straight stretch in the world.

My big regret is that I never achieved my ambition take the three day Canadian Pacific across Canada which Bert, my brother, had done when he was in the RAF.

June 7

After the Lord Mayers show the……

From celebration to resignation? The country’s dramatic change of mood and direction is worrying. With the  turmoil  created by war and shattered economies, the decisive action is needed is dangerously absent, with European nations divided on their next move.

It is even worse in Britain’s government crippled by infighting and the prospect of months of dither and delay while hapless Boris Johnson desperately tries to cling on to his power and power  authority, a forlorn hope.

Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May lasted just months after their members gave the thumbs down. Mr Johnson will be lucky not repeat history.

Much of the country, and forty percent of his government think he should do the decent thing and go.

Bur when did he ever do the decent thing?

June 6

Settled in

It is six months since the day I changed my address and my life.

After an eventful, and probably life saving experience of being cared for in Sunrise Cardiff I am now completely settled and perfectly happy.

Everything has worked out even better than I had expected or hoped. The flat is perfect, bright, comfortable and, most important safe, well designed for disabled residents.

I am surprised how few of them there are in Bridgeman Court, and that anyone over 55 can buy one.

In the Platinum jubilee garden party yesterday - moved into the foyer by rain - some of the residents I chatted with are more than forty years younger than I.

It has not been all plain sailing since I arrived.

Robert and Karen had made sure I had heat and light but the very cold weather and the change to independence was a strange, but welcome experience. That independence was achieved, and is being maintained by the ever ready help and support of family and friends, with Robert and a Karen, my niece Brenda and Ivor ever ready to deal with any problems, including complicated dealings with the energy companies and the NHS.

As a result, and my learning to take life steadily and be patient, I am now feeling fitter and happier than for years and, as usual, looking forward to good days, and perhaps years, ahead. 

The next adventure will be my first cruise for four years, the last one cancelled at the start of the  lockdown. It is complicated by health regulations and I shall not really believe I am on my way until I get to my cabin.

Thank you everyone for making it all happen.

I adaptedv

June 5

Flying the flag

What a boost the Queen’s four day platinum jubilee celebrations has given the souvenir manufacturers. A bonanza, a gold rush, raking in multi millions.

The union flags for sale range from mini, hand wavers, at 50p, to monster 8ft/5ft ones you can buy for less than £20.

The Union flag dates back to 1606 when, as the ‘British flag’, it was ordered to be flown from all the ships in the navy; later it became the  navy’s Union Jack, with Union flag now the public version.

The oldest flag making company in the world is said to be Annin in New Jersey USA that produced the first for the  civil Civil War in the 1860s war in and is still flourishing - ‘flying high today, selling our Union flag 

The world’s biggest union flag, made from unwanted clothes, was made ten years ago by Marks and Spencer in a field.

The world’s largest existing one does not fly; it is painted on huge hangar doors Ventnor in the Isle of Wight, produced to mark the Queen’s silver jubilee in 1937.

This historic weekend has seen a veritable tidal wave of flags and flag waving.

June 4

 

Making hay…..

The excitement over the Queen’s four-day platinum jubilee celebrations has made for a happy and boisterous weekend, but there are two more historic events worth a cheer.

Seventy three years ago, June 4- D Day, saw the Allied Normandy invasion, the beginning of the end of six years of war.

And today, the Covid infection rate, at just 2,000, is the lowest for well over two years.

It goes some way to mitigate the daily gloomy news of war, the faltering global economy, and uncertain future.

This week-end we are making hay while the sun shines, even if that is fitful, too.

June 3

Unique celebration

It’s the celebration of the century. The Queen’s platinum jubilee.Truly historic. 

In am watching this unique occasion on television; the other royal occasions, from the death of King George V in 1936 were plated out on radio.

I have never been one for standing, flag waving, watching processions, but I enjoy and appreciate the spectacle and the obvious delight of millions of the Queen’s subjects - what an old fashioned word.

There was one exception - as a schoolboy I watched with my school friends the young queen’s visit to Wandsworth in 1937.

Another memorable day was the Queen’s silver jubilee but this time it was a working day for me. As a South Wales Argus reporter I was out and about in the Rhymney Valley interviewing  revellers and watching street tea parties. I think we even had a union flag hanging from my office/home in Caerphilly high street. 

I had thought of scootering along to the cliff top in Penarth last night to watch the burning symbol from the newly restored beacon - one of hundreds through the country but decided I have reached my take-it-easy age.

Tomorrow I will be at tthe garden at Bridgeman Courtb with all our residents for afternoon coffee and cakes.

I have had a timely message from my long term friend Werner Bleyhl from Esslingen saying how he and his family are enjoying our royal celebration.

 Our queen, he says, is ‘a charming who nobody could say anything negative about’.

Werner reminds me of our royal family’s German connection; her grandmother Queen Mary was the Duchess of Teck which, he says is a hill he can see from his hillside home in Esslingen.

the celebration