Alright my lover?

This week I have been down in Plymouth with the sole purpose of moving my aged mother up to a flat in Hoylake on the Wirral. My mother is 86 years old, and by the look of some photographs we found, was a bit of a looker all those years ago. No wonder she caught my father's eye.

We moved down to Plymouth as a family in 1959 from Isleworth in West London. My dad worked for National Benzole, a petrol company, in those days and was posted to Devon and Cornwall a year or so earlier. He supervised the completion of our house which was part of  a Costain development  in Plymstock and my mum and I moved down when it was ready.

I went to school in Plymstock from 1959 until 1964 when I moved to a grammer school in Beacon Park, Plymouth. The area was notarised by the folk singer, Cyril Tawney, in his ballad of the same name, and there I stayed until 1971 when I upped sticks and moved back to London to go to college.

My mum and dad stayed in Plymouth. My dad retired in 1975 and my mum set up and ran a pre-school playgroup in a local church hall, with one of her closest friends. There are many Plymouthians who went through that facility at a time when play groups were relatively new and certainly not as regulated as they are now.

When my dad died in 1980, my mum stayed in the family home for a few years, before deciding to try to settle back in her family town of Wisbech. Sadly her family never really embraced her and after a few years she abandoned the exercise and returned to Devon. An inappropriate house purchase in Oreston soon found her back in Plymstock, living less than 100yards from the original family home.

Yesterday she said goodbye to Plymstock and that house, her home for twenty years,  for the last time. We spent the week filling a skip with 'stuff' that people of all ages collect over time, and which has little or no value, either sentimental or monetary. We then labeled the furniture which was to be collected and distributed to the poor and needy, as mum's new flat is fully furnished and brand new. We then sat back and waited for the removal people.

As I write this, they are moving my mum into her new home, having earlier delivered all the unwanted car bootie from her house to Oxton. We will probably need two or three sales to clear it all.

The new home is about 20  minutes away from us, no longer a 5 hour journey if emergencies call. It has an in-house warden and is populated by about 25 other like minded souls looking for companionship, security and a bit of sea air.

So ends her 50 year relationship with Plymstock. Many of her good friends did not last as long, and those that are still there popped in to say goodbye, knowing they would never see her again, but would stay in touch by phone or letter, a trait still very common with the older generation.

She did not seem sad to go, and being blessed still with a sharp mind , she sees the move as a new adventure to be embraced as enthusiastically as that train journey on Brunel's mighty GWR  all those years ago.

Will I miss Plymouth?  No not really, its not been my home for almost 40 years, Although I made many of my strongest and longest lasting friendships there, those friends no longer live there.  I expect I will find myself down there again, not least when I have to reunite my mum and dad for the final time, but for now it's up the Argyle and  continue to try to master the golf course which is Wallasey.

Proper job.

NeverSeconds

Every now and then  there is a story in the papers or on the internet which makes you wonder where the genetic malfunction of the human race began. Today we have been treated to the news that Martha Payne , a nine year old from Scotland,  has been banned from photographing her school dinner, because she then uses it on her blog here.

Her headmistress acted on orders from her superiors at Argyll and Bute council who were concerned that press publicity was having a stressful effect on their dinner ladies, albeit the web site was set up with the blessing of the school as a way to raise money for a charity called Mary's Meals.

There has been uproar, and the good burgers ( no pun intended) of Argyll and Bute have conceeded they acted hastily and have allowed the young girl to carry on.

In the meantime the charity donations have gone from £2,000 to well over £20,000 indicating once again that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Its good to encourage youngsters to start blogging. I look back over the five years of this blog and remind myself of things which are a distant memory, imagine when people can look back 50 years.

Light at the end of the tunnel

We embraced the start of the Olympic Games on Friday evening when the torch relay arrived on the Wirral. It came through the Mersey tunnel into Birkenhead Park at about 6pm and was carried by various runners with compelling reasons to make the short trip from one end of their section to the other. The standard celeb was sporty Spice, Melanie Chisholm, who carried the torch on part of the 'Race for Life' route. Here she is partly obscured by the torch, no bad thing eh!!

This is not the first time we have been in the company of the Olympic torch, as we were in Atlanta for the 1996 Games, and spent several hours in Buckhead on the outskirts of the City, the day before the event started. I must admit the controls in America were very lax, and the poor runner had to eventually be bundled into a van to complete his leg of the journey. We were on that trip with Dave Jones, sadly now the subject of the sad entry I wrote last month, and I recall we were very brazen in 'acquiring' a Olympic torch relay banner form outside one of the bars. It went on the wall in Twickenham RFC but has long since been lost to redevelopment.

I have had a very mixed relationship with the London Olympics. I have tried on numerous occasions to get interviews for salaried positions with them, and failed miserably. I am particularly grumpy as they have always advocated the uniqueness of the event and that people with previous experience would be well placed to assist.

I was also disillusioned at the whole ticketing situation and have now resigned myself to watching on TV. I am still available at short notice for seriously boozy corporate invites but I can't see it myself.

We were fortunate to be in the Olympic stadium in Atlanta when Carl Lewis won the last of his 9 Olympics Gold medals when he retained the long jump title. It was, however, eclipsed by Michael Johnson winning the 400m in his golden running shoes, which he then threw into the crowd.  I wonder where they are now?

Three seconds of fame

The Bampton raft race is an event the S-Club 5 have supported for a number of years. It has featured in this blog on several occasions, here and here. We always try to dress up and this year we were Grumbies of Monty Python fame. Yes my brain does hurt.

Imagine my surprise then when we were featured briefly on ITV this week. ITV have  been following a group of children from when they were seven years old up to the present time, and they put together a programme charting their life,  every subsequent seven years. The current series is called 56 UP.

One of the featured people is now a lay preacher and Bampton is one of the villages he frequents. I do remember a film crew being there last year but assumed it was for the local news. Instead, there we are singing merrily as we paddle towards the finishing line, all grumbied up.

I do hope the ITV exposure does not alert the health and safety jobsworths from Kendal to the raft race.It exists in the sort of environment the 56 UP participants will have been familiar with when they were growing up as seven year olds all those years ago. We in the S-Club do feel that our involvement has seen the event grow into the thirty raft event which it is at the moment,  and it would be tragic if it is canned as a result of over planning. Long may it continue unencumbered and de-regulated........aaaargh!

Hall of Fame

I noticed today that the old buffer from the world of golf, Peter Alliss, had been inducted to the Golf Hall of Fame yesterday in America. I am sure the word is induced but that's just me getting my physics and formal reception terminology mixed up. Peter did use the finger during his acceptance speech when gesturing about his old headmistress. It is a pity he does have senile moments occasionally.

Famous people do have the pleasure of being recognised by their peers and voted into these Hall's of Fame, and it got me thinking about whether there should be a series of these places for ordinary folk. One might argue that the Queen's honours process announced at New Year and at her birthday does now recognise Joe Bloggs and the good work they do, and the Guinness Book of Records motivates some people to take part in the excessive and ridiculous, but I wonder if there should be something more.

Cadbury's chocolate launched the CDM awards in the Seventies when people could nominate their friends and relatives for the award. I always thought that if you got two you could indicate you had a CDM and bar but it never caught on.

So what might I qualify for through longevity or talent? 40 years with the same Company never used to be a rarity, but there will be very few people achieving that in the future, and 40 years ( and we hope a few more) of attending England rugby internationals may also be a record to be proud of. The singing certainly has not improved but it has lasted the test of time....

Nothing else really springs to mind, I doubt I am anywhere near the top of the tree for downing pints of London Pride. I am member of the Young's 135 Club though, and did complete the Fullers passport. Both of these entailed drinking in every establishment in their estate at the time. I have no reputation for  eating remarkably hot curries. I have never broken 80 playing golf so have twenty years to go before I have any change of shooting below my age. I do have a hole in one although there is no Hall of Fame for that, its membership would be exhaustive.

I won first dividend on  the pools in November 1989 and collected £351.85. There must have been loads of draws that day!! I still have an uncashed cheque for 66p from a previous 6th dividend win, It would have cost more than that to print the cheque.

So I will just settle for what I am and what I have got, a brick in the wall at Twickenham Stadium, another in the Olympic Park in Atlanta and a copy of the Daily Telegraph from 6th June 1992 showing me as the joint fourth fastest 200m runner in the Country, same PB as  Linford Christie: that must have been some typo!!

Bonking Boris bounces back

The old boy has bucked a trend in the recent council elections, and been re-elected as Mayor of London. As the Conservative party took a fair old pounding across the Country, the female pro-Boris vote held strong and he was able to fend off Ken 'the con' Livingstone and remain firmly entrenched in County Hall.

It's nothing out of the ordinary for the incumbent Government to get roasted in the mid-term elections, so I suspect Dave and his crew will be fairly relaxed about the wider political picture. He might, however, be looking over his shoulder from time to time to check that Boris is still maintaining that he has no presumptions about being PM. That could all change though.

In the last term we had the introduction of the Boris bikes into London, and he is now well placed to see through the Olympic Games in a few weeks time. I suspect his major focus, and legacy, though will be to try to force through the plans for an estuary airport  at the mouth of the Thames.
The four runway airport will reputedly cost between £40-£70 billion and would be built on to artificial islands near Whitstable. Bet the oysters aren't too happy! Norman Foster favours a land side airport on the Isle of Grain and there are alternative options for Gatwick and Stanstead, although Heathrow does now seem to be out of the running.  With Gatwick and Heathrow likely to be close to meltdown during the upcoming Olympics, there will certainly be a ground swell for a new facility near London. Link it somehow to the Eurostar and fast trains to the North of England and we could see the Boris Island Airport gather some momentum.

At the moment there are minimal UK flights to China, India and Brazil that the UK are missing out on very lucrative deals with these rising industrial giants. Guangzhou, the main industrial centre in China has no direct flights from Heathrow. Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt have 800 a year between them. So clearly something must be done. Will the finance be there, can the nature and ecology problems be overcome, and would it really take 20 years from conception to delivery. If that's the case Boris better get bonking!!!

Swiss gnome takes charge

The Football Association yesterday announced Roy Hodgson as the new England football manager. The appointment of Roy surprised a large number of  people who had expected Harry Rednapp to be given the job.

There is, however, huge and previous baggage with Harry which remains from his days at West Ham. It concerns his relationship with the players and staff when he was there at the same time as Trevor Brooking. Allegedly Brooking was of the view that Harry would be the England manager while he remained at the FA 'over his dead body'. This view may well have prevailed. Trevor taking a moment to ease off the fence  is a monumental event for English football.

The RFU hase recently announced a new head coach in Stuart Lancaster. Many people were surprised by his appointment as well. That stemmed, though,  from his limited international experience compared with a number of other candidates.

The RFU were aware of this limitation so they gave Stuart Lancaster control of the 2012 Six Nations championship to see what he was made of. He and his team were a whisker away from winning the title and associated grand slam, and this performance was enough to nudge him over the line, and he was duly appointed.

The FA have appointed somebody with International experience, and success at the World Cup instead of a very successful club manager. The main candidates have contrasting personalities which reflect in the way their teams play football, and the FA could have appointed one or other only for the duration of the up coming European Championships. They have, however, ignored that option and given Roy a four year contract.

Time will tell whether the FA or RFU approach was the right one. Hopefully they will both be successful, and can carry the England name  to the top of the World rankings again.