Widows, Jews and Judges
When you are left widowed, your friends change.
Partly, this is because some of your friends were mainly your spouses, but also I’m sure that some don’t like asking a single person to their parties. That’s hard but I can think of friends, who I’ve never seen since my wife died.
But three groups have virtually stuck to me through thick and thin in the last couple of years; widows, Jews and judges.
The dark sister and brotherhood of widows in understandable. Sometimes at one in the morning, you’ll get an e-mail from an insomniac widow, asking how you are. You might chat on MSN early in the morning, as it seems many can’t sleep. Strangely, that has never been one of my problems, and my sleep is usually only difficult, when I am trying to solve a programming or other problem. I have been very lucky with that.
I don’t have many Jews amongst my friends, and most of them don’t practice any more, but to a man and a woman they have stuck by me and have always been there with help and a chat. I think it’s because Jews don’t generally believe in an afterlife and helping others whilst you’re in this life is the most important thing. But what the reas0n is, I thank them all.
My wife was a barrister and amongst the lawyers the judges have kept in touch. I’ve had some great dinners over the last few months! Perhaps, it’s because they have a much better view of life than the rest of us.
That is not to say that my friends have been reduced to just these groups, but they stand out from the others, who on the whole just don’t seem to appreciate how lonely it can be to be without someone, you’ve lived with for forty years. Sadly, we failed to make the ruby wedding by just a few months.
So if you have a friend, who loses a partner, make sure that you don’t leave them out of your life. If there is one thing that is sure in life, it is that being a widow or widower is something that is likely to happen to you!
On-Line Pick-and-Mix
Woolies is back as an on-line store.
They’ve apparently got Pick-and-Mix. With sounds as you drop the sweets into the bag.
I don’t eat sweets as I can’t be sure they don’t have the dreaded wheat maltodextrin in them. Why can’t they use sugar? It’s natural and safe.
Richard Dunwoody
I was in Newmarket yesterday and saw him walking along the Bury Road in his thousand miles in a thousand hours challenge.
Good luck to him!
And donate as it’s all in a good cause.
A Memory of Denis Thatcher
I never met Denis or Margaret Thatcher, but I do have two stories about Denis. One is in the public domain and the other is not.
I used to work in Ipswich and the Borough Development Officer was a guy called Reg Mayes. I was having lunch with him and another local businessman in about 1981 or so, when the subject of Denis Thatcher came up. The other guy felt that Denis was a bit of a laughing stock. Reg, then told a tale about how some years before Denis had been his boss at I think, ICI Dyestuffs. He told how he was the best boss he ever had and really developed his career, by quiet suggestion and constructive criticism. He was very much of the opinion that Mrs. T’s skills had been criticised and honed by her supposedly idiot husband.
But who believes the media.
The other story was when Neil Kinnock was on Sport on 4, one Saturday morning and he was asked by Cliff Morgan, how with his political differences he got on with Denis Thatcher at political dos, when wives and husbands were present. Kinnock almost got on a high horse and said how could he not like someone who was passionate about rugby and was a first-class rugby referee. You got the impression that those two got on very well.
It just shows how some politicians are rather different than we are led to believe.
Why Anonymous?
That’s how you feel at times.
You get ignored, not asked out to dinner and other parties, spend a lot of time by yourself and generally have to make your own entertainment.
Just try it for a bit!
Company of Elders
I’ve been watcing Imagine on BBC1 with a dance group called the Company of Elders.
All are older than me!
Life is great and what you make it!
The Iranian Basket Case
Many years ago before the fall of the Shah, I was peripherally involved in the selling of a Chieftain tank factory to the Iranians. I was providing software to the project but I left before it all fell apart with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution.
I’m not sure if I can remember too well, my feeling about the project at the time, but now, I would feel that selling arms to regimes of that nature was not a good idea. In fact, I tend to that a lot of the weaponry we have is next to useless in the sort of wars we’re having to fight at present. But that is something for another topic and I’m not a military expert anyway. But are many politicians?
Anyway over the years, I met quite a few Iranians and I would think that all have been pleasant individuals who really only want to get on with their lives. I remember one Iranian pilot in Hong Kong, who was extremely charming to my late wife and myself, and invited us to see the joys of his country. And there are many, as a friend who visited last year on holiday testified.
And then they have plenty of oil and I believe other resources too!
So why is the country such a basket case?
One could blame the Muslim religion. I could do! But in this case, I’ll blame the religious and political leaders, who will do anything to keep power. And we all know where dictatorships lead too!
I believe strongly, that we should save energy and tax it heavily so that we save precious resources, reduce global warming and return the tax to the people, so that they can decide how it should be spent for the benefit of the people.
Let’s take just one example of their basket case strategies in this area.
Petrol is subsidised and read what happens in the Guardian, that well-known right wing rag!
It’s just a few pence a litre!
No wonder why there has been so much protest about the elections in recent days!
And it’s getting worse, with diplomats being expelled on both sides.
Widow or Widower?
I’m a widower in that my wife died in 2007.
We’d been together for forty years and married for just short of that magic number – ruby.
But why should widows and widowers have a different term? After all actors and actresses use the same term – actor.
So why aren’t we all widowers?
After all, we’re all in the same boat. The same dark, black and sometimes very lonely boat. But at least sometimes it’s happy too, as we still have memories and we don’t just sit at home and be miserable.
The Anonymous Widower 