Today I had my second jab I will be as protected as I can be in a couple of weeks.

Should I feel ecstatic and be whooping with joy, in reality nothing has changed.

My personal safety makes little difference, my personal freedoms are still curtailed.

My life as I’ve known it for sixty-eight years has been seriously changed.

Of course, I am happy to be protected but it feels like something is still not right.

While I am now safer than before so many people are not! the virus is still causing misery and death throughout the world

The statement that (we are not protected till everybody is protected) remains true we are not destroying this virus only learning to live relatively safely with it.

It’s a bit like keeping a pet rattle snake you know that if you are not vigilant one day it will bite you on the arse with possible fatal consequence.

In a world that has so much poverty how are the poorest going to get the vaccine, the leaders of some of these countries are more interested in military force than protecting their people.

In fact, if the virus doesn’t get them their own army will, this global problem will recirculate around the world until unified action is taken.

Even the wealthy countries in the west are struggling to get their people vaccinated, due to a level of ineptitude that is hard to understand. And the spreading of misinformation to vulnerable sections of society.

Even so I will be happy to have lunch outside our local wine bar socially distanced and wearing a big coat as it is still cold here.

I can have a life I can enjoy.

If it’s all my own way.

I don’t want an organised day.

No rules no chores virtually no pay.

I want my life on my terms.

I don’t need a bathroom.

Because I don’t understand germs.

I don’t need a diet.

Because I’m beautiful as I am.

I have a boyfriend and I use him when I want to.

If I don’t want to see him then I don’t have to.

I employ some staff but you know,

Good staff are hard to find.

They want me to be nice.

They want me to be clean.

They want me to go to work.

I only want things my way.

That’s why I rant and rave.

I will be a bully when I want to.

You really should have learnt like me.

What can’t be cured has to be endured.

And a learning disability can’t be cured.

The dream doesn’t change.

It shines bright amongst the gloom.

Will it ever happen?

Would it make a life more happy or detract from the reality?

Should I try to forget it?

Or hold on to it like treasure.

It’s been there it seems forever.

Could I lose it if I wanted?

Or will it be with me forever.

Am I frightened to achieve it?

Would that ruin me forever?

Or would it make me feel much better?

If I achieved it would it snuff out the light that burns within me?

I wish I were a Christian

Then I would never be alone

Some of my friends are Christians

Do they never cry alone?

Does the preacher know the answers?

Or are they all within that book?

I would like to know the answers

Perhaps I should open up that book

It would be nice to lean on someone

Put my independence to one side

It would be nice to know there’s someone

Who would be forever on my side

I went to church today you know

Perhaps that’s why these thoughts are in my head

I went to say goodbye to uncle who is dead

But when he said now let us pray

 I didn’t bow my head.

Tonight’s the night I cried again.

I sometimes feel all life’s a pain.

When my allotted time has run.

I won’t be so sad to say at last it’s done.

I am one who’s talked and listened.

To desperate stories of lonely souls.

But tonight is the night of my melancholy.

When all my past comes back to haunt me.

I can’t explain why I get so low.

But as before I know tomorrow it will go.

I start again with hope renewed.

How lucky that tears don’t leave a stain.

At last I think I understand the old.

Why sometimes they appear so cold.

The longer you live the more that needs forgetting.

But all that seems to fade away is where I put my glasses just today.

Or the training I missed yesterday.

Selective memory must be such a blessing.

To be able to forget just who I’m missing.

Is it wrong or should I care.

For those who are no longer there.

Some are dead and some just missing.

But all are in my head alive and some are kicking.

On this lonely night of my melancholy.

The invitation drops through the door.

Race the dog or he will get it before it hits the floor.

It looks like it will be a lovely day.

The bride will look amazing.

The groom will just be handsome.

The ceremony will make us feel that they have got it sorted.

They know what they want and they have got it.

A happy noisy meal with friends and people we don’t know yet.

A good time will be had by all and it’s not over yet.

After the meal it’s off to the pub sit by the river maybe watch a sunset.

Chat and get to know the people we have met.

Congratulate the happy couple they look well set.

So, after we moved into the cottage in Darsham me and my brother had a nice time mostly. We had a lot of freedom to roam, and the family next door had two children a son called Alec and a daughter Carol, I think their surname was Robinson. The children were both older than me but were friendly I would sometimes go of on walks to the woods with Carol when my brother Brian was out with Alec. I got my first bike while here and soon learned to ride it. On one memorable day I rode across the bridge in our garden that crossed a deep ditch that ran through the garden. I say I rode across it, but I skidded on the slippery railway sleepers that it was made from and fell into the ditch. With my bike on top of me. Brian alerted my dad who ran to my aid. He jumped into the ditch and threw the bike onto the bank followed by me luckily there was not a lot of water running through it at the time. Sometimes there was a couple of feet as it carried the runoff from some of the fields around us. I went to the village school which had two classrooms separated by a wooden divider. I wish I could remember my teachers name it may have been Edwards I can remember how she looked, and I remember sitting on her knee. She would probably be accused of child abuse now, but she was very nice. We had PE in the playground which often involved climbing a rope hung from a tree I recall her standing below as if to catch us if we fell. On the way home from school walking with my mother and sister we would often see a man called Nobby Clark in his garden he would always ask me what I was going to do when I left school. I am going to join the merchant navy I would reply. That never happened as at sometime in my future I was told I was colour blind as it turns out I don’t think I am.

While at Darsham I learnt a skill that I still have, with the help of my brother I learned to smoke. This came about because while my mother was in the garden Brian would ask me to keep watch while he made a cigarette from her tin in exchange he would let me have a few drags on it. After stealing the cigarette, we would go to some old cars that were lined up in a unmade road opposite our house get in and smoke. I can remember going for a family walk and encountering an electric cattle fence for the first time Brian told me it was switched of which was a lie. I seem to have been drawn to electricity around this time because on some Sundays we would go by bicycle to walberswick. This is where my Fathers parents lived, on the way home I would receive several shocks from the headlight on his bike as I was sitting on a seat attached to the crossbar and would be holding the handlebar which the light was attached to. One day when the water that ran through the ditch in our garden was running fast Brian Alec and I decided to block the tunnel that ran under the road into our garden. We went across the road into a meadow and blocked it with a five-gallon drum and bits of wood. This was very exciting because the water rose extremely fast and started to flood the meadow. I don’t know how my dad found out but he came along and unblocked it which was disappointing as I recall.

It’s just another day
The snow has come to bring us cheer
And brighten up a cold new year
If we are wrapped up we can play
Forget the past its dead and gone
Lets hope that this year is the one

The one that lets us see beyond
The tiny fish in a tiny pond
When did our foresight disappear
We used to know by eye and ear
This was a gift we let it go
Being civilised has made us so

We have to try so hard to know
What was so easy years ago
Sophistication is all for show
Primitive beings we certainly are
But we have lost the knowledge that made us appreciate,
that which lives all around us

Our arrogance knows no bounds
We devour our world like baying hounds
No thought of any but pennies and pounds
The price is something we will not know
But our grandchildren will surely despise us so
For the havoc that lies all around us

This world is only leased
What fool would rent to tenants such as us

My uncle Terry said to me when i was a child the most destructive creature in the world is man.

On Friday the thirteenth of March 1953 in Mill bungalow Darsham Suffolk I was born in a bungalow with no running water or indoor sanitary facilities. The doctor that was present said to my parents this baby is not well I will give him an injection and return in the morning to see how he is doing. My mother said she felt sure that the needle would pass right through me. The bungalow was damp and infested with rats and mice, as they chewed holes through the floorboards my father would nail flattened food tins over the holes to keep them out. He collected drinking water from a cottage down the street using his bicycle handlebars to hang the buckets of water on every evening.

The next morning the doctor arrived to see me and was surprised that I was still alive. My mother said he seems to be ok, the doctor admitted that he had returned expecting to right out my death certificate (what a bedside manner). Cause of death would have been bronchitis.

We later moved to a house near Darsham railway station that was not damp or infested with rodents. I evidently thrived in this new environment as did my parents who went on to provide me with a sister. I have little recollection of my older brother Brian at this stage who apparently looked after me very well.

We then moved to Westleton for a while we lived next door to my mother’s sister on one side and her brother opposite this meant a lot of contact with my cousins. I started school while here I don’t think I was overly impressed by school but enjoyed the social aspect of it. While in Westleton my mother’s father died I do not remember him but my mother told me that while he was ill in bed I threw his new gloves into the fire. I of course cannot remember the incident but he told my mother not to punish me. He died of his first illness, when asked if he had a headache by the doctor he explained that he had never had one in his whole life so was unsure what it was. It’s a shame that I cannot remember meeting him he seems to have been an extraordinary man. While living here I discovered some traits within myself that were not good. For reasons unknown, my brother Brian and I were standing on top of the chicken hut when he pushed me off, also for reasons unknown. I suffered a sprained ankle and was somewhat incapacitated for a while. After my recovery he was tormenting me as older brothers do, when I picked up the yard broom and swung it at his head, knocking him senseless if not unconscious. This seems to have been the start of my temper as it became known. On the plus side I did not seem to get tormented by Brian or anybody else, for several years to come I would happily respond with punches to anyone that I felt deserved it. My father had a job that meant he worked away and left on Sunday evening on his motorbike and returned on Friday night. As he left he would let me ride on the pillion to the bottom of the cul-de-sac which I loved to do, I did however fall of on one occasion and walked back to the house very ashamed. I also fell out of a van while on a day trip out, sitting on my father’s lap in the passenger seat I became car sick, I assume that he opened the door for me before the vehicle had stopped and I fell out, I remember lying on the grass verge watching the van come to a halt up the road away. I suffered no injuries.

We were not long in Westleton and moved back to Darsham to a farm cottage it had a huge garden but no indoor toilet and a tin bath.