Reversing into space

It can be difficult at times to know what is going on. Today I took my car into a garage for an oil change. It should have been a simple procedure. Undo a sump nut place a bowl beneath the engine block stand back wait until the first flushing becomes a dribble tighten the sump nut and pour the new oil into the car.  But nothing these days is what it seems. So the job became more complicated because the mechanic having put the car up on the ramp discovered that my four wheel car was in fact a two wheel car. The prop shaft had been removed at some point in its life.  Panic! Given that (at 77) I no longer have any enthusiasm for crawling underneath cars to repair them, I have in the past but not now, the lack of a prop shaft had passed me by. So I drove the car home with the same dirty engine oil and began to wonder why, having passed four or five MoT's, had repairs to both clutch and rear differential, no-one had thought to mention the missing propellor shaft. Indeed was it there whe

Through my rear view mirror the past, as Meatloaf warned, seems much closer. There was a mention on TV last evening about a time, 30 years ago, followed by the year in question 1990.  1990, but that was only yesterday, we both said in unison. But of course 1990 was 30 years ago. Time flies? I was ordained, deaconed, in 1969, and that was 53 years ago. I was 24 years old. Far too young to take on the responsibilities of a curate in the Church of England, there were still young people, teenagers, in the congregation, but much of my pastoral work involved sitting with the dying, taking funerals and visiting the sick and the lonely. Now 53 years later I have retired for the 2nd time. My first retirement was, as an Archdeacon commented, far too early, this retirement was, as another Archdeacon implied, far too late. Like dinosaurs and dodo's and other extinct animals I am it seems, as Chris Farlow sang out of time: You don't know what's going on You've been away for far to

I Each letter rehearsed Punctuating silence Emphasising meaning Emotions underlined By hyphen comma semi breve So we dare to risk Revealing our heart’s truth II Seeking truth in the margins Scribbled notes at pages edge Reflecting nuances of meaning Each word redefined clarified Images of grandmothers Holding me as a child strong Names Cecilia Florence Strong women deep memories As the clouds of war lifted I became for better or worse A hope for the future of family Of district of city of a better world So we set our faces to a positive Change of circumstance sunlight Caressing new growth rising Teasing possibilities of harvest Always change and reshaping Of the familiar into novel forms Leaving the past behind shaking Dust from my sandals a personal Intafada leaving behind that which Is of no value disbursed dispensed Embracing in its place a positive And welcoming future III Seeking truth in the margins Scribbled notes at pages edge Reflecting nuances of meaning Each word re

Elections are a crucial element in any democracy. I was born in 1945 in The Lakes a private maternity home in Ashton under Lyne, four years later my sister was born in a National Health Service Maternity Unit. The difference was an election. The Labour Party was elected and became the party of Government in 1945 against all expectations, the pundits got it wrong, because the public, exercised their votes because, clearly, they believed that a Labour Government would pursue a programme of social reform that would benefit the nation as a whole in those grim post war years. Sadly, since then, there have only been a very limited number of Labour Governments the best of which in my view after Attlee was the Wilson Government which introduced the Open University and kept Britain out of Vietnam. The Blair Government was a mixed success much of the benefits were driven by Gordon Brown as a fiercely independent Chancellor, including Sure Start, lifting thousands of children out of poverty and b