Helen, my wife, had died on Christmas Day 2016. The late winter and early spring of 2017 were real hard days for me but by April the corona of light that signifies the end of the tunnel, the dispenser of gloom and despair was growing larger by the week. Helen […]
Archive
St Bede’s College, Manchester. Crash, Bang, Wallop.
When the new head at St Bede’s College, Mr Richard Robson, took over in January 1915 I vowed to give him time. Time to sort things out, time to make the school recover from its lowest ebb. But I fear he took on more than he or any other aspiring […]
Father, Dear Father
Last week in accordance with the habit of the Catholic Church, my father, 98 years and four months old, received Extreme Unction or the Last Rites, his supposed last appointment before shuffling off this nonsensical life. His mother had given birth to a 2lb 2oz runt on 31st March 1918 […]
Bullies Both Local And International
In a posting I titled Critical Claptrap which I published on 6th September 2015 I set out verbatim the rubbish that you get sent when you write a blog. Everybody is allowed to comment on what I say, but to comment abusively and anonymously is rather outside the Pale don’t […]
Two Weeks Of Trauma – Part 3
Monday 18th April An early phone call from Galway ICU telling us not to come down as Helen was being bundled into an ambulance and being taken back to Sligo and to ring Sligo ICU that afternoon. I rang at 4.00pm and was told that Helen had arrived but that […]
The Law Is A Fucking Ass
If the dust has settled, it is possibly now a time for analysis. Let us take for a start the Manchester Evening News article on 26th March 2016. The headline says that the victims had dropped the legal action against the Salford Diocese. In fact they did not drop it […]
Abuse: Its Forms and Failures
Before I start this probably long posting I would like to apologise to Mr Richard Scorer and his abuse team at Panone/Slater and Gordon in Manchester. I have probably done them a disfavour with my past blog postings but I now realise they were working in a section of English […]
Grecian Gropes And Macedonian Meanders-Part 4
After leaving Lembet Road Cemetery we returned for our last night in Thessaloniki and enjoyed a fantastic meal of many courses of meze preceded by the traditional glass of Raki. a liqueur taken as an aperitif. I was beginning to like this idea by the time our week’s stay was […]
Grecian Gropes And Macedonian Meanders-Part 3
The native staff on our tour bus were an interesting mix. One Greek with a Macedonian mother and two pure bred Macedonians. The Greeks look down on the Macedonians as being people without a country, virtual refugees and it is the Greek veto stopping Macedonia getting in Europe. The Macedonians, […]
Grecian Gropes and Macedonian Meanders- Part 1
It was the 25th September 2015 and I was on another trip following in the footsteps again of the 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers. Fresh from their annihilation in Gallipoli in August 1915, they were sent to Lemnos, a Greek island in the Aegean, built up to full strength with willing […]