Orchids grow wild here in the UK, they’re not as showy as many of the tropical ones, and the flowers are far smaller, but they are still beautiful plants.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Orchids produce such beautiful flowers, often in great abundance, and they last for months if protected from too much heat and strong sun. This lovely, white Phalaenopsis flowers every year for us, but this year it had a bad plague of scale insect on the backs of the petals and on the leaves.
Scale insects are not hard to deal with as they can be wiped off with a soft tissue moistened with methylated spirit. Or even just wiped away gently with your finger. But you have to be persistent because you need to remove all the adults and then keep on removing the smaller insects until you have broken their reproductive cycle.
Orchids grow wild here in the UK, they’re not as showy as many of the tropical ones, and the flowers are far smaller, but they are still beautiful plants. Some orchids have flowers that mimic insects such as bees, butterflies, and flies. The insects are attracted to the flowers, and sometimes even attempt to mate with them; they act as pollinators, spreading the orchid pollen from one flower to another and so helping the orchid produce viable seed.
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Like all dogs, Marple and Maizi spend a lot of time asleep. They sleep at night of course, just like we do; but they also sleep after meals, after walks, and any time they fancy during the day.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Here’s a five-year-old photo of my brother-in-law Paul’s dog, one of a pair of black Labradors, lovely, soppy, friendly creatures. This one is Marple, I think, though it’s hard to tell them apart without seeing both at the same time – if not Marple, she is Maizi.
Like all dogs, Marple and Maizi spend a lot of time asleep. They sleep at night of course, just like we do; but they also sleep after meals, after walks, and any time they fancy during the day. Apart from doing what they are told they have no responsibilities, no chores, no planning or organising, but plenty of time to rest. And like all carnivores, they mostly want to find something to eat and then rest until hunger pangs set in again. It’s a dog’s life!
Now five years older, at 14-years-old, they sleep even more than before.
Paul and his wife Vanessa live in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town with a wonderfully long and wide beach and some fine woodland on a hill. Needless to say, Marple and Maizi have always loved visiting both the beach and the woodland. And it’s in those environments that I’ve seen some of the special closeness of interaction between human and dog; the throw, chase, catch, bring back, drop process for example, redone over and over and over again!
The close interaction between people and dogs developed a very long time ago, in his book, ‘Sapiens’, Yuval Noah Harari writes:
We have incontrovertible evidence of domesticated dogs from about 15,000 years ago. They may have joined the human pack thousands of years earlier. Dogs were used for hunting and fighting, and as an alarm system against wild beasts and human intruders. With the passing of generations, the two species co-evolved to communicate well with each other. Dogs that were most attentive to the needs and feelings of their human companions got extra care and food, and were more likely to survive.
Labradors possibly take this cooperative union further than almost any other breed. The bond between dog and owner can be really close. It’s been my privilege to see that very clearly with Paul, his wife Vanessa, and their dogs Maizi and Marple.
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Notice how every part is sized precisely for the task it performs. The main stem is stout and sturdy, the stems that spring from it are much smaller and each one carries a number of flowers.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
This photo was taken at a different time and place from the previous Umbellifer image, but the structure of this flower is very similar to the previous one. The main difference is that this time we’re viewing it from below. This reveals the exquisite architecture of an umbel.
Notice how every part is sized precisely for the task it performs. The main stem is stout and sturdy, the stems that spring from it are much smaller and each one carries a number of flowers. Those flower stalks in turn are smaller yet, and each one carries a single, tiny flower. It’s exactly how an engineer might design something, each part as large and strong as it needs to be, but no more. Why and how? Well, in the case the engineer, because lightness means less material, less mass, and therefore lower cost. Failure will be unusual because the forces will have been calculated and the values increased just a little to ensure safety.
Your car is designed this way, it could be designed and built to survive a collision with little or no damage, but it would be unaffordable because of the high cost of the extra material required, and it would consume much more fuel because of its high mass. That’s why you drive a car when travelling, not a tank!
The same argument applies to plant structures. The umbel could be made to survive a hurricane, but it would demand much more photosynthesis to provide the cullulose and other materials required to make it tough enough to survive such powerful winds. That’s why coconut palms have far stronger stems than the umbellifer! Living things are not designed by engineers, they adjust to their environment little by little over many generations by a trial and error system we call evolution.
Sometimes people say, ‘It’s only a theory’, meaning that something is a bit shaky and not to be trusted. That is to misunderstand what scientists mean by the word ‘theory’. In everyday use the word has a sense of an untested idea, something you just dreamed up as a way to explain something – might be wrong, might be right. Scientists have a word for that, but the word is not ‘theory’ – it’s ‘hypothesis’. In science, a theory is something so well tested as to be essentially unrejectable. Evolution is a theory in that sense, like the theories of relativity or quantum physics or plate tectonics. Theories have almost no room left for argument.
You can’t believe in evolution, it’s not a matter of faith but of overwhelming evidence. Following Jesus, as I and many others do, is based on faith, and I write about that too on Journeys of heart and mind.
You might be surprised to learn that engineers sometimes use evolution to design things like aircraft wings. The software to do that makes a long series of small tweaks to an initial design and calculates which changes improve performance. And this process is repeated many times enabling the final result to be stronger, lighter and more effective. An aircraft wing (or other structure) created in this way is not designed with paper and pencil or with CAD in the normal way, it evolves.
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Mar 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
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I walked the Thames and Severn Canal from the tunnel portal at Sapperton (Daneway Inn) to the other end at Coates (Tunnel House) and then followed the towpath where possible to Siddington and back along the Cirencester arm to meet Donna for a coffee before walking home again. Including some detours to view additional pieces of canal it amounted to about 15 miles in all.
Coates portal
The main photo shows Cotswold countryside, with Hailey Wood on the horizon. The footpath through this field is part of the Thames Way, and on the far side of the woodland is the southern canal tunnel entrance at Coates.
Several years ago I set up the Friends of the Gumstool Brook website for a friend, and after some difficulty I was able to hand it over fully to him. I’m not as nimble with the technical side as I once was, and I feel more comfortable not having the responsibility any longer.
We drove to York to exchange Christmas gifts with Debbie, Beth and their families. You can see Christmas paper debris in this shot but don’t ask what else is going on! Fern is probably creating really good artwork on her tablet. Paz and Debbie are having a sensible conversation. We did have an excellent time, and it’s always good to catch up.
Westonbirt School
Donna ran in a 10 km event at Westonbirt School, it was a big event with a lot of runners (she competed as 3390) and it involved two loops of a 5 km course circling around the grounds and local roads. She did really well, finishing the course and being far from the last runner home.
We visited Lydiard Park near Swindon. It’s owned by Swindon Corporation who look after it well – a bit like a National Trust property. The grounds serve as a public park with play equipment, a cafe/restaurant, and places for ball games and so forth.
The house has an interesting history and is well worth a visit. It’s available as a conference centre and for weddings and other events, and includes accommodation for guests.
Weston-s-Mare
We also spent a week in Weston-super-Mare, looking after the dogs for Donna’s brother Paul and his wife Vanessa. The photo shows Knightstone Harbour, with Brean Down beyond on the left and far beyond that, on the right, is Exmoor.
The highlight this month was our expedition to northern Scotland for the North Coast 500. We flew from Lulsgate to Aberdeen Airport while Isobel had a week in Weston-super-Mare with Paul and Vanessa; our journey out was on 17th June and we returned on 26th.
On our third day we visited John O’Groats, it had something of a Land’s End feel to it which is, I suppose, entirely to be expected. But looking towards the sea instead of the crowd-focused gift shops and cafes, you see the old harbour from which many an Orkney or Shetland ferry will have left or landed and small fishing vessels come in to land a catch.
Museum
Earlier the same day we’d explored Wick, once famous for the large scale of its famous herring fishing industry. The town has fallen on hard times with the loss of its major source of income, but tourism is beginning to bring some income back, aided by a really great fishing museum.
Paul and Vanessa visited us on 7th, and Tony’s funeral was on 17th at Cheltenham Crematorium. The lady who presented the address was very good indeed and everything went well. There were quite a lot of guests, Tony’s brother Ken with his wife Anne and their daughters and families, Paul and Vanessa of course, and more.
Fine weather made it better and we were able to chat outside, spaced according to the COVID rules though it didn’t seem too bad as each family could gather more closely within their own bubble.
We were having email problems with our web hosting company and as they were unable to fix the issue I decided to move to a Swedish company, one.com. It took a little time to get everything moved over, but it resolved the email difficulties and I soon had scilla.org.uk moved over and all the DNS aliases set up for jhm, chris, photo, and so on.
World events: The number of COVID cases worldwide passed 7 million on 8th June and 10 million on 28th; and there were border skirmishes between China and India.
I visited Thorganby on 13th, driving up through heavy rain most of the way. Donna couldn’t make it this time, but it was a good day. We visited Elvington for Aidan’s football awards day which included some sheep racing as well as football! In the evening Beth and the girls came over and finally I drove back home.
And I met my sister, Rachael, for coffee and lunch at Bosworth’s Garden Centre in Burton Latimer; it’s conveniently about half way between St Neots and Rugby.
Donna bought a new, purple HP laptop at PC World in Bedford. I suggested she spend a bit more on a higher spec device but she wanted the purple one!
I uploaded a new, revised version of Jesus, Disciple, Mission, Church (JDMC), a booklet on following Jesus based partly on the work of Alan Hirsch. I was very active in church life at this time, working with Several groups of people in and around St Neots. One of these was an Open Door Church small group run by our friends Roger and Carolyn. We met once a week for prayer, to sing, and to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Normally we would meet at the Church office.
World events:Lithuania officially adopted the euro as its currency; and the Kobanî massacre was one of three ISIL atrocities during Ramadan.
We began work refurbishing the old sports shop in Cambridge Road, St Neots, to turn it into a coffee and book shop. The old place had become dreary and old-fashioned inside and out, but we were confident that a new, fresh, bright colour scheme would make a very considerable difference. The major tasks would be to install a small kitchen where the changing cubicles had been, and build a service counter with coffee machine and display for cakes and so forth.
Aidan’s party
On 13th we visited Thorganby for Aidan’s 4th birthday party; dinosaurs and their footprints were everywhere, and Aidan was impressively knowledgeable about the different species. The food was dinosaur-themed too.
We visited our friends Geoff and Dawn who live in Corfu, Dawn’s daughter married a Greek so they have grandchildren in Corfu, and it’s a lovely climate. We spent a week with them using a little guest room in their garden for sleeping but eating and spending all day with them at home and around the island.
Mum’s note
Rosie and Richard were married (Rosie is my niece, Rachael’s daughter). Here’s something my Mum wrote for Rosie when she was born and brought it along to present at the reception! It’s so typical of my Mum.
At work at Unilever Research, I helped with some aspects of developing the Lipton intranet site and was helping set up new PCs for Knowledge and Information Systems (KIS).
World events:Wikipedia was featured in TIME Magazine; and there were protests in several European cities against software patents.
Unilever’s Colworth Web Team was set up, I was a part of this and worked for the team for almost all my years at the company..
Our friends Tony and Faith came to visit and we took a look at the Monk’s Wood Reserve that they wanted to see.
Ripon
We had a holiday in Yorkshire, hiring a cottage in the picturesque little town of Masham and visiting the surrounding countryside. We loved Masham itself, and also Ripon which I’d never visited before. We did a tour of the Black Sheep Brewery, right in Masham itself, really interesting and good fun as well.
June was definitely a good month, but also a busy month.
The photo shows Beth and Grandad (Judy’s Dad) at Hilcot, between Cheltenham and Cirencester. Grandad’s dog, Skip, is in the water and would probably have got himself hosed down when they arrived home in Charlton Kings!
Judy was beginning to lose a little weight at this time though was still fit and well and not in any discomfort. She had read somewhere that drinking vegetable juices might help with cancer so we bought a juicer and submitted all sorts of vegetables to its noisy, destructive action.
Beth must have been sitting A level exams this month, while Debbie was busy with her finals at the University of the West of England in Bristol. These were important times for them both, with significant implications for the future depending on the results.
World events: A US F-16 fighter was shot down over Bosnia; and Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia’s Mir space station.
I chatted with Bill Giles the BBC weather forecaster at the Bath and West Show where I was working on the Long Aston Research Station (LARS) display.
At the allotments
A few days later, we drove to Charlton Kings, Cheltenham to visit Donna’s Mum and Dad, Madeline and Ron. Ron had an allotment nearby and he took us up to take a look at it. Like everything Ron did it was impeccable, not a weed in sight, all the plants raised in the greenhouse in his back garden, everything in dead straight rows. Quite regimented, really; but growing well. The allotment in the photo is not his, in the only one I have of him on his own plot, he’s far away and there’s no detail.
Larchmount
Towards the end of June, Debbie took a leading role in the Larchmount Players summer comedy in which bombs were transported on the London Underground and the other passengers made life extremely difficult!
World events: JK Rowling had the initial idea for Harry Potter; and the 14th FIFA World Cup was transmitted from Italy to Spain in high-definition TV.
There was country dancing at the Yatton Junior School Fete. Beth was involved in this and there were a lot of families and friends watching. I think I missed the fun because I was at work.
Fancy dress
Debbie and Beth also took part in the fancy dress carnival procession through the village. Here they were setting off, still in the school grounds at this point. Beth was wearing a clown costume made by her great-grandmother, Nor. I believe it was originally for my Uncle Dick to wear!
World events: The Schengen Area was created by five European states; and Route 66 was officially decommissioned.
Debbie and Beth went on an expedition with Mum to climb the stone stairs to the top of Yatton’s church tower. It must have seemed a lot of steps, and then all of them to do again to get back down. At two-years-old I dare say Beth might have been carried, but Debbie must have climbed up and down the entire way.
In Clifton
Here we are later in the month, crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. It was clearly a hot day (flaming June), we were a very typical young family, Judy and I were still both thirty-one-years-old when she took this photo.
Debbie was three-months-old around the middle of the month and was probably able to hold things by herself. I’m guessing about the date of this photo, it might have been taken in July.
We hadn’t moved into our new home in Yatton yet, but the paperwork was all being processed. We didn’t move, I think until July or August, but at least by this time we probably had a definite date and would have given our landlord at the Belmont Road flat notice of our leaving date.
Exciting times!
World events: The Suez Canal reopened after the Six-Day War; and military rule ended in Greece with the formation of the Hellenic Republic.
This month spelled finals for Judy in Aber (Aberystwyth), and for me in Bath. As usual, for me this meant working in a hot exam room for hours and hours while suffering from a heavy dose of hay-fever. It was really not helpful!
I’d been studying Horticulture in year 4, while Judy was studying Biochemistry in year 3. The photo shows the Bath campus from the air around 1968. The large, pale construction site towards the upper right is the new maths and computing centre which was complete and in use by the time I graduated.
World events:Soyuz 9 carried a two-man crew for a record nearly 18 day spaceflight; and Brazil defeated Italy 4–1 to win the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
This month, Rachael had her 8th birthday and Ruth had her 9th, both of them were finishing an academic year at Querns School. Dad’s 39th birthday was also in June. If you want to see the riddles and their answers you’ll have to read the card.
I climbed Cirencester’s Parish Church tower and took some photos from the top, and also visited the World Gliding Championships at South Cerney with Dad and Günter, a German exchange student living with us at the time.
The school term ended in June, and that was also the end of my first year at Cirencester Grammar School. This is the main front entrance inside the lobby; turning first right led to the imaginatively named, two-storey ‘Red Brick Building’, second left was the Music Room, and right was the Library. Outside is a view across Victoria Road. (I took the photo in 1966, but nothing significant had changed.)
Ruth’s fourth and Rachael’s third birthdays were in June, Cindy was eight-years-old and I was still eleven (but only just).
This photo shows the corner of Cricklade Street (left) and Castle Street (right) in Cirencester. It’s based on a photo on the Wilts & Glos website.
The end of the school year was approaching as the second half of the summer term slipped by. I knew we’d have the long summer holiday and when we came back to school in September I’d be in my third year, not the second year any more. I was six-years-old at the time, but I’d be seven when we went back to school.
We went to Weston-super-Mare with Granny and Grandpa and stayed in one of the old hotels at the northern end of the front. I remember being fascinated by the waiter opening the doors on the wooden gramophone cabinet to make the music louder. We also visited Wells Cathedral on this trip.
(I know I remembered the gramophone from just two years old because I asked Mum and Dad about it much later when visiting them from Yatton. They were astonished and told me when and where it had happened. They remembered the name of the hotel we’d stayed in: The Lauriston).
At the end of May Dad travelled to Northern Ireland on leave and with some difficulties made it to Coagh on 29th. On 1st June they visited his old Ballinderry radar site and found it to be ’empty and derelict’. On 2nd they travelled to Belfast and had lunch with Mum’s Aunt Annie and her husband, Uncle Samuel. They sat in the sun outside City Hall and an American took their photo for them. After saying ‘Goodbye’ Dad caught the train to Larne, boarded the ferry, and was back in Stranraer in the evening, he wrote in his diary, ‘Horrible to leave Lilias’.
He then spent the rest of his leave in Cirencester catching up with the family and by the 10th he was back at camp in Alford. On 16th he spent a lot of time at the Butlins fun fair with others from camp. Radar duties continued 24/7 but with Germany defeated, the likelihood of hostile aircraft would have been zero.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Dad was fourteen-years-old on 4th June, and most likely at school at Rendcomb College just north of Cirencester on the Cheltenham Road. The family home was ‘Churnside’ at 37 Victoria Road on the eastern edge of Cirencester. Mum was still eleven and living with her parents in Coagh, just inside County Tyrone on the border of Londonderry.
Tower St Nursery
One of the Jefferies’ nurseries was at Tower Street, this was on a plot of land that had once been very much larger and in the countryside on the southern edge of the town, but the town had expanded and the nursery was now surrounded by newer development; large parts had been sold off over the years, no doubt at a good profit.
The small piece that remained contained the Warehouse where seed-cleaning machinery occupied the top floor. The lower floors and the cellar were used for storage and processing of horticultural supplies and implements of all kinds. There were a number of greenhouses used for plant propagation and growing on in pots of various sizes. These were heated by a coke boiler feeding warm water through large bore pipes; during the winter months the boiler had to be tended and recharged with coke at roughly twelve hour intervals, usually around eight in the morning and then again around eight in the evening.
There was a packing shed in use all year round. Plants and sundries ordered by customers were packed in wood wool, tied up with raffia,and wrapped in sacking as required to protect them on their journeys; then delivered by horse and cart to local destinations in Cirencester and nearby villages, or taken to the nearby Cirencester Town Station for longer journeys by rail.
The photo is from a cine film taken in September 1960. The sign reads ‘Royal Nurseries, J Jefferies & Son Ltd, Cirencester’, but that aside, the greenhouses, pathway and warehouse would have changed little since 1940.
Anything that appears in this section will be material that I believe belongs in this decade. Items will not be in sequence within the decade, but where I can make a good guess of the date I will do so.
Stamp removed
This is an item that can be dated precisely. It mentions a nine-year-old, and other items with it as well as use of the name ‘Tigger’ show that it was part of a birthday present trail of clues for my Dad (he was known as Tigger by close family). As he was born on 4th June 1926, it’s almost certain that this trail was laid on 4th June 1935. It’s in my grandfather’s hand writing so we also know who laid the trail. And the stone steps and sharp right turn to a dark room describe the access to the concrete air-raid shelter where a step ladder must have been stored at the time. This little piece of paper tells us so much!
World events (June 1931): French industries warned that the US Smoot-Hawley bill would trigger an international tariff war; and the Dow Jones tumbled to its lowest level of the year due to anxiety over the Smoot-Hawley bill.
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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Here’s a bumble bee busy collecting nectar from a meadow cranesbill flower in a field margin just a brief walk from my home. The cranesbills are wild geraniums, close relatives of the pelargoniums; both genera are widely grown as decorative plants in pots or garden borders.
The photo is sharp enough when enlarged that you can see individual pollen grains on the bee’s black, furry body. Click the thumbnail image and stretch it to full size, then look for little white dots on the bee, those are the pollen grains.
Mutual benefit
The bees and flowering plants co-evolved, ancestors of both succeeded best in the presence of the other. Presumably the bee ancestors fed on the pollen of wind pollinated plants, incidentally transferring pollen more efficiently than the wind. And plants that provided sugary solutions and flagged this with colourful leaves near the nectar and pollen source were more successful than those that did not. After a while the insect and plant species were locked into a mutually beneficial relationship. Flowers are wonderfully adapted to attract bees and supply them with energy and a protein source to feed to their larvae. Bees are wonderfully adapted to collect and store nectar and pollen while moving some pollen grains from one flower to another.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
This is a flower head of cow parsley or one of its relatives, a wild plant that grows extensively in Britain on untrimmed grass verges, along hedgerows, and in similar places. It’s a member of the carrot family, the Apiaceae ( until 2011, Umbelliferae), the word ‘umbellifer’ is related to ‘umbrella’ and you can probably see why!
The umbellifers are an interesting group of plants, including carrot, parsnip, celery, parsley, dill, fennel, coriander and many more. Cow parsley, like the others listed here, is safe to eat – but be very careful; hemlock looks much like cow parsley and is deadly poisonous. The infamous giant hogweed is another harmful umbellifer.
It was a hemlock extract that the Greek philosopher Socrates was required to drink following a guilty verdict in Athens.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
I suggest sharing a link or two with friends. And leave a kind comment on some of the posts – nothing encourages writers more than hearing from readers!
The ‘Run with Patience’ website
Verbatim – 2
Run with Patience
I’m sharing a lovely post from the blog Run with Patience, it’s informative, great advice, and a short but fun read – all rolled into one.
Here’s the ‘verbatim’ part – an extract…
Researchers have discovered that when we perform even one act of kindness, our brains release a cocktail of feel-good chemicals—dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin—all associated with pleasure, connection, and well-being. In fact, the release of oxytocin in particular (often called the “love hormone”) is the same chemical surge we experience when we fall in love. That means holding the door for someone or offering a word of encouragement can light up your brain the same way a romantic connection does.
While you’re there, have a look around at some of the other articles. It’s good stuff and there’s plenty of it. I can heartily recommend everything I’ve read there so far. If you agree, I suggest sharing a link or two with friends. And leave a kind comment on some of the posts – nothing encourages writers more than hearing from readers!
Useful? Interesting?
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Feb 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click to enlarge
It was really nice to have a warm house at last. The heat pump was working well for us, but there were a few little wrinkles that still needed to be ironed out.
Donna and I were shocked at the way Donald Trump was behaving as the new US President. He was making sweeping changes, apparently without care or consideration for the disruption he was causing. And Musk was raising mayhem as well, closing departments and sacking staff to save money. At the end of the month Zelensky was very badly treated by Trump and the Vice President, JD Vance and it seemed almost the entire world was horrified by their behaviour.
Paper birds
We visited Blenheim Palace and Tewkesbury Abbey during the month. The main image at the top of this post shows the sumptuous dining room at Blenheim, and the paper birds were hanging from the nave ceiling in Tewkesbury Abbey. There were, probably literally, thousands of them.
I had my laptop cleaned internally, and got the 2 TB hard drive replaced with a 2 TB solid state drive (SSD); as a result it runs cooler, has better battery life, and is also a good deal faster. It’s five years old now, but this should extend its useful life for quite some time.
The mornings and evenings were drawing in and that makes opportunities for twilight photos while the shops are still open. I finished my tax return and told myself to do it earlier next year (again).
On 6th I wrote in my journal, ‘What a nightmare – it seems that Donald Trump has the US election in the bag. It’s a gloomy prospect for the world, for the USA, for Europe, the UK and Ukraine. It’s a bad outcome for democracy itself, although brought about by the democratic process. It’s bad for freedom of trade. There is some benefit for Putin, for Kim Yong Un, and for misinformation, untruth and bad behaviour.’ Looking back, that seems prophetic.
We had a surveyor visit from Octopus Energy on 11th the first step towards installing a heat pump. The Long Table shop, Monastery, opened in the Market Place recently and we went there for a quick initial look. They’re doing an amazing job. Our chimney developed a leak and dripped through my study ceiling.
Christmas Market
And at the end of the month we had a visit from friends in St Neots and the Christmas Market filled the Market Place. It was a busy month but on the whole a good one.
Donna and I walked along the canal towpath through Chalford, and enjoyed exploring this pretty hillside village. We ate lunch at Felt Cafe and visited the Long Table at Brimscombe.
Little by little I’d been clearing ivy from the dry stone wall along the west side of the Gloucester Road. There was now a section of about 500 m completely clean and looking much better. I only did ten or twenty minutes at a time, usually when I was walking back from town. I like things like that, slow progress over a long period adding up to a large effect.
Ebley Mill
On 16th I walked another long section of canal, from Chalford all the way to Stonehouse, parts of this are really pretty. An expedition to The Newt with Paul and Vanessa was a great day out, too.
We took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a short break at a Warners Hotel at Holme Lacy near Hereford. While staying there we were able to visit Hereford and explore the city centre including a look inside the lovely old cathedral. Donna and I also managed a country walk one morning while Isobel sat in the sunshine at the hotel. We visited the National Trust garden at The Weir overlooking the River Wye. It’s beautiful countryside and an interesting site with a south facing walled garden on a south-facing slope with no southern wall so that cold air can slide downhill to reduce winter frosts.
Our friend Kevin was in the process of moving from Gamlingay to Little Paxton. He also told me about a new friend he’d made, Lariana. They were getting on very well together and now, two years later, they are married and living in St Neots! That’s a story with a very happy ending.
King Charles III was crowned on 6th May, only the second coronation of a British monarch during my lifetime. It was a grand event and we followed the TV coverage with great interest. I particularly noticed that the floor coverings in Westminster Abbey were yellow and blue – the colours of the Ukrainian flag. It’s impossible to know if this was a deliberate statement of royal support for Ukraine, but I like to think it might have been. It seems gold and blue were also used at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
LARS System
I found a working copy of the old LARS System that I created while working at Long Ashton Research Station in 1994. It was a virtual machine copy on one of my backup drives, I imported the hard disk image and it ran with no issues in Virtual Box. I was delighted to find this. It brought back a lot of memories!
For the first time since COVID lockdown we were allowed to meet with a friend, providing it was out-of-doors and we stayed at least 2 m apart.
Donna’s Dad, Tony, deteriorated during the month and died in the evening of 26th, her brother Paul was able to visit twice, once for two nights and then again just nine days before Tony passed away. We had been able to get carers in from a local hospice, Longfield, despite the COVID precautions. This was wonderful as otherwise he would have had to go into care and visiting was not possible during this time. It would have been an awful experience for him and for us, too.
Gratitude
There were daily ministerial broadcasts about the pandemic. It was a strange time, I remember one day a queue of over 100 people was socially distanced all around the Tesco car park with a very long wait to get into the supermarket. People were grateful for the support they were getting and showed it in a variety of ways. Donna and I always looked forward to our one permitted daily walk, but the necessary restrictions were causing serious damage to the economy. I wrote a Haiku of Haikus about it all.
World events: The number of COVID cases worldwide passed 5 million on 21st May; and the first crew flew on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle.
We drove to York and visited Thorganby and Fulford to spend time with my daughters and the grandchildren. It’s always good to see everyone; in the photo Aidan and Verity (now Fern) are working on some Lego. Ten years later, Aidan is travelling in South America and Fern is taking GCSEs.
Our garden
Here’s a shot of our old garden in St Neots. It was fully mature by this time, and big enough for entertaining. We used to do this often and our home became known as ‘the party house’. We had plenty of room indoors, a summerhouse, and garden ‘rooms’ so people could sit and chat or stroll around talking.
World events: The 2015 UK General Election produced the first Conservative majority in 18 years; and ISIS captured the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.
I started seeing flashing lights whenever I turned my head or flicked my eyes from side to side; I was concerned about a detached retina. The walk-in clinic’s GP sent me to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge for a proper check and they decided I had detachment of the vitreous, a normal occurrence involving the retina as we age, and with similar symptoms.
I went to the Starfish Vision Unconference in Helsinki, and was made very welcome by my hosts, who collected me from the Airport and gave me a room in their home. There was an emphasis on rapid, bursting growth and new life. There were 50 or 60 people present from church in mostly Nordic countries, but other parts of Europe too. The photo shows delegates relaxing outside during a break. I felt Finland was a beautiful country, and the people were kind and helpful.
Near Ballachulish
We visited Scotland with Donna’s parents and her brother for a family wedding in Glasgow. But we made a week of it by booking a holiday home in Ballachulish near Oban. The photo shows Paul and Donna with Tony and Isobel in the middle of the group.
I visited Mum and Dad at Churnside in Cirencester and spent most of the day with them, driving down to arrive mid-morning and travelling back in the evening. The house and garden haven’t changed much from one visit to the next, the place was pretty much as they wanted it and they were in no hurry to alter anything.
Dad
Dad had not stopped being a nurseryman! His little greenhouse was full of things he’d propagated and he often supplied me and my sisters with pots of this or that for our gardens. Once a plant propagator, always a plant propagator. One of the first books I bought as a student at Bath University was ‘Plant Propagation’ by Hartman and Kester. Dad was so interested in it that I later bought him his own copy.
Donna and I were both working at Unilever in Sharnbrook, north of Bedford. The Web Team that I worked for were happy that we’d had no Y2K (year 2000) issues, it had involved a lot of work in 1999; the photo shows me at my desk.
scilla.org.uk
I registered scilla.org.uk as an internet domain that Donna and I could use for email, a website, ftp and other functions. We called it scilla as it’s suitably short for an address and is a genus of squill, related to the bluebell. We have bluebells in our front garden in St Neots.
Mum & Dad
Donna’s parents visited us on 13th and mine came on 27th to stay for a few days. The house was in a state of upheaval because we were decorating the lounge and had squeezed the sofas into the small dining room.
World events:India’s population reached 1 billion; and the Millennium Force roller coaster opened, in Ohio, the world’s tallest and fastest.
Beth was working hard on her upcoming A levels and working towards her Biology project, helped along by her Mum who sometimes took her out on field trips at weekends.
Meanwhile Debbie was driving her new car at this time, quite an exciting change for her and increasing her mobility and independence enormously.
World events: The Vaal Reefs mining disaster involved a locomotive falling into a mine shaft; and Russia expanded its Mir space station by adding Spektr.
In May we visited Ophrys House, Tim and Deirdre’s home in Siddington, to meet my cousin Jill and her partner Marcia who were on holiday there from the USA (they lived in West Virginia at that time). Tim wanted to demonstrate the dentition of one of his goats, the goat got annoyed and gave his fingers a nip! In the photo are Judy, Marcia, Debbie and Beth.
Dad at work
The same weekend I went to visit Dad while he was working at the Kingsmeadow Garden Centre in Cirencester, now the site of Tesco Extra’s car park. He was busy in the little office, cashing up at the end of the day. These days customers swipe their cards and the daily totals appear automatically.
World events: Latvia declared independence from the USSR; and The WHO removed homosexuality from its list of diseases.
The 19th was Beth’s 7th birthday and the weather was kind so she had friends round for a party in the back garden.
It was about this time that we drove down to Rachael and Peter’s home in Eaton Socon, St Neots, for a Clever Clogs’s photographic session for advertising material for the educational software we were helping to develop. I wrote some of the early software for the ZX81 and the Spectrum, and Peter turned it into a profitable business and marketed it. We rose to the giddy heights of selling the games via a range of retail outlets, including WH Smiths.
Clever Clogs team
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station, and was the Computer Rep for the Plant Sciences Division. Judy was teaching Biology GCSE and A Level at Cotham Grammar School in Bristol.
World events: UK scientists announced the discovery of the ozone hole; and the Heysel Stadium disaster killed 39 football spectators in rioting.
Beth was two-years-old and she enjoyed her cake and presents. I’m assuming the party would have been just family, either one or both sets of grandparents coming down for the day.
She sat for a long time investigating all the presents thoroughly and was very focused of each one. Judy had baked a circular cake and cleverly cut it into pieces to make up an elephant shape. She then iced it and decorated it with a number two.
The cake
Meanwhile Debbie, already five-years-old, was expecting to start school in the autumn, but that was still an entire summer away!
Debbie was eight-weeks old around the middle of the month, and we were getting closer to deciding on a house; we’d secured a mortgage in principal and I had life assurance in place too . We’d considerd St Werburgh’s as we could afford the homes there and it would provide easy access to town, but it was not a great area and a nearby village looked better. The Claverham/Yatton area was more to our liking but was also more difficult to afford.
We looked at some properties in Yatton, and found one we liked but couldn’t really afford in Rectory Drive. We put in a low offer that we thought would be too high, but worth a try, only to have it accepted immediately! So the legal process got under way sooner than we’d expected.
We were still living in our flat at 20 Belmont Road in Bristol, but we contacted the landlord to give notice in principal (although we couldn’t yet provide a firm moving date).
World events:Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest; and there was a serious coach crash near Grassington, North Yorkshire.
Judy and I were both in our final year at university. I was at Bath studying Horticulture in year 4, she was at Aberystwyth studying Biochemistry in year 3. We were both approaching our finals and working really hard.
We were looking forward to finishing our studies, graduating (hopefully) and then on October 3rd, getting married – oh, and finding work!
The World Gliding Championships came to South Cerney Airfield, just south of Cirencester, and opened on 29th May. This was a huge event for somewhere the size of Cirencester, let alone South Cerney!
The photo shows a Slingsby Capstan glider with one of the South Cerney wartime hangers in the background. The airfield was very familiar to us as Dad was a keen aeromodeller and we used to visit South Cerney often to fly our models, sometimes on our own but often with other members of the Cirencester club.
I was in my final term of the first form at Cirencester Grammar School, though it seems not much maths had lodged in my brain yet! (Click the image.)
It was around this time, perhaps, that we moved from our council house, 17 Queen Anne’s Road, on the Beeches Estate. We moved into my grandparent’s old home ‘Churnside’ at 37 Victoria Road. I was somewhat peeved at not being able to take part in the move, but I was required to go to school instead. It was so exciting to ride my bike the short distance to the new house and find the rest of the family busy sorting everything out, and then joining in.
World events: An American spy plane was shot down over the USSR and its pilot, Gary Powers, captured; and Sputnik 4 was launched into orbit by The USSR.
I was close to the end of my second year at Querns School and although I probably wasn’t thinking about the summer holidays yet (and no doubt late June would have seemed an interminable wait) but by the end of May it would have been just a matter of a few weeks.
The photo shows part of the front of the school and the side entrance. The playground and field were further down that way. I remember playing rounders in the little field at the bottom of the school playground. I understand now that both the playground and the ‘field’ would seem shockingly small if I could visit them today! This was, after all, just a largish urban house and back garden pressed into service as a very small junior school; but at the time they seemed big. And I remember Martin Kinch who always seemed able to hit the ball harder than anyone else, run faster than anyone else, and was just physically superior to the rest of us.
A few things have changed, but this side entrance is still very recognisable.
World events:West Germany became a sovereign country and joined NATO; and Austria became a sovereign, neutral country.
Dad was working for the family business, John Jefferies & Son Ltd. The photo shows part of the front page of a seed catalogue from a company they may have used from time to time.
I’ll describe something I used to do at this age, in our new house at Queen Anne’s Road. This is not something I remember, as I was still not yet two-years-old in May 1950. But Mum and Dad told me about this much later in my life.
Our new home had a door on the right, just as you stepped through the front door from the garden. Straight ahead was a short corridor, and a second door leading to the kitchen. And on the left, stairs led up to the bathroom and three bedrooms, one of them very tiny. On the ground floor, taking that door on the right brought you into the sitting room (nobody had lounges in those days). Turning left, another door led to the dining-room, and turning left again brought you to the kitchen with the back door. Finally, turning left yet again brought you back into the hall, facing the front door at the far end.
It seems this arrangement fascinated my young brain and I spent a lot of time going round and round and round. It was a novelty for me, because this was not possible at my grandparents home where we had lived previously.
World events:Tollund Man was discovered in Denmark; and Britain formally recognised Israel.
On 1st May Dad wrote in his diary ‘Hitler dies!!!‘. Clearly a red-letter day for the Allies. On 2nd he reported that the Germans surrendered in Italy and that Berlin fell. On 4th he heard that German forces in Holland and Denmark had also surrendered.
On 7th Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and the war was over in Europe. On the same day Dad received more good news, his promotion came through to Aircraftman First Class (AC1) from Leading Aircraftman (LAC). And he also had permission to visit Ireland on leave. What an amazing day!
8th May was declared VE Day. The photo shows Field Marshall Keitel signing the document of unconditional surrender.
World events:Wernher von Braun and 120 members of his team surrendered to U.S. forces; and the Schuman Declaration was the spark that resulted later in the forming of the EU.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
I remember the family business in the mid 1950s and it would not have changed a great deal since 1940. There were several plant nurseries with an annual rhythm to the seasonal tasks that needed to be followed. By May all of the lifting, packing and despatch of trees and shrubs would have finished and tasks like hoeing and weeding would have come to the fore.
During wartime this pattern was, no doubt, disrupted. Although normal business would have gone on at a reduced level, I imagine much of the land would have been pressed into service to produce as much wheat, barley and oats as possible, as well as potatoes and vegetable crops, apples, pears and plums, as well as strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries. All these would have been propagated for sale as plants during peacetime, but perhaps some of them would have been allowed to grow larger to provide fruit for market as well.
Dad would have been approaching his 14th birthday in May 1940, and still at school, probably at Rendcomb College, but perhaps still at Cirencester Grammar School. Mum was still eleven-years-old, living and at school in Coagh in Northern Ireland.
Anything that appears in this section will be material that I believe belongs in this decade. Items will not be in sequence within the decade, but where I can make a good guess of the date I will do so.
Birthday clue
Here’s an envelope that tells a tale. E.A. Jefferies was my grandfather, Edward Arthur Jefferies. He lived at ‘Churnside’, 37 Victoria Road in Cirencester, how the postman was supposed to know where to deliver the letter is a bit of a mystery!
Clearly, though, it was delivered successfully. The fact that the stamp is missing is interesting. It seems my grandfather used to like to steam the stamps off letters, and my Mum told me that if a stamp had been missed by a badly aimed franking mark, he would glue it onto another letter to save on postage!
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Judy’s Biochemistry year at Aberystwyth made the long coach trip to Cambridge where they stayed in Churchill College and visited biochemistry labs at the university. (1970)
Jan 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click to enlarge
On 2nd January we visited Batsford Arboretum, one of the places we like enough to revisit several times a year. Before it was an arboretum it was a family estate, the photo shows the interior of the private family church.
House repairs
The heat pump system we’ve been waiting for was finally installed towards the end of the month, it was all working throughout the evening and night of 31st and it was wonderful to began to feel warmer, the first time our radiators have been warm since the gas boiler failed back in October! We survived with our 5 kW gas fire in the lounge and a couple of electric convector heaters. We had other work done on the house during January as well, repairing a leak around our chimney and making further changes to a window. This completed the work begun in December.
I enjoy following progress in spaceflight – a lifelong interest – and January was a busy month. A Falcon 9 booster launched and landed for a record 25th flight, Blue Origin’s first launch of New Glenn reached orbit but failed to land, and Starship Flight 7 failed to reach orbital velocity, but the booster was caught successfully. The break-up of the orbiter made a spectacular light show over the Caribbean.
One of my accounts on the internet was hacked and several more compromised, it was stressful and took time to recover.
Donna started running quite seriously, spurred on by her brother, Paul, and his wife Vanessa. She did a Park Run with them in Tetbury on 12th, and then a 10k race at Westonbirt School on 17th. She’s at the run a bit, walk a bit stage, but improving all the time. I’m impressed!
Our garden cabin got painted, we paid a handyman to do it as it’s a big area to cover, and he sprayed Donna’s choice of Dulux Weathershield colour over a primer following pressure washing and sanding all the timber.
On the 5th we drove to Nottingham for a friend’s 80th birthday party, staying one night. It was a lovely occasion and we met a lot of old friends from our days in St Neots.
We visited Kelmscott Manor not far from Lechlade, where William and Jane Morris lived for some years and made many of their own furnishings. The wall-hanging in the photo was made by them in 1860 when they lived in Kent. As we explored the house we began to see what a gem this place is, full of original material from the Arts and Crafts movement of the time.
Paul and Vanessa (with the two dogs) came to visit for Donna’s birthday, we always enjoy seeing them. We didn’t go out, but split the time between our house and Isobel’s (Paul and Donna’s Mum), chatting and catching up.
Woodchester
Later in the month we visited another interesting old house, the never completed Woodchester Mansion. This is very unusual, it remained empty and unused when the funds ran out and is a frozen work in progress. The builders just downed tools and walked out!
At the end of April I did a canal walk from Chalford to the tunnel entrance at Daneway.
Early in the month we visited Weston-super-Mare to look after the dogs while Paul and Vanessa explored Dartmoor. One day, Donna and her Mum wanted to shop at Cadbury Garden Centre so I took the opportunity of walking around the village of Yatton where I used to live. It’s changed a bit since I was last there and it was fun to walk around some of the old haunts. We visited Cheddar, Cheddar Gorge and Burrington Combe as well.
SS Great Britain
Debbie, Aidan and Sara came to visit in the middle of the month and I went with them to Bristol where we visited the SS Great Britain and did a walk around Roman Cirencester. The photo is the best I could manage, I struggled to predict where everyone would be and it was hard to get ahead for better photos! It was an interesting experience, and later Aidan got to visit his favourite football club, Bristol Rovers.
JHM: I posted more on groundbreaking; and on a delayed attempt to launch SpaceX’s Starship for the first time. World events: Finland joined NATO; and Starship launched for the first time on 20th April.
Donna’s Dad, Tony, was suffering a lot of pain in the mornings when we had to help him out of bed. But we were able to get carers in from a local hospice, Longfield, despite the COVID precautions. This was wonderful as otherwise he would have had to go into care and visiting was not possible during this time, it would have been an awful experience for him and for us, too. Paul, as a family member, was able to drive up from Weston-super-Mare to visit to see his Dad.
There were daily ministerial broadcasts about the pandemic. It was a strange time, I remember one day a queue of over 100 people was socially distanced all around the Tesco car park with a very long wait to get into the supermarket. Donna and I always looked forward to our one permitted daily walk, but the necessary restrictions were causing serious damage to the economy. I wrote a Haiku of Haikus about it all.
World events: The number of COVID cases worldwide passed 1 million on 2nd April and by 27th it passed 3 million; Donald Trump announced the US was suspending funding for the WHO.
We were in Beddgelert at the beginning of the month, visiting Paul and Vanessa in the cottage they were renting for the week. One day we travelled to Caernarvon and back on the Welsh Highland Railway, walking to and from Beddgelert Station.
Wightwick
On our way home from Gwynedd we stopped to visit Wightwick Manor, a Victorian Manor House in Wolverhampton. This is Victorian style at its most intense, nothing here is simple, everything is ornate, the chimneys, the internal woodwork, the plaster ceilings – everything! If you are in the area, this National Trust property is well worth a visit.
JHM: I wrote on love and forgiveness. World events: The WHO declared Rubella had been eradicated from the Americas; and there was a serious earthquake in Nepal.
As I no longer had a Unilever work laptop, and my own device was a small netbook, I bought an Acer Aspire laptop at Tesco for use at home and continued with the netbook when I was out and about. I ran Linux Ubuntu on both. The photo shows the netbook with Google Wave active in the Chrome browser.
Duchess
We took the X-treme Camp children and some of their parents tenpin bowling on 6th and everyone seemed to enjoy the evening. And the Duchess of Gloucester came to St Neots to open the new Eatons Community Centre, a grand occasion for what became a very popular local venue for all sorts of social activities and events. Click the image for a larger view of her being greeted by young people on the day.
The Bougainvillea flowered abundantly in our conservatory and I bought a wireless Wi-Fi hub for use when I’m out of the house. It provided Wi-Fi connections for up to five devices at once.
On 2nd April I flew to Ford Lauderdale, Florida for the Koinonia Life Retreat, oganised at the Duncan Conference Centre by my friend Steph. I spent the first night at the home of her friends, Terry and Bill. On 4th I stayed with Steph and her husband Earl and on the 5th and 6th visited my cousin Jill and her partner Marcia. After that I spent more time with Steph, Earl, Terry and Bill before flying home on 11th. It was a great trip, and many of the people I met at the Retreat had already been online friends for some time. It was very good to meet them face to face.
At Unilever I was now working on the web Portal which seemed to me rather confusing and not well-designed for research teams. I felt I was pushing against the natural flow of a river of information. It was an uncomfortable experience.
World events: Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles; and the first ever YouTube video was uploaded (watch it).
The most extreme floods we had seen so far in St Neots were in early April, peaking around the 4th and 5th. The river broke its banks and spilled across the floodplain. That is quite normal, but this year the water was exceptionally deep.
Kitchen
Our new kitchen was finished and we were able to put everything away and make the place tidy at last. This was a huge improvement since early March.
Debbie was working hard at the University of the West of England in Bristol. The photo shows her writing up an assignment at home in Yatton.
Judy continued day trips with Debbie and Beth, sometimes I’d go along as well, but often I’d be at work at Long Ashton. The photo below was taken by Debbie and shows Beth and Judy on the beach at Clovelly. I’m glad they were able to spend time with her while she was still fit and well. She lost her hair during a failed attempt at chemotherapy in autumn 1994, but her hair was growing back well by April as you can see.
Beth and Judy
It was probably in April or May that we began meeting with our friends Tony, Faith, Paul and Jenny again. I don’t know the precise date, but I think it would have been this time of year. They were great meetings when we prayed together and received so much in visions, words, interpreted tongues, Bible readings and much much more.
We got started again because I visited Tony and Faith first I think, and then Paul and Jenny, and suggested that we should give it a try even though things had been difficult for some years beforehand.
Judy was fully on board with all this too. And although we prayed for her healing sometimes, this was not the focus for us; instead we really wanted to hear what Father had to say to us and it was like drinking from a firehose!
World events: The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people; and the US government stopped funding NSFNET, making the Internet entirely independent of government control.
The beginning of April was warm, here Beth has a guinea pig on her lap and Debbie is working. They’re sitting out in the back garden at 80 Stowey Road in Yatton on 1st of the month.
Chew Valley
The 15th was much colder, by this time Debbie’s Bordeaux exchange student, Anne, had arrived and one of our trips was to Chew Valley reservoir. Our car at the time (in the photo) was ‘Karen’, so named by Debbie because it was a Volkswagen and karren is German for cart or barrow. This car had belonged to my Dad, when he replaced it he let us buy it at an advantageous price.
There’s little to say about this month, I haven’t found any photos. We were still living at 22 Rectory Drive in Yatton, Debbie was ten and Beth nearly seven.
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station, and Judy was teaching at Cotham Grammar School in Bristol.
World events: South Africa ended its ban on interracial marriages; and Coca-Cola released New Coke which was not well received.
The photo shows Debbie and Beth in their Wendy House. It was becoming a bit the worse for wear at this stage and was held together by tape and clothes pegs! The back garden at Rectory Drive was small, but just big enough for playing in and to grow a small apple tree, a tiny veg patch, two even tinier gardens for Debbie and Beth, and a sand pit.
While the girls were small it was all we needed, and in any case we couldn’t afford a larger mortgage. We were no longer involved at Horsecastle Chapel at this point, an evangelical congregation meeting at the northern end of the village. We’d become friendly with a number of believers from a variety of backgrounds and were meeting in our own homes.
Debbie would sleep peacefully in her pram and Judy was able to catch up with other tasks and even take a photo or two like this one.
We were living in our flat at 20 Belmont Road in Bristol; ours was the middle flat with a musician (Gwyn) and his wife (Gladys) downstairs with access to the back garden. Gwyn played in the BBC training orchestra in Bristol and had a fine selection of classical music LPs. He copied a selection of tracks onto reel-to-reel tape for us. There was a landing halfway up the stairs to our flat and we kept our bikes there. I rode to work and back every day in Long Ashton.
World events: Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Micro-soft (sic); and The Vietnam War ended with the Fall of Saigon.
This is 14 Belland Drive in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham where Judy lived with her brother, Frank, and their Mum and Dad. Judy was back here from University for a weekend in April and the photo shows the house from the back garden.
Huge room!
Also in April, Judy’s Biochemistry year at Aberystwyth made the long coach trip to Cambridge where they stayed in Churchill College and visited biochemistry labs at the university. She was mightily impressed by the size of the student rooms at Churchill, compared to those at Aber! They made a day trip from Cambridge to Unilever’s research lab at Colworth north of Bedford; and strangely enough I would work there much later after Donna and I were married in 1998.
World events:Paul McCartney announced that he had left The Beatles; and Apollo 13 was launched to the Moon.
I travelled home from Brantwood in the Lake District, probably on 3rd April. I had a great time, there were people from a number of different schools. I think I was the only one from Cirencester. Dad drove me over to the course organiser’s home in Owlpen where we set off for the minibus journey north. We made several trips, walking to the top of Coniston Old Man and visiting the slate quarry on the way up. The slate quarry is now derelict, but was still working when we were there in 1965. We also travelled to the pebble beach near Barrow-in-Furness where we found seabird eggs hidden amongst the pebbles.
The summer term began after Easter, the final part of my year in the Lower Sixth at Cirencester Grammar School.
World events:Early Bird was launched, the first commercial telecommunications satellite; and The Pennine Way officially opened.
I was in Form 1B at Cirencester Grammar School. Here’s a section from my maths exercise book at the time. I remember the maths teacher was Mr Dyer, a kind and gentle person who was always helpful and positive.
World events: The USA launched the first weather satellite; and Brasilia became the new capital of Brasil.
We were living at 17 Queen Anne’s Road in Cirencester; the Summer term began at Querns School, the final term of my second year. Comics were the thing that occupied children in those pre-computer days. Instead of games and other apps on a phone, I was spending hours reading Swift or playing in the garden. Cindy was probably not yet quite old enough for a comic.
We spent time with the neighbourhood children too, especially our next door neighbours, the Watts. Linda was more or less my age, and Graham about Cindy’s age; I think we played well together, either in the house or in the garden.
I had a Tri-ang pedal-power American Jeep (the image is similar, but not identical) with a little, khaki jerry-can on the back. Cindy had a pull-along roundabout with four wooden figures with arms that swung out when it was revolving.
When we moved to our new home in Queen Anne’s Road, the garden was an area of rough soil, topsoil mixed with underlying layers, bits of concrete, and scattered building rubble.
Dad, of course, made a start on turning it into a proper garden, but before he had time to get very far with this, I was out there at the age of two in my little blue coat with its fur edged hood. One of the things that I found was a poker. Everyone had a poker by the sitting-room fire, essential for moving coal and logs around when necessary. Mum and Dad didn’t have a poker, so I was very pleased to find one.
Years later I realised what it really was. It was a fence-wire strainer. It was made of galvanised steel with a loop at one end and a long section of screw thread on the other (a bit longer than in the photo). It would have been passed through a hole in a concrete fence post, fence wire attached, and a nut tightened on the thread to pull the wire taut. Mine had lost its nut and been discarded. It served as a poker for at least 25 years until I was quite grown up and had left home.
World events: The British comic Eagle was launched; and Britain formally recognised Israel.
Dad spent time with family and friends in and around Cirencester at the beginning of the month, travelling back to Skendleby by train on 7th. The constant exchange of letters with Mum in Coagh continued.
On 12th he noted that President Roosevelt had died but made no comment on the news. At the end of the month Dad learned he was to be billeted out in Skendleby and wrote in his diary that he had mixed feelings about it.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Watermoor Church
Although my grandparents, Ted and Nor, usually went to the Parish Church in the Market Place on a Sunday morning, Watermoor Church was a similar distance to walk and it’s clear they sometimes went there instead.
They lived at Churnside, 37 Victoria Road. To reach the Parish Church they would walk north on Victoria Road, turn left onto Dyer Street and continue into the Market Place. To reach Watermoor Church they would cross Victoria Road, follow The Avenue, and turn left along Watermoor Road.
Here’s another experimental new section. It will contain material that I believe fits this range of dates.
Mop
This is a back-of-the-envelope pen and ink drawing by my grandfather, EA Jefferies (Ted or Guv), he made it for my Dad when he was a young child (five-years-old in 1931) and the colouring-in looks like the work of a child of that age, or maybe a year or so younger. The picture shows the Mop Fair that takes over Cirencester Market Place in October each year, so it might date to October 1930 or 1931.
This picture is very typical of the drawings and stories Grandpa produced. The characters are animals. Notice the smoke rising above the roundabout on the right, it was steam-powered, no diesel generators in those days! The Parish Church is clearly recognisable on the left of the picture. My Dad was given the nickname ‘Tigger’ (or just ‘Tig’ for short) because he was so bouncy when he was little.
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If I’m given misinformation and base my thoughts, words and actions on that, sooner or later I’ll run into a problem.
Originally posted in December 2020, I’m republishing a revised version of this article in response to (and in agreement with) a new post today by Christopher Dryden, ‘Keep your word‘. His message is well written and well worth reading.
Click to enlarge
Truth matters. It matters because basing our thoughts, words and actions on falsehood is asking for trouble. Truth is like light: it enables us to see clearly, it banishes darkness, but it can be snuffed out and then we’re left in the dark.
Let’s explore the background, why am I writing about truth at this particular time? And why am I writing about it at all? I’m writing about it at this particular time because truth seems to be valued by fewer people than ever before. There have always been those who trample on truth, but we do seem to be living at a time when peddling falsehoods has become pandemic. Perhaps the most obvious examples are in the political sphere, where governments and their opponents have sometimes made claims based on almost anything other than the simple facts. Policies and decisions are being made on the basis of opinion, personal ambition, whim, wishful thinking, and even denial of clear evidence. I’m writing about it because it matters. It really does. We’ll get to that in a minute.
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act
George Orwell
Is this a new phenomenon? No, people have always made things up, sometimes to fill gaps in what is known, sometimes to deny what is known because it’s distasteful or hard to deal with, or for the base motives that are common, if we’re honest, to all of us – greed, self preservation, shame, fear and the rest. Survival, self-respect, money and power are important to us – sometimes important enough that we will cheat, lie, and ignore inconvenient truths that are staring us in the face.
So why does it matter?
(I said we’d get to that.)
The answer is really quite simple. If I’m given misinformation and base my thoughts, words and actions on that, sooner or later I’ll run into a problem. You can’t avoid the truth indefinitely, it will come back and bite you. Misinformation leads inevitably to error and confusion.
Imagine a map that shows a bridge across a river. An ambulance crew see that the bridge provides a valuable short cut to reach a seriously ill patient in half the time. But when they arrive at the river – there is no bridge. They have to retrace their journey and try a different way, but they are too late and the patient dies. Truth matters, and it can be critically important, even to the point of life or death.
Or imagine a general fighting a battle. He is told by his intelligence agents that the enemy is almost out of ammunition; he decides to mount an immediate attack, before new supplies can reach his opponents. If the intelligence report is true, he will win the battle easily. If they made it all up and it’s false, he might be heavily defeated. Does truth make a difference? Yes – because it leads to right action. This is why intelligence and counter intelligence matter.
Unfortunately, a strategy to deceive and confuse is now being applied widely within our society. We should be friends speaking the truth to one another, but much of the untruth flying around these days seems deliberate and causes serious difficulty for all of us. It’s become a bad habit. Who should I believe? Which ‘facts’ can I depend upon? How can I check? How should we deal with this difficulty? Here are some suggestions.
Dealing with it
Be sceptical of assertions – in other words, ask people for evidence
Don’t accept claims without supporting evidence
Remember that lots of people saying something doesn’t make it more true
Use fact checking websites
Beware of false claims presented as evidence
Treat people with respect and kindness even if they are making false claims
So what is the take away message here? We can all make a difference for better or worse. Search for the truth in every situation, look for evidence, listen to what people say but don’t accept anything without evidence of some kind (this might be evidence about the claims being made or it might be evidence that the person making the claims is reliable and usually speaks the truth). Then base any decisions or choices on the truth, never on claims you know to be false. Never deliberately mislead others. And always bear in mind that people with an agenda may sometimes behave like an enemy general. They may see you as the enemy and will misinform you if they think it will help them in some way. The world is a wonderful place, but it can also be a deceptive and dangerous place. Go in peace, but go very carefully!
Let’s base our lives on what is true, and not on what is false. Even though it’s sometimes hard to tell what is, or is not, true – it’s always worth making the attempt. And let’s remember that truth will never let us down. Untruth is just as reliable – it will always let us down in the end. No wonder Jesus said. ‘The truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). He was talking particularly about spiritual truth, but it’s a valid statement for truth in general. And let’s also bear in mind that science is a search for truth, and all the technology we depend on every day works only because it stands on that foundation of truth.
Whether we turn to the spiritual or the physical realm, we can only rely upon what is true. Truth is a thing of beauty, but deceit is ugly beyond measure. Choose beauty. Choose the light. Choose truth!
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
