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1957 Christmas Vancouver BC

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I have heard from Davy Makin and Vic Pitcher this Christmas season. They are old shipmates and I spent Christmas with them in Vancouver BC sixty-one[61] years ago in 1957. Actually I have known David for  71 years because he too came from Bath and we were Catholic children being educated by Nuns of the French order La Sainte Union when we met. Earlier that year [1957], in May, we had joined the tramp-ship “Bradford City” in London. [ If any of you have seen the TV drama called “Call the Midwife” we were moored where you see a two funnel ship in the opening scenes.] I had been promoted to Third Mate, I was 19 years of age, David Makin [same age] was the Senior Apprentice, and Victor Pitcher [17] an Apprentice. My best friend [God love his soul] also 19 years old, and my shipmate on the “Fresno City,” joined the “Queen City” as Third Mate in London at the same time. His ship was crewed with Lascars [Indian Seamen].  We sailed away around the world as usual. I say usual but that
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Where You Stand and Prejudice (2016)

Where you stand and prejudice. I  have written before on the Newfoundland aphorism of “where you stand depends where you sit.” With that saying in mind here are some of my thoughts on that most contentious of subjects - prejudice, -  racial or ethnic, take your choice.  I look to where I came from, my origins, and then look at what affects my life today.  I come to the inevitable conclusions that prejudice is illogical , not Christian, and most certainly not productive.   My Grandfather, William Hogan, and Grandmother, Mary Ellen, were part of the Irish diaspora that took place in the latter part of the 19th Century. William Hogan was born in 1857 in Cappoquin and Mary Ellen in 1860 in Cork. The Great Irish Famine took place over the years 1845 - 1852 when approximately one million died; the Irish population fell by 25% due to death and emigration. Ireland’s rural population had rapidly grown in the Nineteenth Century. This was because a large family was an insurance of continued
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No one minute's silence fro Bill.

I watched Bill die. It was on the evening June 5th in the year of our Lord 2017. Seventy three years ago Bill was but a boy of 19 years of age doing a man’s job. He would have been fearful and anxious to his very soul. The next day this lad was in the vanguard of the greatest battle invasion the world has ever seen as he charged ashore in the D- Day with his mates in the South Wales Borderers. And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. So says Shakespeare and oh were that but true, there was no one minute silence for Bill, no one cared. Just two days before he died Bill turned to me and said “ I am dying, I want to go home.”  He silently cried. He did not go home but died alone except for me and my son in silent grief. Moments later curtains were drawn and Bill was gone. And so this former great Christian nation ignored the passing of o
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A SOJOURN IN PURGATORY

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A SOJOURN IN PURGATORY This is not a story for the faint of heart, it is a story of what it can be like in hospital. Last week I completed 16 days, or more specifically, 23,040 minutes of pure purgatory, in Harptree Ward of Weston General Hospital. I say “minutes” because that is the reality of an hospital bed, you become aware of each minute, if you are lucky and get a visitor, they stay for a precious few minutes. It all started on the morning of 24th May just twenty-two days following the death of my beloved wife. I had checked with my GP at the crack of dawn that morning with my right leg in massive throbbing pain following a completely sleepless agonising night. She sent me post haste to the hospital, “do not even go home - go!” and I left the car in the carpark. She feared DVT and already my toes were turning black. Ultrasound ruled out DVT so A&E immediately put me into the Medical Assessment Unit worried that it might be Necrotizing fasciitis (NF), that’s commonly
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Calais - Are they real refugees?

Like most of us here in the United Kingdom I see the pictures of the Calais migrants and have that feeling that somehow they are not real refugees. And then, again like most British people, I have that stab of regret, am I being unfair to these people? So why am I still uneasy? Are they real refugees? So those are the questions that I have pondered. I was born in 1937 so grew up being bombed, seriously being blitzed in Plymouth where over a thousand died, well over four thousand were injured, and thousands moved away from the city. I remember seeing many photographs in the daily papers of the 60 million refugees in Europe resulting from that terrible conflict. When the war was over, and we were then living in Bath, my family participated in that city's temporary adoption of Dutch children from Alkmaar, a town that had been ravaged by the Nazis. There were still hundreds of thousands of refugees in 1953 when I became a merchant navy cadet and then I actually visited many of t
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AN ISLAND NATION

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AN ISLAND NATION Island Nation or EU satellite state? Last night Jeremy Paxman, on the 19th May 2016, presented an objective view of the European Union. It is clear that the EU intends becoming a federal state and that the United Kingdom would become subsumed into that bureaucratic nightmare. I give you an alternative - the open sea  and the Commonwealth. We are an island nation off Europe but not part of Europe.The Commonwealth needs us and we most certainly need them - they are the World. It is not a pipe dream, the building blocks are still there - just - and it is predicated on the following :- “The Charter brings together the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth - democracy, human rights and the rule of law - in a single, accessible document. The Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all peoples of the Commonwealth. The Cha
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