Hogan plus Vowles

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...

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 ...

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 ...