For the last couple of days, my eyes have been itchy and watery, and I’ve been sneezing. Covid? Nope, hay fever. My perennial visitor around early March. Although this year, it seems to have brought its visit forward by a couple or three weeks.

My allergy is to certain tree pollens, so its effect comes early in the year, and that effect tends to have gone by the end of April. Which tree pollens? I’m not sure. I thought it might be Oak for several years, but I now think it’s more likely to be Ash or Birch.

It wasn’t until I reached the age of eleven that I discovered I had such an allergy. It came as something of a shock as one spring day, on a visit to some woods with my friends, I began sneezing continually with my eyes streaming. I thought I’d contracted some horrible infection. However, my parents soon determined the actual cause once they saw my symptoms.

I had a similar panicked reaction when I discovered I was short-sighted. I cannot use the excuse of being a child as I was around twenty-one years old at the time!

The Forensic Lab where I worked decided to improve their health and safety and mandated the wearing of safety glasses during experiments. As part of this process, everyone then had an eye test. During mine, I realised to my horror that I could not read some of the letters. Any average person would at once think of myopia. Not Harry. Harry’s first reaction was, “I’m going blind”. Fortunately, the optician conducting the examination soon put me right. In fact, he told me my myopia was slight and only in one eye. 

I take an antihistamine to counteract the effect of my hay fever. In the past, I’ve relied on Cetirizine. It dampens the symptoms, but they don’t disappear entirely. So, this year I’m giving Loratadine a try as some other hay fever sufferers have recommended that. 

I’ve also found as I aged, I suffered a little less in any event. My myopia too has benefited from my growing old. After that first diagnosis, it worsened each year then stabilised. Over the last fifteen years, my ageing seems to me to have facilitated a slow correction to my sight. I still wear glasses to drive but not much else. Of course, that means I now have a regular hunt for where I might have left my specs. Fading memory is another joy of ageing.

Other than these ‘dramas’, I’m fortunate to have suffered little illness in my lifetime. No bad thing given my overly dramatic reaction when I discover my physical wellbeing isn’t all it should be.

As a fifteen-year-old, I had a severe case of bronchitis that kept me bedridden for a fortnight, but that’s been about it. I’ve never broken a bone and had only one overnight hospital stay. I’ve been under the knife three times for minor surgery. Twice with anaesthetic and once without. I must say I’d have preferred to have been under on that occasion too.

I’ve suffered some heavy colds now and again, but nothing like real flu. When it comes to the latter, mine is the male variant. 

That’s not to say I’ve not had some ‘scrapes’ over the years. My knees aren’t what they were after I damaged them in my late thirties through a combination of an incident while pushing a car (something for another time) and by playing football and cricket. I also don’t have a ‘Cupids Bow’. The slight disfigurement caused when tackled heavily playing street football brought my mouth into painful contact with a kerb that put my lower teeth through my upper lip.

So all in all, I really can’t complain. The only depressing thing about hay fever is that doctors recommend that sufferers avoid certain foodstuffs and drinks. And of course, it had to be the exciting stuff like chocolate, beer, wine, and spirits. They all have histamine and therefore worsen your symptoms. I confess I suffer rather than abstain.

Now all I’m worried about is that in writing about my reasonable health, I hope I have not tempted providence!!

Last week, under an initiative by my local town council, many residents planted trees, well saplings really, to create a ‘Tiny Forest’. A concept of which, until it’s happening, I admit I knew nothing.

Unlike me, most people may already know that a Tiny Forest is exactly what it says on the tin. A small area of land in which trees are densely packed. Typically, up to six hundred trees in an area no bigger than the size of a Tennis Court.

I confess that it seems like far too many trees in a tiny space, but the trees thrive, growing much more quickly than in ‘classic’ woodland. Typically, taking only thirty years to reach maturity. And more than that their growth does not depend upon the use of chemicals or fertilisers. 

We all know that trees bring many benefits to the environment. They store carbon, soak up water that may reduce local flooding, and attract all sorts of wildlife. Using such a small land area makes Tiny Forests ideal for urban settings. They also help community engagement as local people take part in planting and caring for the Forests. The correct choice of trees is essential to ensure a balanced long-lasting Forest. In the case of ‘our’ Tiny Forest, there are more than twenty ‘native’ species including oak, wild service, birch, alder, hazel, blackthorn, rowan, and lime.

While I may have been unaware of the idea, the concept is not new. It’s based on a forest management method developed in the 1970s by Dr Akira Miyawaki. Taking this concept, in 2010, Shubhendu Sharma planted a Tiny Forest of over two hundred trees and shrubs in his back garden. That garden was around a quarter of the size of a Tennis Court. The Forest proved a remarkable success. Shubhendu planted a large variety of trees, of which eighteen were fruit-bearing. One variety, guava, was so abundant that Shubhendu harvested 5kg of fruit from them a day. In addition, the Tiny Forest attracted some seventeen species of birds to an area where there had been only two.

Since Shubhendu’s first Tiny Forest, they have appeared worldwide, with the first in the UK ‘springing up’ a couple of years ago in Witney in Oxfordshire.

While there are many benefits, there can be drawbacks. The cost is one of them, and I’ve seen figures as high as £18,000 reported. I don’t know what my Town Council has spent. Still, I note there’s an Environmental charity and a local employer involved in the initiative. Another concern is that using natural meadow to plant a Tiny Forest may threaten existing wildlife. 

Despite some misgivings, it’s clear there is an ever-increasing growth (pardon the pun) in such Forests. It’s a pleasing reflection of the care and concern an increasing number of people have for the environment.

I certainly offer my local town council a thumbs up for the initiative. The current infant Forest is no more than a few minutes’ walk from my home and on the route I take to several of my regular destinations in town. I may not be around to see the Tiny Forest develop to its full majesty, but I look forward over the coming years to watching it grow.

This coming Sunday will see Super Bowl LVI between the Rams and the Bengals. Although I suspect it’s a game that will be of little interest to most reading this.

I first caught a glimpse of ‘American’ Football over fifty years ago when the BBC broadcast a short clip of an early Super Bowl on ‘Grandstand’.

Mentioning Grandstand, it was a surprise to discover that the programme ended fifteen years ago. In the days when I still lived in the Northeast, and if I wasn’t at St James Park watching NUFC, it was staple Saturday afternoon viewing for my father and me. Rugby League, Rugby Union, the Boat Race, horse racing, etc. As well as that first glimpse of the NFL.

I can’t say I understood anything that I watched. It just seemed to be a morass of bodies crunching into each other. So different from the other ‘contact’ team games of the UK with their constant movement and pace.

American Football might therefore have stayed a vague childhood memory if Channel 4 had not begun, in 1982, to broadcast highlights each week.

The sport soon hooked me. Not before had I seen something that combined the strategy of chess with such supreme physical endeavour. A Quarterback’s ability to sail a ball to any part of the field into the hands of a wide receiver. The speed and handling skills of said receivers. Running backs who can pause, accelerate, twist, and spin through or around the scrimmage line. Or those on that line who use their physicality to ‘open up’ a ‘play’, or if in Defence, close it down. And if a play unfolds as it should, it can take on a balletic beauty.

American Football emerged from rugby football. It was Walter Camp, the ‘Father of American Football’ who, in the late 19th Century, introduced changes such as a scrimmage line, downs, the forward pass and blocking. Not long after came the concept of scripted plays.

I wasn’t the only one in 1982 who took to the game. Viewing figures on Channel 4 soared and I, and several million like me, tuned in to watch Super Bowl XVII, despite its late Sunday night start, on the 30 January 1983.

Along with its popularity on TV, many people across the UK began to form teams to play the game. It culminated in the creation of what became to be known as NFL Europe. Teams coming from cities across the world including New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, and Edinburgh. For a while, NFL Europe had quite a following. It ended in 2007 as sadly, the quality of play and players were not to the standard that one could see on TV from the NFL in the USA.

In the same year as NFL Europe disappeared the NFL International series began. Teams from the NFL in the USA playing regular-season games in London. So, since 2007, as well as watching on TV, I can now indulge myself by watching games live.

The atmosphere at such games is much more that of a rugby game than of English football. There is no tribalism or undercurrent of violence. Instead, it’s about spectacle and, what a sport should be, entertainment.

Also as with Rugby, there is a swift and firm dealing of violent conduct on the field. Men so big and fit could do each other severe injury (even wearing helmets and padding) if strict laws were not in place. Tackling headfirst, tackling a quarterback low, horse collaring (pulling a player from behind by his shoulder pads) or pulling the face mask are all penalised by significant yardage. And gaining yards is what the game is about. Even minor offences such as holding, blocking in the back, and tripping, carry a penalty. I’ve seen many a player ejected for over aggression and woe betide a player who so much as questions an official never mind touches them. Oh, and VAR is faster too.

American Football is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve yet to see a team sport that turns so much on momentum or that offers so many last-minute triumphs or disasters. So come this Sunday, I’ll catch an hour or two of sleep before the game then will sit up into the wee small hours with a beer or two and as I’ve done for near forty years watch the spectacle unfold.

There are occasions when an Art form can transport you to an earlier time or another place. It might happen while watching a movie. Listening to music. Reading a book. Or looking at a painting. A couple of such ‘transportations’ happened to me recently.

The first was as I read, ‘Newcastle United Stole my Heart’ by Michael Chaplin. Chaplin’s father, Sid, penned mining stories of the northeast of England that were adapted into the musical play ‘Close the coal house door’ that I’ve mentioned in earlier Reflections. Michael, now in his 70s, wrote for the TV series, Act of Betrayal, Monarch of the Glen, Grafters, Dalziel and Pascoe and Wild at Heart as well as many theatre productions.

Michael has supported NUFC all his life, despite, as with all of us fellow NUFC supporters, all the trials and tribulations the club puts us through. We NUFC supporters are the embodiment of hope over expectation.

His book takes the reader on a six-decade journey, both through his life and his support of NUFC. Support that began a tad earlier than mine yet the feelings of which he writes are very familiar. 

Reading his description of games and players in the late 1960s and early 1970s brought back memories of my own trips to St James during the period before I left the northeast. I recall In my earliest visits my father lifting me over the turnstile and then him slipping the gateman a shilling. Then there were the peanut sellers hurling small bags of peanuts up into the crowd while tanners rained back down in payment. The smell of tobacco, cut grass, and on colder days, the pungent smell of Deep Heat rubbed into footballer’s legs. My father’s name for it was horse liniment.

Some of the games of which Michael writes, I was also there to see. Unknowingly at the time suffering agony and ecstasy along with him. His stories also recalled to me, those Saturdays when NUFC were playing away from home, my eagerly awaiting the football ‘pink’ that usually appeared within an hour of the final whistle. The match reports of the occasional triumph or, more often, failure of NUFC then devoured.

As happened to me Michaels’ career took him away from the Northeast. Yet the ‘bug’ we had both caught was not cured. It was then to watching NUFC whenever and wherever possible. On grounds around the country and if overseas in bars and pubs that might show a NUFC game. In my case, the most memorable was a Sunday afternoon in a bar in Rome watching NUFC play Spurs, with a local Spurs supporters’ group. They were happy when NUFC went 2:0 up and I was subject to much banter in both English and Italian. Their buoyant mood changed when NUFC ran out 3:2 winners with a last-minute goal.

I too have had to ‘sit on my hands’ while watching NUFC play away from home. As with Michael not as successfully as we should have been. At least in my case at a game at West Ham, I exploded with joy only at the first goal. A ‘friendly’ reminder by a home supporter persuaded me to contain my exuberance when NUFC put the second away.

The book also reminded me that in my decades of watching NUFC, it wasn’t the FA Cup failures to lower league teams that hurt the most. The likes of Hereford, Stevenage or most recently Oxford. It was the decline in early 1996 from a 12-point lead atop the Premier League at Christmas 1995 to finishing second place to Man Utd.

The second activity that sent me tumbling back to my younger self was watching ‘Belfast’ last week. The semi-autographical film from Kenneth Branagh of his early days in that city.

My upbringing was not in Belfast, but anyone born in the mid-fifties and who grew up in a working-class terraced house environment will identify with much of the film. The relationships within and between families. Grandparents, aunties, uncles, and other relatives who lived only a few doors or a street away.

The banter offered by the film’s dialogue was instantly recognisable. The northeast of England did not have the religious divide of Belfast, Liverpool, or Glasgow. Still, there was a degree of anti-Irish / Catholic feeling as I grew up in the northeast. Stemming from the early 1900s when it was said the mine owners drafted Irish men to replace striking miners. The Irishmen were all incorrectly assumed to be Catholic.

I also spent many holidays in my early years visiting relatives in Glasgow. Green was never worn in my uncle’s home in which we stayed. He would not even allow his daughter to speak to a catholic. After his death, she married a catholic man. No doubt Uncle George will still be spinning in his grave. The phrase ‘which foot does he kick with’ was, therefore, a familiar one to me.

There is a scene in the film where our young hero goes to a Presbyterian church. The minister, standing high in the pulpit harangue the congregation in which while the film’s young ‘hero’ sits wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

That was me at around the age of seven. My parents were not churchgoers. Before I appeared on the scene, they had married in my hometown’s Presbyterian church. This was because my mother, being divorced, could not then marry my father, a widower, in the church of England. Lost to history, or at least my memory is why I then went to Sunday School, and not my parents to church. Yet there I was. Part of a young congregation suffering the type of fire and brimstone torrent offered in Branagh’s film. A couple of doses of that, and I decided it wasn’t for me. The minister, on the other hand, thought otherwise.

A few days after my no-show, there was a knock on the door of my home. My mother opened the door, and there the imposing figure of a sombre minister stood. Dressed in a long black cassock and around his waist a wide brown belt.

He had come to enquire after my health as I had not attended church. After my mother reassured him I was in robust health, she invited the minister to ask me directly why I had missed church. I crumpled, dear reader, and next Sunday was once again one of the faithful. 

It wasn’t to last. A few weeks later, my parents and I agreed that I would walk the dog if they could get me out of going to church.

Branagh’s film is romanticised. Yet, I would heartily recommend it to people. The setting may be in a time past and in a place of conflict, but its universal theme is relationships. The young to the old. Between those of different beliefs. Within the family and across families. Of friends and adversaries. A funny, poignant, and thoughtful insight into the bittersweetness of life.

In just shy of a couple of months from now, I will be taking my first steps on a late-night 10km walk around central London. The walk is in support of The Big Issue Foundation, a cause that a lot of you know is close to my heart. Because of Covid restrictions that walk was not held for the past two years so the fact it is back really pleases me, and that I can again participate in this fundraising initiative.

Many will know, but just in case you don’t, the Foundation aims to help those homeless or at risk of homelessness to get back on their own feet. It offers them a hand-up, not a handout, by setting them up as vendors of the Big Issue magazine. The vendors buy the magazines and then sell them in the street to passers-by. In effect, BI vendors are running their own business. Buying a product ‘wholesale’ at the volumes they think they can sell. Then offering that product to the consumer. It’s an excellent product too.

We can all become a little holier than thou about why someone became homeless in the first place. The reasons are various and many. Why it happened is less important to me than the fact the individual now wants to get their life back on an even keel. If I, in some small way, can help in that I am pleased so to do.

But why do I support the homeless cause over many other worthy causes? Well, for those not familiar with the story (and I know many of you are), it dates from my first working day in London in mid-July 1974

My job was as an Assistant Scientific Officer in a Government Forensic Laboratory, in Cornwall House, on the south side of Waterloo Bridge. My journey on that first morning started with a walk from the Hostel in which I then lived to Bayswater tube station. Then, Circle Line tube to Embankment and another walk to Cornwall House.

Leaving Embankment station on that first journey to work, I did not yet know my best route to the Lab. I, therefore, turned left to walk through Victoria Embankment Gardens with the intent of crossing to the south of the Thames via Waterloo Bridge.

The end of the Gardens borders the back of the Savoy Hotel. It was there I saw ahead of me three recumbent figures. Once called ‘gentlemen of the road’, the figures lay peacefully asleep on the grass in their careworn ‘daywear’ of jackets and trousers. There was no need for an extra covering, given the season’s warmth.

I drew nearer, and the sun, sitting just over the OXO tower, caught the morning dew that covered the slumbers. A gossamer blanket bejewelled with gold and silver light. Although out of context, these lines from Yeats came to mind.

“But, I being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

And softly, I did tread as I passed those gentlemen.

On that first working day, with my mind full of the opportunity ahead, my thoughts turned to what dreams had these men once had. Over the years, such thoughts occasionally return to me, especially when I do the London Walk supporting The Big Issue.

So how about helping me help today’s homeless by donating to my tramping of the streets of London?

The route starts and finishes near St Martins in the Fields church in Trafalgar Square. It will then take us along the Strand into the City of London. Then past St Paul’s Cathedral and into the East End before our return through Farringdon by Smithfield Market. Then along Holborn to Covent Garden and back into Trafalgar Square

The walk should take me between two and a half to three hours, but it’s not a race. This is all about helping a worthy cause and enjoying the atmosphere of fun created as people of all types and ages come together to take part. 

Will you help? If you can, then here is where to donate.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thelondonwalk-harrywatson

Also, please buy the Big Issue if you come across a Vendor. Don’t just give them some money. Please take the magazine. Remember this is a hand-up, not a handout, so show the Vendor the respect they deserve. 

Sadly, some people even take advantage of the less advantaged, so make sure you buy from an authorised vendor. They wear bright red jackets, and all have ID cards. They take no offence if you choose to call the Big Issue Foundation to check before buying. And, unlike the con artists, a legitimate vendor will always sell you their last copy. Also, exchange a word or two with them. They may appear dishevelled, but everyone I’ve met is an engaging character and never grumpy or miserable despite their life challenges.

Thanks, and oh, if anyone wishes to join me on the walk, just get in touch.

All the current opprobrium thrown at Boris Johnson had me thinking of who might be the worst prime minister we’ve had in the UK. There are not as many to consider as you might think. It’s surprising to me that Britain has had only 55 Prime Ministers over some 300 years. 

Judgement of competence should not be based on a PM’s political position, be it of the left or right, but on how well they served the country’s interest. For instance, in a recent survey, David Cameron ‘won’ the dubious award of worst PM. This was because of what many saw as the impact of Brexit on the economy of the UK. He allowed a referendum and then did not deliver the case to stay. But, of course, that’s one perspective. Those who felt that Brexit was the best thing for the UK would regard Cameron highly. Such is the way when trying to judge the worst or best PM.

Anyway, I’ve tried to offer here a non-political synopsis of those PMs, to use a football analogy, which people feel would be battling against relegation from the ‘Premier’ league,

Spencer Perceval was so unpopular with his colleagues that despite offering it to five different men no one would serve as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The accusation against him was that he ‘lacked ambition. Incidentally, Perceval is the only UK PM assassinated. 

The Duke of Wellington may have been a great soldier but not such a great PM. It did not go down well that he felt 10 Downing St was too small for his needs and lived in the much grander Apsley House. Added to this was that he set himself against any form of extending the vote to the wider populace. The nickname “Iron Duke” originated from this period when he experienced much personal and political unpopularity. A mob stoned Apsley House, and a hostile crowd greeted Wellington at the momentous opening of the first inter-city railway in the world. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Wellington’s government eventually fell in 1830 after a summer and autumn of riots across the country.

Arthur Balfour also had little time for equality for women in terms of their right to vote and once said he was “not convinced the majority of women actually wanted the vote”. Added to this was his stance on Ireland. Then there was his position on tariffs on goods rather than Free Trade. His unpopularity among colleagues caused many resignations from his cabinet. When he went to the country, the opposition Liberal party won with a landslide, and Balfour lost his seat.

Another who comes to mind is Anthony Eden. Initially, people loved Eden and gave him a large majority in the 1955 election. Yet many of Eden’s contemporaries had doubts about his ability. One even remarked, “anybody would make a better prime minister than Anthony, who would make the worst prime minister since Lord North”. And then came the Suez debacle. Eden’s backdoor deal with France and Israel to disastrously invade Egypt shattered the illusion of Britain being a player on the world stage. Moreover, it gave the USSR’ permission’ to invade Hungary.

Lord North mentioned above was PM when Britain imposed the tea duties and so-called “intolerable acts” that led to the American War of Independence. Which of course led to the loss of the North American ‘colonies’.

Finally, no list like this could omit Neville Chamberlain and his “peace in our time”. Chamberlain’s failure to stand up to Hitler when his troops marched into the Rhineland proved only the start of appeasement. It signalled that Chamberlain and his European allies would give Hitler anything he wanted in the hope of preventing another war. Ummm, that worked out well …

But these are just a few of my thoughts, who might your choice be ….

I’m infected with something that seems to be spreading more quickly than Omicron. It’s Wordle and I’m hooked. But, of course, I’m not the only one. From what I see on social media many others have caught the bug. Some families even have competitions between members.  I introduced my eldest son to it three days ago and now receive a daily report from him as to the outcome of his efforts

However, there may still be some not familiar with Wordle. If you are one of those then it’s a game that gives those playing, six chances to guess a random five-letter word. If you have the correct letter in the right place, it shows green. A correct letter in the wrong place shows up yellow. A letter that isn’t in the word at all shows up grey. It’s a simple game, and that’s its attraction. You also only get only one opportunity to play each day.

As with many games, there is luck involved. However, the game also demands some skill and knowledge. In this case, the skill needed is basic logic to help in the positioning of letters. The knowledge needed is a decent vocabulary. Well, a decent vocabulary of five-letter words.

By all accounts, the creator of the game did so as a gift to his partner. Then his wider family began to play before it became something of a cult game on the internet. The game grew from 90 players in November to 300,000 by the start of the new year.

As soon as I played Wordle, it reminded me of that popular game of the 1970s, Mastermind. A code-breaking game for two people that I again very much enjoyed playing.

Again, for those not familiar with Mastermind, it was a type of ‘code-breaking’ game that used a pegboard with a shield at one end covering a row of four holes with twelve more rows of four holes, next to a set of four smaller holes. The ‘code’ pegs were of six colours, and the ‘hint’ pegs were black and white. 

The ‘code maker’ chose four coloured ‘code’ pegs and placed them in a pattern in the four holes covered by the shield. Thus, they were visible to the ‘code maker’ but not to the ‘code breaker.’

The ‘codebreaker’ then tried to work out the pattern of the ‘code’ pegs. Their guesses were made by placing a row of coloured ‘code’ pegs on the board. Once placed, the ‘code maker’ provided feedback by placing from zero to four ‘hint’ pegs in the small holes alongside the row with the guess. A white ‘hint’ peg meant a correct colour ‘code’ peg placed in the wrong position and a black ‘hint’ peg if the right colour ‘code’ peg was in the correct place.

In contrast to Wordle, Mastermind thus relied purely on logic. However, with 26 letters and many available five-letter words, there are far more variations possible in Wordle than in Mastermind.

My best result to date in `Wordle’ was to guess the word in two attempts. I’ve done that on two of the occasions in the week since I began to play the game. It’s clear that the choice of your opening word makes all the difference. An opening word that offers a lot of clues to that day’s answer offers the best opportunity for early success. I’ve found the trickiest words to figure out are those with duplicate letters given the way the colour coded ‘hint’ works.

I tend to play first thing in the morning to give the old grey cells a bit of a wake-up. If I complete it too quickly, there is a sense of disappointment that I now need to wait some 20plus hours for a new challenge. However, in its way, I suspect that also adds to the game’s attraction. It stops you from spending hours playing and becoming quickly sated by the game. The anticipation of tomorrow’s game adds to the enjoyment.

If you haven’t tried it, why not give it a go? 

https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

And if you have – good luck for tomorrow!

Happy New Year! And let’s hope it is a calmer year than the two that have preceded it. We might not be out of the Covid woods yet, but we may be nearing the tree line.

This is the time of year when people set new resolutions or seek a new purpose. Renewal of self to go with the beginning of another year. I’ve shared before I’m not really one for resolutions. However, on occasion, I might make a promise to myself in some aspect of my life.

Having kept a journal for some decades, I know that how one might foresee the year turning out can prove wrong. Sometimes as in 2020, very wrong. My journal entry of that January made no mention of a virus. By January 31st, it was a footnote. It was the dominant topic by March. My journal is then akin to the part of Samuel Pepys diary that described the spread of the Plague of London some 355 years earlier.

While I can’t profess that my journal gives the insight that Pepys did on life in England in the 17th century, mine does offer insight into the circle of life.

Within my journal, I’ve written of births and deaths. Marriages, separation, and divorce (not all of them my own!). Happiness and sadness. New friendships I’ve made and colleagues and acquaintances who’ve faded from the scene. Hope for the future and worries of the present. 

I’m a natural worrier. I have few hobbies, but I’d be highly proficient if worrying were one. I don’t mind. I’d worry if I weren’t worried about something. I don’t need a new year’s resolution to worry less. I’m comfortable that it’s part of who I am. In some ways, it’s my driving force. As some people take aspirin to ease a headache, I have a ‘what if’ plan or action on hand in the event some of my big-ticket worries happen.

I sometimes think it might be nice to be the sort of person who, at once, sees the upside opportunity rather than the downside risk. I’m not, and I know I never will be. Some would say that makes me a pessimist. Instead, I see myself as a pragmatist. My journal shows that while we may hope for this or for that, often, life just is. 

Alan Saunders (not as many people believe, John Lennon) once offered, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans”. He was being more profound than he ever imagined.

I might worry, but that doesn’t make me unhappy. Being pragmatic and acknowledging that sometimes, “life isn’t fair” means fewer disappointments and less frustration. That doesn’t mean I accept that everything falls to fate and that we should just bob along like a cork in the ocean. As I wrote earlier, we should always have a plan and be ready to act, to help us move in the direction we wish to go. Also, as I’ve grown older, I find myself living increasingly by the Maya Angelou view of life,

“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain”.

So, another Christmas Day has come and gone but not the multitude of photographs taken on the day.

Glancing through social media offered a proliferation of family festivities. Presents aplenty, wide-eyed children, smiling adults, playful animals, copious quantities of food, bedecked Christmas trees and snowy outdoor scenes. You name it, and there seemed to be a photo reflecting what Christmas joy meant to that person.

With the growth of social media over the years, it’s become the norm to share those frozen moments of Christmas Day jollity, where once they would have slipped quietly into an album. Now and again to see daylight again for the purposes of reminiscence. 

On the day itself, I posted on Twitter this quote from S&V Vonlanthen.

“Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today’s Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.”

It’s through the taking and sharing of photographs that many use as that bridge. This causes me to reflect that I have no photographs of Christmas festivities from the first three decades of my life. I, therefore, muse on what a snap might have captured if a camera had been around in my younger days.

Through into my teenage years, the attendees for Christmas Lunch would be my parents, maternal grandparents, and me. On occasion, my brother and/or sister might join if they had home leave. The meal would follow the traditional lines of turkey and trimmings followed by Christmas pudding.

An imagined photo of my grandfather eating this part of the meal would capture a neatly folded handkerchief beside him. What it would not see was his false teeth within. My grandfather removed those teeth to better enjoy the fruit-laden treat.

Later in the day, the camera might capture my grandfather again. This time enjoying a cigar of the size of which Churchill would be proud. And this was even though my grandfather was an ardent socialist. The cigar was his annual Christmas present to himself. For the rest of the year, it was cigarettes.

I do have photos from Christmas’ of the early ’80s onwards. They show similar scenes shared today on social media. The chaos of children opening their presents. Christmas trees that are heavily laden with ornamentation. Smiling faces from around the dinner table with before them mountains of food. There are also pet photos, usually with the said animal surrounded by wrapping paper or hiding beneath it.

Yet there’s something that makes me prefer those imagined photos. My memory is sufficient to be that bridge at Christmas.

And so, Christmas is almost upon us, and it’s time for my last musical Reflection of the year. I have yet to decide on next year’s ‘theme’. Photographs, films, books, or simply ad hoc posts based on happenings at the time. That was the form my first ‘Positives’ took on posting them when I began these over six years ago.

I’m not a religious person, but I’m partial to a good hymn or carol. In truth, carols were not all originally religious. Some date to Pagan times.

In my younger days, I enjoyed the school Christmas carol service held at the local parish church at this time of year. On two such occasions, at primary school when aged 10 and then senior school at age 13, my school selected me to read pieces from the Bible. Thankfully, I managed to avoid thunderbolts from on high during both readings. I still have the Bible inscribed to me in recognition of the second reading.

The same carol always marked the end of the service. As it happens, that carol was then and is still today, my favourite. I much enjoy belting it out.

Here it is with wishes to all for a Happy Christmas and a safe, and I hope calmer, 2022