TASHY DID - A LIFE
Hey kids, grand-kids, and any other nosey people who are reading these pages, this is for you to read now or sometime in the future. It may tell you a little
about how life was 60 or so years ago and rather more about me. Why am I doing it?
In the years after my father's death, way back in 1981, I kept thinking of things I wished I'd talked to him about. After my mother's death, just over
thirteen years later, there was less of a knowledge-vacuum because mother talked more about her past.
Just recently, my daughter and I unearthed my mother's diaries which went back to 1929, when she was just 13 years old. This reminded me of the 1998
incident with my 6 year old and I decided to put down here the story of my life so my children and grandchildren could, if they wished, read about what I had done. I would use my
memory and those diaries to build a picture from 1949 to the present day and add some personal observations.
So, here we go. Each week we will have a new year with preceding weeks being archived. In the first few years, as I will have less to say, probably, I will
add some info about your grandparents and their parents.
1979
Another year and to be honest all continued as it was. We hired a motor-home and, with my wife's two best friends, did a ten day tour of Scotland in late May. I remember loving the scenery but being a little surprised by using the camp-site showers just outside Inverness and seeing snow piling up outside the doors. Our student left us in June but we replaced him with someone I had worked with in London. He had left when I did and gone off for a year at uni, studying tourism I think. As he was finishing his course, we had a vacancy where I was working which I told him about. He came along, was interviewed and got the job.
I had now returned to playing squash, mainly at lunchtime but sometimes in the evenings. Needless to say I didn’t wear goggles; I just remembered not to turn round.
There is, I will admit, an attitude or even just a feeling, that I have with regard to danger or accidents. As long as I have some form of control, things will be
okay. My fear of dying, or of not being alive, was about events that were essentially out of my control. Heart attacks, strokes, even cancer, I could do nothing about if they happened. Of course I could look after my body to try to avoid these but if, or when, they happened was out of my control. I have always kept fit but more by my life style than by planned exercise. On a beach, in a garden, even on a walk, I would usually have a bat or ball. I can’t amble if out, I have to walk fast, sometimes indulging in races with other unknowing pedestrians. I have never smoked, ever. Not one puff of any cigarette, cigar or pipe. And that includes those which may contain illegal products. I have never, ever taken any so-called recreational drug with the exception of one, never-to-be-forgotten experience that will be related later. Yes, I grew up in the sixties; yes, friends would experiment, I didn’t. I didn’t want to either. I have never drunk excessively. In my life I have been what I would describe as drunk perhaps half a dozen times.
But accidents, like falling from a car as I did, injuring my ankle as I did, getting the squash ball in the eye, as I did, these are nothing to worry about, once you know you haven’t got internal bleeding. I have survived a lot. I may have a very high pain threshold, I don’t know because pain is personal and what you call pain I may call a sensation. So, when, with our friend and new lodger, we took the kids to Walton-on-the-Naze, where we had hired a beach hut for the week, the incident that took place showed up this characteristic.
Our son, nearly 2-years-old and seen here helping his grandparents water their garden, the next photo shows it was a pretty big task, had been given a four-wheeled toy to sit on. It was made to look like a frog and he would sit on it and, using his little legs each side of the saddle, propel himself along. There was a slope down from our hut to the beach. The slope was quite steep and about 100 foot long. While we were all chatting around the beach hut, Evil Kneivel, got on his frog and set off down the slope. A basic scientific principle says that as you go down, you gain speed. He did. The frog had no brakes. We all spotted him at about the same time. He was two-thirds of the way down. At the bottom there were four steps with a grass bank either side and then a flat stretch and the 3ft high sea wall.
My wife screamed, our friend set off running to catch him (there was no chance) while my little brain said, if he gets to the grass bank, no problem; if he goes down the steps, not nice but at no time did I think he would suffer a serious injury. By the way, to me, broken bones are not serious. I stood and watched, there was no point in running. Luckily he turned slightly to the left, he had no steering but may have leaned that way, and toppled gently down the bank. He got a few grass burns but nothing else. I’m not sure if the others thought I didn’t care. If they did, they were very wrong. My children were, are and always will be, the most important part of my life. I would never want them to suffer a serious illness and I think the worst thing for any parent must be if your child predeceases you. They shouldn’t, it shouldn’t happen. But there is a time in any incident when if you can make no difference to what is happening, there is no point in doing anything. As a note to the elder children with regard to the predeceasing bit, I am expecting you to live well into your seventies to enable my wish to come true, as I am planing on scoring my first ever century.
I had now returned to playing squash, mainly at lunchtime but sometimes in the evenings. Needless to say I didn’t wear goggles; I just remembered not to turn round.
There is, I will admit, an attitude or even just a feeling, that I have with regard to danger or accidents. As long as I have some form of control, things will be
okay. My fear of dying, or of not being alive, was about events that were essentially out of my control. Heart attacks, strokes, even cancer, I could do nothing about if they happened. Of course I could look after my body to try to avoid these but if, or when, they happened was out of my control. I have always kept fit but more by my life style than by planned exercise. On a beach, in a garden, even on a walk, I would usually have a bat or ball. I can’t amble if out, I have to walk fast, sometimes indulging in races with other unknowing pedestrians. I have never smoked, ever. Not one puff of any cigarette, cigar or pipe. And that includes those which may contain illegal products. I have never, ever taken any so-called recreational drug with the exception of one, never-to-be-forgotten experience that will be related later. Yes, I grew up in the sixties; yes, friends would experiment, I didn’t. I didn’t want to either. I have never drunk excessively. In my life I have been what I would describe as drunk perhaps half a dozen times.
But accidents, like falling from a car as I did, injuring my ankle as I did, getting the squash ball in the eye, as I did, these are nothing to worry about, once you know you haven’t got internal bleeding. I have survived a lot. I may have a very high pain threshold, I don’t know because pain is personal and what you call pain I may call a sensation. So, when, with our friend and new lodger, we took the kids to Walton-on-the-Naze, where we had hired a beach hut for the week, the incident that took place showed up this characteristic.
Our son, nearly 2-years-old and seen here helping his grandparents water their garden, the next photo shows it was a pretty big task, had been given a four-wheeled toy to sit on. It was made to look like a frog and he would sit on it and, using his little legs each side of the saddle, propel himself along. There was a slope down from our hut to the beach. The slope was quite steep and about 100 foot long. While we were all chatting around the beach hut, Evil Kneivel, got on his frog and set off down the slope. A basic scientific principle says that as you go down, you gain speed. He did. The frog had no brakes. We all spotted him at about the same time. He was two-thirds of the way down. At the bottom there were four steps with a grass bank either side and then a flat stretch and the 3ft high sea wall.
My wife screamed, our friend set off running to catch him (there was no chance) while my little brain said, if he gets to the grass bank, no problem; if he goes down the steps, not nice but at no time did I think he would suffer a serious injury. By the way, to me, broken bones are not serious. I stood and watched, there was no point in running. Luckily he turned slightly to the left, he had no steering but may have leaned that way, and toppled gently down the bank. He got a few grass burns but nothing else. I’m not sure if the others thought I didn’t care. If they did, they were very wrong. My children were, are and always will be, the most important part of my life. I would never want them to suffer a serious illness and I think the worst thing for any parent must be if your child predeceases you. They shouldn’t, it shouldn’t happen. But there is a time in any incident when if you can make no difference to what is happening, there is no point in doing anything. As a note to the elder children with regard to the predeceasing bit, I am expecting you to live well into your seventies to enable my wish to come true, as I am planing on scoring my first ever century.
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