Danskcolin: Friday June 6th - Sunday June 8th 2025 "Frankly I don't know how I'd survive without my toaster!"

Indeed! Modern life's wonderful, isn't it, with its automatic toasters and space modules, and everything in between. But there's always a price to pay for each present-day miracle, be it minor or major, and who do you think has lost out the most from each little "update" to everyday living?

Yes - step forward Britain's long-to-very-long-suffering crones, a feature of our countryside for multi-millennia, but now forced to the brink of extinction by the seemingly never-ending expansion of the country's motorway network that began back in the late 1950's, with the building of the M1.

And sadly, crones are becoming more endangered, not less, which is a pity. Did you catch this story in this morning's Onion News?

Poor bog crones !!!!!

And if you were present at Hollingsworth's presentation, like many of us were, you'll have left the meeting with no doubts that our grandchildren's grandchildren will probably never see a bog crone in their entire lives, which will be a bit sad. The "numbers", however, speak for themselves - do you remember this telling slide from Hollingsworth's blockbuster appeal for reason, in our crazy modern world?

Nobody, no matter how keen they may be on ever more motorways, can possibly argue with that graph, can they. Be fair!!!!

You may have missed the story, because it was a bit "buried" in this morning's paper by news of another shocking theft from the dorm study area. And if you missed the story, I recommend you "retrieve" the print edition from the garbage, scrape off the remains of last night's dinner that it was wrapped around (!), and have another look. You'll be glad you did!!!

And the fate of Britain's rural crones is much in the minds of my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, this Sunday morning, as we drive through London back to our new home in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire.

Yes, as Lois and I "crawl" [in our car!!!!] past London's Heathrow Airport on the M25 this morning, we ask ourselves, "Who today even remembers the old "airport crones", a feature of this part of the country for decades, until the building of this accursed so-called "highway from hell" ? Makes you think, doesn't it!

Progress? Huh !!!!!

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

(left) Saturday's shocking pictures of the M25 near Heathrow Airport

and (right) Heathrow in happier times, when Britain's native "airport crones",

now sadly extinct, were free to wander and curse whatever flight numbers

they chose. Happy days !!!!!

Let me put my cards on the table at this point! Lois and I, a couple of wretched "country bumpkins" from leafy Hampshire, are finding ourselves having to fight the traffic ourselves round Heathrow Airport this Sunday morning, something we're not at all accustomed to doing, might I add! [Sorry no time for that - we're a bit short on column space inches, to be frank, so try to keep it brief at least! - Ed]

You may have already guessed! Yes, Lois and I are returning home today, Sunday, after a 3-day visit to Gerrards Cross, Bucks, to attend a massive annual gathering of my some of my remaining cousins, at my cousin Jeannette's house in "them their parts" as people say in "them their parts" (!).

[Get on with it - Ed]

We drove from our home in Liphook, Hampshire on Friday, killing time in the afternoon by a visit to nearby Cliveden House, where lots of naughty things went on in the 1960's. The orgies that went on at Cliveden, that brought down Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government in the early 1960's, are still making headlines even today, in 2025, would you believe.

In March 2025, Seymour Platt (crazy name, crazy guy!), the son of high-end call girl Christine Keeler was still trying to clear his mother's name, over 60 years since her highly publicised affair with War Minister John Profumo, according to this report in the Daily Mail.

Cliveden House was where Keeler and Profumo first met. Nothing remotely "naughty", however, was going on at Cliveden on Friday afternoon, I can today exclusively reveal, either in the house, or the lovely gardens, which we check extensively (!).

us at Cliveden House, Bucks, on Friday, searching the house and gardens

for anything "naughty" going on: (bottom right) Lois checks for bodies in the pagoda (!)

flashback to the early 1960's: (left) high-end osteopath and orgy facilitator

Stephen Ward frolicking with model Christine Keeler in the gardens at Cliveden, and

(right) the shock news of the scandal, that brought down Macmillan's Conservative Government

Then on Saturday, we drove from our inn, The Chequers at Wooburn Common, to pick up my sister Gill at Beaconsfield train station, after which we all three arrived at the Evans Family grand annual cousins' get-together at our cousin Jeanette's house in Gerrards Cross, Bucks, which was nice!

flashback to Friday lunchtime: Lois (left), my sister Gill

and my good self, arriving at my cousin Jeannette's house

in Gerrards Cross, Bucks, for the big cousins annual get-together.

Extraordinarily, I've got over 30 maternal cousins "on the books" at least (!), although we're all getting a bit "long in the tooth" these days, and so only about half a dozen are expected to make it over for the big day, which is a pity. Still, we certainly manage to have a good time, and we were all "talked out" by the time we left, that's for sure!

"But Colin, why do you have over 30 cousins?" I hear you cry.

Well, my maternal grandparents, Sidney and Gladys, were very naughty and they had a lot of kids, to put it mildly - a total of nine, would you believe. And Hannah or "Nan", as she was known, mine and Jill's mother, was nearly the youngest, by which time both our grandfather and grandfather were totally exhausted as is painfully evident from this picture of them on the beach at Southerndown, Glamorgan, back in the 1920's.

flashback to the 1920's: my maternal grandfather and grandmother.

Sidney and Gladys, looking visibly exhausted after all their "begetting antics" (!),

at Southerndown beach, Glamorgan, with the youngest 4 of their 9 children

(left to right) Ruth, Joan, Hannah or "Nan" (my mother) and Babs, Joan's twin

The cousins who were not too decrepit (!), or living too far away, to come here to Saturday's get-together were understandably only those who are the descendants of the youngest of Sidney and Gladys's extensive "brood", as can be seen from the chart I bring with me, in case, in the event of a rare "senior moment", I forget anybody's name (!).

just part of the huge network of Sidney and Gladys's descendants

with dates of birth included for easy reference: they do give an approximate

idea of the age of the person concerned, but you must do the maths haha - bad luck!

Present at the get-together on Saturday were: Jeanette (1937), Liz (1939), little Hilary (1952 who had come all the way from New South Wales Australia); John (1950): me (1946) and my sister Gill (1958); Kate (1947) and Jonathan (1959); and finally David (1959), the cousin who was identified as a relative only a couple of years ago after a DNA test - he was secretly born to my unmarried Aunty Joan, and then swiftly adopted, all done secretly - but that was how they did things in those crazy, far-off late 1950's (!).

What a madness it all was, wasn't it!!!!

Also present on Saturday afternoon were the available spouses: Jeannette's Alan, Liz's Roger, John's Chris, and, of course, my poor medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois (!).

Poor Lois - all those Evanses to talk to (!!!), but she does very well, as I knew she would.

Lois standing, (left) with John and his wife Chris seated, and (right) Lois with Gill and Jeannette

(left) Jeanette's husband Alan, with Kate and Jonathan, (and right) me with David and Hilary

(left) Jeannette's husband Alan with Liz's husband Roger, Kate and Jonathan,

and (right) 'les tous ensemble': (back row) Jonathan, David, Gill, Hilary,

John, Kate and me, and (front row) Liz and Jeannette

After the "do", completely "talked out" but happy, albeit visibly exhausted, Lois and I drove Gill back to the little 17th coaching inn at Beaconsfield, where Gill has also booked a room for tonight. We have a nice meal all together. We then say goodnight to Gill, till bright and early Sunday morning, when we're due to drop her off at the train station for her journey back to Oxford - she'll be reunited with her daughter Lucy, and they'll then journey back together to their home in Ipswich, Suffolk.

(left) the 17th century coaching inn, where we've booked rooms,

and (right) us having Saturday night dinner together at the inn's restaurant

my sister Gill, now back in Oxford, having Sunday lunch

and a "pint" today in a High Street restaurant dating back to 1279 (!),

with daughter Lucy (right) and Lucy's American friend,

and keen British history buff, Rosanna (left)

Meanwhile, Lois and I, by 12 noon Sunday ourselves back at home here in Liphook, Hampshire, and visibly exhausted [Still? - Ed] we decide to spend the afternoon in bed, and then struggle downstairs for a quickie toad-in-the-hole on the sofa, before preparing to get back into bed again with an episode of Wheeltappers Social Club, the 1970's series that tried to recreate the atmosphere of a typical working-men's club in the north of England.

And true to form, ungenial and stony-faced club chairman and "turn manager" Colin Crompton is sitting at his table by the stage again, reading out, between "turns", even more of his seemingly interminable list of "announcements to members".

What madness !!!!