Today is August 4th 2021, the 49th anniversary of "my road accident", which happened exactly 3 weeks before Lois and I got married. I was proceeding in a northerly direction on Oxford's Eastern Bypass, on m way to visit Lois, when a lorry emerged from a turning straight into the path of my car, and I couldn't avoid it.
I was thrown out of the car on to the grass verge - I hadn't been wearing a seat belt: this was quite legal in those days. I spent a couple of days in hospital. Unfortunately I couldn't remember the accident afterwards - post-traumatic amnesia - so the lorry-driver was never prosecuted. Still it could have been worse - the car was "totalled" so I could have been killed haha!
flashback to Spring 1972, Blackpool: I pose with my pride and joy,
my first ever car, a Morris Oxford Estate, just a few months
before it was "totalled" in an accident: sob sob!
August 1972: despite the lorry-driver's best efforts, Lois and I
manage to get married after all: (left to right) my sister Gill,
Lois, me, my father, my mother, and my brother Steve
10:30 Lois's back is still giving her the twinges and stabbing pains which started yesterday morning, but it's sunny and warm, so we decide to go for a walk on the local football field, taking it more slowly than usual today.
we go for a walk on the local football field
Halfway round we stop at the Whiskers Coffee Stand. We buy two iced coffees and drink them on the so-called "Buddy Bench" outside the Parish Council Offices.
we have 2 iced coffees and drink them on the Buddy Bench
by the Parish Council offices
I first tried iced coffees in Australia on our last visit there to see our daughter Sarah, her husband Francis and their twin daughters Lily and Jessica, in 2018.
flashback to 2018 me with my first ever iced coffee,
sitting with me are our daughter Sarah and the twins
at Cape Naturaliste, Western Australia
Happy times !!!!
As we sit on the so-called "Buddy Bench" I happen to ask Lois if she remembers when we used to sit in the Government Yard in Trenchtown (Copyright Bob Marley and the Moaners) ["and the Wailers" surely? - Ed] but, quite correctly Lois says no. We're never been to Jamaica, as she so rightly remembers!
Quite by chance, later in the day I see some pictures that our daughter Alison and husband Ed have posted on social media, showing their house in Headley, Hampshire, surrounded by trenches. They bought their old Victorian mansion a few months back and it's in dire need of refurbishment, which is going on at the moment.
Is this what Trenchtown, Jamaica looks like perhaps?
Ali and Ed's house in "Trenchtown, Hampshire"
What madness!!!!!
12:00 My sister Gill texts me to tell me the latest about our "new" cousin, whom until about 3 weeks ago we didn't know we had. Gill had sent her DNA to a huge database, and it returned with a close match with 64 year old online journalist David, who was adopted at birth, and until now had no idea about who his "real family" were.
David's DNA came back as 50% British (from his mother, who was related to Gill and me), and 50% Irish (his father's side). Gill and I know also that David has a 72-year-old sibling Jonathan, also adopted as a baby, who for many years has been living in Spain with a Spanish wife, plus daughters and grandchildren also living over there. So Jonathan is another "new" cousin of mine and Gill's that we didn't know we had.
Jonathan, plus Spanish wife, daughters and grandchildren
Soon we hope to put the two siblings in touch with each other, which will be a really big deal for both of them after 60-70 years of not knowing, there's no doubt about that!
David has now found out the name of his father, Peter, who had an Irish surname, which fits with the DNA feedback. Gill and I suspect, that this man is also Jonathan's father, although we can't be sure for the moment. Gill has traced Peter's addresses in the1950's and 1960's and guess what - he was living in roughly the same place as the women we know to be the two men's mother.
Suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Gill will be speaking to David on the phone on Friday, so there may be more information to come.
16:00 Lois and I have a cup of tea on the couch. I look at my smartphone, and I see on the Danish news media (ekstrabladet.dk) that the former Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, is going to present a Danish TV documentary about the infamous Klaksvík Incident, which flared up between Denmark and the Faroe Islands in 1955.
We have taken a keen interest in Løkke's career since he shook our hands in the centre of Copenhagen during the 2015 election campaign which swept him to power.
Flashback to 2015: Lois and I were siting in a square in the middle
of Copenhagen, having lunch, when.....
..suddenly we heard a commotion behind us..
from round the corner Lars Løkke Rasmussen (right) appeared
with his Liberal Party entourage, plus pressmen and demonstrators,
and he shook our hands right there, in the middle of Copenhagen,
in the election campaign which swept him to power
But exactly what was the "infamous Klaksvík Incident" of 1955 that the documentary is all about? I have to admit that neither I nor Lois has ever heard of it.
map showing Denmark and the Faroe Islands, which
are part of the Danish Commonwealth
Lois and I didn't know that in 1955 the Danish Medical Association wanted a
Faroese doctor fired from Klaksvík Hospital on the islands, because the man had been declared a Nazi
during World War II, when the Faroes were temporarily occupied by Britain during the German occupation of Denmark.
In 1955, however, both the residents of Klaksvík and the doctor himself disagreed with the Danish move so violently that they resolved to resist it by all means at their disposal. The controversy was complicated by the fact that there were also many separatists active in the Faroes after World War II, separatists who wanted a
free, independent Faroe Islands.
Who knew that? [I expect a lot of people did, especially in Denmark and the Faroes! - Ed]
DR, the "Danish BBC", the television channel putting on this programme have said that Lars Løkke Rasmussen is the ideal person to present the programme. As Prime Minister from 2015 to 2019, Løkke was directly responsible for Danish Commonwealth affairs.
Also Løkke's wife, Solrun, is Faroese, so he knows about the sensitivities at first hand.
Lars Løkke, with his Faroese wife, Solrun, seen here during the 2015 election
Good for you, Løkke ! We knew you'd go far, the minute we felt your firm handshake all those years ago.
the lonely hospital that started the hoo-hah in 1955,
Klaksvik Hospital on the Faroe Islands
20:00 Lois isn't taking part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom tonight because of her back problems, so we settle down on the couch and watch the last part of an interesting 6-part documentary series on Hemingway.
Somebody says tonight that the people who get the worst medical care are the very poor and the very famous. The poor - well, that's obvious - but for celebrities, they tend to get "indulged" by their expensive doctors, which isn't always the same thing as being given the best help.
Back home in Cuba in 1954, he was told he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, but he was too ill to travel to Stockholm, or even to the Swedish Embassy in Washington, to receive it. So it came to him!
Hemingway commented privately, that "No son of a bitch who ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards". And Hemingway himself sort of proved the truth of that himself in his later writing. He started various writing projects, but couldn't seem to finish anything.
His mental state was deteriorating fast, and if he gave interviews now, they had to be all scripted - we see him being interviewed in front of NBC cameras where he was pretty obviously reading his pre-prepared answers from a sheet of paper on the table - oh dear !
21:00 We switch off the TV and listen to the radio, a bit more of Melbourne-born comedian Barry Humphries' series on "Forgotten Musical Memories", showcasing songs from the first half of the 20th century.
Nostalgic tonight to hear some wonderful old lyrics of forgotten songs, like George Gershwin's "Do Do Do What You Done Done Done Before", sung by Gertrude Lawrence.
They don't write them like that any more, do they! [Thank God for that! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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