Tuesday October 8th 2024 "Too old to kayak over waterfalls now, ARE we? (!)"

My friends, and this is a question mainly directed towards my older readers (!).... have YOU perhaps given up kayaking over the world's highest waterfalls, maybe on some feeble "health-and-safety" grounds? If so, it's time perhaps now to re-examine that decision, and look at the marvellous achievements of one of our older fellow-citizens. 

Yes, it's Lydia McNeese I'm talking about as you very well know! Her story was splashed all over page 95 of the local West Worcestershire Onion News (print edition) the other day, as I expect you saw (!).

What a woman! And I don't think my dear late mother would have objected at all to my leading my post today with Lydia's amusing story. By her own admission, my mother "liked a good giggle", so I can't imagine her not approving of my quoting this rather light-hearted story from Onion News's "leave time for a smile" column.

And I'm doing it simply in order to celebrate today, October 8th, which would have been my mother's 105th birthday, had she lived. 

my mother as I most like to remember her, sitting in the quiet 

warmth of her little lounge in Prestbury, Cheltenham, one evening

back in the 1980's, chatting about "the good old days"

And what a life she had had: growing up in the poverty of depression-era South Wales, with 8 boisterous, fun-loving but bossy siblings, a mother rushed off her feet, and a "sensitive" father not physically fit enough to work for most of his adult life.

flashback to the 1920's: my grandfather and grandmother at

Southerndown beach, with the 4 youngest children (left to right) Ruth, Joan,

Hannah or "Nan" (foremost, my mother) and Babs, Joan's twin

The family, including all 9 siblings, had "up-sticks"-ed and moved to Oxford England in the early 1930's, mainly so that, with my grandfather now completely incapable of bringing in any money, the 2 boys - John and Bob - plus the older girls, could all get jobs in that more prosperous area, which included the Morris Motor Company works at Cowley. Finally the youngsters could bring the family in a bit of money, which must have been a really big deal.

flashback to October 8th 1936: my mother, Hannah, 

in the back garden of the family's house in Oxford, in the 

new blue dress she had got for her 16th birthday:  now

starting to catch the eye of local boys, she had her whole 

life now in front of her - happy days!!!!!

She once told me that giving birth to me, in March 1946, was one of the greatest moments of her life - not because of me exactly, despite my undeniably great qualities (!), but because, growing up in the chapel-dominated society of South Wales, she had had this superstitious feeling that she wouldn't be able to have children - simply because her namesake Hannah in the Bible couldn't do it - what a madness that was!!!!

my mother holding me at 2 months - giving birth to me

was the greatest moment of her life, she told me,

although not particularly because of my undeniably

'great qualities' (!) haha!

To my knowledge, my mother never kayaked over Niagara Falls, unless she was keeping it a secret (!). 

[Get a grip, Colin! - Ed]

However, my mother had a lot of qualities in common with Lydia McNeese (87). Like Lydia, my mother too was a naturally positive personality especially in her younger years, and liked to "just go for it", as she always used to say. And even into her 80's she learned how to use computers and to send emails, and she was always ringing up workmen to get this or that job done in the house, and chatting away to them non-stop as they worked. 

She lived till she was 91, still maintaining an independent life in her own little 3-bed semi in Cheltenham, communicating joyously by phone and email with her huge family of siblings, cousins and cousins' children and grandchildren etc etc, especially with the youngsters. 

And like Lydia McNeese also, she was always trying to avoid the attentions of doctors wherever possible, finding her own reasons for any aches and pains, and seeking her own means to cure them by force of personality or by herbal concoctions - what a woman!

2009: my mother, aged 89, all dressed up in her blue suit for a lunch

with relatives, revelling in the conversation of all the youngsters

present, including with her great-niece Elizabeth, shown here

I sometimes think about what I may have inherited from my mother. I like to think I'm a positive sort of person too - unlike my father perhaps, who, despite all his other qualities, by his own admission, "enjoyed being thoroughly miserable now and again" (!). 

I know I've inherited my mother's love of all kinds of music and her piano-playing etc, and also her love of writing - little poems and stories: she came from a long line of journalists on her father's side, and both I and my younger sister Jill have inherited this love of writing: my sister Jill doing better at it than me, however, to put it mildly - she's been selected for a playwriting workshop, the "Ink Festival" happening in Suffolk next year, so watch this space on that one. Remember, you read it here first (!).

And I realise also that, as I've got older, I too enjoy seeking my own so-called "reasons" for any pains or bouts of ill-health; and then trying to cure them myself by some new activity, doing things in a different way, or adopting a new attitude etc, and so avoiding recourse to doctors, wherever possible, and always saying to myself the mantra of the words penned by that great songwriter Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys: "don't worry, everything will turn out all right!" - it's madness, but so what !!!!! 

Great song - or grande canzone as the Italians say. They don't write 'em like that any more, that's for sure! [That's something to be grateful for anyway! - Ed]

Don't knock it - it always works for me, so fair enough, I say. [If you say so! - Ed]

Most of all, however, I've inherited my mother's love of an afternoon nap. My siblings and I learned at an early age to keep clear of our mother when she was dozing in an armchair in the afternoons, because she was inclined to be in a bad mood if woken up.

And Lois and I like to spend the afternoon in bed whenever we can, so there!

flashback to 1959, Sale, Cheshire: left to right, me (13), 

my late brother Steve (7), my late sister Kathy (11) and 

my sister Jill (2): we all learned from an early age not to 

disturb our mother when she was having her afternoon nap 

- what madness !!!!!

All her life my mother loved little children, and she delighted in the two granddaughters that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I "presented her with" (!), and she at least lived to see 3 of our own 5 grandchildren starting on life's journey, before she herself sadly died in March 2011, aged 91.

flashback to February 2011: Alison (35), one of mine and Lois's 

2 daughters, seen here at home in Haslemere, Surrey, with her

3 children Josie (5), Rosalind (3) and little "Baby Isaac"

Not everybody has the privilege of having children and grandchildren and also great-grandchildren, so Lois and I like to hope that my mother died happy on that account anyway. Family was her big thing all her life really.

flashback to October 2009: my mother, still living independently

in her own home, celebrating her 90th birthday with the

cake my wife Lois had baked for her - Happy Birthday, Nana!

And yes, I know my mother isn't really up in heaven looking down at Lois and me today, but I like to think that if she were, she'd approve of us "celebrating her 105th birthday", watching us as we do our morning walk on the common at Malvern. 

The walk itself even has a bit of a ghostly feel to it today, with the fog coming down and making the lovely 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills disappear out of sight, and making us feel like we're the only people left alive in the world, perhaps the sole survivors of some cosmic cataclysm or other (!).

Yikes !!!!

"Where have the lovely 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills gone to?"

is our cry during our morning walk today. All vanished in the mists, 

seemingly - yikes !!!!

Rest in peace, Nana !!!!!

21:00 Lois and I are 'old codgers' ourselves now, as you can see (!), and we'll both be turning 79 next year, so we like nothing better than to go to bed on another old episode of the world's longest-running TV sitcom, "Last of the Summer Wine", all about a group of crazy pensioners in a village in the Yorkshire Dales.

 

In this scene, the elderly Howard is pursuing his fantasy "mistress", the lightly-miniskirted Marina (legs not shown(!)) on his bike through the Yorkshire dales, but she's not happy about his continued attentions today. She says she "needs space" to think their relationship out.

Howard is upset by Marina's discouraging comments, naturally enough. And so he seeks some solace and advice from his 3 old codger friends (left to right) Hull-based Chinaman Entwistle, Alvin, and retired secret agent "Hobbo" Hobdyke.

Howard (left) seeking solace with his 'old codger' pals,

Hull-based Chinaman Entwistle, Alvin and retired secret agent 'Hobbo'

Good suggestion there, though, Entwistle !!!! And maybe it could save many a relationship that appears superficially to have "played itself out" or "run aground".

I wonder...!

Meanwhile back at home, Howard's long-suffering wife Pearl is trying to give advice to her friend Nelly, who has a problem with her husband Travis because he "never goes out".

Poor Nelly !!!!! And Lois have a jolly good laugh over this scene. But I think there's a serious point here as well, at least for all of us male "old codgers": if you don't want to end up as king of a big island of dust, then get out of your chair and perhaps even venture out of the house, once in a while, at least!

Just saying !!!!!

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!