Here in 2024, the recent November 11^th Remembrance Day arrived on a Monday. Here in North Vancouver, Irene, Grant and I attended the ceremony at the cenotaph in Victory Square. It was an overcast, chill day but the rain held off.

I don’t know what I feel about attending this ceremony every year, sometimes I have to force myself out of the door. I do know, Dear Friends, that I will attend. I have learned more and more over the years about why I will attend.

In the early 1920s my grandmother found somebody to marry. She was lucky. Why? Because there weren’t many eligible men around at that time in the years after the First World War, millions had been killed in action. Jimmy Davidson found Eleanor Chessor at a church picnic. He was a miller in Aberdeenshire so had not gone off to war. Men in the farming industry were exempt from service. Britain needed to feed its people. My other grandfather was not so lucky. Dr. Peter Tolmie served in the war but he was a surgeon, so he was faced with the daunting task of saving the lives of young men who had become wounded. Fit and healthy one moment, amputated or blind the next.

When I was a teenager, every Christmas my father invited two sisters, the Miss Thoms,  for Christmas dinner at our house. With the self-centredness of youth I took no interest in why these two cailleach were suddenly in our house on Christmas Day and at no other time of the year. I later learned that both of them had lost their boyfriends in the ‘Great War’, as it was known then, and had never married. Presumably they had not found a young man thereafter because of the aforementioned paucity. But, I also think there was some survivors’ guilt, a determined loyalty to what could have been.

My father, Dr. Wattie Davidson, had completed his medical training before war’s end in the Second World War and had been despatched to India and Palestine. He did not last long. On December 17^th, 1944, his 20 year old brother serving in the RAF in Italy was shot down and killed over Forli in Northern Italy. He was sent home because he was the oldest son of a widowed mother.

In 1970, I was living with my other grandmother in Nairn and working in the Nairnshire Laundry. The time came for me to return home to the family in Somerset. My Great Uncle Jim who was living with Grandma at the time offered to help to carry my bags the half a mile or so down to the bus station. When I arrived home and let slip that he had done so, my mother was not at all happy with me. It wasn’t so much the fact that Jim was in his early 90s but,

“How could you, Peter, Jim was gassed at Gallipolli?”

Jim was about the fittest 90 something I had ever met and the effects of a gas attack some 50 years previously did not show at all!

At Lincoln Rugby Club in 1990, the club was about to lose players. Iraq had invaded Kuwait and the air force bases in our area supplied our club with rugby players. I saw the changes in their demeanours as they realised that they were very soon going to find themselves at war. Nobody wants to go to war less than the men and women who are going to have to fight it. My team mates were obviously scared.

I have just finished reading Victor Hugo’s epic novel “Les Miserables”, of course now the musical is more famous. I have been lucky enough to see the play and the TV version thereof. But, Dear Reader, as is often the case, nothing can compare to the book. I was at the Battle of Waterloo through his magnificent description. I was standing on the barriers during the riots of 1832. And I was escaping through the sewers with an unconscious Marius on Valjean’s back. Victor Hugo was more than an author and poet, he was a statesman who pushed against slavery believing that all mankind was guilty if there was but one slave left on the planet. He also believed in the United States of Europe and that war between Europeans was a civil war. He predicted that the 20^th Century would see the end of war. He lived between 1802 and 1885. It is no fault of his that we have not seen an end to war or poverty but, like Charles Dickens, he did not shy away from uncomfortable truths. There was a lump in my throat when I finally finished reading “Les Miserables”.

Spike Milligan was an humorist and raconteur. On his grave stone which my brother, George, stumbled upon recently, he has written in Gaelic, “I told you I was ill”.  Before a live audience of celebrities in London, he recounted one of his war stories. Late in the war his troop stumbled on a squadron of what they thought were American soldiers. They moved into the open only to discover that they were wrong when some German paratroopers opened up on them, causing them to duck hastily. One of that German troop matched the date and day and information on troop movements and many years after the war contacted Spike in London. Spike invited him to lunch at which they imbibed and reminisced far into the afternoon. As they parted, his erstwhile enemy asked if he could sign Spike’s menu. On it he wrote,

‘Sorry I missed you on February 15^th, 1945.”

They departed with chuckles and smiles and Spike asked him to stand up after he told this story because he invited him to be a part of his audience. This is a war story which I have enjoyed reading.

It only takes one man’s ego to throw the world into a maelstrom of hurt. And we know by watching the evening news that always, always it is the civilian population which suffers most in a war, ‘twas ever thus. So, Dear Reader, Davidson may grumble inwardly at getting his act together to pay respect to those who have seen what he would not want to see and to those who have done what he would not want to have done. But there is reason enough in a movement of my head to the left of my computer where sits a photograph of a young man in his RAF uniform at 20 years of age. All of his life is before him, except that it is not. He has an energetic, joyous smile on his face as you can see in the photograph at the head of this blog. The epitaph on his grave reads as follows:-

“To have lost him is grievous but to have had him is great gain that abides.”

That is all I need to get myself to the cenotaph.

Flying Officer Billy Davidson did not reach his coming of age, he was killed nearly 80 years ago before his 21^st birthday.

Lest we forget.

Sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will never hurt me.”

I remember hearing this as a child. At the time I thought all such aphorisms were based on years of experience so made the assumption it must be correct. Experience has taught me that this one is totally untrue. Words hurt far more than a cracked rib. Words are far more a bad or good memory than a broken leg or a good report card. As I write this I recollect that rugby report card in the January of my last year at school.

“He has surprised many people, not least himself, by holding down a First XV place this rugby season”.

Forget academics, and I did, these words were the highlight of my 5 year boarding school career and are with me now.

The reason that I am writing this today is that Irene, my wise and thoughtful wife, was reading about a gentleman who had recently lost his wife after a long illness. He was dealing with the bureaucracy and red tape which so often accompanies the death of a loved one. Some heartless ‘suit in an office’  had referred to his late wife as his ex-wife! Now I don’t know about you, Dear Readers, but that term seems to imply divorce, maybe irreconcilable differences, possibly an amicable separation. It suggests legal proceedings. Who has the right to see the children when and where; who gets the family dog; financial flounderings; “Downton Abbey” or “Hockey Night in Canada”; Parent-Teacher interviews; Child allowances; how to handle the wants and needs of the children. It does not, I suggest, Friends, suggest the demise of a much loved wife after many years of marriage. Your man here was, plain and simple, a widower, as his wife would have been a widow had her husband died. To me this is one example of how certain groups of people or, indeed, individuals use language inappropriately. OK, I will come clean, I am one of the guilty ones.

Watching a documentary on the people who developed the atomic bomb I heard the commentator express the opinion that simply because people are very intelligent, that is nuclear scientists in this case, does not mean that they are wise. Of course, Dear Reader, we know this to be true, there have been very many wise illiterates throughout history just as there have been bibliophiles who have not had an ounce of common sense. Wisdom and intelligence are two separate skills although wisdom may be categorised as a type of intelligence, I think. Words matter.

Anybody who has worked for a living, and many of you still do, are only too aware of the dread that we feel when an expert is called in to help us solve a problem. Suddenly we are faced with a pontificator, mostly possessed with the people skills of a rock, who long since left the coal face for the ivory tower. He or she has found themselves a professional niche which suits people who shower in the morning rather than the evening. He has long since been removed from the day to day where hands on is the job of the great unwashed. She has become a trouble shooter in a suit; her awareness and wherewithal caught the last train out many years ago. In short, such people are about as welcome as flatulence in a space suit. Dear reader, we all need saving from a certain type of expert. “Expert” is a word that cannot be fumbled because it is too often dropped.

The world does, however, need to progress and move onwards through innovation and science. But, I suggest, some things can surely be left as they were. I have been reading much that is political at the moment. It seemed appropriate to read Jonathan Manthorpe’s excellent new book “On Canadian Democracy” at the time of the BC provincial election. The clarity, vision and wisdom of his book are going to have me referring back to it for the foreseeable future. Mr. Manthorpe’s words are exceptionally clear. Reading Bob Woodward’s recent publication, “War”, is very current and is based on many insights and interviews with the leading players and the one idiot in American politics. I read both these books in double quick time but felt the need to think of something else before sleep of an evening and thus settled on “Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius, an inspired Roman Emperor who lived almost 2000 years ago. The wisdom of the ancients, his stoicism in particular, shows that there is hope for the leadership of human kind, once the people realise that they have been duped by a self-serving clown. So with the upcoming American election, maybe the last time that democracy appears in that country for many years, I have been listening to political pundits, yes OK,  experts in their fields. Once such was a political science professor at UBC. She had some interesting points but she could not predict the outcome of the election any more than you or me, Dear Reader. And this is my point, yet again, about the use of terminology. Science is a subject whereby things are improved and discovered through rigorous research, it is where things are tried and tested and found wanting or otherwise.  Science, Friends, is, in my opinion, supposed to have a proven conclusion. Political Science is unpredictable and therefore inaccurate, I therefore suggest that it cannot be called a science, political studies might be more appropriate. But what do I really, really know?

There are two magnificent words which have entered the language in a different context to what they  originally meant. They are beige and hinterland. I love their new usage dearly. Billy Connolly, the comedian, uses beige to mean something bland and boring. Small talk at cocktail parties; household chores; automobiles; the qualities or lack thereof of various airlines; the British royal family; recipes; a long, long discussion between a Welsh and Aussie miner about the benefits of wooden pit props over metal ones! (There was no escape from this last one as we were in a pub waiting for a bus that was several hours late. It was, by a long way, the beigest experience of my life!) Exciting hinterlands are the solution, Dear Friends. Simon Barnes, an outstanding sports journalist, gave me hinterland. To him everybody needs an hinterland some distance away from the routine of their professional lives. Hinterlands are hobbies and pastimes, forms of relaxation that alleviate stress, methods that round a person off rather than allow him or her to persist in a cyclopean vision of life. They allow us to recreate and refresh. Hopefully, Dear Reader, none of us has a beige hinterland!

Spelling also matters. “I can still smell your colon on my pillow’, believe me is not perfume. ‘Due to unforeseen circumcisions, we are closed’ is unfortunate. Certainly, Friends, we can all chuckle at these but, of course, if we are prone to write we too are prone to mistakes. Because I am the victim of too much Latin at school, a decade spent studying a dead language always provokes the question ‘Why?” This is my excuse for writing exceptionally elongated sentences. If anybody dies because they couldn’t get a breath before the end, I could be held liable.  I have a tendency towards the elongated sentence:-

“Having opened my eyes, having decided to swing my legs out from under the bedclothes and placed them on the floor, I stood up, not noticing that the room was still dark, that dawn had not cast its first light on our eastern fence, that ‘jocund day’ was nowhere near ‘standing on the misty mountain top.”

It’s a disease, Dear Reader, and one which I have struggled hard to overcome. Keith Waterhouse said,

“If your sentence needs a comma, just to stop the reader collapsing in a heap before the end, you would do better to cast it as two sentences.”

I am trying to learn from Keith Waterhouse.

And “Remember to close all parentheses, we are not paying to air condition the entire paragraph.”

But, you see, Friends, I am a simple soul who really needs things spelled out to me. So I had no chance with the following:-

“Regulatory practices operating within discursive regimes that circumscribe the materiality of the subject through the citationality of norms”

 And

 “The illocutionary hallucination of the performative as a material event of subjectivity that emerges as a discursive nexus that can generally be named ‘impersonation’”.

The above is from an article from ‘The Times’ dated April 6^th, 2021 entitled “Academics are embracing gibberish studies” by Melanie Phillips. She is quoting The Wall Street Journal and describes what she has read as ‘gobbledegook’. Admittedly this is taken out of context but it is supposed to be a learned piece of work and, if that is the case, then spellcheck reveals that there is no such word as ‘citationality’ although perhaps there should be.

So this subdued rant has all been about words and such but maybe it should  have been about meaning and understanding. OK, Friends, I’ll come clean, this blog has become a therapeutic polyfilla because we now know all about the American election and I am lost for words.

Here is a German word to finish up with:-

Danaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitan

 I have the meaning written down somewhere but what it should mean is:-

“Not on any account should one ever play Scrabble with a German”

Thanks for reading.

Ten years ago on October 27^th, 2014, our son, Grant, received a kidney transplant. He has Alport’s disease which he inherited from his mother’s side of the family. His kidneys had deteriorated some years before he received his ‘new’ kidney, indeed excessive tiredness in his early 20s showed the direction in which his health was moving. While he awaited his replacement organ he was on dialysis three times per week for many hours at a time. He managed to have these for about 5 hours per night, mostly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This meant that he could go to work in the morning. He is a carpenter on a variety of construction sites here on the North Shore. During that time and after his two and an half years of dialysis, his girlfriend, Vanessa, was amazingly supportive. Grant is now 37 years old and is doing well although he has to take a great deal of drugs to prevent rejection of his kidney which is not a match to his own. He will be on this regime for life.

Grant has many tales to tell about his time in hospitals and waiting for appointments. He chuckles when he remembers picking up a friend from hospital who had suffered a broken bone. His friend complained about the wait, the delay for X-rays, the length of time he had to wait for a doctor, the delay over a diagnosis and finally the relief when the plaster was applied. As he was driving his friend home and listening to his litany of complaints, Grant said nothing. Eventually there was silence, an awkward moment when his friend realised to whom he was talking. He said ruefully,

“You know, don’t you”.

Grant smiled and nodded. Oh aye, he knew.

The reason that Grant had to wait so long for his working kidney was that it was proving difficult to find a match. He could have gone anywhere in the country if they were able to find a suitable donor. The deal was that I would give up one of my kidneys anywhere in Canada at the same time as he was receiving one from somebody else. I could have ended up sunning myself in Iqaluit or looking out over a different ocean in Halifax. The breakthrough came when research allowed for a recipient to receive an unmatched kidney. Thus Grant is walking around with a kidney which was 62 years old at the time. That would be one of mine. “Twould have been much easier on him if the organ had been a perfect match. But there we were and here we are.

None of us can predict how we are going to respond to periods of physical and mental stress. We can prepare for a crisis but come the crunch there are a variety of directions in which we can go. I was quite happy to be me on October 27^th,, 2014. Much better to be me than Irene. She had to watch while her husband went under the knife at 9.00 a.m. and her son did the same at 12 noon. I remember waking up to her concerned face and asking her whether Grant was in for his operation yet. She explained that the surgeon had gone for lunch. Gone for lunch! Of course he had. This was a normal day at the office for him, for us it was a momentous occasion. I remember asking who was looking after our kidney whilst Dr. Christopher Nguan was having his cheese sandwich. I was concerned that he might need a post-prandial nap! Of course he didn’t, the surgeon looked like he was 16 years old, just like teachers do to me now! Grant and I ended up in the next room at Vancouver General Hospital. The operation was on a Monday and I was out at a pizza place with Irene on the Friday night whilst Grant was still in hospital.

My wife, Irene, too has kidney disease but not yet in need of a transplant. Our daughter, Alison, is thankfully free of it to the extent that she offered to donate to Grant but was not allowed so to do. Both of the women in our family are extremely determined. They are careful what they eat and battle hardened to keep themselves physically fit. I am a bit of a sloth, could do with losing some weight and prefer to lift a book rather than a paint brush.

Grant is Manichean. He doesn’t know what that means but that’s what he is. There aren’t many shades of grey in our son’s thinking but there is white and, very definitely, black. If there is a problem, then there has to be a solution otherwise he is walking away from it. And most of the time it cannot be nuanced but has to be seen and fixed. If he finds attitude at work or play, then he will give attitude back. On the other hand, when he pulls up in his truck at a red light and out of the blue a little old lady, a complete stranger, opens his passenger side door and demands a lift, he is surprised and dumbfounded but also amused and happy to oblige. He did not, however, allow her to put the cake she was carrying on the back seat because there sat Frank the dog who would not have respected its privacy. Grant is generally helpful and kind. When a young man tripped and spilt his coffee at Tim Hortons recently he bought him another one. But when it comes to work he is not impressed when smoke breaks are taken; when jobs that should take half a day, take two; when initiative is not shown.  But when his company gets a gem of a hard worker, he shows great respect and will bend over backwards to help keep him to the extent of giving up some of his weekend to help the guy move apartments. His sister departed for the UK seeking work in her chosen profession. She has been there for 8 years, latterly as Copyright Manager at the British Library in London, the biggest library in the world. Grant is immensely proud of Alison.

So here Irene and I sit in North Vancouver. We are situated a smidge north of our three score years and ten, I being 72 years of age and Irene, one year older. We are both retired and happily so. We both fill our days. We look back on the challenges that our adult children have faced in their lives and there have been some that we and they could have done without. But we are both philosophical and phlegmatic (Possibly many other ‘ph’ for ‘f’ words that are out there, hmm maybe not ‘phased’!), but we are also grateful for so much. Our children are not at war; they can speak freely; they have jobs that they love; our daughter does not live in Afghanistan. Nobody escapes without challenges but it is what we do with them that matters. I cannot remember the blur of the years when our son was so sick but I know that I was functioning on something short of the full deal, always assuming, Dear Reader, I ever had the full deal in the first place. For example, after the kidney donation I was presented with a blanket as gratitude from the Kidney Foundation. It took me by surprise to discover that we had been assigned a social worker as well as a blanket. In hindsight it seemed the right thing to do. She seemed like a nice person and wise too. Her wisdom showed when she left us to manage on our own.

Neither Irene and I think that our children are exceptions. That is always, always the role of others to judge. And this, Dear Reader, is more than a bit of a self-indulgent blog for which I apologise, but I could not let this milestone pass without some comment.

But, Dear Friends, there is a message out there for people in government and it is this. Citizens should be asked to opt out of organ transplants rather than to opt in. There are some countries in the world, notably Wales, whereby if you are a victim of a car accident your organs will be taken unless you have signed a form to the contrary. I was always at fault in that I kept intending to sign up to have mine harvested after my death but it was years before I did something about it.

I refer back again to one of Grant’s kidney tales. He used to meet the same crowd when he was hooked up for dialysis. He remembers one older lady who had been waiting years for a new kidney. There was an accident on the sea-to-sky highway and three UBC students were sadly killed. Suddenly Grant’s acquaintance was no longer there. The speculation doing the rounds of the dialysis centre was that she had received a new kidney from one of these young unfortunates. To me, Dear Reader, this is tragic but joyful.

Finally, Friends, there is much criticism of our public health system and it is true we need more medical professionals, but the care that has been taken over the years for our kidney-beset family where three of us function on two and a half kidneys rather than six, has been outstanding. I still have an annual check up and, of course, my wife and son are much more frequent visitors to the nephrologist. We cannot say enough good things about our health service.

Now all that needs to be done is to persuade Baskin-Robbins to make an ice cream cake in the shape of a kidney to help us to celebrate the anniversary. Och yes, as you can see with the featured picture, Baskin-Robbins came through.

Thanks for reading.

Alports disease affects 1 in 5000—10,000 children. It can affect the eyes and ears (although thankfully not in Grant’s case) but lack of energy and blood in the urine are common.

There is an issue in my life, Dear Friends! Like every issue it needs a solution. But, sadly, I don’t believe there is one.

Many, many years ago, I spent 5 years as a pupil at a boarding school. It was an interesting, challenging period. I wouldn’t say it was a fun-filled frolic but close proximity to 79 boys in a boarding house taught me a great deal about what to do, how to act, how to accept and how to mix. I suppose that can be summarised as “Life.” I wouldn’t say that I have great social skills but I do know how to fade into a background in a group and be happy and contented so doing. I have the ability to be a part, yet simultaneously apart. But this wee tale is not about teenage angst.

British boarding schools in the 1960s prided themselves on creating fine upstanding moral paragons. There were some successes but there was also a cadre of privileged chinless wonders. These few believed that glittering prizes were a right. They made their way in the world by riding roughshod over the feelings and hopes of the great unwashed. Class based arrogance, inferiority masquerading as superiority.  They did not think there was anything malicious or wrong about this ethos, they just thought that it was the way things were. If you, friends, think I am being too hard on such institutions then take a look at a recent British Prime Minister who went to Eton. But, this tale is not about any aristocrat remittance man who was paid by the family to stay away.

There was much at boarding school that was enlightened but, Friends, the food was not it. I remember standing out the back of the boarding house when the butcher’s van arrived. We witnessed the meat being unloaded and drooled because it looked so wonderful and we were always hungry. Amidst the salivation, there came a moment when we collectively sighed, shook our heads and turned our backs because we knew that the next time we saw it, it would be swimming in a sea of fat with all the goodness and taste beaten out of it. It would, however, in a vain attempt to keep us healthy, be accompanied by vegetables, green growth, that had had all the goodness boiled out of them due to the cook’s tendency to bring to the boil and let simmer and simmer and……… Green became pale and unattractive, a beige boredom of brutish banality. ( Strewth, Davidson, just ‘cos it alliterates, there is no need, no need at all. Ho hum!) Had the vegetables been people the cook would have been convicted of cruelty. There is that saying that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. There was only one of him and he spoiled everything. He had retired from the army some years before. We all believed that he had done so before he was shot at dawn, a treasonable saboteur planted by the Soviets attempting to win the Cold War.

I remember one morning being sat at the table with 7 other 13 year olds waiting for the prefect, Nick Hawkins, a 17 year old despot, to serve up the bacon and eggs that were on a metal tray in front of him. Nick was not good in the mornings, he stared into space, tongue hanging out, in a catatonic trance. We were not allowed to speak, forbidden to help ourselves, we had to wait for him to serve us. On this morning we waited and waited. Finally he blinked and reached for the spatula. The greasy mess was, by this time, cold. There was a collective shudder as we guzzled it. The fried bread was at least manageable.   

I ‘graduated’ from Millfield School at the age of 18, Dear Friends. And whatever I may think of my schooling I have had an extremely happy and lucky life thereafter so maybe it gave me something of use. On my last day, waiting for my parents to pick me up for the last time I did not realise that another part of me had also graduated that day. My taste buds, battered and bruised by five years of spotted dick, treacle tart and custard with a skin, and a terrible modern invention called cholesterol, had had enough. They breathed a collective sigh of relief, waited for their moment and flew off never to be seen again. I imagined them stopping on a branch of a nearby tree, looking back down on me, shaking their heads sadly, before making the short trip over the English Channel to France  where boiled cabbage and bland potatoes and tortured meat would never make it past the patrol boats of the French Coastguard. To this day I miss my treacherous wee taste buds.

So here I am today at the age of 72 years blessed with the ability to eat and drink anything and think it to be good. I will buy a bottle of red wine and share it with a good friend. I will ask him what he thinks. He will always smack his lips and say, “Good”, which always pleases me because I have no real idea whether it is good or bad. Not for us is there a bouquet to smell, no gentle sip revealing an hint of the Italian coast, no sense of blackberry with a touch of smoky peat, it doesn’t assault our mouths like an Olympic wrestler’s jock strap, nor hit us with the clear Ricola yodel of a Swiss Alp. It is, Dear Reader, just a glass of red wine. After a couple of glasses, it will be the nectar of the gods, a couple more, we will conquer the world. Yes, friends, I may have my pretentions but taste is not one of them. But now in my latter years, my boarding school experience has come back to haunt me. And, whether or not you want to hear how, the following is it.

My favourite coffee shop is “Bean around the World” a 15 minute stroll away. During Covid my friends and I were allowed to sit outside. We did so religiously through all weathers. When we were finally allowed to sit inside there is a lovely wee corner with just enough room to give us space to chat and do the crossword. It had a wonderful balance between private and public. Occasionally people whom we knew would wander over and spend a short time, a vignette of an experience which was inevitably pleasant. Only problem was that two of my friends did not like the coffee. So we agreed to meet  at Tim Hortons. This is a Canadian chain named after a famous hockey player. Its prices are cheaper and it is a more convenient stopping place for people on the way to work. It is always busy. Like everywhere else I don’t know whether the coffee is bad or good. But it is a more roomy place with no real corner to sit in. There are a number of passing acquaintances there with whom we always enjoy a chat but…..! (Here I am going to ‘but’ you many ‘buts’). Do I really need to know at 6.45 a.m. that our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is the love child of Fidel Castro? Is it important to hear that so and so has 5 children by 5 different mothers? What do we do when homeless Patrick signals us through the window asking us to keep an eye on his large bag of cans while he heads somewhere on his bike? (I cannot see any of us standing up, dashing through the door and giving chase because someone is stealing Patrick’s recyclables. There would only be the slightest hope of us catching any thief and in the unlikely event of us so doing, what would we then do!!?) Soo, Dear Friends, Tim Hortons became too much of an early morning challenge. So now we are at Vomero, a bit further away but more relaxed of a morning. But to me, the victim of a childhood tastebudectomy, all coffee is the same.

If one was to pour the three different coffees into anonymous cups and ask me to place them in the correct café, I feel that I would fail because they would all taste umm, like coffee. Meanwhile somewhere in France there is a convivial group of taste buds, now in their early 70s.They sit at a street side bistro reminiscing about their time at a British boarding school and laughing at what they had to tolerate back in those days. They sip their hand-made coffee, use a fork to cut the light, fluffy croissant in front of them, still hot out of the oven, and they thank their lucky stars that they abandoned Davidson all those long years before. Then it was not too late to seek a newer world and, having done so, they were never going back.

Thanks for reading but suddenly, Dear Friends, we are back at Tim Hortons and Vomero and Bean!? Davidson and his friends now have a pendulous existence, swinging from one hang-out to another. Coffee, shmoffee, nobody cares about the coffee, I think and hope.

“Those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.”

Classical scholars are unsure whether to attribute this quotation to Euripedes or Sophocles,  Dear Reader. But we know it is of ancient origin and from many perspectives the wisdom of the ancients seems to be a cut above some of the stuff spewed forth through social media these days.

It seems to me that the bulk of humanity tries very hard to do the right thing but, occasionally, we dive off the deep end and make an unwelcome splash. There are so many differing reasons which make us do this such as grief, lack of sleep, a family argument, a bad bio-rhythm, a piece of spinach stuck in our front teeth. We have all seen examples of road rage; anger flaring in unexpected places for unexpected reasons; rushes of blood to the head and such like. We all know that sometimes we take a wrong turning and later beat ourselves up for so doing.

He was so proud of his little group of hikers. They were all kitted out in their new orange anoraks, their footwear was appropriate. He was confident that they would be dry and warm if the rains and wind came. They had all been given a smattering of basic teaching in how to read a map so they had OS maps folded at the appropriate place in their new waterproof map holders which hung professionally about their necks. The wind was a breeze as they made the gentle ascent of Mam Tor in Derbyshire. It was hardly a world beater of a peak, in fact so rounded and whale like on its top that it was hard to call it a peak at all. Yet, it was Mam Tor on the map so it was there, it was the little man with a chip on his shoulder so the hiking world sighed, put on its boots, shrugged its shoulders and said, “I suppose so” and “If we have to” and summited. The teachers knew that the breeze on the way up would be a vicious and cold gale when they reached the summit and the subsequent ridge walk. Yet here was a group of teenagers being led by a group of committed teachers on an expedition which was a part of their week’s camp at Edale Outdoor Centre. At the top the wind was everything that they expected it to be so they urged the group to stuff their maps beneath their coats and marched off along the ridge. Sean announced that he had to stop for a pee. So the teacher turned his back and gave him some privacy. All too soon the boy was at his side, aghast and drenched in his own urine. Worse it had seeped through the new map-holder and drenched the map beneath. The teacher lost the plot and tore into the boy,  annoyed that the lad had not thought of the consequences of pissing into the wind but more annoyed that the new outdoor equipment had had an unwanted and unnecessary christening. Having given his  excessive blast the band of hikers continued on their way but now the mood was not the happy, bantering joy that it had once been. Eventually the teacher was surprised when one of his colleagues appeared at his side and asked him to wait behind. They stopped.

“Pete, let me ask you something. Did anybody die?”

I have thought about this lesson frequently since and thought about it as one of the best of my on the job lessons that I had over my 40+ years in teaching. My perspective was all wrong. I should have laughed it off and waited until we were back at the Outdoor Centre and joked about the fact that the lad was never going to pee into the wind again. Patted him on the back for completing an arduous walk and sent him off to get a shower. I have never really understood why I lost the plot that day. I could now seek excuses, plead all kinds of nuanced reasons, none of which could justify my poor behaviour. You will see the presence of me, I and myself in this paragraph, the presence of an ego was the real sin. Sean and his peers should have been the VIPs then. The hike was not mine, it was theirs and I had made it mine in the worst possible way.

Definitely worse happened a few years earlier when I was in charge of the Unit Group at a big London Comprehensive School. This group of teenage children were Special Needs. They came every day to the mobile classroom which was separate from the main body of the school. They were troubled children from troubled backgrounds. One day 16 year old Christine arrived at school at lunchtime, obviously very, very late.  I mounted my high horse and proceeded to lecture her about punctuality, homework and other irrelevancies. I missed every obvious clue about this child’s demeanour. I missed the fact that she was exhausted. I failed to note that one of the buckles on her shoe had fallen away making it hard for her to walk. I missed the fact that she was, at least, wearing her school uniform. I was annoyed that no explanation was forthcoming. A few days later the truth was revealed. She had been called to her sister’s place to babysit. The sister had returned home drunk at 2.00 a.m. and flung her out of the house. Christine had walked the few miles home through the streets of the London Borough of Hounslow, arrived home after 9.00 a.m. changed into her school uniform and walked the further distance to school.

Dear reader, one of the beauties of retirement is having so much time on one’s hands. But one of the curses is that one has so much time on one’s hands. Rarely but occasionally I cannot sleep because something of my past has crept into that space between wakefulness and slumber. So the Sean story has caused probably one toss and one turn and then I am asleep. But if, Friends, I am unfortunate to go down the Christine disgrace then I am condemned to some hours of sleeplessness. And, Friends, I know that this is no more than I deserve.

So looking back at the title of this blog I realise that losing the plot is part of our humanity. I also know that if we possess a modicum of humility we can admit fault. We can learn from our mistakes, resolve not to let them happen again and if also we have a smattering of wisdom allied to knowledge we can become better people.

But the reason I have picked this topic at this time is because we can recognise in our lives that we all have somebody whom we have loved and respected but that person has changed. Something has made them into something that they never were in the past. That’s fine. We all age, we all reach a peak in our lives, our own peak be it ever so humble, and then come down from the summit, trying not to slip on the way down, trying to be the same  person we were on the way up but fighting physical and mental tiredness all the way down. I think, however, there is a huge difference in selecting somebody to do a job when they are young, fit, capable and alert and then asking them to step aside when those qualities have dimmed. There is, however, no excuse for choosing somebody for a post when they have so obviously lost the plot before they have been selected. Joe Biden has become old and frail very quickly and rightly has stepped aside, his Republican counterpart, in my opinion, lost the plot long before he first painted his face orange, first donned the POTUS mantle in 2016. Reading Mary Trump’s book shows a terrible childhood built around conditional love and family values which are anything but. Her uncle never stood a chance regarding the acquisition of empathy, sympathy, gentleness, kindness, duty, patriotism, respect for women, respect for anybody, ideas of conviction. His understanding of ordinary people was never going to be based on down to earth practical experience. He was never going to ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ as George Orwell so famously was. He was condemned to lose the plot from an early age and there is nothing in his current performance to suggest he has ever found it.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

And that, friends, is what I feel about the American electorate if they should elect the Republican candidate for the second time.

Thanks for reading.

Lytton was a wee village in British Columbia. It was in the dry belt. It was peopled by a variety of peoples including a First Nations clan. Three years ago it was burnt to the ground in one of the many fires that plague our province every summer. It has yet to be rebuilt. This is a bureaucratic travesty. Phoenix rose from the ashes, Lytton didn’t.

In my weird way I think Lytton should enter the language here in Canada. To be ‘lyttoned’ should be ‘a file bound up in red tape, something that is rediscovered a century from now, dusted off and pondered with bemused benevolence before being returned to the archives’. “Lytton’ should be a synonym for ‘forgotten’.

“I lytton my cell phone at home”.  ‘I am becoming so lytton in my old age”. Replace the word with ‘forgot’ because that is what I think has happened to the village of the same name.

A ‘Lytton’ could become a type of government. A ‘Lyttonese’ government could be one that talks a good line, puts forward a wonderful message but then does nothing. Hmmm, actually we might have one of those already!!

A ‘Lyttonade’ could become a period of time when nothing is done.

OK, Dear Reader, I think I have belaboured my point. To me the bigger picture is a failure of democracy and a reason why the dictatorships of the world laugh at us, accuse us of decadence, realise that our indecision becomes their strength. Don’t get me wrong I love democracy. I love the fact that I can speak freely; that I can hold and voice my opinions; that I can walk the streets without persecution or threat. Let’s go further. I love the fact that my daughter is able to become an educated, individual, career woman. Democracy is important to me and my family. Winston Churchill gave democracy two cheers, he couldn’t quite manage three because no system of government is perfect.

Most working people whom I have talked to who attend meetings in their working lives want a meeting to result in a decision. As a teacher who has attended a great number of meetings in my professional time I can attest to the fact that most meetings were cosy and comfortable. Many times I would arrive with my cuppa coffee, reach into the box of doughnuts provided and sit back and munch myself into my own dreamy world. The glaze, Dear Reader, was more often over my eyes than on the doughnut. Then as the meeting came to a close it was often discovered that we were agreeing to meet again 6 weeks down the road to revisit the agenda about which we had decided nothing. At which point I would raise an objection because 6 weeks was far, far too long between free doughnuts and gratis cups of coffee.  We had all been ‘lyttonised’, seduced by a doughnut-induced dozy droning.

 This may seem to be a counter argument, Dear Friends, but I do not entirely despair of our systeml. I was mostly impressed about how democratic governments handled themselves in the pandemic. In fact the speed with which a vaccination was developed was outstandingly impressive. It proved that in a crisis western democracies, by and large, can step up. I am also impressed with our local democracy. Bushes in Alderwood Park two houses along from us had become havens for drug users with all the dangers of used needles and the debris of evacuated bowels. One of our neighbours got in touch with the District and asked that the laurel bushes be pollarded with vigour so that they are no longer niches for users. Result is that local day cares can now play again with impunity in the park. Local monitory democracy, Friends, can step up to the plate and act promptly. 

Dear Reader I had reached this point in the blog when an article by Doug Mason came out on 14^th August in ‘The Globe and Mail’ drawing a comparison between Lytton and the recent burning of the town of Jasper in Alberta. He does not believe that Jasper will still be waiting to be rebuilt in three years time. He talks long and hard about the various reasons for the Lytton debacle none of which I will enter into here. I do hope Jasper is rebuilt soon but I hope that Lytton is rebuilt sooner.

I love living in Canada. The country has done wonderful things for me and my family. I am proud that I can spout off my opinion with impunity. I am delighted that our girl child received an education; has not been married off as a chattel; does not have to kow tow to a male; can maintain independence in thought and deed; can be respected in her personal and professional life.  ‘Canada’ gave her that and she has been able to practice it in the UK for the last 8 years. But, Dear Reader, I am starting to despair over our governments, both provincial and federal. There is too much twiddling of thumbs, sitting and nodding. Smug indecision masquerading as glorious outcome. 

Hmmmm, maybe a ‘lytton’ can be a word for a national disgrace. Maybe it can be the Canadian equivalent of a ‘Watergate’ for a scandal or the Norwegian ‘Quisling’ which entered the lexicon for somebody who had committed a treasonable act.

We are not yet at that stage where our Prime Minister is making his horse a consul and ordering his army to attack the sea a la Emperor Caligula, nor are we quite at the point where the PM plays the fiddle while Rome burns although some fighting wild fires might suggest that he is.  We are not about to elect a clown, a Monty Pythonesque weirdo to the White House. I like the humour of Monty Python but I don’t think it should be running the most powerful country in the world. Maybe Ms. Harris will have something to say about that in November. (I should perhaps let you know that I am delighted that I am not living in the United States at this time, although it is 25 years since I have visited that benighted country so I shouldn’t pontificate from inexperience).

So there is hope. We just need to realise that we should be a ‘can do’ Canada and not a ‘Can’tada’.(Hmm, that’s a wee bit clumsy, Davidson, trying to be too clever by half) Sure and all we need to consider consequences before making a decision but we only need to reconsider them when something goes obviously awry. The expertise to rebuild Lytton and Jasper is here and waiting and waiting and…….. ‘Action this day’ to invoke Churchill again.

I believe, Dear Friends, that Jasper will be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes. My hope is that the Albertan government will put the ‘can’ back into Canada and embarrass  BC into action so that Lytton becomes the quaint wee village it once was.

Thanks for reading.

When I was a student both at school and Teacher’s Training College, I achieved mastery at prevarication and procrastination. This, Dear Reader, is not something of which I am proud. It is true of my life that I do not get bored. But it is also true that I drift in different directions. I am unable to focus on the point of a project without flying off on a tangent. Those of you who are good enough to read my blogs will realise what a meandering maze they are. I am not at all surprised if you become frustrated and give up on them because the point is far too wordy and distant.

I remember going through security at Manchester Airport and finding myself stuck in a sort of international limbo for 12 hours because the plane was late. It was a Sunday, Friends, so there was a plethora of newspapers to read as well as my book. And when I needed to stretch my legs I could do so. I was never bored. Before I knew it, it was time to board.

My excuse for my poor educational performance is that I love tangents. Well, that’s better than admitting to laziness isn’t it, Friends!! One of the facets of the Davidson mind which should be a frustration but actually is not, is that I remember things that are not important and forget things that are. I remember offering to buy lunch for poor Jennifer and her husband, Jamie, at Sun Peaks ski hill . What could I get her? Anything but clam chowder because she does not like fish. I heard ‘clam chowder’ and bought her ‘clam chowder’!! I am not the first man to fall victim to the last thing heard, methinks.

Does an Aussie cab driver really need to know that the emu and the kangaroo appear on his country’s emblem because neither animal can go backwards, thus, I suppose the origin of their national anthem “Advance Australia Fair”?  Well he didn’t know that but he does know it now and he had to be polite and that must have been hard ‘cos I was very evidently a Brit with all the connotations that that had in Oz back in the day.

I have a friend (a major achievement in itself considering my success at managing often to do the wrong thing) who can read a newspaper article and immediately glean from it not only 5 crucial facts but important things which are not written. His analytical brain has been disciplined over the years to get to the heart of something very quickly. It is no accident that he has a Masters degree and has written his own history book. I am in awe of this ability and slightly envious. I shouldn’t be. I am old enough to understand that people who are a success in life are there because they have worked hard at it. They may have a natural talent but talent is worth nothing without hard work. There are numerous pithy sayings about this subject out there which I am not going to explore here because most of you will have heard them before. But as a teacher I loved this one from that long dead, learning disabled guy, Albert Einstein:-

‘We are all geniuses. Judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree and he will think himself stupid for life.”

I spent thirty years of my life playing rugby on most winter Saturdays. It is true to say that I love rugby clubs, I miss playing but I still love watching it. I suffered a lot of abuse from my team-mates because I was supposed to be a monosyllabic Neanderthal who grunted or pointed my approval or disapproval. Certainly no big glaikit lug  was supposed to do the crossword on the team bus or to love poetry like I do, was supposed to love words and literature like I do. So if I had the confidence to spout a couple of lines of poetry over a pint after the game, a shake of the head and silence was the greeting. Nor was it wise to suddenly spout to the opposition as we went into a lineout or a scrum such Shakespearean sonnets as:-

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, thou art more lovely and more temperate”.

‘Cos they were mud covered and sodden and not lovely and wouldn’t know ‘temperate’ if they found it in their pint. That would have been deserving of a sending off or at least a penalty against. It would not have been in the spirit of the game at all. Burns would have been worse:-

“Wee sleekit cowerin’ timorous beastie, O what a panic’s in thy breastie.”

They so obviously weren’t, panicked that is and any further such outbursts would have been curtailed by a skelp on the lug. Saturday afternoons in the mud and rain were not times to indulge in my love of poetry. Maybe John Evans or Paul Hollis would have appreciated my lyrical thrusts, but the former is Welsh and therefore full of Eisteddfodian grace, the latter was insane and nobody understood him.

Yet here am I writing about these two facets of character because I was recently reminded of an A.E.Housman poem which I will quote in full at blog’s end. Since retirement I have taken an interest in how people write, trying to learn how to better my own scribbles. I am conscious of the fact that much of what I write is of little interest to most people. Indeed 40 years ago I would have written it but would have been so self-conscious and embarrassed that I would never have placed it in the public, or even private, domain. But now I think that one of the benefits of old age is that I can afford to be free of such constraints. I won’t say that I don’t care but I do say that if I don’t say what I really feel I may not get the opportunity again because of the fickleness of life’s thread.

Irene married me, she says, because she felt ‘I would help her relax’. Poor woman. She really could have done with somebody who was a bit more handy around the house. There are minima I can do but as to painting or wall papering or plastering, she is married to Einstein’s fish trying to climb that tree. I can’t help thinking that Irene would have been more relaxed if she had married a DIY person. But we are still happily together after 40 years. But she married into prevarication and procrastination, poor woman!

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Here be the A.E. Housman poem, the proof that these two faults of mine are not a modern shortcoming but are for the ages:-

How clear, how lovely bright,

How beautiful to sight

Those beams of morning play,

How heaven laughs out with glee,

Where, like a bird set free,

Up from the eastern sea,

Soars the delightful day.

                   ————

Today I shall be strong

No more shall yield to wrong,

Shall squander life no more,

Days lost, I know not how,

I shall retrieve them now,

Now I shall keep the vow,

I never kept before.

               ————-

Ensanguining the skies,

How heavily it dies,

Into the west away,

Past touch and sight and sound,

Not further to be found,

How hopeless under ground,

Falls the remorseful day.

And if that does not persuade us to make the most of every day, Friends, I know not what may. Thanks for reading.

“We have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Everything somehow came together in that split second. The football arrived at his feet. He hit it on the volley and it sailed into the topmost corner of the net. The goalkeeper barely moved. It was over in an instant but the memory remains.

The West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island is stunning, majestic, beautiful and arduous. It is a 6 day hike from Port Renfrew to Bamfield. There are beach walks along the sands, trail walks through forest within earshot of the breaking waves; banks above beaches; there are river crossings. There are migrating whales wending their ways up the coast, 100 yards off the shoreline. There are steep stairs on sheer rock. There are sunsets to witness; wild campsites to experience; the generosities of strangers; camp fires to savour. There is that final gentle stroll through that pine forest on that last day when approaching are three young Italians beginning their hike from the Northern end. After the brief greeting, they waft past leaving the unmistakeable aroma of clothing fresh from the drier. Finally there is the open café and the welcome breakfast which, incidentally, just has to be eaten twice.

Over the years there have been many hikes in different places and varied climates. There are the weighty backpacks, the leg muscles which ascend and scream and burn. There is the gulping thirst, the voracious appetite. There is the reaching of the trail’s end and the sitting on a rock and the removal of boots and the calm tranquillity that only comes when an hike is achieved, a summit is reached, and grueling exercise is completed. The tired smile is there. The satisfaction is immense. Every step, every bead of sweat, every muscle ache, all are a part of an whole experience, whole in its gratitude, whole in its sense of worth, whole in its joy of achievement, whole in the knowledge that it will be a memory. These are but days but as time has passed they have become years and they sit with me still.

Dear Friends, it is important to live one’s life and not dream about living it, is it not? Things, of course, change as we get older. For me, with age, comes more appreciation and interest in the achievements of others. I still live my life happily; I still do things. But, Dear Reader, I make no apology for living some of my experiences vicariously through the lives of others. I do not want to live my life leaping excitedly and grinning inanely at the mundane. Amazing that the toast is browned on both sides. Yawn! Oh look, there’s a Tim Horton’s coffee cup stuck in my gutter, I wonder who put that there. Snore! The price of gas has gone down by 5 cents per litre. Must go on a long drive so I can fill up. Yippee! No, no, no. I will not soap opera my life into some snore fest of pedantic pettiness. I want to see Jim Packer’s magnificent photographs; Walentyna’s European trips. Erin’s time in Iceland. Kelly’s Australia, Katie’s concerts,  Bruce in Scotland, Rob and Carol at the British Library. I could go on. I am very happy to be a fly on the wall watching the exploits of others. But, Dear Friends, I can still fly .Mind you, these days,  It’s just a bit more of a precarious glider seeking an uncertain thermal  than a jet plane, a bull midst china booming its carefree way through a glen. Head down and charge is now more head up and knee creak.

So, Dear reader, if somebody whom I once taught scores the winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final, if my son shows me pictures of the outstanding piece of concrete or woodwork he has done. If our daughter, Alison, is running one of her long races. If Bill shows me a picture of a salmon he has caught If my brother, George, is walking a long distance hike in the North-West of Scotland then I want details. I want to pull out a map, I want to see his photographs, I want to know what he carried in his pack and, most of all, I want to hear his stories. If my friend, Anne, is in France or Scotland or both then I want details of her holiday, I want her perspectives and thoughts. I want to hear her excitement, know about her frustrations, I want to know that I feel that I have seen what she has seen.

I cannot play rugby any more but I can watch it. I can see it with an analytical eye. I can discuss it. Most of all I have some minuscule muscle memory of the sport. I still enjoy it, just not in the way I used to. I can still walk some distance. I can walk uphill but coming down is painful. I am curtailed. But I can remember the feelings and I can hear of the treks of others, their trials, trails and tribulations. I can be with them being eaten by the West Highland midge, the most vicious creature on the planet. I can hear the rain pattering on their tent, the wind driving an horizontal soaking. The slog upwards, the fatigue at the end of a long day. I can see the heather, smell the heather, touch the bark on a Scots pine in the Cairngorms, or a Douglas Fir in Lighthouse Park. I can feel the thrill of turning the corner and seeing a grizzly bear in the Rockies, watching a brown bear in the berry patch at Red Heather, watching a cougar leap across the road in front of Keith and me, pause in the undergrowth to look back at us and to show off its muscled magnificence before disappearing into the bush. I have been a little bit there and done a smidge that. And now I can sit and hear about others who are going there and doing that and know that some part of me is there with them. And that, Dear Friends, is really, truly fine. It is almost enough.

“And now you have come in my awakening which is my deeper dream.”  Khalil Gibran

I guess, Dear Friends, that I am an old snake who has shed his skin for a new one. You will think that I ‘doth protest too much” but I am very happy where I am at 72 years of age. My youth and middle age were truly lucky, fortunate and wonderful. My old age is a time of appreciation of what was and, indeed, of deep appreciation of each new day and each new experience. I can still get up when I fall over although I creak in the process, (although going into school on the one day there was an earthquake drill is a time under a desk I could have done without!) I can still lift and move things from one place to another, though there are aches in places where I used to play. I can still walk at a brisk pace but it has to be when the little man is flashing on the pedestrian crossing. I think I still have wit and banter although many will scoff and quibble at that claim! I certainly am a mine of useless information which I find fascinating but nobody else does!

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is a beginning.” T.S. Eliot.

And as you can see, Dear Reader, I can still produce a boring, long winded blog and be grateful that you have stuck with it until the end.

Thanks for reading.

Dear Reader, this blog is about numbers but I hope that you will find it more interesting than that. I recently read In a British Newspaper that the 20^th Century lasted 36,525 days. Apart from the shock that 100 years is merely that number and the implications that that has on our own mortality, I found this interesting in the much wider context of several centuries. It occurs to me that we are not really that far removed from so many of the people who made history at what we thought was an age ago but, apparently, is not. Sometimes what happens in an instant has an impact for a long, long time.

During my recent visit to Scotland I took the opportunity yet again to visit the battlefield of Culloden.  It took place in 1746 and was the last land battle fought on British soil. The implications of the defeat of the Jacobites were major. There are still repercussions to this day with depopulation and on the Gaelic language. With every repeat visit to a place one learns something new. This time I learned for the first time that the actual battle lasted less than an hour! It really struck home to me that something that lasted less than many sporting events should have such long lasting implications.

Back to the number of days in the century.  I won’t  go into what the Daily Express considered the most important day of the 20^th Century otherwise I will test the patience of you, the reader, too much. And I would never get to the point.  But it did set me thinking about how split seconds can impact lives; and, indeed, how seemingly interminable events progress for years with very little consequence.

At the time of writing I have been back home from my 5 week sojourn in the UK for over a month.  During my time away I moved around a great deal, sometimes to familiar places, sometimes not. I did not have a roving plan on my phone so had to wait until I was ensconced for the night or in a place that offered Free Wi-Fi to check my messages. In the cities, I walked a great deal, travelled by bus or train a large amount. In my hired cars I visited hills and moors, bays and lochs, villages and glens, people I knew, people I didn’t know. I listened to the car radio on local stations, I became fascinated by the politics, re-immersed in the humour of my birthright. I soaked up the cultures which were mine for the first 39 years of my life. In the evenings I reflected on my day and checked my phone for messages.

Of course there were messages from friends and family in the UK and, of course, messages from Irene and Grant back in North Vancouver. And when I had satisfied myself that I had read them all and replied where I needed and shared photos and videos that I had taken, I would always return to the same place. That place was the Stanley Cup play-offs which this year lasted for something between 64 and 66 days. The Stanley Cup represents the pinnacle of ice hockey. Not every team reaches the play offs. Those that do, step into a competition that requires a team to play 4 rounds of the best of 7 games in each round. The winner has to grind and grasp 16 victories to lift the cup. The National Hockey League boasts that it is the hardest trophy in professional sports to win. Like every such competition there have been some truly great players who have never won it, as there have been some journeyman players who have somehow been in the right place at the right time. Everything has to come together in an amazing feat of synchronicity for the Cup to be won.  To get one’s name on the Stanley Cup represents the pinnacle of a player’s career. Individual sports have the Olympics, the Tour de France and tennis for example. There are World Cups out there for the likes of football, rugby and cricket. There is the Superbowl for the NFL, the NBA championship in basketball. I have never played ice hockey but find it hard to disagree that the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win.

During our 30+ years living in North Vancouver. our local team, the Canucks, have been in two finals but have never won it. The Canucks were in the play-offs this year so I was eager to catch the highlights of their games on my phone while I was travelling. (Brother George was appalled because he knew that I couldn’t see the puck on a screen so small but, I explained, there is always a slow motion replay!)  I also was keen to follow the Florida Panthers. OK, Dear Reader, you are not alone in wondering what an ice hockey team is doing in the hot, sweaty climate of Florida where snow is a novelty and ice an alien from another world. But set aside your amazement and just accept that it is so and that this ancient blogger was very interested in their team.

Approximately two decades ago, give or take a year, I was managing my Grade IV classroom. You, who know children, understand that 9 and 10 year olds have a joy and enthusiastic energy which is infectious. I used to enter my classroom sometimes with a ‘morning mood’ which was less than upbeat and verged on grumpiness. But I prided myself that I pocketed such selfishness and mustered my professional face before the wee takkers came through the door. It was not difficult to be carried into their joyous world when the first little character appeared, hung up a coat, rummaged in their locker and stood at my desk with an early morning tale to tell. Of course, amongst 20 children I taught all sorts. There were extroverts and introverts, timidity and bravado, clumsiness and athleticism, organisation and disorganisation, bantering humour and reticent nerviness. Those many years ago, there was a little boy in my class. He was the youngest brother of three, the eldest of whom my close friend had taught. The middle boy had also been in my class. The youngest lad was unassuming but confident. He was not demonstrative in any way. He seemed to prefer the hinterland of the room, the background of being. Yet he was popular with his classmates. He was well balanced and personable. From his early days in the classroom one could tell that he was the product of loving, down to earth parents as, of course, were his two brothers.

It is, Dear Reader, Monday June 24^th. The Florida Panthers have led the Edmonton Oilers by winning the first 3 games in the best of 7 Stanley Cup Final. Since 1942 and the Toronto Maple Leafs no team has come back to win this championship after being 3 games down. But, Connor McDavid, the best player in the world, puts the Oilers on his shoulders and drags them back into the series so that they tie it up 3-3-. Jamie, an ex-colleague and friend of mine, and I sit glued to TV for the final game 7 of the tournament. We are both naturalised Canadians. We know that we should be supporting the Oilers, after all a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup for 30 years; it would be the patriotic, nay jingoistic, thing to do. But we don’t. Instead we are firmly in the Panther camp. After the 1^st Period the game is tied. The Panthers have taken the lead but the Oilers have come back almost immediately. It is rare for a team to come back and win in the final after the other team has scored first. Then late in the 2^nd period, the Panthers score their second goal. The third period is tense. But the Panthers hang on. History is made. The Florida Panthers win their first Stanley Cup. Jamie and I hoot and holler. A 28 year old called Sam Reinhart scored the winning goal, his 67^th of the season. It has taken 64 days of play-off hockey, playing every other day, flying colossal distances, to get to that point.

As a teacher of young children one should never discourage them. If they are kind enough to share their dreams, one should never say how difficult it is to become an actor or there is no money in art or it is many years before you will qualify to become a doctor. Shaking one’s head at a child’s dreams is a terrible thing to do. So, Friends, I can’t remember if quiet reserved Samson Reinhart ever came up to me in class all those 20 years ago and told me that he wanted to be an hockey player. And, if he had, I would probably not have remembered and if I had remembered, I would have probably smiled, nodded and moved onto the task of explaining the improper fraction or the use of the semi-colon.

Congratulations, Samson Reinhart, Collingwood Alumnus and Stanley Cup Winner.