Some years ago now when North Vancouver Railway Station was still running passenger services, I was out for a walk and minding my own business. A car pulled over, an older man, the driver, wound his window down. He asked how to get to the station. I told him that there was no way through …
“No man is an island, Entire of itself Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.” John Donne The road wound out of the town. There seemed to be no reason for the sharp left other than the fact that there was a long well established wall. Soon the driver …
It is true that I don’t understand economics or business. So the idea that ‘zero growth’ in a firm, country or continent as a negative is unfathomable to me. ‘Zero growth’ means room to breathe, space to step back. But hard- nosed business will have none of that. According to an article in the ‘Globe …
I don’t know when we, as children, first became involved in April Fools’ Day but I do remember my entry into the work force and trying to understand the ways of the world. Like most 18 year olds, I was more worldly-wise than my teachers, I knew better than my parents about everything. I knew …
I was, Dear Friends, a teacher for 43 years. I still marvel at the elusiveness which allowed me to get away with it for so long. But, Dear Reader, I was lucky that I received some good advice early on and even luckier that the arrogance of youth did not bar me from taking it …
There is a growing, gnawing unease in the Davidson equanimity as Spring approaches. I, Dear Reader, assure you that I have not slumped into a depression or succumbed to winter blues, but there are events in the news over the past few months which I feel the need to get off my chest. I recently …
If we are of a certain age, Dear Reader, we will remember the scandal that was President Richard Nixon. The break- in at Democratic HQ at the Watergate building and the subsequent attempt at a cover up meant the end of his presidency. He and his crony, Henry Kissinger, recently gone from us at the …
The adolescent boy could not wait. In 10 days his boarding school would shut for the summer and he would be home with endless days of sunny freedom laid out before him, a patchwork quilt of time that was his. Fishing in Scotland, fudge in Scotland, playing with his friends around the deserted castle in …
The fire roared in the grate, the wind howled outside. The rain spattered against the windows. But the inside of the converted barn was dry and warm. The sofas and chairs which had seen better days were occupied by a group of 9 adults. Before them was a man who was sat by the fire …
Like many of you I like the beginning of a new year. And, of course, I wish the world and its inhabitants an healthy, prosperous 2024 without war, hunger, prejudice and strife. I won’t go into a cliché ridden diatribe about this most important of days. But sometimes I wonder, Dear Reader, why we pick …
There has been great consternation here in Norgate Park over the building of a new Sewage Plant between us and the waterfront. OK, I know that I am not supposed to call it a ‘Sewage Plant’. I have frankly forgotten what its official name is. ‘The Rose Garden’ is a euphemism too far because it …
Obliviousness to the obvious is an aberration with which we are all faced at some time or other, are we not, Dear Reader? I have been lucky enough in my teaching career to have worked in three schools. I began in the London Borough of Hounslow, migrated to the village of Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire …
It was the end of the school year. Peter and his fellow RAF cadets had been driven from their boarding school in Somerset to an air force base in the North-East of England called RAF Consett. The ancient RAF uniform felt heavy and rough on his skin, itchy at important parts of his anatomy. The …
There was excitement. There was busyness. There was a buzz. There was nervousness. There was still a week before the children arrived. There seemed to be plenty of time for fixing up classrooms; labelling; making a splash. ‘The pupils shall arrive into an aura of caring professionalism’ was the unspoken mantra that all the teachers …
Let me confess, Dear Friends, that I am an huge fan of human frailty including my own. Don’t get me wrong I do want the surgeon who is hauling out my child’s infected appendix to be on her game. I do get frustrated when things do not go my way. But I have to confess …
On May 15th, 2023, Grace Davidson, aged 95 years, died. She was the mother of 4 and grandmother of 9. How well do we know our parents? I, who have lived in Canada for the last 32 years, have visited my mother in rural Somerset infrequently. She has visited us here on several occasions. Of …
Honiton, Devon is a beautiful place. In June I was there for the wedding of my niece, Holly Eleanor Davidson to Christopher Whitmore. Having spent 5 weeks wandering and wondering aimlessly around the United Kingdom, I always reflect back to the country where I spent the first 38 years of my life. We left in …
There is not much merit in being an isolationist. Stepping back from the world is a bit of an abnegation, almost an abandonment, of one’s duties. To be engaged with people is, I feel, important and, let’s face it, one of life’s great pleasures. But sometimes simply stepping away, moving aside to the bank-clad stiller …
Here in 2024, the recent November 11th 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 …
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 …
Ten years ago on October 27th, 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 …
“If you pass the ball along the line and all of you catch it while you are running then I promise you that you can go and chase the geese.’ It was in the early 1990s at Burnaby Lake fields in the City of Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. This group of 6 year olds …
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 …
“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 …
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 …
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 …
“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 …
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 20th 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 …
