Tag: Christianity

Coronavirus week 19 – That didn’t last long…second wave starting

A short heatwave but signs of another wave of infection.

According to one of the weather forecasters I heard, to qualify as a heatwave there needs to be a period of three days of higher than average temperatures, but ours this week was only one day. It was 20-21 degrees on Thursday and reasonably sunny, by Friday afternoon it was 35 but by the evening it was cloudy muggy and raining and on Saturday it was back to 21 with a cool wind and some showers.

At the end of my last blog I suggested that I may not do another for a few weeks as things appeared to have reached a ‘steady state’, with falling numbers of deaths and a ‘levelling off’ in the number of infections. That idea didn’t even last for 24 hours. It wasn’t that a couple of people were kind enough to comment on my Facebook post saying that they enjoyed reading them; it was watching Channel 4 News on Monday evening.  It’s a way of getting updated on current events that I get the most from. All day ‘rolling news’ is a great thing, something we never had in ‘the good old days’ when there were only three or four terrestrial television channels. The problem is that even  BBC News 24, whose coverage I also enjoy, only touch the surface of a story. I don’t want to sound like a ‘grumpy old man’, but programme makers appear to think we are incapable of listening for more than 90 seconds, or in ITV’s case, that we also need the chance to win a £150,000 prize of gifts we probably don’t need.

Anyway, it was watching the news on Monday evening that there were so many items I wanted to write about, many of them linked to each other or to coronavirus. Hence this blog with all the topics originating with the items on that edition.

Holidaymakers returning from mainland Spain complaining that there were more cases of the virus on one caravan park in Shropshire, than the whole of the Balearic Islands, and they felt safer in a country where everyone was obeying the rules on social distancing and hygiene. By the evening, the islands had been included. Transport minister Grant Shapps went to Spain but had to isolate when he came back on Wednesday. I admit to thinking that I would go if insured, and suffer two weeks quarantine or extend the holiday as I was sure there would be extra capacity. By the end of the week, however, as local lockdown was declared for large parts of Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire, like others I suspect, I was more doubtful.  I listened to arguments about having to declare whole countries as giving a simpler message than trying to exclude certain areas, and had to agree. Whilst the Canaries are further from mainland Spain than Venice is from London, it would not be difficult to get around the rules by taking a flight from the mainland to the islands and return from there. There is also the danger of catching the virus and having to be in hospital in a foreign country possibly for a long time where the care may be excellent, but my Spanish is almost non-existent.

Despite early criticism there appeared to be more acceptance later in the week when the rates of infection in Belgium (which had one of the highest rates in Europe in the earlier part of the pandemic), and Luxembourg, were rising very quickly. It seems a ‘second wave’ is starting to spread across Europe.

In the UK cases were definitely rising with average daily cases approaching 800 at the end of the week. The fact that average daily deaths was still falling to about 60 at the end of the week, could point to two things; that the lag between cases and serious illness is not showing yet, or that it is mainly younger people getting infections and they don’t generally suffer with the more life-threatening symptoms.

Boris says ‘get on your bike’…

Boris encouraged us (like Norman Tebbit in 1981) to ‘get on our bikes’, but this time not to look for work, but in an effort to fight obesity. The web site handing out free £50 vouchers to get bikes repaired crashed due to demand. Not surprising for £2.5million of untargeted benefits. Many would be snapped up by those who could well afford to repair the bicycle that had lain neglected in the garage for years. It all seemed a bit of a headline-grabbing gimmick. Boris has previous on this topic. As Mayor of London he encouraged people to use a Transport for London (TfL) scheme for hiring simple bicycles parked in many areas in the city to travel to other areas. Registered users could take any of the 5,000 cycles from any of the 315 docking stations in central London to any other for a relatively small fee. This was in 2010 and proved successful. The original bikes were sponsored by Barclays bank with a blue highlight. The scheme was transferred to Santander bank with the current ones mainly red and there are now 11,000 bikes and 800 ‘stations’ spread across 40 square miles of London. 

In a week of mixed messages I had one alert from GOV.UK announcing a ban on buy one get one free offers on unhealthy food, and the next one reminded me that I could go to the pub or restaurant and taxpayers will give me 50% off any meal. This is for as many times as I like. So presumably I could get a first course with chips, followed by a chocolate brownie/ice cream / sticky toffee pudding (with extra chocolate sauce) for 12 days (it’s only Monday-Wednesday) from 3rd to 31st August. All washed down with a nice glass of wine or beer – but don’t worry the discount is not off those and they don’t contain many calories. Even HMRC were putting out Tweets about the offer – even if they couldn’t bring themselves to think people might want other European or even British menus…?

The idea of making it a requirement to put calories on all restaurant menus is a good one, but many pubs and fast-food sites do that now. The problem appears to be the ‘education’ needed to allow us to make the healthier choices.

Channel 4 News had an interview with chef Jamie Oliver (who also has years of campaigning for us to make more healthy choices. He made the point that the good quality food is more expensive, and those with less money can only afford the ‘less good’. Rather than taxing sugar, he suggested that perhaps we should be subsidising healthier food.

It could be that this approach to obesity, exercise and healthy eating was related to Boris’s own experience of Covid-19 and the realisation that his own health may have meant not seeing his fiancee and young child? There are many in the Conservative Party who decry the so-called ‘Nanny State’ (itself a posh expression), but a government that claims to have been ‘following the science and experts’ appears in the past to have paid more attention to the food and drink industry lobbyists than ‘health experts’ when deciding policies. Like tobacco before it, the ‘curse of sugar’ needs mass cultural and social change if it is to be effective.

What it doesn’t need is ‘fat-shaming’ and judging people by their apparent excess weight. The majority of our population have some problems maintaining a healthy diet. No one wakes up one day and finds themselves several stones overweight.  The busyness of our lives and availability of cheap food make it hard to change. I have the luxury of a good income, the space to own an exercise bike, and a pleasant area go out for a run. In my case I have made a conscious decision to change, and am currently about a stone less in weight than I was at the start of March. I also know it will be a struggle to keep this way once we get back to eating out again on a regular basis.  I often wonder how people in poverty-stricken countries who have to walk miles to get clean water or a meagre amount of food to take back to a house with no electricity, would make of our kitchen cupboards and American-style double refrigerators. As if that wasn’t enough for them to take in, imagine trying to explain that we then pay a membership of £360 a year for the privilege of driving, three or more times a week ,to a large warehouse full of bicycles that don’t move and treadmills. All in an effort to lose the excess body mass we have!

The next item of news last Monday was one on rehabilitation from the after effects of having Covid-19, or one of its variants dubbed ‘Long Covid’, as the fatigue and memory issues and muscle weakness can last for months (maybe even years, we don’t know yet). The item showed a group using a gym closed due to lockdown, and sharing experiences with people who have been through the same thing.  This is just like my journey after brain injury, when I found the charity that brings together people from all parts of society and background to share with each other. Access to physio and rehab services across the country is patchy at best, but so vital. All of this should have happened years ago. There is a small charity that works with people who have been in intensive care for long periods of time. Patients may be physically well, but the mental effects can last a very long time.  If this step of physio is missing or not done thoroughly, there is more of a cost to the country in terms of lost working days and productivity, as well as actual treatment, medicines, and care in old age. It makes no sense health wise or economically, not having these services readily available for everyone.

The final two articles on the Monday evening news was one that US president Trump’s security advisor had tested positive, after a trip to Florida ,where there is a rise in cases of Covid-19.  Then that Brazil’s president Bolsanaro has been reported to the International Criminal Court, by an umbrella group representing health worker unions and social care organisations, for ignoring and mishandling the crisis. Their claim of crimes against humanity amounting to genocide are unlikely to be taken on by the ICC but demonstrate the strong feelings in the country.  There was an interview (on BBC news!) with a doctor in a hospital in Sao Paulo stating that they had people turn up at hospital still claiming it was all false and a hoax – but when they ended up in intensive care they say ‘doctor don’t let me die and tell my family to take care!’ 

Other news last week.

  • We watched Jimmy McGovern’s powerful drama imagining the life Anthony Walker a young black man killed aged just 18 in 2005. He wanted to become a barrister. His mum asked the writer to show him qualifying against all the odds, marrying his (white) girlfriend at the time of his death, having a child and saving his best man from a life of crime by taking him to live with his family after becoming destitute. It brought me to tears. 
    Anthony’s mother, Gee Walker, has setup a trust in his name and as a Christian she believed this was part of Anthony’s legacy.  This will be something that is hard for those without a faith to accept. But I believe, as his mother hopes, that despite not becoming a civil rights lawyer and going to America, Anthony’s legacy through the work his mum does, and the effect of this drama, means more people could be touched. Some small comfort to his brave mum.
  • Late Thursday evening health secretary Matt Hancock announced that Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire were told to go into a ‘local lockdown’. This was due to a ‘spike in cases’ from people going into each other’s homes. There was some confusion and a great deal of contention from the Muslim population as it was the eve of Eid one of the major feasts of Islam. One leader likened it to cancelling the Christmas Day at 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve, although another did acknowledge that when the original lockdown was imposed many Christians had to miss Easter Day celebrations.
    Writing as someone who is doing project work for a company in Sale, there was concern that some members of the team who had only returned to work because their parents could look after the children again, may have to go back on furlough until the lockdown was over.
  • Another member of the team at the company developed some symptoms and was relieved when their test came back negative – but they had to wait over 3 days for the result.
  • One report from Manchester showed a street where many of the rainbow posters drawn to put in windows to celebrate the NHS Heroes were faded and torn….perhaps a sign of how quickly we forget?
  • One of the most worrying statements last week was from Professor Chris Whitty as he stood next to Boris Johnson at a Downing Street press conference on Friday announcing that the opening of face to face beauty treatments and bowling alleys was to be delayed for a further two weeks at least. He said

“I think what we’re seeing from the data from ONS, and other data, is that we have probably reached near the limit or the limits of what we can do in terms of opening up society.

“So what that means potentially is that if we wish to do more things in the future, we may have to do less of some other things.”

He expanded to say that if we are to get children back to school in September we may need to close some other places (pubs perhaps?) or put new limits on what people can do and who they can meet.

It really does feel this week that we are not in a ‘steady state’ anymore….!

How was week 19 for us?

After weeks of training and struggling with IT and ‘HR’ Alyson finally managed to book a few shifts on NHS 111 service…but only as reserve. She responded ‘I don’t want to be a reserve I want to be on the first team!’ Her wish came true on Friday when she was given just 20 minutes notice that she was working an 8-hour shift. This was due to late cancellations by two other people on the shifts. The deal is that people are supposed to get 24 hours’ notice. So, she managed to cancel one and worked 4-8pm. It was a tough shift, not only with the types of call, but using the systems for the first time. Reflecting afterwards Alyson felt that she had helped people at a difficult time, and knew that the next shift(s) would be better.

We both signed up as volunteers for vaccine trial in conjunction with the NHS and a pharmaceutical company. Unlike last week’s attempt we both passed the age & health requirements.

After the very warm day of Friday we went to Coventry for a ‘socially distanced picnic’ in a large park to meet up with Alyson’s sister and brother and their families in  Coventry. It was good to see everyone again including our two boys and our nieces. There were three generations and one of our nieces is expecting her first child in October  – she works in a hospital so was concerned about getting too close to us, but I think she enjoyed the day. The only member of the family who couldn’t come was our nephew who returned from the Spanish Balearic Island of Majorca so was self-isolating in his London flat.

On Sunday I attended my now weekly Zoom service at Westminster Central Hall Methodist Church. It was great to be part of a ‘congregation’ of over 1,100 people sharing in worship. Rev Howard Mellor gave an amazing sermon on the ‘original picnic’, the feeding of the 5,000, a miracle told in exactly the same way in all four gospels. Howard pointed out a small word that I had not noticed before – grass! Despite the disciples only having meagre rations of five loaves and two fishes, and thinking that was not enough to feed the crowd, Jesus managed to make it sufficient for all the people (more than 5,000 when including the women and children) and ‘still there were 12 baskets left over’. All this in an area which, because of the grass, was clearly a place of abundance where crops could grow. Howard’s message to those of us hoping to be modern day ‘good disciples’ was however little (in terms of skills and gifts) we think we have, if we give it to Jesus, he can help us achieve so much more than we ever believed.

Stay safe and let’s see if there is enough for another blog next week!

Coronavirus week 14 – Not ‘the new normal’ but ‘a reorientation…’

‘So what’s the story?’….time for change

This week’s blog will be a shorter one (who shouted hurrah!) as I am busy this weekend taking part in a ‘virtual Methodist Conference’ along with 300+ other people from all over the country and the world.  The Conference met for the first time with founder John Wesley in the chair in 1744, and has convened annually in the 275 years until 2019 when I attended for the first time in Birmingham. It would be easy to characterise our church as ‘old fashioned’ and living in the past, but the first thing we did was spend half an hour voting electronically via ‘raised hands’ and Zoom polls to put aside our ancient rules designed for a physical gathering. This had taken a great deal of work by our Law & Polity team in conjunction with the Charity Commission. It could have been a very short conference if we hadn’t voted unanimously to do so. Who says our church is stuck in its ways?!

A casual glance at our new President Rev Richard Teal, dressed in black robes with a white collar, the 60+ year old white male that he is, might have reinforced the old-fashioned tag. But his message that this time of lockdown must lead to a time of ‘reorientation’ – to see people and do things differently in the future, shows we are rooted in the present not the past. He used the word ‘oriented’ to describe the way we felt just a few months ago, comfortable in our situation, and the example of his feelings seeing his new grandchild for the first time to emphasise the emotions that existed at the time. Next he talked about feeling ‘disoriented’ during the last three months, unsure of what it means, and without many of the things which make our lives stable, including family and being part of a local church with all its traditions and routines. What we need to do next is ‘reorientation’ as a church, with the things we have learned. We are finding more people than ever wanting to be part of on-line services and gatherings, we have reached out to those who live in our area most in need – particularly those who are lonely and isolated. We need to value those who do vital work and have been underappreciated in the past.

Richard follows a President in Rev Barbara Glasson who exemplified the diverse talents we have in our ordained ministers. Barbara has spent her ministry working with people ‘on the margins’ or outside our church. In Liverpool city centre she started a group of people including those with learning disabilities, from the LGBTQ community, the homeless, and young people, who came together every week to make two loaves of bread, then gave them away to whoever wanted it. Never the same group two weeks running, the ‘Bread Church’ is still going strong. She currently directs the Touchstone Project in another city centre, Bradford, that works from a terraced house in a Muslim-Pakistani heritage area on interfaith relations. They are about to move into a refurbished pub. Barbara is a blessing in our church. With 2019 Vice President Clive we were encouraged and challenged to tell our story of faith – hence many of my blogs using their phrase ‘So what’s the story..?’.

Our new Vice President Carolyn, in her 50’s, described herself as an introvert, activist, impatient, easily bored and liable to make flippant remarks – an honest assessment of her humanity. She confessed to being uncertain about taking on such an important role, but the testimony she gave on how she got here was powerful. She described the church as part ‘mad’ – some of our members can get very worked up if people use the wrong cups, wear the wrong clothes, put papers on, or take them off, the noticeboard.  There is a whole potential for trouble around anything to do with setting out, stacking or moving chairs!  It is also part ugly – this ranges from telling visitors off when they sit in ‘someone else’s seat’, we can say the cruelest things to each other, have inappropriate comments and touching, bullying and controlling behaviour. Ministers from our overseas churches can be subjected to racist comments from our members, and homophobia is not uncommon.  This ugliness extends to some extremely serious cases of abuse, which we need to continually guard against.

Carolyn’s hope is that the best of the work we do is really good and awesome; helping the weakest in society, and through our overseas relief and development charity, All We Can, those in poorer countries. She wants to use the year meeting with local churches and encouraging us to use our gifts to the utmost.

It is a very different conference this year, but our group of 8 local Chester & Stoke District representatives are keeping in touch, and helping each other during debates via a WhatsApp group.  We won’t be able to hold the deep and passionate debates where speakers come forward to give different views, but we will be reviewing some important reports and committing millions of pounds of funding to important mission and outreach projects. We will also do the ‘mundane and routine’ business such as approving accounts, membership of committees and working parties. There is a sadness that the vital debates we held last year, and the provisional legislation needed, to make us a more inclusive church that recognises a wide-variety of relationships as valid, will not be completed as it was felt the format would not allow the ‘deep personal conferring needed’. Those in single sex relationships are already welcomed, and can hold any position in Methodism, but will have to wait until the conference of 2021 to find out if they can marry in our churches.

Our ministers in training are usually ‘ordained’ on Conference Sunday, but this year they had to make their promises on Saturday via Zoom as the first part, but will have to wait until we can get back into churches to have the physical ‘laying on of hands’ in the special service with friends and family. After one of the candidates made her promise from home our chair Helen sent a message on WhatsApp saying ‘we need to get Natalie into our district’, prompted by a framed message on the wall in Natalie’s house that read ‘Gin is my saviour’!

In the conference last year we learned that language is so important, not only in what is said but how it is said. Hence my wish not to use the term ‘new normal’ for our post-Covid society but the hope that, using Richard’s word we will ‘re-orientate’ ourselves. This week with the ‘White Lives Matter’ banner flown over a premier league match we learned again this lesson of use of language.

With cases not falling as fast and the death rate levelling off to about 150 per day, there is concern that the ‘welcomed’ easing of lockdown has sent the message that ‘it’s all over, we can have a party’. Scenes at ‘block parties’ in London, the celebrations in Liverpool after their team won the Premier League title after a 30-year wait, and overcrowding on the beach at Bournemouth during a very warm spell, raised fears of a second spike of infections. And all that before the pubs open on 4th July. Add alcohol to the mix and arguments over what constitutes ‘one metre plus’ in crowded pubs will lead, as one punter said, ‘to even more fights on a Friday night’! 

I understand some of the reasons, but in my opinion it says a lot about our country that we work hard to get the pubs open, but not the gyms and swimming pools. Judging by the photo on the front page of one newspaper this morning, Boris Johnson clearly thinks an office floor is all that is need to become ‘as fit as a butcher’s dog’. Although I am not sure wearing a suit and tie is recommended gym wear?

We really are at a ‘turning point’ or maybe looking over a precipice with the virus. Infections are reducing, deaths at least leveling out, and there are signs of hope. Yet scientists keep telling us that there is no sign of the virus just dying out and it will be with us at some level for ‘years to come’. The next three months and how we as individuals react will be critical to the future path of the virus, even more than the past 14 weeks of lockdown.

We need to re-orientate our country if there is not to be a pandemic of unemployment. In my less optimistic times I worry about a complete breakdown of society as those in work continue to regain wealth, but those in lower paid jobs or no jobs get poorer and poorer – or am I kidding myself, as that has been the case for decades?

Other news this week

  • The daily briefings came to an end on Tuesday with the announcement of the next stage of easing, adding to the ‘its all over’ feeling. Those who are shielding were told that they could leave the house at the same time. There is uncertainty and real fear among some. It may be that the presence of the virus is such that on average you need to meet 1,700 people before you interact with someone who carries the virus, but the effect if you are the unlucky winner of that particular lottery is no less devastating if you are vulnerable.
  • With the briefings ending, you have to work hard to find the daily new cases and death figures. The four days figures Tuesday to Friday were 154, 149, 186, 100  and the total is 43,550 and the average new daily cases is about 900 which is at least moving in the right direction. Globally we passed 10 million confirmed cases and  500,000 deaths.
  • At the weekend it was announced that from the 6th July we will be able to go to some European countries via so-called ‘air corridors’, meaning that on return there will be no requirement to go into two weeks’ quarantine.
  • Infections in the US are continuing to rise at a dramatic pace and President Trump is still in denial, with his senior team appearing increasingly uncomfortable trying to defend the indefensible. It is such a large country and a major part of the world economy, even beyond the personal impact the loss of over 125,700 of its citizens.
  • World number one tennis player Nova Djokovic arranged a short tour of his native Serbia, and Croatia in which there was little attention paid the social distancing or ‘covid security measures’. Djokovic himself got the disease as did his wife and several of the organising team. He is a self-declared ‘anti-vaxxer’, an area I plan to explore in a later article as the ‘conspiracy’ theorists and those who ignore science facts are dangerous for the rest of us.

How was week 14 for us?

It didn’t start well as on Monday Alyson was seriously ill with sickness and stomach upset. At first I did wonder if she had caught Covid-19 from working in the pharmacy on the Saturday. It turned out to be a reaction to a new type of antibiotic she was taking.  It was the first time in 93 days that she hadn’t been on our exercise bike and her Wii Fit.  We had to cancel our trip to meet friends from Shrewsbury the next day for a walk around a lake at a park halfway between us. It was a gloriously sunny day and such a shame.

The weather stayed hot and sunny and by Thursday when Alyson finally got to meet three former work colleagues in our garden, we needed to put up the gazebo we had bought specially, not for the rain, but so that they could sit in the shade. It was the hottest day of the year at 30 degrees.  

The opening of self-catering accommodation on 4th July means that our holiday at a National Trust cottage in a remote area of Norfolk is back on. It will be good to get away even if we can’t visit some of the places we planned to. It will be a change of scenery and walks along coastal paths. I admit to glancing at the availability of villas in Spain, Crete and Croatia when the air corridors were announced, but Alyson is a bit more cautious and is waiting for the ‘second spike’ and what happens when the ‘winter flu’ season starts again.

I continued to do my local parkruns twice a week and am feeling the benefits both in some weight loss, and clearing my mind of confusion.

We had a meeting of our head injury charity trustees via phone and the figures I had prepared as treasurer showed that our reserves have increased.  There really has been great support for small charities like ours who can’t hold fundraising events. We have been fortunate with the grants we have applied for – and received. Apart from the National Lottery the money we have received is from local trusts and benefactors wanting to support Cheshire-based charities.  We have not furloughed our two employees, as the work they do supporting members who were socially isolated even before the restrictions caused by the virus, is vital. We too will continue with ‘reorientation’ of our services, taking some of the ‘virtual coffee mornings’ and chat rooms forwards to reach those who haven’t wanted to attend physical meetings even in normal times.

Alyson’s hairdresser called to ask if she wanted an appointment in the first few days of opening. I am getting used to her long hair and she doesn’t want it taken back to where it was, just the fringe tidied up. I love the haircuts Alyson gives me with my trimmers and not sure I will ever go back to paying for one!

Although there was no formal Conference Service this year, our new President and Vice President joined the service at Westminster Central Hall via Zoom. Richard’s sermon was about John Wesley’s drive for Methodists to strive for ‘personal holiness’, but to live out the gospel we proclaim via what he called ‘social holiness’. This is a radical, active care for those in society who need it. Richard talked about the last letter Wesley ever wrote being to William Wilberforce supporting the abolition of slavery. He worked in the desperate slums of London where he saw people in extreme poverty continue to work and help others. Richard used a modern-day example of this social holiness by telling of a member in his circuit in rural Yorkshire, inspired by her faith to help the local food bank and deliver to the housebound and isolated in her community. 

Vice President Carolyn led us in prayers for those who are broken-hearted, worried about the virus, struggling with loneliness and living in conditions where social distancing is impossible. For countries where health systems are overwhelmed and asked that we use our social holiness to do what we can.

We finished with video messages from our sister churches around the world from, Bolivia, Rwanda, Australia, The Caribbean, and Italy. As Methodists we adapt one of  Wesley’s famously sayings ‘the world is our parish’.

Keep safe and let’s see what the next week brings us.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 10 – taking things one day at a time

Week  10 in daily format.

I usually start these blogs at the end of the week but decided today that I will try doing a ‘daily’ note. This will allow me to capture my thoughts in real time and my mood in relation to events around the crisis. I will review and correct some grammar and shorten sections prior to publishing, but the essence of the days won’t change.

Monday 25th May – ‘I have never been so angry..’

Having made a determined effort in last week’s blog not to write much about Dominic Cummings, the story of his 260 mile trip to Durham, and Boris Johnson’s ‘defence’ of his actions at Sunday’s daily briefing, I woke up this morning quite angry. Not about the actions of the senior advisor, but more that I was so distracted by the whole thing that I missed a huge section of the blog which I had planned to cover.

Sunday 24th May was, for Methodists like me a special day. It is called  ‘Aldersgate Sunday’ formerly ‘Wesley Day’. As the web site for the Methodist Church in Great Britain explains;

In May 1738, John unwillingly attended worship at a Moravian ‘Religious Society’ meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. It was during this service that he felt his “heart strangely warmed”, as he experienced God’s love in a most personal and life-giving way. Until then he had known God in his mind, but not in his heart. Now he understood the value of a personal experience of God that would bring assurance of salvation to the believer.

This year the 24th fell on a Sunday so that made it even more relevant. Not so reluctantly as John Wesley, I attended a streamed service from Methodist Central Hall in London, just over two miles from Aldersgate Street in the City of London.  It was a wonderful service with over 1,500 watching. It was also the last service of their minister Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, former President of the Conference who was ‘retiring’ or as we call it ‘sitting down’ after over 40 years of service to his church. He was what we call ‘one of Mr Wesley’s preachers’, who had been ‘stationed’ in various places across the country as ministers in our denomination are called to be ‘itinerant’, usually staying in one place for around 10 years and then moving to another ‘appointment’ .

The penultimate service I attended in church before they were closed for lockdown was at Methodist Central Hall on 1st February. We were down in London for a visit and, never having been there, I decided to go for the Sunday service. It is an impressive place, built from the donations of one million Methodists, including members of my mum and dad’s families. Martyn was preaching and gave a challenging message about putting on the ‘armour of God’. I received a blessing and was anointed with oil by one of the Deacons at the end of the service. I  managed a few words with Martyn as we had briefly met a couple of years previously. It was in a small room at one of our closed churches, repurposed as a second-hand bookshop raising funds for the museum of Methodism at Englesea Brook Chapel, which is in our circuit between Crewe & Alsager. I was dropping some books off and Martyn was chatting to our Superintendent minister who worked there on his days off. Martyn had written an article for the ‘Methodist Recorder’ that came out that day and which was a challenge to modernise, and I told him it was thoughtful and a great piece. Martyn didn’t remember the conversation but knows the bookshop as he is a great collector of books, and said he would be going there a lot in the future as he and his wife are moving back to Derbyshire, less than an hour away from Alsager.

So, my anger was about not mentioning all that in last week’s blog.

However, the anger referred to in the heading of this section is my wife Alyson’s. Having never been ‘political’ before, she found the email address of our local MP this morning and wrote to him to express her anger at the situation over Dominic Cummings and her disappointment at the way Boris Johnson has handled it. I don’t think Alyson will mind me saying that her natural inclination is not to vote Labour. As a pharmacist and frontline worker who has seen the effects of coronavirus on her patients she wanted her MP to know. He is Dr Kieran Mullan who worked in the accident & emergency department prior to becoming our local MP for the conservatives and has gone back to work some shifts. It will be interesting to see if she gets a reply.

Neither of our moods was improved after the two press conferences that evening. The extraordinary lengthy one with the special advisor in which he showed no regrets but tried to explain why he could make special arrangements for his family. Followed an hour later by one with Boris Johnson. No one, particularly the journalists, was listening to details of how lockdown was to be eased by opening of shops and secondary schools in mid-June. Everyone wanted to keep talking about Mr Cummings. As the day ended the special advisor was still in place, left to be judged in the court of public opinion.

I sat and wrote my own email to Dr Mullan MP.

Tuesday 26th May – hey ho, hey ho, it’s back to work we go..

When the prime minister told the country two weeks ago to get back to work, I didn’t think it applied to me. I was enjoying my semi-retirement, time with Alyson, the warm weather and helping my church and the charities I am involved with. However, at 9.30am I found myself attending a Zoom ‘Monday Morning Meeting’ (moved due to yesterday’s Bank Holiday) with 18 of my new colleagues at an accountancy practice in Manchester.

My friend Steve had asked me back to do another systems project for his new company. If Alyson and I had been managing to take all the holidays that we had planned, there was no way I could have said yes. Truth be known I had some doubts about my ability but after a couple of meetings and 1-2-1’s my interest, and not a little ‘excitement’, was back. It took most of my day, and I had foregone the usual early morning exercise.

Meanwhile Dominic Cummings was still in his job, despite one ministerial resignation and a ‘revolt’ of 30 MPs and literally thousands of similar emails like mine to local MPs. It was left once again to the BBC ‘s Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in her opening ‘monologue’ to sum up as follows

Dominic Cummings broke the rules. The country can see that and it’s shocked that the government can’t. The longer ministers and the prime minister tell us he worked within them, the more angry the response to this scandal is likely to be.  He was the man remember who got the public mood, who tagged the lazy label ‘elite’ on those who disagreed. He should understand that public mood now; one of fury, contempt and anguish. He made those who struggled to keep the rules feel like fools and has allowed many more to feel they can flout them. The prime minister knows all this, but despite the resignation of one minister, growing unease from his backbenchers, a dramatic early warning from the polls, deep national disquiet, Boris Johnson has chosen to ignore it. Tonight we consider what this blind loyalty means about the workings of ‘Number Ten’. We do not expect to be joined by a government minister but that won’t stop us asking the questions.

Wednesday 27th May

Today was a warm one and started with my weekly 5k ‘local Parkrun’ which I have been doing as the usual Saturday morning one, I have done since 2016, has been suspended as part of the lockdown measures. We ate all three meals outside on our patio table and were delighted to see a pair of young goldfinches on our feeders.

The numbers of Conservative MPs asking for Dominic Cummings to  be sacked was over 40, and the prime minister was before a committee of senior members of parliament from all political parties. Their questions were supposed to be on his performance in the new parliament which started in December. However, they too concentrated a lot on his special advisor and what effect it might have in getting the message over for the rest of the pandemic.

Health secretary Matt Hancock tried to distract from the Cummings story by changing the sign on the podium at the daily press conference announcing the NHS test and trace strategy to help ease the lockdown. He was ambushed by the video question from a member of the public asking if everyone who had been fined for travelling to arrange childcare would have the money refunded. Perhaps taken aback by the questioner being,  as he so tweely described him, ‘a man of the cloth’, he desperately searched for an answer and promised to take it back and ask the treasury. The next day the answer came back – ‘no’.

At 9pm I logged onto the American businessman Elon Musk’s SpaceX website to watch a live stream of his Falcon 9 reusable rocket taking men into space in a Dragon spaceship that sits on top and carries astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. It will dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and then return to earth. This was the first time since 2011, and it was cancelled with 17 minutes to go due to storm clouds. I looked forward to the second try on Saturday.

The virus touched this event when a photo of people watching the launch from a road bridge nearby caused a social media storm around social distancing and accusations that the picture in USA Today was an old one. I read an account on the paper’s blog that showed the picture from 2011 and you can see not quite so many  people, and some in the today’s one wearing masks.

We have watched the launch of a small rocket from a beach nearby the Kennedy Space Centre during a visit in 1994, so can understand the interest of locals in such a massive event.

Just before turning off my laptop to go to bed I made a sign parodying the one on  the daily briefing podium. Having done so, I almost deleted it immediately, worrying if such a thing was ok. I posted it on Facebook and Tweeted it to Rev Helen Kirk, our own Chair of District or ‘woman of the cloth’!

Thursday 28th May

The tactics seemed to work as the prime minister’s special advisor was not the top headline on news bulletins. My ‘funny’ podium sign was retweeted by Helen and liked on Facebook, so guess it was ok. This was the exchange between Helen and me.

When we had a coffee via Skype with friends David & Janis it was something they were annoyed about. Janis knows the road to Barnard Castle where the now infamous ‘test drive’ was taken and thought it unsuitable as a check for the type of journey back to London.

It was another very warm day and we had meals outside and did more work on the garden.

The evening briefing, after the cabinet had done their legally required 3-weekly review, brought news of another ‘easing’ of the lockdown measures. From next Monday we will be able to meet in groups of six in a garden or outside space, some non-essential shops, outdoor markets and car show rooms can open from the 8th of June.  Premier League matches would start from 17th June behind closed doors. Boris Johnson stated that he wanted to ‘draw a line’ under the Cummings affair and move on ‘as the country wanted’. Journalists had other ideas and asked more questions about the ‘illegal trip’, even trying to involve the Chief Scientist and Chief Medical Officer in the questions. There were questions about how people might hold ‘socially distancing barbecues’ in their gardens, and what if someone wanted to use a toilet in the house. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland announced different measures from England, just to add to the confusion.

The evening brought the tenth and final clap for carers. It was well supported and loud on our street, but it felt like the right time to end it.

Friday 29th May

We had planned to get up very early, have breakfast, drive to Delamere Forest, and see if we could manage a walk without getting too close to other people. We arrived at 8.45am and walked to a small isolated lake surrounded by some beautiful yellow orchids. It was not too busy with people, but there was a lot of litter from visitors over recent days. We resolved to take bags and collect it if we came again. We saw a lot of birds, went on a rope swing under a tree, and walked the parkrun course.  We arrived home by mid-morning and sat in our warm garden for lunch.

Alyson commented during the walk that it seemed odd to be in such a peaceful place surrounded by life when there were thousands of people in hospital fighting for their lives. I said that most days were like that, but it had been heightened in the last three months.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the exchequer announced an extension of the furlough scheme and support for the self-employed until October.  It was at a slightly lower rate and employers were going to contribute towards the costs. Employees can go back part-time under the scheme.

We watched the last of the daily  BBC Two ‘Springwatch’ reports. It has been a joy to see all the birds nesting and trying to survive. Insights into nature, and a new section of ‘mindfulness’ where they show 90 seconds of pictures with no commentary. We have had river valleys, woodlands, seaside, and tonight’s was lakes and mountains. Wonderful.

This was followed by the satirical program Have I Got News For You, and we were back to Dominic Cummings again. The fun (laced with real anger) they had with the story reached new levels of satire. Apparently there is a Durham slang of ‘that’s a load Barney Castle’ meaning a pathetic excuse. It originates from medieval saying based on a siege in the castle. As one famous columnist is fond of saying ‘You couldn’t make it up!’.

Saturday 30th May

Another bright and sunny day. I got a new PB for my new regular ‘local parkrun’ and like every other week I finished in first place! Alyson was back on the frontline working a morning shift in a community pharmacy. It was again one where she felt safe with one patient at a time.

Two members of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) broke ranks to voice concern about easing lockdown restrictions too early, risking a second wave and peak of infections. There was a worry that having announced on Thursday that people could meet up in larger groups for a barbecue in gardens, some would start early with the forecast sunny weekend. Our neighbours had two families together in their garden with little evidence of social distancing, and on Alyson’s afternoon walk she saw a group of youths playing a football game.

I watched the SpaceX mission finally take off to the ISS at 8.22pm. It was a spectacular event.

Sunday 31st May

Harold Wilson, labour prime minister in the 1960’s is quoted telling lobbyists before a general election, when it wasn’t looking good, ‘a week is a long time in politics’. He won the election with an increased majority. Well, it is a week since the papers and television were full of stories and accusations about a trip to Durham. It felt at the time like Mr Cummings would be sacked, especially after another day trip to Barnard Castle came out. Boris Johnson decided to try to ride out the storm, pushback on any questions, and focus on getting the next steps of easing restrictions out. It appears to have worked. The news today was of opening schools and some shops tomorrow, and the overnight announcement that those who have been ‘shielding’, and locked in their own homes for the last ten weeks are to be allowed out for walks in the local area but still not to go to shops. They can meet up with one person from another household in the open air but must maintain social distancing. As the virus is around less than it was the chances of infection have gone from 1 in 40 at the start of their self-isolation to 1 in 1,000 now.

This Sunday in the church year is Pentecost (what used to be called Whitsun), the anniversary of the formation of the early church and the day the first ‘sermon’ was preached by Simon Peter after the coming of the Holy Spirit. Watching the service streamed from Methodist Central Hall, preacher Rev Howard Mellor reminded us that the disciples had been effectively in ‘lockdown’ for coming up to 50 days waiting for the next stage in their work.  The image with tongues of fire raining down reminded me both of the fires burning in the US from the protests over the killings of the unarmed black man George Floyd by a white policemen in Minneapolis, and the power of the burning of kerosene and liquid oxygen that took the two NASA astronauts towards the ISS. The US riots had spread to many more cities overnight with more fires and looting. There was little social distancing going on there or at the protests in central London.

I watched the live stream of the docking manoeuvre on SpaceX’s web site as the Dragon-2 spacecraft gently attached to ISS. Despite the seemingly ‘slow and careful’ way the two vehicles came together; we were reminded by the commentator on the video that the two vehicles were travelling at 7.66km per second or over 17,000 miles per hour. As I watched the spaceship close in ‘slowly’ for the last 20 metres between the two vehicles which took just over a minute, they travelled over 300 miles or the distance from Crewe to Land’s End! All at 260 miles above the earth. Over 1.3 million people were watching live on-line.   Docking happened at 3:16pm and the alarm on my phone went off. It is set to remind me of the famous Bible verse John 3:16. My mind went back to the time last November when I stood on steps on top of the Hulda Gate up to the temple at the centre of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Our guide told us that when astronaut Neil Armstrong stood on them he said

I am more excited stepping on these stones than I was stepping on the moon.”

It was seeing earth from the Apollo spacecraft and from the moon that reinforced Armstrong’s belief in something larger than humanity. He had been brought up in a Methodist family and on return from the moon he gave a speech in front of the U.S. Congress in which he thanked them for giving him the opportunity to see some of the grandest views of the Creator.

The final daily briefing of the week gave the figures for deaths on Saturday as 113 compared to 215 on Friday and 324 on Thursday. The total of deaths at the end of week 10 was 38,489.

We shared a weekly family Zoom with the boys. David was happy to be back on the river Avon after his second session of solo rowing from his club in Bath. He had also managed a short swim as he capsized his single-seater boat!  Michael had been walking in Delamere again.

Alyson has arranged for a friend from her ‘knit & natter’ group to come around tomorrow and sit in our garden to share a coffee. We are planning to meet up with her sister and husband for a walk somewhere between our home and theirs in Coventry.

Next week I am planning to look at a single issue related to the pandemic, perhaps the future of the health and social care services, or the costs of repaying the huge financial debts the government support has built up.

Keep safe.

 

So Whats the Story?….. The Long Story

This is the longer story of the reason I am doing a sponsored 10k for three charities that you can read about in my last post So Whats the Story…? A 3-2-1 offer on a sponsored 10k.

During the Olympic summer of 2012 I was training for my first short triathlon, having been a ‘slow plodder’ for about 30 years of doing 10K’s and around 15 Half Marathons including five Great North Runs. I was never competitive and my motto was ‘when the going gets tough…..it’s time to slow down or even walk if needed’.

I woke up one Wednesday morning with a splitting headache and some numbness in my right foot. Putting it down to ‘man flu’ and an old back injury I worked that day but took the next one off. On Friday I woke up and could barely move my right side and the headache was excruciating. By the time we got to A&E I could barely stand unaided. A stroke was diagnosed, and I was put in a ward and pumped full of aspirin. On Sunday after a CT scan I was told that it could be a cancerous brain tumour and I was being sent to a specialist hospital 18 miles away. They confirmed that it wasn’t a tumour but a large amount of infection. They were not able to operate, as I had so much aspirin in my blood there was a danger that I would suffer a bleed in the brain. By Thursday my condition deteriorated, and they did an emergency biopsy. This didn’t go well and early the next morning I went for a second operation to drain the infection. Alyson was told that I might not make it, and when our two sons arrived from their homes in the south, they had what we now refer to as ‘the organ donation conversation’.

Memories of the next 24 hours are sketchy but when I arrived back on the ward from intensive care, I still couldn’t move my right side and although I understood what people were saying I couldn’t answer at all. The only words I managed were a tentative ‘yes’ (when I meant no) and no (meaning yes). Later I managed to speak a little but then it was mainly swear words which, as people who know me will confirm, I rarely use.

So began treatment involving two antibiotics intravenously five times a day every day. I was also put on anti-epileptic medication to prevent fitting, and antidepressants for my low mood. The days were endless, the restless nights even longer. I was struggling with tiredness and extreme confusion. Coming to a dead stop after my life as a busy IT Project Manager was hard. I wanted to be back at work but had to learn that in the brain business, days turn to weeks and weeks to months.

I tried to read newspapers and magazines but by the end of a paragraph I had forgotten what the headline was about. I had asked for my Bible to be brought in and that was even harder to read. I couldn’t even remember The Lord’s Prayer. My Bible was still a source of some comfort, although starting on Psalms was probably not my best idea. I do have a vivid memory of Carmen, a Columbian nurse singing quietly a hymn while she gently washed my back. I shared stories with other overseas nurses who, on seeing my Bible, talked about life ‘back home’ and what their faith meant to them.

I started intense physio and speech therapy. Being left-handed was a bonus as at least I could do some basic tasks. It took three people to get me out of bed using a hoist and either onto the toilet or eventually to prop me up in a chair.  What I couldn’t do was muster the words to ask to be put back, so often sat there frustrated for hours as people came in and out of my room.

Alyson visited me twice a day every day for the next 12 weeks. I owe her a debt that will never be paid. Church friends and close family helped relate my story each day to our wider circle. My brother and cousins drove mum and dad from their home 3 hours away. I barred any visitors other than close family at first, as I looked awful and couldn’t concentrate enough. When I relented our friends were faced with Ian who didn’t have any personality. The lights were on, but no-one was at home.

Then started daily visits from close friends, our sons, Alyson’s sister and brother, cousins. I couldn’t remember who had been from one day to the next – but I know that they all made me feel better – even if it didn’t always show on my face. Chocolates, grapes, biscuits and particularly ready-made custard were very welcome!

Work colleagues from the IT & Business Consultancy business I worked in visited and I was grateful for their support covering the projects I was supposed to be managing. Alyson’s employers Co-op Pharmacy were very understanding and allowed her all the time off with compassionate leave. The stress and worry meant that she was unable to work in any useful way.

Eight weeks in I needed a third operation as infection was still collecting in my brain. I had ‘drains’ fitted linked to bags on my shoulder – I looked like ‘Dracula’s Bride’ for a week or so.

This is a scan of my brain just before the operation on the left, and what a ‘normal’ brain looks like on the right – you don’t need to be medically trained to see the pools of infection and damage….

Scan 3rd September 2012
Scan of healthy brain

The result was a small improvement in all my symptoms; I managed to move a toe then bend my ankle.  I managed some ‘freedom’ with a wheelchair that I could push myself around the ward and, if Alyson came with me, to the café or even outside. Friends and family began to see some big changes in both my alertness and mobility.

Steve Ingrouille, the minister at my local Methodist church, came to visit and we had the strangest communion I have ever received sitting in a corner of the public restaurant. Steve did the complete service with the bread and wine used at my church the previous Sunday.
Alyson also had great support from church friends who rallied around to help and I believe that the prayers they gave aided my recovery. Val Mayers and our neighbours Stuart & Veronica Rhodes need a special mention. I continue to gain strength from my church fellowship and my faith.

My mood slowly improved and when mum visited me one Saturday as she left we hugged and she said ‘Love you son, keep getting better and see you soon’. These were the last words she said to me as the next day she had a heart attack and was put into a coma on a life support system for a week.  One Friday as I was taking my first steps unaided by physios I had a missed call on my mobile. It was my brother telling me that mum had died…she never got to see me walk again.

I was allowed out of hospital for one day to travel to her funeral 150 miles away and managed to stand using a frame to give part of her eulogy.

I had my laptop back by then to write and plan my ‘escape’ from the rehab hospital until my condition improved enough for Alyson to take me home in a wheelchair. The skilled consultants, surgeons, nursing team and physios had ‘fixed me’ – physically at least.

18 months of hard work started, to recover from my ongoing symptoms, regain my driving licence, and build my strength enough to stand on my own with a stick, and climb stairs. I did some part-time work in the IT Consultancy Business, helping the owners to sell the part of the business I was in. I knew about this before my illness but it meant me being made redundant. I then managed to get a little paid work with my church on finance and property.

Alyson went back to work as a pharmacy manager in a very busy community pharmacy attached to a surgery. This is an extremely demanding role with a team of around 20 to manage and unrealistic targets set. At least I was able to support her in this, being at home to look after practical things around the house, waiting for trades people, doing some of the household chores that until then had fallen mainly on Alyson. I was happy with a lower pace of life than before, and could rest when needed.

I had the hip replacement that I needed before going into hospital, and it was through this that I met Annette Turner, a brilliant physio specialising in hydrotherapy. When my consultant had signed me off in February 2013 he said it would be two years before we would know the lasting damage and implied this would be substantial. Annette convinced me that, whilst that was true, she could get me to the point where it might be that the only thing I couldn’t do was to move my little toe. That has proved to be the case.

In January 2014 I was encouraged by Beth Fisher, Service Manager from the Acquired Brain Injury service in Chester, to attend a support group who met for coffee. This is an amazing organisation who provide help for people with a brain injury to reduce the loneliness that can come from hidden symptoms, loss of confidence in social situations, along with memory issues and extreme fatigue. During the last few years this group has formed into a formal charity. I am now a trustee of Head Injured People in Cheshire.

Steve Price, an accountant who had been one of my project managers, had left to concentrate on his own business. In August 2014 he offered me the opportunity to work with him a few days a month to get out of his front room into an office,  taking on some people to help him.  I am eternally grateful to Steve and the team for the opportunity to work with them putting new systems, marketing material, social media, lots of new business processes in place as we grew. I became Compliance & Training Manager. (In April 2019 Steve and the rest of the team merged with another practice and he is now one of 5 directors in a company with 23 employees and a growing list of clients. I took the opportunity to retire).

I had another 18 months of physio and got to walk correctly and slowly, then six months later I decided to try running a few steps. I did a short route around our home in streets that I had used for training. It took me about 30 minutes to do a couple of miles with intense concentration on my foot placement and staying upright. I had to sleep for an hour afterwards. Fatigue is a lasting symptom of brain injury and several afternoons a week I sleep for 40 minutes, and each time I run I must sleep for around 50% longer than the time I take.

I don’t remember how I heard about Parkrun but in April 2016 I arrived at Delamere with my barcode and did the whole 5k without stopping. It was very emotional, and my account can be found at https://skatchat.wordpress.com/2016/04/.

Alyson used to come with me and walk the course before we started and meet me at the end but then two weeks before her 59th birthday she announced that she fancied running it. As someone who has asthma and have never run before I was amazed. She did her first run in 37 minutes, beat my PB the next week and after 5 more successive PBs she now runs around 30 minutes. She even fell over once and after dusting herself off for a short while still beat me by four minutes.

So the 100th Parkrun completed yesterday was an emotional one too, coming as it did on the 7th anniversary of mum’s death. Alyson did her 24th and our son Michael volunteered.  My brother Andrew did his 100th at Newcastle on the same day along with his son Thomas.

As we lost dad in 2016 and have received some money from their estate, it seemed a good time to celebrate my recovery and use their legacy to raise funds for the three charities that have helped me. So next weekend I will take on 10k at Tatton Park.

So Whats the Story?…..where I am now.

Reflecting on the past seven years, I genuinely feel that I am in a better place than before my brain injury. Sure, it has been a tough time and I wouldn’t want to inflict the stress and worry on my family that was some of our experience. Overall the positives are;

  • I am in a less stressful state than I was before – many people when they heard it may have been a stroke worried that it was due to pressure of work and church business that had caused it. I often say that my memory problems mean that I can’t remember what I am supposed to stress about
  • I feel that my faith has been strengthened, as it says in Psalm 40

    I patiently waited, Lord,  for you to hear my prayer. You listened and pulled me from a lonely pit full of mud and mire. You let me stand on a rock with my feet firm, and you gave me a new song a song of praise to you

    and when I hear the story in Luke’s gospel of the paralysed man whose friends prayed for him and took him to Jesus – I can really relate to that.

    But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.
    Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

There is no substitute for confronting your own mortality and asking the real
questions of what your life is about…

  • I have been able to spend more time working for my local church on finance and property issues, to support the Leadership Team looking at new ways of working, recruiting some amazing lay workers to support our ministers and churches.
  • I have had more time to give to Alyson and our family. Supporting them through difficult times at work and being there to help with looking after her parents and supporting her when they died these past two years. Our two sons are in well-paid roles and have been able to buy their own homes. They too have benefited from their grandparents’ legacies, and by that I don’t just mean the financial ones.
  • We are fortunate to have built up enough savings to be comfortable in our retirement. I had several good jobs in companies with strong ethics and who made a difference to their employees and the patients/customers they served.  I have been able to help a friend build his business to repay his faith in me.
  • I work with some amazing people in the head injury charity and have met some truly inspirational survivors, who live in much more challenging after effects than mine. Head injury doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age, wealth, personal background, education or experience. I am fortunate that the relationships with family and close friends have survived – that is not always the case.

So as I look forward to enjoying some travel and a forthcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I wonder what the future holds, and the next challenge we will face. I hope that I am up to the task but know that I will have a lot of support.

Thank you for reading my story.

Ian Skaife, October 2019

So Whats the Story…? A 3-2-1 offer on a sponsored 10k.

The Short Story...

For those of you who have found this page for details on my upcoming 10k sponsored run, these are the basic details with links to the pages where you can donate.

I am running the Tatton Park 10k on Sunday 13th October 2019. I have decided to do this as it is near the seventh anniversary of my mum’s sudden death in 2012. I was in hospital struggling to walk or communicate after 12 of weeks of treatment for a brain injury. I stood and took my first small steps unaided at exactly the time of a missed call on my phone from my brother telling me that, after withdrawal of life support, my mum had died. She never saw me walk again..

It has been a long journey since that time and you can read more details in the ‘Long Story’ which I will post before the event.

I am running for three charities that have helped me and others.

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit – The key unit of mission for my local church.
For more details, and to donate go to my Just Giving crowdfunding page at
Just Giving Crowdfunding – Ian Skaife

HIP in Cheshire – The charity of which I am a member trustee and which helps people like me with friendship, support and saves us from social isolation. For more details go to
HIP – CAF Donate – Ian Skaife

Royal Stoke Hospital – (UHNM Charity) – This was the hospital that fixed me physically. They need some new equipment for the Neuroscience ward that I was on. For more details go to    UHNM Virgin Money Giving – Ian Skaife

That’s the ‘3’ from the title of this page, but there is a special offer which is the ‘2’. I have been fortunate to receive a legacy from my mum and dad’s estate and want to use that to Double Your Sponsorship (before Gift Aid). To be very clear if you give £10 I will add £20 so that it becomes £30 total. If you donate £50 I will add £100 to make it £150. Go on, challenge me…..!

The ‘1’ is me taking part in the event. In so many ways I will not be on my own as I have the support of my faith, my close family and so many friends from the charities and people who have worked with me.

My target is to raise £1,000 for each charity, but my hope is that together we can do so much more and touch the lives of a lot of people.

Thanks for reading this and if you feel that you can’t give, that’s absolutely ok. Just think of me, and the charities on the day.

Coming Soon – The Long Story….

Celebrating my 50th & moving on…

50th Park Run - Feb 2018

This week I passed two significant milestones.

Tuesday was exactly 5 years since my neurosurgeon formally discharged me from his care, following treatment for a serious brain injury that paralysed the whole right side of my body and left me unable to speak. It was 6 months after I first went into hospital.

Yesterday I completed my 50th Park run since starting to run again almost two years ago. Although it was my fastest time for several months, that was completely unimportant. Being able to enjoy the feeling of running, breathing the clear fresh air, hearing the birds sing in the trees against bright blue sky – that’s what meant the most. Thanking God for my journey and the changed person I have become is equally important.  As I ran I thought about my family, church fellowship, friends and the medical team who have helped me get to this point.

My wife Alyson (my greatest supporter of all) often tells me that I should ‘move on’. This does not mean to forget; just not to dwell on the past and look more to the future. I feel that this is the time to take up that call.

I will always have my current symptoms of fatigue, memory issues, weakness and balance problems, but I am determined that these will not stop me from seeking new challenges and adventures.

We never know what will happen in the future, and the fact that a friend from church was diagnosed with a brain tumour and had a stroke a few weeks ago, is a painful reminder of that.

I will wear my red 50th Park Run shirt with pride and, all being well, will get my black 100th in the next two years – I tend to run once a fortnight.  By that time retirement may have happened and who knows where that will lead us.

For now my faith is stronger, my confidence has returned, my stress level is controlled (partly as I can’t hold too many things in my mind so forget what I should be worrying about!), and my general health is reasonable.

Time to ‘move on’…

 

 

 

 

Mothering Sunday – traditional & updated.

Even with all the advances in medical science and technology, I think we can be pretty certain that every person on earth has a mother. Many may not remember or even know who their mother is, many may have lost touch, but mothers and ‘motherly love’ form an important part of life.

We lost our mum four and a half years ago, which means I don’t have anyone to send a card or flowers to. However, I have the less traditional means of acknowledging the love mum showed by writing about it here.

Mum brought us up in a traditional church environment of Sunday school and Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Lent, a day when people go back to their ‘mother church’. Like many of the religious festivals this one has been taken on by retail & commercial interests – think Easter eggs, M&S Christmas adverts, expensive flowers & cards. In the United States & Canada ‘Mother’s Day’ is the second Sunday in May and has been officially since 1914. It is much more commercial, and has been taken up by over 60 countries across the world.

This morning I went not to my ‘mother church’, but to our local Methodist one, where Rev Den reminded us that the traditional family is a changing one. 9 million people in the UK live in single person households, many young women choose not to join the ‘traditional’ family of mum, dad and children. The number of children in a UK household has gone down from 2.4 and is around 1.7. There are so-called ‘blended families’ formed by those whose relationships have broken down, often more than once. Same sex couples adopting add to the wonderful variety of what we call ‘families’.

I wait to see this week’s documentary following ex footballer Rio Ferdinand and his journey taking on the ‘mother’ role to his children, following the death of his wife, their mother, from cancer almost two years ago. It will be full of many different emotions. I know of someone whose wife died giving birth to twin girls leaving him not only grieving, but having to bring up two young children – I can’t imagine how hard that is. In both examples I guess ‘Mothering Sunday’ takes on a whole different form.

We need to remember on this special day, those who have never felt a mother’s love, those who had a ‘difficult’ or even abusive relationship with their mother, and those who still don’t know who their mother is.

The day is also a hard one for those mothers who have lost a child and have no one to phone them, send a card or bring flowers. For those of us who follow a Christian faith Mary, the mother of Jesus, is an example of such a person.

My mum died suddenly when I had been in hospital for 10 weeks with a brain injury that left me unable to talk clearly, or walk at all. This was what I said about that in the tribute at mum’s funeral two weeks later…

I know that mum is now at peace and I didn’t feel the need to travel to be with her when she went to sleep, but I was pleased to hear that my older brother and my younger brother’s wife had been with her the night before, and dad  my younger brother were with her the moment on that Friday lunchtime when, as dad put it, she ‘looked peaceful and in no pain’. My brother had told her on the Tuesday when they turned the life support off that I had taken my first steps on the ward, and when I missed the call on Friday to say that mum had gone it was because I was taking my first few steps unsupported by the physios…..I like to think that mum was holding my hand.

We will all have some regrets for all the things which we could have done together and the times which might have been, but I will always remember the last words we said to each other as we hugged after visiting. I said ‘I love you mum thanks for coming’ and she replied ‘I love you too son and hope you keep getting better.’

My wife and her sister told me later that they believe that mum had done a ‘deal with God’, giving up her life to save mine. I don’t think God does such deals, but understand the sentiment, and I know mum, like many others, would gladly have offered her life to end my suffering.

There are people who believe that robins are a sort of angel who visit us on behalf of loved ones to keep an eye on us. Again I don’t subscribe to this, but it is good to be reminded of mum whenever I see one. Just this afternoon as I was thinking about this blog whilst cutting our lawn, a robin who is a regular visitor to our garden landed on a bush. I could hear its incessant call over the noise of the motor – ‘go on write your blog’ it seemed to be saying! This is a picture I took of it last autumn…

Robin - our garden

Mum was someone who enjoyed her garden and the new life that came from it. We put mum’s ashes under a flowering cherry tree that sits in the churchyard opposite her garden – the main picture at the start of this blog. As spring moves into summer it is a reminder of on-going life and vitality.

In addition to love and demonstrating Christian care, mum showed me that we need to remember those less fortunate than we are. This week would have been an upsetting one for her with television news having the following items:

  • The plight of mothers watching their young children die as the result of famine in eastern Africa.
  • The Westminster Bridge attack near parliament where Aysha Frade was strolling across on the way to collect her children from school when Khalid Massood charged down the pavement in a 4×4 and snatched her life away. She had just come from work, a school itself, where she dedicated herself to helping youngsters learn the language and culture of her native Spain.
  • Comic Relief and the many appeals showing the suffering of children who had lost both parents, with daughters taking on the mother’s role.
  • The appeal on the same programme to prevent mothers losing small children to malaria – preventable by a simple test and a cheap mosquito net.
  • The children dying as a result of the bombings in Mosul in Iraq – more mothers left childless.

We need to acknowledge that whatever we think of Khalid Massood and his actions, he had a mother whose feelings at this time we may never really know, but can imagine.

For those, like me and my brothers, who had the loving example of a mother who cared for us & others, her life carries on in the way we act towards other people. As my friend put it in a poem to her mum after she passed away at the start of the year, following a long time suffering with dementia…

Mum you always said when we were young that we should try our best;
helping you live with dementia was a truly challenging test.
We hope you would be proud of us, if you realised all we’d done;
we tried our best and in the end our battle with dementia was won.

We shouldn’t dwell on the recent past, happy memories we have a plenty;
of a devoted mum, grandma, great grandma , teacher and friend to many.
….

These are the memories we treasure, the ones that involve the real you;
that stranger that came into our lives was only passing through.

On that dull January day you passed away, but you haven’t really gone;
in the way we think, and what we do, so much of you lives on.
To make a difference and try our best we will always endeavour,
so mum goodnight and God bless, all my love, Heather xx

God bless mothers everywhere.

 

 

Brian Bilston

Theology Everywhere

Discuss theology today to transform tomorrow

verbalising

ruminations on life at fifty ... or so ...

Discover WordPress

A daily selection of the best content published on WordPress, collected for you by humans who love to read.

The Daily Post

The Art and Craft of Blogging

WordPress.com News

The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community.