I am officially old.

I am officially an old man.

I may like to think that I look like my photo as used for the logo on my stories but that picture of the "senior" me was taken LAST SATURDAY while the logo image was taken FIFTY years ago.

Each month a generous government pays my OLD AGE PENSION into my bank account and twice a month Prudential pays me my private pension.  Does that or does that not make me old !

There are photographs of me standing along the coronation route waving a union jack as Queen Elizabeth II was on her way to the coronation at Westminster Abbey. I do not remember that, I was only three years old.

Neither do I remember The Cuban Missile Crisis when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.  I should be able to remember it, I was old enough at the time, but I have no recollection. Some parents kept their children off school so the whole family could be blown up together when the missiles fell.  Mine sent me to school !  The headmaster of my school would not have considered World War Three to be an acceptable reason to have the day off.

I recall very clearly the assassination of President Kennedy and later of Bobby Kennedy.

I sat up all nigh to watch Neil Armstrong place man's first step on the moon.

The fall of the Berlin Wall is a vivid memory.

I wonder what ore memories are waiting for me in the remaining years of my life.  YES, I am

an old man but my family has a history of longevity so I am probably only about two thirds of the way along my own personal time line. 

My Paternal Grandmother lived to be 94 years old, she would have lived longer had she not been so stubborn and agreed to go into hospital when she developed bronchitis.

She was born in 1890. She was eleven years old when Queen Victoria Died. She was twenty-two years old when The Titanic Sank. She lived through two world wars, both taking a terrible toll on her family.

She could remember the Russian Revolution and the murder of the Tzar and his family.

She died in 1984, gosh is it that long ago ? Thirty-three years ! I still miss her so much, she was the matriarch of our family and a very special lady.

I am for ever telling my oldest grandson of my memories, he is probably sick, tired and utterly fed up of me banging on.  His favourite response is "Granddad you have said that an infinite number of times".

For the past twelve years I have been researching our family history, centred round my grandmother, which I intend to pass to all of my grandchildren.

I so much wish that my grandmother were still here, she would be one hundred and twenty-seven years old if she were, as there is so much I would like to ask her about her life.

It is twenty-past three in the morning and I am out of bed at my laptop.  I awoke thinking of my grandmother - Nan, and had to come to write this blog entry.  When I have published it I will go back upstairs and sleep a little bit more.

I have ten books on Amazon and am busy working on number eleven. THE BRIDGE HOUSE is my historical drama centred round my grandmother's long and full life.  Of all the different things I have written I am enjoying this book more than any before.  I can not get my grandmother, her name was Lily, out of my head.

The story begins in 1901 and the death of Queen Victoria.  I have just finished typing up that part of the story. Chapter One will continue to 1912.  Some of it is factual but I am wrapping my writer's imagination around those facts.  In a way I am doing this for fun but also to share with my readers some of the events in history that my dear, lovely grandmother lived through.

Lily if you are awake at this early hour, it is now half past three in the morning, I hope you approve of what I am writing.

Adam, my grandson, loves writing stories. That is something he has inherited from me.  I watched him writing the other day and could not believe the speed with which his pen raced across the paper.  At seven years of age he write far more quickly than I do.

Adam may be good at writing stories but he is not that good at illustrating them !  Mind you I think he has the hair right in his picture of me -    do you not agree ?

I wonder what memories of mine Adam will take when he write my life story.

Actually, Adam - granddad is spelt like that not grandad !

Sorry................................

DAVID

aka MAX ROBINSON WRITER

aka THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

Time to do the OK sign

Yesterday I took my grandson to London for a birthday treat.

He had never been on a train so we popped a bit of money in Richard Branson's pockets and whizzed down to Euston.

We went to The Tower of London - there were a couple of things I needed to do.

I wanted to check the accommodation was ready and waiting for Tony Blair and Gina Miller.

It was.

Within The Tower of London is the regimental museum for The Fusiliers. I wanted to see a medal  won by my great-grandfather's cousin, a medal which is on public display.

I felt to proud standing there with my grandson looking at The Victoria Cross won by my ancestor.

Adam had been given a camera for his birthday and was very busy taking photographs.

Thomas Ashford won his Victoria Cross for an incredible act of bravery in the Anglo-Afghan War. incredible bravery from an ordinary man.

Thomas never rose above the rank of Private. When he left the army he worked as a humble postman. Very few who knew him then were aware of his winning the highest award our country can bestow upon a serviceman.

Thomas Ashford was not a great man but a perfectly ordinary person who did something special.

It is people like Thomas who make a country great.  

You and I will probably never win the Victoria Cross, you have to be in the armed forces to qualify anyway, but every day of the week we can and SHOULD do something special to make our country better.  

If a situation arises where we are called, as was Thomas, to do something extra special then JFDI. 

I get quite frustrated when I hear people say MAKE BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN........

Excuse me......Britain IS great !  

We just need to open our eyes and see the ordinary men, women and children who every day are making it great.  The Thomas Ashfords of this world.

Finally yesterday grandson Adam was doing his best to teach his silly old granddad how to do the Donald Trump OK sign.

Make sure you do the OK sign every minute of every day.

David

The fat lady is about to sing.

I am not a lady !


I can not sing !


Well one out of three is OK isn't it ?

Can not give you any more details until the fat lady sings but I have found the JFDI guy to help promote my stories. Just need now to find an illustrator.

Could that be you ?

CLICK HERE.

I had been getting a bit frustrated each morning checking my Amazon e-book sales which day after day were at ZERO.   I have been waiting for an e-mail from Amazon to give my backside a kick. After all even if I am into writing stories for fun Amazon is in it for profit.

Then YIPPEE DOO ! Look what happened overnight.

I am guessing this spike is down to AN INTERVIEW WITH FLIGHT SERGEANT BILLY being published. e-book version CLICK HERE

No matter what it will keep Amazon happy and has set me up for the day.

I am still typing up the introduction but am excited about my next writing project THE BRIDGE HOUSE - I can not get the characters and plot out of my head.

This is going to take between 150,000 and 250,000 words to write so it is going to be a lengthy project.

Are you checking the entries I am putting into THE DIARY OF A SILLY OLD MAN ?

I am having fun at the moment writing my own manifesto for the coming general election. It's pretty right wing - did you know right wing means COMMON SENSE ?

You read my diary and see if what I am saying makes sense.

Right, I'll leave it there for today. Got to go and make sure the fat lady has her song sheet ready.

David

aka Max Robinson Writer

aka The Patriotic Pensioner

aka The Geriatric DJ

This will make the liberal snowflakes piddle their pants !

I have just written a new entry for THE DIARY OF A SILLY OLD MAN.  There will soon be a

dramatic surge in the sale of washing powder across all supermarkets in the country as liberal snowflakes piddle their pants.  Listen carefully and you will hear their sad shouts on ill-informed objection when they find out I am making two suggestions for the future government of Great Britain.

I want to re-introduce slavery and I want to make homelessness illegal.

You can actually read the DIARY ENTRY and carefully consider what I am proposing, in which case I think you will say "That makes sense" or you can scream like an ignorant snowflake and start piddling your pants.

The choice is yours !

If you find you actually agree with what I am saying then please use social media to get more people to read the DIARY.

My story telling of Flight Sergeant Billy is now published as an e-book on Amazon.

Nobody has actually read it yet !

Can I ask

you to check it out and become Billy's FIRST READER ?

Words are flowing like crazy from my pen as I write my next story The Bridge House. Today, if all goes well, I will type up what I have so far scribbled into my notepad and you can check it out.

I am having fantastic fun writing this. While Billy's story took only five thousand words to tell I think the Bridge House is going to be a full-length novel of some quarter of a million words.

Billy's story is illustrated with photographs, some of which have been handed down to me in our family and some I took myself at the area which once housed his RAF base. The Bridge House is a story aimed at older readers and probably down not need any illustrations. However, many of my stories do and ALL need help with promotion.

Could you be one of my ILLUSTRATORS ?  Could you be my JDFI man ?

CLICK HERE

I'll leave things there for today.

One of my sons is stock and systems manager within one of our country's larger supermarkets. I'll give him a call and make sure he has lots of washing powder on the shelf !

DAVID

aka Max Robinson Writer

aka The Patriotic Pensioner

aka The Geriatric DJ

Destiny is playing games with me again !

I had yesterday all planned out - I was going to achieve so much !  Then the phone rang at 7am, I had to drive 25 miles, pick up my daughter, take her to hospital then hang around all day while she had a series of tests done.  I would have to catch up today.

8pm last night the phone rang again and today is going to be a repeat of yesterday.

Destiny what are you up to ?

I was, I  still am, determined to find the people I need to make my Amazon e-books a great success. It had been my plan to spend a lot of time finding an illustrator and a JFDI guy but yesterday I did nothing and today looks to be the same.

Destiny could it be you already have this in hand ? If so will you please hurry up and get it sorted ?

JFDI Guy AND Illustrators CLICK HERE

I did not, yesterday, finish editing AN INTERVIEW WITH FLIGHT SERGEANT BILLY, for me to blame Destiny for that would be unfair, I could have done it if I had got my backside into gear.

Editing a story once it has been written is not something I enjoy doing. I want to move on and start writing the next tale.

I have not had an Amazon e-book sale since 18th April and I keep getting e-mails from Amazon telling me to promote myself harder. The moment I get a new story on-line people will check it out.

Here';s a promise.

I will get Billy's story on-line with Amazon today. That is a promise.

Billy's story is 99.9% true.  It is based on family stories I heard from my grandmother and research I have done into my family's history. Only the last moments in Billy's life as his aircraft crashed have been made up.

I am now busy writing my next story - THE BRIDGE HOUSE.  This is the story of Billy's mother and my grandmother. 

She was the matriarch of our family, I knew her so well and loved her to bits. When she died at the age of ninety-four I worse sunglasses at he funeral.  I did not want people to see me crying.

I know so much about my late grandmother Lily The Bridge House will turn out to be a full-length novel.

Then yesterday Destiny put up its hand and said STOP.

I was told very clearly to write the story, to base it around my beloved grandmother but to use my imagination to wrap all kinds of plots round the facts.

My grandmother, Lily, was 22 years old on the night of 14th April 1912. She was not on-board The Titanic but Destiny says she will be in my story.

Here she is with her youngest sister, born a Victorian, she is dressed in the typical attire of a young Edwardian lady. Can you imagine how utterly ridiculous it would be for her to ride a horse dressed in such a way ?  Destiny told me to write that into the book.

She was not such a young woman when she married her husband, right.  World War One got in the way.  My thinking for the book most certainly includes her being a munitions worker in a Birmingham arms factory.

Nobody in the family ever considered that she may have had a boyfriend before she married.

Destiny has told me to write one into the story.

While I am sitting today in the hospital waiting room my pen will be tearing across my notepad telling of Lily and The Bridge House.

Destiny will that keep you happy ?

Can you please then help me find my JFDI guy and illustrator to keep Amazon off my back !

JFDI Guy AND Illustrators CLICK HERE

5.50am - time to publish today's blog, get dressed then head off to pick up my daughter. Going via McDonald's for breakfast I am thinking ! Destiny, make sure they have the hashbrowns ready and piping hot !

A Mixed Bag Blog Today !

It's a mixed bag today.....

All of my persona egos will be having their say - The Gerriatric DJ, Max Robinson and The Patriotic Pensioner.

Numbers to the blog fell a bit yesterday, 29 readers with 22 people reading yesterday's page about FLIGHT SERGEANT BILLY - I'll let Max talk about him in a moment.

Right now let's play some music.

Let's start of with my YouTube Channel's Tuesday Theme

My YouTube Channel now has almost 200 songs within it. Among the collections I have my favourite ten songs collected from my life.

This is NUMBER 10.  At the end of every school term we sang in assembly the school hymn and Lord Dismiss Us.  In July 1967 I sang this for the very last time. I walked out of the assembly, out of the school gates then turned round and put two fingers up to the whole establishment.  I was free !  Look out world here I come.


In the staff room people were celebrating the end of the year.  I am sure some raised a glass and said "Thank goodness that arrogant, self-opinionated young bastard has left !"

Perhaps tomorrow I will play you my personal number nine.

The picture says CLICK HERE - don't click on the picture but CLICK HERE !

It's Tuesday, well you know that of course, two days into the week. A week where I have set myself a target to find an illustrator for my stories and a JFDI guy to help promote them.

So.................

CLICK HERE

I have said, I am always saying, that I hated my time at school.  That's a bit strange for someone who ended up as a teacher. You can read my schoolboy autobiography in THINGS WERE DIFFERENT IN MY DAY.

This is one of three stories I want to re-write with an illustrator the represent to Amazon. The other two are THE WILD ADVENTURES OF DI CENTRAL EATING and PETER'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN PEN.

It's 5.20am as I am now writing this diary, in a couple of house I will be popping round to pick up my grandson and drive him to school. he is doing very well at school and I glow with pride at his achievements. He attends a damn good school which goes the extra mile to support its pupils.  It has just finished a series of after school classes designed to stretch the top three or four in each year group. FANTASTIC but was this all set up to support the kids or simply to raise the standard of the school in the SATS tests ? I have to be cynical, now the tests are pending these extra classes have stopped.

Still in my time at school stretching  the more able was something nobody had even thought of !

Mine was a generation which grew up without the threat of war looming over its head.

The aim of my school was to get us out into the workplace and make sure we all had jobs.

For my father's generation and that of his brother Flight Sergeant Billy it was exactly the same as it had been for the generation before them, my grandfather's generation, to prepare them to fight and to die for their country.

I love writing and loved writing Billy's story - AN INTERVIEW WITH FLIGHT SERGEANT BILLY   What I do not enjoy is the editing process which comes after the writing.

I have started working on Billy's story and must finish it this morning.

I have started scribbling in my notebook the next Max Robinson story, I have set down the first one thousand or so words for another historical drama THE BRIDGE HOUSE.

This story takes my grandmother an puts her into the centre of the tale.  She was Billy's mother and my father's mother. She appears in my schoolboy autobiography. Her mother was a teacher, she ran the village school where the family lived.  I wish she had been my teacher, I wish she had been my headmistress. Undoubtedly she would have pushed me

far more than my teachers did to realise my potential. She would not have done it in the way my grandson's teachers have been doing, in the Victorian era teachers used alternative methods !

Here she is, Ema Bedson, my great-grandmother, headmistress of Madely School and Matriarch of The Bridge House. I don't think I would have wanted to be on the wrong side of her !

As I start my story of The Bridge House it is Wednesday 23rd January 1901. Joseph Bedson gathers his large family together to share the news that Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of India died the day before.  Joseph, Emma and all of their eight children had ever known a monarch other than Queen Victoria. A new future was dawning but what would that future bring.

Not a story I am intending to publish as an e-book on Amazon, it is an on-going project, is THE DIARY OF A SILLY OLD MAN.  Today I must make a diary entry.

I am worried about the forthcoming general election and need to share my worries.

I have a pet-name for the BBC -The Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation.  I am worried about the biased way in which BBC News is reporting the party campaigns.  Of course the BBC is biased, it's part of he way they operate but they could doom our country to something quite terrible if the news editors do not stop what they are doing.

The BBC is so clearly campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn.  If he becomes prime minister our country will be plunged into the darkest hour in its long history.

I am wearing my PATRIOTIC PENSIONER hat now but am so worried that Corbyn may win power through a back door opened by The Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation.

David

aka

Max Robinson Writer

aka

The Patriotic Pensioner

aka

The Geriatric DJ