Happy New Year !
In medieval times 25th December was the date of religious importance with church leaders belittling New Year Day and 1st January. Pope Gregory XIII re-established January 1st as New Year's Day in 1582. Who was on the throne of England on 1st January 1582 ? King James I. As old as I am I cannot remember that far back. I can, however, recall1974 when January 1st became a bank holiday. Today the banks may be closed but shops are open ready to empty our bank accounts.
Monday 1st January 1968 and Wednesday 1st January 1969 (We had a leap year in 1968) I was working as a management trainee in the giant Birmingham city centre department store Lewis’s Limited. The New Year Sale really did begin on 1st January. Not sure about the customers but for we staff members the January Sale was a fun time.
I am guessing it was 1st January 1970, I had left the department store by then, that a group of mates and I went to the foot of Dovedale in Derbyshire then scrambled up to the top of Thorpe Cloud hill to see in the New Year and the start of a new decade. Still a teenager, I was part of a group of kids who were pressganged into being part of a BBC TV Songs of Praise with the theme Living In The 1970’s.
1971 saw we gang of mates, sadly I was no longer teenager having in November hit the terrible age of twenty, become a bit more ambitious and see the New Year in on the summit of Kinder Scout in the Peak District.
1972 and we went for the ultimate challenge, no not Everest but Snowdon which became the last time Yours Truly invited a mountain to celebrate a New Year. Two years later in 1974, who was Prime Minister that far back in history, the government declared 1st January to be a public holiday. Prime Minister ? It was Edward Heath. Did he keep a diary ? If he did I bet it would have been one dead boring read.
The average age of someone living in the UK is forty years so to the majority of those I am here wishing a Happy New Year you have been reading history. You don’t need to be four decades of age but you’ll need to be thirty or so to remember the Millennium New Year. The last time we had a millennium here in England it was the Anglo Saxons who were wishing you Happy New Year.
It will be another nine hundred and seventy-seven years before we again celebrate a new millennium. Were you around at the end of the last millennium ? How did you see in this one ?
I was actually in America, in Detroit Michigan. The adjacent state of Illinois is in a different time zone, one hour behind Michigan. I saw the Millennium New Year in twice. Firstly in a layby in Michigan the home of the motor industry and the beautiful Great Lakes before crossing into Prairie State of Illinois and pulling up in a garage forecourt.
But all that is history, what about this year of 2023 ?
Well I didn’t sit up to see the New Year in but I was sitting in my chair when the celebratory fireworks woke me up ! Since I fell and injures myself on 8th December I have not been able to lay down to sleep. Three weeks ago today I had an operation on my right arm and the cast is too uncomfortable. With our NHS in crisis having that cast removed is of the lowest priority. I love our NHS and the discomfort, pain is too strong a word, is 24/7 reminder of the dedication staff within the service give to caring for their patients. Perhaps the prime minister and every member of government should have a broken arm and plaster cast to remind them of the real people caring within our National Health Service.
Sitting down all day and sleeping in the same chair at night has caused my feet to swell so this morning we went for a walk at Woughton. Within Milton Keynes there are more ghosts per square yard than anywhere else in our City. I saw where Whitchfinder Turpyn lived but did not bump into any ghosts. Perhaps they were all sleeping it off after last night’s celebrations.
While we were out Maureen went to a garden centre and loaded up with a load of spring bulbs at 50p a packet. She planted them in the garden. When in three months time they bloom I will remember today. I don’t have green fingers so even if they were not in a plaster cast I would have not been able to help.
I do not want this diary to turn into a record of my writing but today Amazon accepted my book Poetry The Melody Of Words. I then picked up on my story Wealth Behind Bars and sitting here in my chair with my laptop on my knee I knocked out another seven hundred and fifty words. But NO, I do not want this diary to become a record of my writing. With the writing I want to use the books to support matters which are close to my heart and to encourage other people to write for themselves. If you are reading this entry would you like to write diary ? I bet you could make it more interesting than this scribble.
Am I making a New Year Resolution ?
After
2022 being such a bad year medically and the two years before that being full
of pandemic, I never caught Covid by the way, 2023 needs to be a positive year
and so my resolution is to do my best to make it so.
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