Blind Following Of Folly

FRIDAY 29th MAY 2020

Allow me to open by addressing the Facebook posters from "Supporting Borris" and "Conservatives".

Britain has the second highest death rate from covid 19 in Europe.  FACT.

The government failed to act quickly enough. FACT.

Returning to work after himself suffering from the virus Boris Johnson failed to lead from the front and inspire our nation. FACT.

Dominic Cummings failed to act with honour. FACT.

Borris Johnson suddenly came out of hiding to protect his little friend. FACT

The likes of those posting support on social media for Boris Johnson's failings are socially  blind and do not have the ability to think for themselves. FACT

The e-mail I sent yesterday to my member of parliament has not been answered. FACT

This new track and trace system being rolled out at speed by our failing government will itself fail. You do not need to be a scientist to work that out. FACT

Allow me to bring a little bit of common sense to this track and trace inevitable failure. So I develop symptoms of the illness. I enter the system. Where have you been and who have you met ?  Well I've only been to the supermarket, nowhere else ?  How many people were there with you ?  Not sure, thirty, forty, fifty, I don't have a clue as I did not count them ? Can you give a list please of who they were ?  DON'T BE STUPID !

Is it a fact do you think that this inevitable failure of a system has been introduced by our failing prime minister to draw a line under the Dominic Cummings affair ?  History will tell us the FACTS

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter Three

WHERE NO BIRDS SING:

I am a Bletchley Man and proud to be a Bletchley Man but since I came to live here there have been two very brief periods of a few months when I took a residential holiday in Newport Pagnell and Tinkers Bridge.  I did not like living on Tinkers Bridge, in the early days of its construction it was known as Stinkers Bridge and I soon moved to Windmill Hill back in Bletchley.

When I lived there Tinkers Bridge had only just completed construction so was suffering from issues I explained in the last chapter. Sapling trees were planted along the roads but the bird population of our new city firmly said: No thank you.  I remember so clearly dubbing Tinkers Bridge the estate where no birds sing.

Living in Bletchley Park, in the halls of residence at Milton Keynes College Of Education, I was in the midst of a bird population. Ducks swam on the lake and birds of all kinds nested in the trees. There were pigeons, lots of them, who thought it was their duty to be the alarm clocks for we students. Tinkers Bridge, however, was somewhere no birds sang. There must have been birds when it was farmland and I assume there is a thriving bird population living there today but when I lived there it was an avian wilderness.

Living on Windmill Hill my garden backed on to the golf course. Today that golf course is an abundance of of wildlife. The red kites we see soaring above our heads in Bletchley nest in the trees on Windmill Hill Golf Course. Do you know the song El Condor Passa ? It comes from Peru and translated it means When the Condor Bird passes overhead everyone stops to watch.  I took the tune, put a slideshow of pictures from the golf course with the music and posted it on YouTube: When the red kit flies overhead all the golfers stop playing and watch.

I believe that the number of birds you see in any given place is a measure of the quality of the area they inhabit. Tinkers Bridge where no birds sing. Windmill Hill where birds celebrate the beauty of the land. Sadly Milton Keynes Council would like to destroy Windmill Hill Golf Course and its wild life. It wants to turn it into a commercial leisure complex, cut down many of the trees and build houses. Windmill Hill where no birds sing ?  It does not bear thinking about.

The number of birds you see in any given place is a measure of the quality of the area they inhabit.  How many birds can you see in Central Milton Keynes ?  How many birds have made The Hub their home ?  The number of birds you see in any given place is a measure of the quality of the area they inhabit. How far away from Central Milton Keynes do you need to move before you can find the abundance of birds singing equal to the area where I live ?

Milton Dreams The City That Never Was !  If ever it does achieve city status it will be able to boast the ugliest skyline of any city centre in Britain, a city centre where no birds sing.

EARLIER CHAPTERS:

What Is That Smell

Dirty New City

COMING SOON:

Jurassic Park

City Of Trees

Maggie Came To Milton Keynes But The Queen Came To Bletchley

Transport Planning

Ley Lines

Icons Of Music

and more.......

Dunkirk Spirit

THURSDAY 28th MAY 2020

This is an e-mail I have sent to my local MP.

Will you please add my name to your list of people within the constituency who say they have lost all faith in Boris Johnson to lead our nation through the current crisis and are calling for both himself and Dominic Cummings to resign.

I hope I do not receive a reply, I know it will make me angry.

NOW TO IMPORTANT THINGS: We have recently celebrated seventy-five years since D Day. We are coming up to eighty years since Dunkirk.  I was born in 1950 so have no memories of wartime Britain. However my parents and grandparents had memories, memories and memories. My grandmother took her daughters, my Mum and her sister, to welcome the troops coming back in to London from Dunkirk.

As a child I was fascinated by wartime memories, not so much the stories and memories my family shared but the spirit of national unity which came through it all. As a teenager I was not respectful of those who had fought and died for their country, no teenager was. At school we were never told what the roll of honour in the assembly hall was, we thought it was something to do with winning prizes but did not understand why it stopped at 1945. Leaving school and becoming a management trainee in a vast department store I did not think it right that the passenger lifts were operated by men with bits of their arms and legs missing. I thought it did not meet the store's standards of dress and deportment. Bits of arms and legs lost by teenagers in both world wars.

Today's generation is far better than we were. Far more respectful.

How many decades have I got left in my life ?  A couple, a few years more but that is all.  I think that I should write down the memories I have of the stories people told me: Memories of Wartime Memories.

Personally I have no recollection of Te Korean War (25 Jun 1950 – 27 Jul 1953) but know my mother feared my father being called up to fight.  I have vivid memories of The Vietnam War although Britain kept out of that one. The Cold War dominated my early life and much of my early adult life. The Falklands War, The Gulf War - both of them, I have my memories.

I am currently working on a writing project telling through my memories how a vast area of North Buckinghamshire was developed into a new city, the New City of Milton Keynes but it never was awarded city status. My writing project is titled MILTON DREAMS THE CITY THAT NEVER WAS. Yesterday I wrote two chapters in 1,572 words. As soon as I have finished this blog I will write chapter three which is bursting to come out of my head.

This will be a lot of fun for me and a follow up to a book I published in 1993, Not The Concrete Cows (A Kaleidoscope through the New City of Milton Keynes). I think I may even make a few quid from it but more importantly, far more important in every way will be MEMORIES OF WARTIME MEMORIES. I will get started on this immediately I have finished my current project.

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter Two

DIRTY NEW CITY

Do you know the song Dirty Old Town ?  As a secret punk rocker my favourite version is by The Pogues. I am actually listening it now as I write these words.

Dirty Old Town. Dirty New City. I actually wrote an article which the local paper published using that title Dirty New City. I guess that would have been around 1975.

When I came to live in Bletchley there was nothing to Milton Keynes beyond a few ideas on a piece of paper. That was what The Milton Keynes Development Corporation called its Strategic Plan.

There really can be no doubt now looking back that The Milton Keynes Development Corporation did an absolutely amazing job but in the 1970 it was not held in high esteem. People went to work without wearing ties !  Yes they did, well the men did. Unheard of. male and female employees alike went to work in jeans. How could you build a new city wearing jeans and not wearing a tie ?  Far too casual.

Why Milton Keynes ? Some said it was from John Milton the poet and John Maynard Keynes the economist but no, the name was taken from a small village within what was called the designated area for the new city. In my last year at teacher training college we students were given a community project to set up a new youth club for the then village of Milton Keynes. The village was in the middle of nowhere, well most places in the designate area were back then. The person who was to be the youth club leader once we had it set up was the wife of Milton Keynes Development Corporation's ecologist. We students were quite amazed that such a post existed, today Milton Keynes could do with one hundred ecologists. Another member of the team was a former farmer. He was not a fan of Milton Keynes Development Corporation which had compulsory purchased his farm. He certainly regarded Milton Keynes as The Dirty New City. He was speaking metaphorically

Speaking literally Milton Keynes was a dirty new city. It was like living on a giant building site. New roads were being set down to establish the grid system. New estates in the south were being built, estates like Tinkers Bridge, Netherfield and Bean Hill. In the north there was Galley Hill. Eventually they would meet in the middle but that was still a long way off.  I say that I came to live in Bletchley from Birmingham but strictly speaking that is not correct, I lived and grew up in The Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield which has since been swallowed up into Birmingham. The ground, the soil in Birmingham is very different to Milton Keynes, it will absorb water. Milton Keynes is built on the Oxford clay belt. It was that clay which was used at London Brick in its kilns to make bricks. Bricks to build homes not just in the new city but all over the country.

I did not drive a car at the time but people were constantly complaining that they were forever having to wash their cars. You could not walk anywhere near a new road or any construction without getting your shoes and trousers covered in mud. Perhaps that is why staff at Milton Keynes Development Corporation worse jeans !

Dirty Old Town, Dirty New City ?  Well we are not now a new city, we are not a city but we are a dirty old town. Actually scruffy would be a better word.  Milton Keynes Scruffy Old Town !  The mud from the building and construction has gone but..... It angers me so much to see the unacceptable levels of litter which decorate our old town.     Why is this happening ?  The bin men of Milton Keynes are in my opinion the hardest working employees of Milton Keynes Council, if everyone worked as hard as they do Milton Keynes would be Utopia. Just because the City of Milton Keynes became a dream that is not an excuse to make Milton Keynes into a dirty old town.

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter One

WHAT IS THAT SMELL !

Today the whole world knows about Bletchley but to the world Milton Keynes is something of an enigma.

In 1970 Bletchley was a railway station you passed through on the train. Not many trains stopped on the way from Birmingham New Street to London Euston and those trains which did stop had few passengers get off. 

Bletchley ?  Where was Bletchley ? Milton Keynes, however, was something, somewhere some people thought they had heard of.  There were new towns giving homes to the expanding post-war population but Milton Keynes was going to be a new city.  Today Milton Keynes is the city that never was while Bletchley is world famous.

Bletchley 1970, nobody had heard of Bletchley Park but as I got on the train in Birmingham that was where I was heading. Today I am a proud member of West Bletchey Council which includes Bletchley Park  but that day I was a young man hoping beyond hope that I was going to become a student teacher at Milton Keynes College of Education in Bletchley Park.

It hadn't been raining when I left Birmingham but on arrival at Bletchley it was drizzling. With my heart pounding and hoping so much that I would pass the interview to be offered a place at Milton Keynes College of Education I left the train. Leaving the station I had my first view of Bletchley, I looked across Sherwood Drive and tried to get my bearings on the map the college had sent me in the post. My five senses condensed into just one. What was that smell ?  NO, what was that evil stench ! 

Did I really want to attend lectures in this Bletchley wrapped in such a horrible air ?  What was it ?  Did I want to live in the halls of residence at Milton Keynes College of Education and breathe in what ever it was that stank so much ?  The problem was Milton Keynes College of Education was the only college application I had made. In 1970 if you wanted to be a school teacher you had to secure a place at a college of education where you spent three years training to do the job. You had to pass yearly exams and more important pass three teaching practices, fail one and that was the end. These days it is different, a would be teacher has to gain a degree in a chosen  subject then stay on to pass a post graduate certificate in education.

Leaving the station the rain increased, the map I was trying to follow was sodden. So was I. On arrival at Milton Keynes College of Education the Registrar took my suit jacket and draped it over the radiator in her office, at least I was not so much a drowned rat for my interview with Principal Doctor Garwood.

The Registrar of Milton Keynes College of Education in Bletchley Park explained to me that what I could smell was the smoke from the kilns at near by London Brick Company. Because it was raining the clouds and the rain were forcing the smell to the ground. On sunny days the smell was still there but not so strong and and besides I would get used to it. Would I ?  When smog covered Birmingham I did not get used to it, I put up with it. Smog in Birmingham did not come every day of the year just now and then, apparently this sulphur smell from The London Brick Company at one level or another was ever present. If I was offered a place at Milton Keynes College of Education I would just have to put up with it.

As I left to walk back in the rain to Bletchley station the Registrar hinted that I should not worry, I would be offered  a place at Milton Keynes College of Education. She did not say anything more about Bletchley's unique smell.

I was indeed offered a place at Milton Keynes College of Education. For three years I lived in Bletchley Park and became a Bletchley Man. I have tried to remember the postal address of my new home:  Middle Hall  MKCE  Bletchley Park  Bletchley  Buckinghamshire I am sure the post code was BL something or other. It was not MK - Milton Keynes.

In this book I will recall my memories of the new city of Milton Keynes, of the history I lived through and the legends that fascinate me but I am not a Milton Keynes man, I am a Bletchley man.  I have lived in Bletchley since that time all those decades ago when I came to Bletchley Park, I am a member of West Bletchley Council which includes Bletchley Park. Milton Keynes was indeed built but it was never awarded city status, it is just a borough, The City of Milton Keynes is a fading dream. Sadly The London Brick Company is long gone, I will talk more about it in another chapter, and with it Bletchley's unique smell aka stench. Milton Keynes as a new city has become an enigma while Bletchley has international fame. How fortunate I was the day I got on that train from Birmingham New Street to Bletchley the Home of The Codebreaketrs.

Conspiracy Of Failure

THURSDAY 27th MAY 2020

Today I really wanted to write something other than the failure of Boris Johnson to lead out nation and of of Dominic Cummings thinking he can manipulate the head of government to blindly support him.

As my regular readers will know I have tried, failed and become so frustrated with the media declining to support a major project celebrating four decades of love for our NHS. But the media is the media and the media will do what the media wants do so sod everyone else.

What right now is angering me more than anything else are the posts on facebook blindly following Boris Johnson, defending him without the writer engaging its brain.

The whole mess is a conspiracy of failure. 

Boris Johnson is a failing prime minister, he is failing to inspire our nation in this terrible time, he is failing to lead from the front. Dominic Cummings is failing to do the honourable thing. The media is the media and the media will do what the media wants to do. The whole thing is propped up  by boneheaded lemmings racing to jump off the cliff while Boris and his all controlling mate stand by and watch.

During lock down we have seen some beautiful people giving so much, our NHS of course but also our Posties, Bin Men, Supermarket Workers, Police and so many, many, many, many more. We have seen a potential for a leaders to transform our society into something truly special but Boris Johnson is not the man to do this. I doubt there is a politician anywhere who would like to, who would want to and has the ability to achieve this.

Boris Johnson is  not going to resign, no way will he give up his ego trip. Dominic Cummings has made his arrogant position very clear. The media will do what the media does. The lemmings will increase their pace to jump off the cliff. You and me ?  We will continue to be an irrelevance in this conspiracy of failure.

Boris Johnson GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER !

WEDNESDAY 26th MAY 2020

Boris Johnson GET YOUR FAILING ACT TOGETHER !  

Boris Johnson GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER - GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER AND START SHOWING SOME LEADERSHIP - START SHOWING SOME LEADERSHIP FOR THE PEOPLE OF OUR NATION !

PEOPLE - ah - there lays the problem.

Let me quote Abraham Lincoln: government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

PEOPLE !  You do not know what people are do you ?  So many times I have written that conservative politicians do not understand at the end of their policies are people. The way you are behaving is crystal clear proof of that statement.  I am a member of the people, I am a REAL person. Do you care about me ?

Before all this controversy surrounding Rasputin aka Dominic Whateverhisnameis day after day after day you have FAILED to lead from the front, you have FAILED to inspire the PEOPLE.  Day after day after day you have failed to lead the Downing Street briefing yet when your little mate gets into trouble there you are TWO days running. Obviously Rasputin is more important that PEOPLE - ah you don't know what a person is do you ?

Dominic Rasputin Cummings, let me put two basic and obvious questions you, questions which have not occurred to the entire media community. To both questions please answer YES or NO.

1. DOES YOUR WIFE DRIVE ?

2. ARE YOU AWARE IT IS ILLEGAL TO DRIVE FOR ANY DISTANCE AT ALL IF YOU CAN NOT SEE PROPERLY ?

Boris have you asked your little mate these questions ?

Now I want to ask a few things ?

1. Was it acceptable for Dominic Cummings last night to steadfastly refuse to apologise to the country ?

2. Was it acceptable for Dominic Cummings to steadfastly say he did not regret what he did ?

2. So wind the clock back and would Dominic Cummings do the same ahain ?  If he says NO then why is he not regretting what he did and why will he not apologise ?

Boris Johnson GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, open your eyes and understand there are REAL people here who need your leadership. SACK Dominic Cummings, he is paid THREE times the average national wage so I am sure he will receive an obscene pay off.

BORIS JOHNSON GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER !  NOW !

Moral criminal

MONDAY 25th MAY 2020

On yesterday's page I debated bringing this blog to an end, to publish what I have so far written then sit back an watch nobody buy the book.

As you can see I am back. I have not gone away !

Politicians are a lower form of life !  Have I not said that so many times in my writing ?  Yesterday Boris Johnson showed just how low a politician can sink !

For the first time since they started I missed yesterday's Downing Street briefing.  NO I DID NOT MISS IT - I DID NOT WATCH IT !

Boris Johnson has been in hiding for weeks, he has failed to show leadership, he has failed to engage with the public. Yesterday, however, he did attend the briefing - I deliberately do not say LEAD - the briefing, he only attended. He came to defend a moral criminal. How anyone can defend that Cummings man beggars belief. If the man had any morality about him he would have resigned.  Debating the rights and wrongs of his past actions in travelling hundreds of miles from London is not what this is all about, what he did has distressed the public so much quite simply he just has to go. Clinging on against public opinion is a danger. Then for a failing prime minister to come out of hiding in order to defend him is so unbelievable.

It make me wonder who is in charge. Is it Boris Failing Prime Minister or is he just a puppet for the Moral Criminal Advisor to pull his strings.

We are at a horrible point in the history of mankind and now this happens. It just goes to prove beyond any doubt what I have said so many times, that politicians are lower life forms.  The conservative party fails to understand that there are real people at the end of its  policies. The labour party knows perfectly well that there are real people but thinks we only exist for them to play politics with. The actions of Boris Johnson and his failed leadership demonstrate beyond question what I have said to be right.

I will publish this blog on-line and add the text to my book which one day will be published. But right now...........  Will anyone read what I have today said ? I would like it to go viral and help call Cummings and Johnson to account, both failing in their duty to the likes of you and me. Both moral criminals. BOTH SHOULD RESIGN no BOTH MUST RESIGN.

Why ?

SUNDAY 24th MAY 2020

So here I am again writing a page to give future generations an insight into a world facing a man-made pandemic. Why am I doing this ?  I have been publishing my daily thoughts on a blog which on a good day will have a readership measured in teens and only teens ?  Why bother ?

When I say man-man referring to the pandemic mystery surrounds the truth but for certain it was the lifestyle and actions of man that set things going. It was the lifestyle of mankind that spread the disease all round the world and it was the lifestyle of man that enabled it to bed deeply into our society and lives, not just the germs but the attitude they have created.

We have on Planet Earth two forms of life. We have the birds, the insects, fish, mammals and even humans. We then have germs. From time immemorial these two life forms have been at war. The germs attack and we defend.  Stop and think for a moment, it is mainly the humans the germs attack.  Other life forms are not immune to illness but a pandemic attacks humans.

We are not in 2020 seeing the death rates of The Black Death or Influenza in the early decades of the twentieth century but we are seeing situations not known before. My early pages in writing this diary were full of optimism and celebration of those on the front line. Now I could not be feeling more negative no matter what happens.

From a man who most people anticipated would be the greatest prime minister our country has ever had he has turned out to be the biggest failure our worst nightmares could have conceived. Failure is the norm was the way our society was run, I hoped we would move to failure is not an option but the truth is we now have failure is the only way. So many are using the pandemic as an excuse for their failure.

How will this all end ?  When will it all end ?  Why bother ?

In writing this diary I had originally intended to publish it on Amazon once everything was all over. Then I thought I would perhaps publish an interim edition covering the first one hundred days. Today is page fifty-eight. What should I do ? I am wondering if I should just publish it now and stop writing. Nobody will read it of course. I am not writing for people to read today, I am writing for historians in the future. Wouldn't it be a good thing if Microsoft, computers, damn sill smart phones and the internet do not exist in the future. Perhaps I should bury a printed copy in a time capsule for future generations.

Since I started I have written thirty-four thousand words, Today I will read through every word and decide what to do.

Situations

I said yesterday that I was backing off until Monday 1st June from kicking the backsides of the media. Today I wan t to talk about SITUATIONS where we can bring Smiles but first I do need to talk about publicity and the media. Over the past 24 hours two significant things have happened.

Shearings Leisure Group has gone bust !

Shearings has names on all of its coaches, names celebrating the lives of many different people. Before doing this Shearings picked two people, Tom and Rebekah, to pilot the project.

Maureen and I spent a beautiful say at Shearings to christen Coach Rebekah. There is an entire chapter in Our Rebekah A Love Story From Our NHS dedicated to Coach Rebekah. Now we have lost that coach. The loss has hit me hard. Every time I saw a Shearings coach on the road I wondered if it was Coach Rebekah, If it was not then whose name was behind the love on that coach ?

I am going to give the story to the media and see if I can get some love and support from their failing position in our society.

Thames Valley Police intercepted a drug dealer on Oldbrook yesterday. They are calling him Deals On Wheels. I believe this is a dealer last summer the CEO of a major retailer and I first altered the police to the dealer's activities. I will not mention the retailer but it is big, very big and all of its branches are trading.  NO, I am not giving this story to the media but I intend to contact the CEO and ask if he will help promote, in Milton Keynes specifically, Our Rebekah A Love Story From Our NHS.

OK - that said can I give you a list of "Situations" where we could transplant Smiles. If we sell one million copies of  as Amazon say we should we can work within them all. If we can not then we have to decide what we can and what we can not do. PLEASE WILL YOU COMMENT ON FACEBOOK ABOUT WHICH PROJECTS YOU THINK WE SHOULD PRIORITISE AND WHICH WE SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO THINK ABOUT.

So what have we got ?

• SMILE CARDS - Patients in hospital - NHS Staff - Care homes - OPERATIONAL.
• PROJECT RONALD - Sending cards of love top families with a child sick ion  hospital, families staying in Ronald McDonald Houses - OPERATIONAL
• BLOOD AND ORGAN DONATION - while still promoting the practical projects are on-hold. ASAP we need to bring back TeenHeroMK and Melting Pot. However, we could quite easily launch SUPERHEROES4BLOOD - Cops4Blood which we were talking about before lock down - BinMen4Blood and Posties4Blood
• WEEKLY QUIZ - This is new, a weekly quiz for people in care homes, vulnerable people and anyone who wants a bit of fun. - OPERATIONAL
• PROJECT WOMBLE - this was something we were going to have operating using a community payback team to maintain the grounds by clearing the litter in University Hospital Milton Keynes. Unfortunately serious failings within the probation service messed this up big time. Prior to lock down we were talking with members of the government regarding its seriously failing justice system.
• PRISON REFORM TRUST - not specifically coming from the failure of the community payback organisers although it is a factor, we were alerted to failings by one former prisoner who was a regular guest at our weekly lunch of love and also we had a young man introduced to the lunch as a volunteer by the police/probation service.
• FOOD BANK - we have extensively promoted The Food Bank but were every Friday visiting one specific location taking gifts for the bonus table.
• HOMELESS ROUGH SLEEPERS - we have always supported homeless rough-sleepers. From November 2019 to lockdown we worked on a close individual basis with many friends at the Saturday lunch of love. There is more to ending rough sleeping than putting a roof over someones head and there is more to feeding a person than just putting food in their belly. We had so much happening and so many ideas for future activity, many ideas actually coming from guests themselves.
• DRUG WATCH MK - the way this developed was not the way originally intended but we were working with the police and schools, medical centres wanted to become involved and homeless rough-sleepers were helping. I became Chairman of Thames Valley Police's Community Forum and so much was on the agenda. While some projects are on hold some activities remain OPERATIONAL.
• SCHOOLS - I was part of Worktree but from this other projects, TeenHeroMK and drug support/awareness spun off.  Schools could become involved across many of our projects and there is much we could offer to schools.

So there we go. Over the coming week I will detail each area day by day but right now we need YOU to add your thoughts and comments.

Track And Trace

Saturday 23rd May 2020

Will this help locate Boris ?  As much as I want our failing prime minister to step up and start leading our nation from the front I will not be taking part !

I do not use and I refuse to use a "smart" phone.

A smart phone is a compensatory aid !  If you are hard of hearing you wear a hearing aid, if you can not see properly you wear glasses, if you break your leg you have a crutch to help you walk.  If you are STUPID you need a smart phone.  I bet every politicial uses TWO.  And they claim the costs back on expences.

I rest my case.

A Road Map Of Smiles

We have had some loving support from some beautiful people but in contrast EVERY group we have supported in the past failed to respond when we asked for their help !

The Milton Keynes Citizen was very kind to us and promised to help with projects we operate across the coming year. Now in our fourth year of Smiling.

MKFM has been a waste of space. Let's see how the station responds to the letter I sent yesterday.

I have fired off a series of letters twisting the arms of the media. I would like to suggest we hold back now from trying to engage the media's support and see what happens. Let's hold back until Monday 4th June and see if anybody gets back to us. Of course I may get a

dozen calls today in which case all of that changes.

Yesterday I had a video meeting with our council clerk. WOW I actually made it work. If any TV station wants to have me on a show I am ready and able to make the technology work.

Right now we have made £39.93 from our book OUR REBEKAH A LOVE STORY FROM THE NHS.  If the groups we have supported had supported us back we could have made more.  If the media finally shows heart then prepare for orbit.

Obviously SMILES will continue to be sent out with love every day. A reminder of our mission:

To achieve this we need SITUATIONS, PEOPLE & MONEY.

We have so many situations needing our love and smiles, more than we can possibly

manage. However, I would quote: YOU CAN NOT BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYBODY BUT THAT DOES NOT STOP YOU TRYING.

Pre lock down we had THREE people actively on the ground doing things. We had 91 members of our on-line Sunshine Smile Crew but that has slipped to 90.

MONEY - since we started I have insisted that money to fund what we do comes from my pockets. I do not think it is right to take a single penny from any cause we support. However, my pockets are just not deep enough. That is why I want to generate income to my pockets from my books. The income is taxed so it is quite legitimate for me to do what I like with it, to give it to any project or person I want.

Some have said instead of being a support group we should become a charity in our own right. The red tape we would have to negotiate a path through would detract from what we need to spend our time and love on.

Between now and Monday 4th June I would like to share each day SITUATIONS where our SMILES would celebrate lives - mend broken lives - save lives. Of course if the national media hit me today that could change. TOGETHER we can then build a road map of

SMILES for the rest of the year. I am NOT saying post lock down because we are ALREADY putting SMILES on so many faces every day.

I am blaming myself, RIGHTLY, for the fact that I have failed to get the media on board, that I have failed to get ten thousand members into our facebook group, that I have failed to get support from the groups we support. But....

That does not mean I am not going to keep trying.

AND

It does not mean I am not going to celebrate so much the beautiful people who got behind OUR REBEKAH A LOVE STORY FROM THE NHS

There are TWO other books which are Rebekah's.

This is a photograph of an original text for a story I wrote for Beck when she was a child.

Now on Amazon THE WILD ADVENTURES OF DI CENTRAL EATING will cost you 99p to download of which 74p we can use to make people SMILE.

This picture is of Beck taken around the time I wrote that book.

A second, or should that be a third, book for Beck is THE BRIDGE HOUSE. That will cost you £1.49 to download of which we get £1.19 to help make people SMILE.

The Bridge House, I believe, is my best piece of work. The Wild Adventures Of Di Central Eating is my second best work.

OK, I'll stop writing now and wait for the BBC, ITV News and The Sun to call me. Not sure if the editors at MKFM know how to use a phone. Tomorrow and each day up to Monday 4th June I will share SITUATIONS, PEOPLE & MONEY seeking your help to make a ROAD MAP OF SMILES.

Have a great day.

Road Map To Disaster

FRIDAY 22nd May 2020

If you have stumbled across this blog page let me explain.

Shortly after lock down I started writing a daily diary explaining my feelings. My intention was to publish it on Amazon once the pandemic was over.  I then thought I would publish it once I had written one hundred editions I thought I could publish qs ESCAPE FROM ARMAGEDDON THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED DAYS. Today is fifty-six and I am think about giving up. 

In the early days I kept saying that where FAILURE IS THE NORM was everyday life once we came out of the pandemic this needed to change to FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.  If you are alive today, Friday  22nd May 2020 you will know what is like to live in failure.

On earlier pages I praised our government and prime minister. How naive was I ?  It is difficult right now to understand greater failure.

Armageddon ? The end of the world. I think we probably will escape Armageddon in this form, escape with so many more unnecessary deaths but escape we will.  We can then go back to the former plot to destroy our world. Global Warming.

I have been writing across pasty pages explaining the abundance of wildlife in my own garden. As I write now I am watching robins, blue tit, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, starlings and more enjoy their breakfasts.  Once the government steers us back on track we will lose this beauty.

Have we not learned, and I quote from Milton Keynes where I live, that we can live without the climate cowboys of The Centre MK and Xscape ?  Why do we need McDonald's, Burger King and KFC - Kill Frightened Chickens ?  Why do we need to drive hundreds of miles for no other reason than to drive hundreds of miles ? That's easy - the government needs to rip us off with fuel duty ? Why do we need any of these things ?  Again that's an easy question to answer - we need to destroy our planet as quickly as we can. No way can we be allowed to ESCAPE ARMAGEDDON.

Oh what a beautiful morning

THURSDAY 21st MAY 2020

The very first track I ever played on Radio CRMK was Cat Stevens Morning Has broken.

I awoke this morning at 3.54am to the beautiful sound of the dawn chorus. I slipped back to sleep only to be awoken at 5am as the multitude of birds who live in my garden were demanding their breakfast.

Out into the garden to fill the three bird tables.

It was then time to take Doggie Jake for his morning walk.

Part of our morning excursion is always to visit this particular post box and send out the morning mail. EVERY DAY I am sending between two and three hundred cards of love to NHS staff up and down the country and to families with a child sick in hospital.  Weekly fun quiz sheets are being sent to residents in care homes and to our local police officers. 

Yesterday we did not sell a single e-book download for OUR REBEKAH A STORY OF LOVE FROM OUR NHS - I am useless at promoting things ! But I am going to try a few things today.

The SUNshine Smile Crew - Rebekah was Little Miss SUNshine... SUN Newspaper.  Let's see if this cracks things.

Two hospitals on my doings list today for cards of love are Great Ormond Street Hospital and Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool.

I have a special memory of Alder Hey. About twenty-five years ago a family came to England from Eastern Europe. They had a visa to obtain a diagnosis for their son. He had cancer. 

Alder Hey treated him but the treatment was running up huge bills the family could not possibly pay. The hospital would not stop treatment but it was in a difficult situation, spending public money it should not but how could it deny treatment to this little boy ?  I was asked to help.

I wrote to Tony Blair who was then prime minister. Within a week he replied saying there

was nothing he could do. BUT Alistair Campbell leaked my letter to The Daily Mail from which an anonymous donor paid all the hospital bills. RESULT ! Sadly the little boy died and the family went home without him.

If I could get the prime minister of Great Britain to do this then why am I so utterly useless at promoting OUR REBEKAH A STORY OF LOVE FROM OUR NHS ?

What is bugging me big time is that not only am I failing promote the book but I am failing to inspire others to do so.

Thirty-four beautiful friends have given their love and support but I just keep failing to engage with a wider circle.

This appeared in my e-mail inbox first thing this morning.

GREAT but the sum involved should be at least 100 times greater. We could spent ten thousand times that sum outworking our mission.

Now in our FOURTH year of operation we are not some Johnny-come-lately operation.

Since I first played Cat Stevens on Radio CRMK I have broadcast 304 show,s that's about

TEN THOUSAND TRACKS.  Sadly the radio studio is closed due to the pandemic. I can't wait to get back. I need to get back. Broadcasting FIVE shows a week I have been preparing playlists for my eventual return. I have three weeks - 15 shows written, and am now working on week 4. That track will be the opening tune for Monday morning.

On my doings list for this morning I plan to wear my GERIATRIC DJ HEADPHONES and attack Radio Boring challenging them to help promote OUR REBEKAH A STORY OF LOVE FROM OUR NHS ?

My radio broadcasts are NOT boring..................

In actual fact they can be quite ridiculous ! Radio Boring cop a load of this !

I need to get back to the microphone to play music, to share the podcasts with the people I am posting cards, quiz sheets and SMILES  to every day.

One more piece of music then I need to get to work writing today's letters and cards. One will be to a special address in Milton Keynes - something for all our amazing Posties who are going the extra mile to deliver all of our letters !