|
||||
|
So what happened? Why am I telling you a sad tale, even though it may well have a happy ending? Because I am feeling rather stupid. For goodness sake, I am old enough to know better. I said the same thing to myself last year, when I neglected to tie the ladder to the garage door and it slipped when I was at its top, taking me down with it very quickly onto the hard driveway. Then I was fortunate enough not to have broken anything, only ripping a couple of square inches of skin off a knee and bruising said knee very badly, which took several weeks to return to normal. At least it did; I suppose the most embarrassing matter to come out of it was when the nurse at the doctor's surgery looked at my life history on her computer and said "Your are old enough to know better than to be climbing ladders at your age?" So now what happened? Having spent last summer painting the outside of the house, the garden was totally neglected and when Autumn came I was in no mood for further physical work, so what grew last year is still on view: dead and scruffy. Right! I thought, now that Spring has sprung at last, get to it, so I looked at a dead elderberry tree covered in ivy and decided to cut it down. Not worth hiring a man to do the job, the trunk was only about eight inches diameter and my frame saw would deal with that, once I had cut through the ivy holding it up, with seceturs. Easy, it was, until I discovered after I had cut through the first that there were two main trunks No matter, I'll do it in two bites, but first take down the cut trunk which was held up by remaining ivy. There was a strong frond hanging clear from the top of the twenty-foot branches, so I stepped back, pulled it hard and with a crack the whole damn tree fell across me before I could get out of the way. There I was, lying face down on the weedy ground with the trunk across my back. I crawled clear with slow painful motions and limped to my next-door neighbours for help (she is a trained nurse). They were great, massaging Arnica into my back, giving me tea and sympathy, so I was able to return home and take a pain-killing tablet left over from last summer. I slept well, but my back is still giving me gyp. Remember the American advice: "G A M I": Get a Man In. To mark the end of Jim Mulvey's year of office as Chairman, as usual we invited to our March meeting representatives from the year's charity to come and collect their cheque and to tell us something of how their work. So Chairman Peter Babler of the Old Coulsdon Centre for the Retired and Iris Holah, their Coordinator arrived for lunch and to accept our cheque for £741.94, some£200 more than we usually raise. Not only that, but our new Chairman Malcolm Roscoe-Pond has decided that the Centre will get our help for the coming year, too, the first time we have gone on to support one charity for a second year running. Thanking us, Peter told us something of the Centre's history. Located on Grange Park, right beside a bus stop and just across the road from the local shops in Old Coulsdon, the building was opened in 1984 to provide a meeting place for local retired folk, where they could see friends and make new ones, exercise their brains and have lunch, all in warm, comfortable surroundings, away from the outside world with no problems about getting there and home again by the Centre's own minibus. Fashion shows (most visitors are ladies), bingo, snooker and board games are regular arrangements; parties, too - the next to celebrate St. George's Day with a slap-up lunch - and visits to places of interest in summer. Owing to the success of the Centre in attracting custom, plans are being laid to extend the facilities by building on an extra wing. [Just a thought: Let us hope that this will mean the Council having to knock down that awful cricket pavilion (not used) and public toilet block (unusable)- Ed.] This all costs money, as do the three modestly-paid staff members who prepare meals and make tea and look after everyone. Croydon Council is the largest financial contributor, as well they might be since the Centre's operations save them - and the Health Service - thousands, but the Council's support is less than half the income the Centre needs, so hiring out their room to local clubs and folks like us, Residents' Associations and and the like, make up the rest. The Centre is a registered Charity, so giving can be increased by 28% through Gift Aid declarations. Well worth supporting and Iris was the best visual display Peter could have brought along with him.
The March meeting was also the occasion for our AGM, which this year introduced some changes, both in Officers and in the Constitution. Our outgoing Chairman Jim Mulvey was given a prolonged round of applause for his active holding of the job. He will be a hard act to follow, but with Malcolm Ruscoe-Pond being installed in his place, we need have no worries on that score. Malcolm therefore having had to give up being Treasurer, we have an excellent replacement in Roger Davis, who has been seen practising a couple of times recently. Dennis Evans continues as Secretary and, bless him, Reg Baker will continue to shoulder the toughest job of the lot, satisfying our appetites as Luncheon Secretary. Peter Barker will continue to organise PACE drivers. Outside the Committee, Harry Cundell remains as haberdasher or Club ties and badges and lan Scales will go on producing the Newsletter. Phil Munson will be moving away shortly and we are going to miss his splendid work organising Speakers, a continuing and onerous job if ever there was one. Meanwhile we are organised until November, but must have a volunteer well before then. Phil also has been undertaking the organisation of Outings and, indeed the Trade and Services Directory which has proved very useful. That's three gaps to fill. The position of Vice Chairman, usually implying being the next Chairman, was not put to a vote at the AGM but someone will be invited to do the job by the Committee. We are not short of members, with 60 currently on the books, but we really should do more to develop the fellowship that follows being a Probean, said Malcolm in his inaugural address. We must also start thinking seriously about celebrating our 40th. anniversary in April 2008. Yes, it is two years away but time slips past so quickly that plans must at least be discussed from now on. Keeping the members in touch with future plans is important if we are to encourage new - and current - members informed and enthusiastic, so changes in the layout of the Newsletter be tried. Your Editor cannot do this unless members keep him informed; his crystal ball was never any good, so don't assume automatically that he has heard, but tell him. He will find out more if necessary. Leo Hermes has been having a rough time of it for the past couple of years looking after his wife Barbara in their home. Then a couple of weeks ago he had a heart attack and was rushed into Mayday hospital. Barbara was moved to a nursing home in Purley where Leo has now joined her. John Morgan, who had a heart bypass three years ago, collapsed when starting out on a walk a couple of weeks ago. He was rushed to Mayday and into intensive care where he recovered eventually so that now he is in a convalescence home in Rustington, expecting to be back home in a couple of weeks. During the thirties we lived in a rented cottage in a remote Cornish village. There was no electric light or power, no water supply and no indoor sanitation. The village school was one room in which there were literally six Forms. Each Form was a long bench on which we sat and as we grew older we 'moved up' to the next Form. We had no books, pens or pencils and our written work was done in chalk on slates. To 'turn the page' we simply wiped the slate clean. There were no cars and we walked along the quiet lanes to and fromschool. Our supper was often rabbit stew and one of my abilities was to help my father bring home the rabbits. He had a double barrelled 12-bore shot gun and my job was to run and fetch the victims, which were sometimes alive and struggling after being shot. Having to break their necks was a dreadful ordeal. My mother was an expert in skinning and gutting them and the next day we could look forward to a good supper. Our milk was fresh from the cows next door at the farm and I would be sent to collect it in a gallon can at the cost of a few pence. Collecting water from the village well was another of my jobs, in two buckets suspended from a yoke. Monday was wash day. Mother would be up early to light the fire under the big copper in which the clothes were boiled. It took all day, another of my jobs being to turn the handle of the cast iron mangle with wooden rollers to squeeze out the water. All then had to be hung out to dry. We kept chickens and were never short of fresh eggs or chicken meat. Surplus eggs were placed on the wall beside the lane from where villagers would take them, leaving threepence for a dozen. Haymaking was a happy time when we would help in stacking the hay-wain until it was ten feet high. It was great fun standing on top catching the bundles thrown up by the men below. We had freedom beyond the dreams of today's urban children, roaming the lanes, meadows and woods all around us and playing fascinating games of make-believe. Mother would say "be back by tea-time" and that was our one constraint. The village butcher slaughtered the cattle from nearby farms and our cottage was opposite the slaughter house. We children would gather to watch the weekly event, done in an open yard with a stone floor into which was set a ringbolt. The animal's halter was fed through this ringbolt and two strong men would pull the victim's head down to the floor. A man with a poleaxe then split the head in two with a mighty blow. The next hour saw an appalling mess of blood, bones and guts. The bladder was removed, cleaned and blown up and tossed to us as a football The thought of it turns my stomach. I shall never forget the screams of shot rabbits nor the look of sheer error in the eyes of the animal being slaughtered. After seventy years I still marvel at getting light at the flick of a switch, of hot bath water at the turn of a tap and of riding in a comfortable cart pulled by fifty horses. Times have changed in seventy years in ways that need to be recalled as Tony has. Write down your own childhood memories; they will get a good airing through the Newsfetter. - Ed.
Produced and edited monthly by Ian Scales (01737 553704)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||