Here is the View from the Hill for Saturday 25th July.

Preparing to rush off to the airport, celebrities be warned, Drew is about to fly! I noticed that I have already finished off John Ryan the creator of Captain Pugwash!

All my bags are packed; I’m ready to go…I’m leaving on a jet plane.

Having to give our selves plenty of time because of the motor cycle farce at Donington Park and the Country Fair at Belvoir, the roads will be horrendous.

Anyway hopefully we will arrive at the airport, check in and find somewhere quiet to sit and watch the others gathering for their own flights, I love people watching. The British traveller is a strange animal, we wear such funny clothes to travel in and we take so much rubbish with us as if our destination is a place without shops.

We know of people who take frozen bacon and cheese, even tins of beans with them because the foreign muck isn’t worth eating! Well why go then? Stay at home and go on a tour of transport cafes and greasy spoons.

Of course, tensions will be running high, stress levels increased and there is bound to be an argument or two, but enough of me and Mrs. B, back to the rest of the travellers.

It’s the mad rush to get to the plane that makes me smile, they all forget that their seats are reserved and have to be on the plane first for some reason, then granny can’t keep up or junior is crying because, well because he can, and you find yourself thinking, hope he’s not sitting near us!

My plan for this flight is to keep my head down, sit in my seat, disinfect anything within reach and the only thing we shall trouble the steward or stewardess for will be our usual flight treat of a Kit Kat and a bottle of red wine. What more could you ask for?

I have Harry Potter to read and I’m sure the journey will fly by (a little pun there).

Then we will step out into the 40 degree heat of Menorca and watch the British tourists struggling with their cases and their overcoats and we must remember that these are the same people who will return to England wearing shorts and Tee shirt and find it pissing down with rain.

Anyway, better go now, last minute check list to complete, passports etc.

Speak to you tomorrow with my first view from the pool.

Time for another View picture I feel.

The View from the Hill for Friday 24th July, Happy Birthday Richard.

I am a little demob happy, ready for my holiday, but I take electronic pen in hand to bring you a childhood memory.

Do you remember The Singing Ringing Tree, or Robinson Crusoe…school holidays are starting and when I was younger that meant weekday mornings you got to watch Belle and Sebastian, The White Horses, The Flashing Blade (You’ve got to fight for what you want, for all that you believe) or the previously mentioned shows and we never saw the full series because we ended up going back to school! Did Robinson Crusoe ever get rescued? And what about Dick? Why did he call his dog Dick??

The Singing Ringing Tree was scary, but we loved it. Evil dwarf, giant fish, a Prince turned into a bear, a selfish Princess, a very straightforward Fairy story.

Casey Jones, steaming and a rolling…when you hear the tooting of the whistle, its Casey at the throttle of the cannonball express.

Champion the Wonder Horse…like a streak of lighting flashing cross the sky, and Rebel the Dog.

Marine Boy…with his oxygum, the first decent Japanese cartoon series long before Pokemon.

The Double Deckers…I seem to recall Melvyn Hayes was in that as well as Peter Firth and Brinsley Forde.

Herge’s Adventures of Tin Tin – with Snowy the dog and Captain Haddock, not forgetting the Thompson Twins.

Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo…what’s that Skippy, someone’s fallen down the well!

Added to all of these extras we still had Watch with Mother, The Wooden Tops right through to Pogles Wood and The Herbs (I’m a very friendly Lion called Parsley).

We didn’t have multi channel viewing, we got the same programmes every holiday but it didn’t seem to matter, neither did it matter that the majority of them were dubbed and came from France or Holland or Germany.

Now it’s Hannah Montana and Ben 10 from dawn to dusk and loads of channels just for children and they still get bored!

I know I sound like a miserable old bugger but do they really know how lucky they are?

Going to pack my suitcase now (well watch Mrs B pack it actually) preparing for our visit over seas. Just like Royalty…get the gin and Dubonnet ready Menorca!

The View from the Hill on Thursday 23rd July

I thought after two days of rather down beat posts that today should be more uplifting, a smile or two (hopefully). Nothing over the top though, a gentle reminisce.

Post Offices….not a place you would immediately think about as being somewhere to make you smile, especially considering the bloody queues! I have some fond memories of Post Offices so I though I might share a couple today.

About a year ago, I was standing in line at our local main Post Office, (cashier number two please) there were about 15 or so people in front of me, moving quite slowly, (cashier number eight please) and outside it was raining quite heavily. (Cashier number four please) At this point out of the rain and through the door came a large lady on a mobility scooter, she was going quite fast (cashier number… oh bugger it you get the picture) in fact too fast and she ran straight through the line of people, gathering with her the tapes and bollards that formed the queuing lane and ended up crashed into the front of cashier number one please.

As people pulled themselves together, we were amazed to see this very large lady plant one foot either side of her crashed buggy, stand up straddling the device, she then physically lifted it around and dropped it again! She never said a word. Just waited her turn and drove off again. I think after seeing her lift the buggy no one dared argue with her. The disabled can be ferocious you know!

A large lady in a Post Office reminds me of my childhood, in our local village Post Office we were always greeted by Audrey. She was very nice, this very large lady with her grey hair tied back and big brown glasses,she looked like a fat owl. And then there was the smell,I can even smell it now as I picture her sat behind her counter, I believe it was the smell of postal orders and urine. And in the back room, the disembodied voice of her mother, who you never saw, you just heard. In fact, she didn’t even have a name, she was just known by everyone as mother. Audrey was always happy to see you, always had a smile and always had a bag of those little violet flavoured sweets to tempt you with.I suppose that would mark her out as a paedophile today, but to us she was just Audrey.

Of course we didn’t have queues in those days; you just wandered in and got served, got all the gossip and then left four hours later, because gossip was important in a village, you know, who was doing what to who and how often.

I remember that you never saw Audrey standing up; I had visions of her being a sort of amalgam - top half very fat lady, bottom half stool.

These days she would be the target for ridicule, you can imagine the cruel jibes she would get from local kids but not back then, she was respected and she was well liked and the fact that she weighed two tonnes and smelled was irrelevant.

There we go… a backwards glance at happier days, simpler days in many ways. Final day of work before we pack our bags and head off to the sun.

The View from the Hill for Wednesday 22nd July.

Today’s View is tinged with sadness and although it’s only Wednesday it already feels like a long week. I’m very grateful for some of the comments that are being fed back to me about my blog and I am aware that some of my readers are not having the easiest of weeks.

There are things happening that I can’t talk about in specific terms but they really make you think that life is so cruel and yet other things happen that remind you that life can be so wonderful. The swing from one to the other is awful though.

Actually one thing I will talk about is my friend Adam, I went to visit him at home yesterday, where he is now after being released from hospital. He has Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is a serious autoimmune disorder affecting the nervous system…he was basically paralysed for a while, in a coma. Luckily he seems to be making a good recovery. His baby nephew was staying over, like all new babies, totally adorable, and we had the whole debate about is it smiling or is it wind. This was a nice thing though, to see Adam making progress, to see the baby and being reminded about new life especially after the tragic news of a neighbour’s death on Saturday.

I then received a piece of news that made me feel sick to my stomach, as I say I can’t talk in specific terms but needless to say it is news that everyone will have heard by now and involves another soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Life and death, the more you think you have a handle on it, the more you realise you never do.

As I sit here at my computer, I will shortly be writing a funeral for a lady whose funeral will be held on the 67th anniversary of her birth. Her family is determined to celebrate her life and have a party afterwards. Many of the families I work with prove that the best answer to death is to throw your self back into life and as I have been reminded several times in the last 24 hours, we should celebrate life as much as we can, because none of us are promised a tomorrow - so make the most of today. As a certain brother in law of mine is always saying – life is not a rehearsal.

Too true!

That’s it for today; I really don’t know what else to say other than to share with you the philosophy of a young lady named Corinne whose funeral I conducted a few weeks ago – live now, sleep later.

The View from the Hill on Tuesday 21st July

I love my dogs. Here they are, Jake and Danny.

Like many pet owners, I dread the day when you have to make that heart breaking decision. Both of my dogs are getting on, (11 years in dog, 77 in human) and both are slowing down and Jake recently had to have an operation to remove a lump from under his shoulder. It was whilst returning to the vet to get his stitched removed that I was reminded of the torment that lies ahead.

In the surgery there was myself and Jake and then a young lad of about 18 or so and he was carrying a small terrier puppy. The puppy was there for his jabs. Unfortunately one of the surgery’s examination rooms is directly off the waiting area and the thin walls mean you can pretty much hear all that is happening.

Myself and the young man exchanged pleasantries, he was fussing the little puppy on his lap whilst Jake tried in vain to manoeuvre towards the exit door. Then we heard the people in the exam room talking to the vet as they came in through a rear door, and it soon became apparent that it was bad news, their dog was to be put to sleep.

Euphemisms don’t make it any easier to deal with do they?

The vet then fetched the dog and although we couldn’t see it, you could hear the dogs tail swishing and hitting the exam room table, the tail was being wagged enthusiastically as if to signal, look dad, there’s still life in the old dog yet!

Then a man’s voice said, “well this is it fella” and gradually the swishing got less and less and finally stopped.

I was stroking Jake and trying hard not to get emotional and then I looked across at the young man and he was sobbing his eyes out and he said to me, “this is my first dog and I never thought I would love him so much and then you get this”. I knew exactly what he meant and how he felt.

A short while later the door to the exam room opened and a tearful couple left the surgery.

Jake had his stitches out and returned home and since then has been full of energy and playful as a puppy. It’s either canine senile dementia or his clear indication to me that he is not ready to hear those words, “well this is it fella”!

Last Night's View

The View from the Hill for Monday 20th July, the day after Tom Watson threw history out the window - silly old duffer.

Anyway, off on holiday next week and have to face up to one of the big fears in my life, the fear of flying…not because of mechanical failure and ending up spread across rural France but more the fear of the other people on the plane.

The swine flu for a start, how many ungrateful bastards will be carting their germ ridden arses on that plane, sneezing their death laden mucous into the shared air of the cabin? We have to try and avoid the virus at all costs so what to do? There are things you can buy that kill 99.9% of known germs but you have to recall that although you can buy germ killing hand gel, you can’t take it on the plane because of the terrorist threat!

The terrorists don’t need a liquid dispensing spray of death; they just need some idiot with swine flu and pay their fare to Barcelona.

And then there is DVT to worry about, well not so much for me as I’m swimming in aspirin, but even so, there is a real risk in wandering around the cabin, because it might bring you nearer the germs.

You can’t wear a face mask because you look like an idiot, only the Japanese seem to rise above the stupidity of the thing and wear them all the time. They are a canny people, they could have ruled the world but for the fact that is very hard to achieve world domination when people laugh at your face masks!

So if my name was Yakamoto, I could wear a mask and perhaps lessen the chance of swine flu, but I don’t look remotely Japanese, and I don’t like raw fish.

I will have to board the plane, using Tesco own brand surgical wipes to disinfect as I go along, sit in my seat and try not to breathe too much for the couple of hours I am on the plane, and trust to chance that for once my fellow passengers are all healthy. In other words, I’M DOOMED!

Well at least I will take some down with me, bound to kill a celebrity as I always do when I fly, and given half a chance, if I see any one who irritates me for being to ‘British tourist’, I will sneeze on them, they give us Brits abroad such a bad name.

Just to let you know that even though I will be risking my life in the name of relaxation, I will be sending The View from Pool reports every day, just to rub it in a little!

The View from the Hill for Sunday 19th July.

The death of Walter Cronkite inspires today’s View, a man who was described as the voice of America, the most trusted man in America, the model for all serious anchor men over the last 50 or more years.

His delivery of the news of the death of President Kennedy back in 1963, is one of those iconic moments in journalistic history, I suggest you watch the clip if you have never seen it.

The death of Kennedy itself a defining moment in US history, and it prompted the use of that question – the one we hear so often these days attributed to the deaths of lesser mortals, do you remember where you were and what you were doing when Kennedy died?

I was only 2, so I was probably no where important, and of course the one man we would want to answer that question more than any other, cannot answer it thanks to Jack Ruby.

I do remember where I was when the Space shuttle Challenger exploded 70 seconds after take off. It was January 28th 1986 and I was watching along with a group of other people outside Rumbelows shop window on Lincoln High Street. We all stood in shock. It certainly was a moment I shall never forget. Likewise the Bradford fire, I was sat in the front room of a house on Browning Drive in Lincoln, delivering a message to a family about their son, it was absolutely unbelievable watching the disaster unfold on that Saturday afternoon in May 1985, and John Helms commentary was chilling.

Two years later, I was at the airport on route to a skiing holiday as the Herald of Free Enterprise story played out on the news. I sat in my front room and watched the coverage of the second plane crashing into the towers on 9/11.

The day Roy Orbison died, the day Benny Hill died, the day Frankie Howerd died, the day Walter Matthau died, I was going on holiday on all of these days. (I am heading off next week, watch and see who I kill this time).

Of course, when Diana died, I was on my way back from Wales – some sort of symmetry there I suppose. I was leaving Wales as she was leaving the world.

Why is it that we seem able to recall where we were when bad things happened and it is harder to recall where we were on happier days?

Any way, back to Cronkite, and as he himself said so many times, (and) “that’s the way it is”.