2496 days ago
We have not really fallen out but I have had to rebuke the old man sternly. I am staying with him in Shipston to start recording his memoirs which are actually really very interesting, not so much the later life but the years 1938 to 1956. I am not sure what I will do with the recordings but they are part of my family history but also an interesting insight into the war years in so many ways. We have hanged British Nazis, my grandfather, Sir John Winnifrith, in Churchill's bunker, evacuation with the nanny, Mrs No Cow and much more to preserve for posterity.
2796 days ago
My father spent the night in hospital awaiting his operation later today. I head to Warwick later this morning to have a chat before he goes into surgery. Last night he kept himself amused reading a biography of Ted Heath that he had discovered on the ward. Poor Dad: has he not suffered enough? That left me alone in his house here in Shipston with only his cat Obe for company.
2883 days ago
Peter Tatchell has the odd whacky old view but surely no-one can doubt his heroic work as a civil liberties campaigner over many years. many of his bones have been broken as he put his body on the line for his beliefs and, for me at least, he is one of the great heros of our age. Tatch has been offered a new year's gong several times but as a man of rigid principle he has refused on exactly the same grounds as I would refuse in the, exceedingly unlikely, event that I was offered a gong.