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17 blog hits in the last few days...26 2 3

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One of these ladies my Finnish lady wife with red hair red scarf! From countries as wide apart as Vietnam (7), Bangladesh (1), Brazil (1), Pakistan (1), Senegal (1), the USA (1), Other (5). When normally I can go many days at a time without getting a single hit... So what was different to encourage my audience to get curious to read more from my on-line type-writer? Adorning my blogs with pics from the different homes i have inhabited perhaps one factor? Filling my blogs with home spun philosophy perhaps another? But today i'll tell you what i have been up to so far when you'll all get to decide whether it was just a one-off or whether it will keep your interest alive and keep re-visiting???? So this day began again with my walking the 1-2 km to our changing hut on the Baltic Sea shore in the south of Finland. Key to gain access: men to the left, women to the right inner doors. But like yesterday and Sunday the 1st Feb and 31st Jan before that today I was again the o...
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Two and three generations later..? 26 2 2

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So, back to the house into which I was born 26th Nov 1939. At 13 Thornleigh Road, Fallowfield, Manchester. This Sanderson Air-raid shelter we decamped to during many night times, as a family to escape Hitler's blitz of Manchester: until 1941 when our Dad volunteered to join the Royal Marines, when Jim my elder brother and I, together with our Mam, moved from his mother's house to the house in which our other grandmother resided in Bury, to the north of Manchester. After just getting off a video link up with Fabienne, our younger son's eldest daughter together with her son Hugo, almost 18 months old, such a joy for my wife and I getting to chat to our Granddaughter and Great Grandson..?
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Always an Empiricist 2026 2 2

When as a child in my 2nd class school, i.e. the local Junior Technical School, after the 1st class High and Grammar Schools, each of which required passes in the 11 plus examinations, the 3rd class being schools wherein none of the pupils got to pass these entry examinations, not even aged 13 getting into the local "Tech" Getting into the latter meant getting on the first rung of the ladder marked "Get yourself a trade in your hands young man!" One stream coaching one intake how to lay bricks for example, the more academically gifted (?) stream the one I was put into, in which we instead got the subjects Woodwork, Practical Drawing and Metalwork for example, 3 half days a week, with Mathematics, Science (embracing Chemistry and Physics), Geography, English and History taking care of the rest: no more Music nor French of the 3rd class school, coz getting a trade didn't require the humanity subjects so much. Since I went from sharing the bottom two places of m...
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Today's update of an illustration of my background... 26 1 31

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Born into this house, 13 Thornleigh Road, Fallowfield, Manchester 26th Nov., 1939                                         But then moving here on the 12th of May 1989 some 50 years later together with my wife of 23 year, A-E K child... First a view of our house we bought in 1988 from its northern aspect. Then from inside the living room looking East…                                           Lastly its southern aspect in the autumn collecting fallen leaves: a rather nice front piece for where I'm at today wouldn't you agree?
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Just so long as one gets to be read..? 2026 1 29

that is up-lifted I have to think: the compunctions of the blogger and his or her audience and readership!? No, what it has to do with for me is getting towards the top of my game at last. We start out in this life totally dependent on others: our mothers and fathers brothers and sisters...aged 3 I had the full set : my Mam who had just given birth to our kid sister, my elder brother by 16 months, blazing the new trails and our Dad, a Royal Marine Commando no less, albeit someone who most of his early time in the forces was building army huts for the Wrens who were to woman the listening posts on Scotland's Western Isles seaboard facing the Atlantic Ocean, hoping to track Adolf Hitler's U-boats. Later he would ship out to Oz en route to Japan to do whatever was required of him in the Japanese theatre of war, only he didn't make it alive. Then growing up, at first not quickly enough for some, like one's Head Mistress who thought she would encourage some of us to read...
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Coming to terms with who one is at the end of the day? 26 1 28

Not easy for a kid who was routinely beaten aged 7 or 8 for his inability to read as quickly as the other kids in his class, after loosing his father to WW II , though not as a hero in t conventional sense because "he died from Natural Causes" according to the Lawyer representing the Crown againgst our Mam, who pursued her right to a War Widow's pension to help rear her three young children, ages 1 y 10 m, 5 and 7, from 4th August 1945, his death day until Oct 1947 when our Mam won her appeal in the HIGH COURT at the discretion of the later Lord of the Rolls, His Right Honourable Lord Justice Tom Jennings. There quite a mouth full for starters! That our Mam was a fighter and my personal hero all my life was never in question. Our Dad who needn't have gone to war in the first place: a married man aged 36 too old to be called up , and in any case as a tradesman Joiner or Carpenter, a Pattern Maker to give him his top title, who at the time of volunteering for War Ser...
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The star of every young man's life..? 26 1 27

Yesterday on T-T there was this aging man holding forth about every man's first daughter how they are formed in his image, t reason being so that he can relate to her. Right away it got me thinking of my sister's first child, a girl, who is not formed in her father's image but more his than my sister's in terms of character, so much so that i can guess she is his favourite child sporting his exageratedly long chin. And his 3 subsequent sons: Nicholas (also a chip off the old block!), followed by Gregory (more like her than him) and finally Thomas who would call his only son after me rather than his own father! So the star of every young man has to be his mother, which was certainly true in my case until my wife-to-be finally entered the fray, as i was coming up to 30. When I was coming up to 60 I asked my mother and sister to arrange a birthday party in my honour, thinking what a good bash our mother's 80th was but fearing she might not see 90, so therefore my 6...
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