C.Paul Harvey

Barometers of Wellness

2011-12-30T18:17:00.002Z

How familiar does your front door look to you? What about the pathway up to it, or the stairway? What about the street?

Mine is up three flights of stairs, with a communal main entrance to the street that is shared by 15 other flats. My street always looks much the same, but sometimes the stairs and corridors seem distorted in some way, or perhaps the wrong way around. I know when this starts to happen, that I'm probably not very well...

Many, many years ago I was probably abused in the end-of-garden wash-house of a neighbour. I don't have a clear memory if it - only a flashback; but what gives the game away is the position of that wash-house within its garden: it too, was the wrong way around - my logic being that the wash-house at the end of my garden was the right way round!

Whether these are at all connected I don't know - although it's certainly true to say I get a bit panicky when I think things are the wrong way around, so who knows?

Oh, and as you've probably already worked out - my stairwell's all distorted just now.

Scrabble and all that

2011-12-29T17:17:00.002Z

Sometimes life feels a bit like a game of Scrabble. You rarely have all you need for the kinds of things you'd like; you have various things that seem heavy, but that can pay off generously if you just carry them for a while and use them when the circumstances are right; you're often completely dependent on the unconsious generosity of others; most of the time, you have to put up with far less than you'd otherwise choose; and, just occasionally, you have a big victory!

Right now, I don't have the letters to spell the words I feel I need to. Today has been quite good on the whole - work wasn't busy, but busy enough; and I've had a visit from a supporter this afternoon and beaten him twice at Scrabble. But, my life feels really - well, shall we say empty, for starters...?

I'm lucky: I have friends, I have caring relatives, I have work, I have a home, I have enough money to live a reasonable existence; and I have many other good things. But I don't have love - not the personal, individual love that seems to be enjoyed by many. I don't have anyone to love as I'd like to - and the result of that is that I often lust after others, and feel bad about it afterwards...

I never used to have the ability to cope with that kind of love - neither to give it, nor receive it. I like to think I could give it now; but I remain uncertain of my ability to receive it. Such uncertainly is the product of the abused young man within my ageing body: the body I almost unconsciously keep as unattractive to others as I can. My search for a suitor is therefore almost impossible - a search for someone so determined that he'd repeatedly refuse to be deterred by the barriers I place in his way...!

It's not my desire to have people play such games of course. But how else can I be sure they'll not also abuse me?

On the nightshift

2011-12-28T13:50:00.003Z

Okay, so it's cabin fever...! But why is it, that so few people do daylight hours? Is it really any wonder they're all so depressed??

I had a couple of hours out with another friend last night - missing and riding on buses, getting pissed off by hooray henrys who seemed to think they were in an Oxbridge cricket pavillion, not our favourite local pub, and getting rained on - that sort of thing. But it was better than sitting in alone - a LOT better...!

I toyed with the idea of arranging a day out to Peebles or somewhere - bus ride, lunch, walk by the river/poke round the shops, nice pub for a couple of hours, sort of thing. But the weather was awful, so I decided not. Another friend had suggested a mid-afternoon outing to a gallery by then anyway - which is a poor substitute, but a generous offer, nonetheless. Shame it'll be almost dark by the time we get there. But, once more, a LOT better than sitting home alone. And tomorrow, I shall take great delight in returning to work!!

Symbolic beard-trimming

2011-12-27T19:27:00.003Z

Some people blood-let - which in the distant past, has included me. Some people go out and get blind drunk, or stoned - ditto.

On this occasion, I trimmed my beard.

No kidding - it never seems to grow like other men's do anyway - it just gets long and thick, so you feel like you're going around with a thick straggly rug on your face. So, I took the hairdressing scissors to it and, hey presto, it feels good!

I guess I might just head for the barber's, in the morning. Exciting stuff, eh? Well, hardly. But, less messy than blood-letting.

Is it just me....

2011-12-27T18:52:00.002Z

Is it just me, or do others experience life as I do? I don't mean special events life, I mean the everyday, routine life that I assume we've all got - if there's any difference, that is...

Christmas has been and gone. It wasn't exactly as originally planned, but it was okay. Return to work is the day after tomorrow, and that'll probably be fine too.

It's the in between time that I struggle with. I mean, what do you do, exactly? Okay, so I sent out a text message to a few friends earlier, and one of them came over for a couple of hours. As I say, I'm fine in company - I can do company.

I'm not so good at alone, though. Maybe that sounds daft, when you consider I've been alone most of my life - for years, I've lived alone; and mostly evaded close relationships. Hence, it's not exactly unfamiliar.

But, it's still difficult. For far too long now, I've comfort eaten when I feel the voids, and trawled the internet for people I know (or occasionally don't) to chat to. But it's not good. I'm now so overweight I'm really not enjoying life, as everything is so much effort; and fewer and fewer people (it seems) use the 'net in the ways they used to. And, if I'm not careful, I end up having one-way conversations. Monologues. Is it coincidental that rhymes with blogs, at all?

I've just watched Tom Brown's Schooldays on TV, and had a weep. It's not original, but it's a change.

But, is it just me? Am I the only one whom everybody thinks has a good life - but whose life is actually completely out of his control? And if I'm not - well, so what? I don't suppose it'll make much difference to how I feel just now.

So, answer the question if you want to - or not! I'll try and cheer up for tomorrow...!!

A Time to Weep?

2011-12-08T22:48:00.004Z

Sometimes I wonder if life has brought me to a place where I'm really hard-hearted. Or if I'm actually just so deeply entrenched in denial, I'm not aware of the difference anymore...

One of my uncles seems to have lung cancer. Well - he's got an inoperable tunour the size of a fist, at the base of his right lung actually; and the reason it's inoperable is because there also appears to be infection elsewhere. My mother was at the hospital with him yesterday and they did some final diagnostic tests, but the writing's on the wall for all to see.

Now, I should explain that although as my mother's youngest brother he is technically my uncle; the two of us were always together as I was growing up, and we were often mistaken for brothers. We were each other's confidantes on family and various other matters. He made a great point of passing onto me what his older brothers had passed onto him: a love for, and a knowledge of the countryside, which has always been his greatest passion. In years, he is closer to me than my mother, or his older brothers; and as I'm an only child, he's always the nearest thing to a sibling I've had.

As the years have passed and my own life again has some order to it, my need for his support has lessened; but I've always taken comfort from the assumption that he'd always be there if I needed him. I've always known who I'd turn to in the event of any serious problems with my mother, for example.

Understandably, she's absolutely devastated - and probably all the more so as she offerred to help him break the news to their other siblings, and has had to witness them crying for the first time since their childhoods.

As yet though, I've not felt the need to cry. I feel very sad about it - and very unsettled; but for as much as I often cry over silly things, I've not shed many tears over late relations since my maternal grandmother died when I was in my late teens. Indeed, my counsellor remarked recently how he'd never heard me grieve for my father, and how he's left wondering if I've even begun that process. And, I don't know the answer to that, really...

I shed a few tears at the time of course, and I had several months of disturbed sleep, palpitations and other severe anxiety symptoms. And I often speak fondly of him and his ways - and take pride in perpetuating some of them. And occasionally I've wished we had a grave to visit or even a plaque: some quiet place where I could just go unannounced, and in secret, and maybe feel close to him (we had him cremated and my mother's grief was so apparent that no decision was ever made regarding any memorial). But actually grieve his passing? Maybe I'm just too pragmatic for my own good at times, for I'm not sure it would actually make a lot of difference to how I feel...

If and when my uncle leaves us, I'll have the opportunity of returning to those woodland paths and waterside tracks we tramped so often in our younger years. I expect I might weep then.

Lemon-scented Cillit Bang

2011-12-04T11:06:00.003Z

Well, I made it - though it took me a good hour longer than I'd imagined it would. This is because the water stank. No, I don't mean the drains - I attack them all with Domestos on quite a frequent basis. I mean the water...

If you've ever wondered what the difference is between an irrational thought and an hallucination, this is probably as good an illustration as any: hallucinations make it appear real. It looks real, it sounds real - and in my case, it smells real. The only thing I have to suggest that it might not be real is logic. As in this case - for tap water doesn't usually smell - smelling isn't one of its known properties (although I have to say there is a bit of me that wonders whether the reason it doesn't smell is because we've all been brought up to believe that - and in actual fact, it might smell; but I digress).

For as long as I can remember, I've had problems with smells. Olfactory hallucinations, to give them their Sunday name. The mere sight of almost anything that is shit, or looks like shit, sick, piss, snot, blood, rotting food or flesh, or other types of bodily excrements other than my own; has me heaving up almost instantly. My eyes stream, I have coughing fits, I feel faint and see stars - it's pretty dramatic. I love dogs and I love walking; but if I see a dog squatting ahead, I need to turn around instantly, or cross the street and look the other way. And, even worse, if I see a dog owner clearing up after it, and/or carrying their little bag afterwards - well, the results are predictable indeed. Actually, I'm beginning to react right now just by visualising it...

Needless to say, I often can't use public toilets. For this reason I have a RADAR key somewhere as, because disabled loos tend to be kept locked except while in use, they're not so well patronised, shall we say; and there's more chance I can use them. That said, I can't remember last when I needed to, and I don't regularly carry my key with me these days.

Likewise, my kitchen often smells. Because there's no window, there's a electric ventilation thing in the ceiling that causes quite a considerable draught, and I therefore have to keep the door closed during the winter months; but during the summer it stays propped open, as it's just easier, that's all. It's not unusual for me to have to literally run out and hang my head out of the window...

One of the best quick-fixes I've found - which only works when there's just a smell and nothing to see that looks as though it could be the source, is replacing it with my own smell. Hence, a quick bowel movement tends to ease the toilet issue; and keeping some Dettox air freshener spray within arms reach of the kitchen door can help with the kitchen - even if I do have to wait for a while, to let the vapour dissipate enough to prevent me choking...

But when water smells, I have a bit of a problem - because of course, you can't clean supposedly clean water - at least, not if you want to use it to clean yourself with!

So, to cut a long story short, I had to grab the Cillit Bang and scrub every possible surface to replace the unpleasant smell with a pleasant one. So not only did I have my shower, shave and brush up; the bathroom did too - and for the first time in ages, the shower tiles are gleaming once more. Not a bad bonus, eh? I was quite pleased with myself, actually!

Then I made it to Sainsbury's (gosh, it was cold out there - no wonder we've got lying snow here this morning); got a few bits and pieces to keep me going ; watched the final of I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here and settled down for the night, which passed without further incident.

Boulder-blocked pathways

2011-12-03T18:34:00.003Z

It was late morning when I wrote my last post, and although the sunshine was becoming a little hazy, I did still hope to go out during the afternoon. Alas, that's not happened...

No - the foot isn't the main problem. It's a lot more complicated; and has all the characteristics of a huge boulder blocking the path ahead. This isn't a new phenomenon in life - in fact, it has happened on and off for years and thankfully, more off than on these days. But when it happens I'm just as stuck as I always was...

It's a bit like the old woman who swallowed the fly - in reverse. My revised goal is to go out to the local shops and get some food, as my fridge is now completely empty, bar half a carton on milk and a little margarine. Also, I've no bread, no cake (I had the last of it during today), no biscuits, no rice pudding, no chocolate or sweets. I have some basics such as rice and pasta - but nothing to liven it up with...

Only, you can't go out before getting dressed; and you can't really get dressed without getting washed and shaved - and there's my dilemma.

This is where the good folks that assess disability benefits claims and suchlike; some doctors and medical practitioners; politicians, definitely; family members and even some friends really don't get how mental illness can affect you on a day-to-day basis. The DWP's claim forms are really only interested in your physical ability to walk down the road and buy the goods - they just don't get that on a bad day, there's often not a cat's chance in hell of getting there anytime soon...

It's daft, isn't it? What can possibly be so hard about getting in the shower, having a shave and brushing your teeth and hair; I hear you saying? And the answer is - I haven't a clue. It is daft - but it's also real, and right now its preventing me from doing any of the other things I want and need to do.

I'm hoping that by writing it down here I might be able to even get around it in a small way, maybe just wash face, swill out with mouthwash and comb hair for now. It's dark, and although it'd just putting off the inevitable, at least I'd get some much-needed provisions in for the rest of the weekend.

It's quite simple really: I'm a bit depressed, and because I'm a bit depressed, my energy and motivation levels are poor, my view of myself is decreased, I'm finding it hard to concentrate, I'm more anxious than usual, I'm finding it quite hard to make conversation with people, I've lost any real interest in food, I'm craving intimacy: all of these are classic symptoms of my depression.

And I usually end up demonstrating my depression in one way or another. In the past, I'd have cut up or overdosed; nowadays I usually neglect myself or my immediate surroundings. It's one of the few outward signs actually - and of course, because only a few people ever come into my personal space, not many folk are ever aware of it. So - in the hope that it might help me move on a little, I'm describing it to you now. It's 7.15pm. 'Think I'll give myself until 8 o'clock; and I'll come back later and let you know the results!!

(Not) In the Mood

2011-12-03T14:00:00.003Z

I didn't feel too clever earlier today - it's been a pretty busy week, and I probably overdid it at times. So I didn't go out. Apologies are due to my Salvation Army colleagues, as I was due to help collecting with their carolling efforts; but I expect they'll understand. A few months back, I was diagnosed with a painful foot condition called plantar faciitis, which would have meant I'd not have been able to do it for very long anyway - at least, not if I want to be able to walk for the rest of the week...

Having started to receive Christmas cards I'm thinking I ought to get round to writing some myself, but the truth is my heart's just not in it, as yet. I normally write a circular letter insert, and I just can't think what to put on it right now. These things are hard when you're not at your best.

I also had a stab at sewing my new S-badges onto my uniform. I can't do it for toffee though, so I soon gave up, and just used safety pins to hold them in place for now. I can see I shall have to speak nicely to friend with a sewing machine - she did offer, after all!

Rice Pudding and Nightmares

2011-11-30T07:42:00.002Z

Thankfully, I've not had any nightmares for years. Well, at least I hadn't - until last night. The first woke me at 4.45am, so I did what I used to do when I got them more frequently - got up, put some lights on, and had something to eat; which on this occasion was a tin of rice pudding...

Yes, I know, eating rice pudding at 4.45am probably isn't very good for me, but you know what? The reality is that almost everybody resorts to unhealthy habits under times of stress - and sometimes it's best to just do whatever it is you need to do in order to get through these times; don't give yourself a hard time - and don't let anybody else do it, either.

I was more concerned about being awake at 4.45am actually - but I soon returned to sleep, albeit sleep with recurring variations of the same nightmare, of which about all I can remember was some homeless girl who seemed to know me, trying to steal money form me and otherwise get me into trouble.

Thanks to the public sector strikes, I'm not working in my usual base today; and instead attending a 'development day' at what is for me a more accessible venue. So I have a few minutes longer at home. Every cloud has a silver lining of sorts, eh?

At work...

2011-11-23T10:27:00.003Z

The operative word in the title is 'at' by the way. Not 'in'. I've been here since 0850, it's now 10.30 and so far I've answered the phone once, and addressed and stamped one letter, which I'll post on my way home.

Oh - and struggled with the computers. We have one of those daft remote server systems, such that you can't access anything unless you're signed in - which is all well and good, if the technology works. Over the past couple of weeks, alas, the laptop on my desk has got slower and slower such that today, it took from 0850 to 1013 to get properly powered up, and signed into the remote server. Or so I thought...

Having decided there was an error on the said remote server (I should think it probably just got fed up waiting and timed out), it then told me it couldn't connect me, and that I should phone for assistance, which I did. They'll get back to me within 2 hours apparently - though I'm not holding my breath just yet...

And we now have the rather wonderful game of it taking forever to sign me out of the remote server - in order that I can use this desktop to sign back in! Hence, I have nothing to do - and right now, that's not good, as I really don't feel good in myself, and I'm desperately in need of something to take my mind off it.

But, these are the present-day realities of work in the social care sector. I think I might just have to go and put the kettle on now!

I'm really struggling just now...

2011-11-22T15:12:00.004Z

It's the hardest thing in the world to admit, you know. There are loads of services, helplines, and places to say it; loads of (mostly) supportive people who are willing to hear or read it; and maybe even loads of ways to say, or write it...

You don't want to be a drama queen, you don't want people to over-react, you don't want to make it any bigger than it is already - and you certainly don't want to do yourself any major dis-service by watering it down too much.

So, when you're having thoughts and urges to take yourself off somewhere dark and lonely, and then take various substances that'll probably knock you out for a while and yes, maybe even kill you if it goes wrong; just what on earth should your opening line be?

It can't be "I feel like killing myself," because I don't! It can't be "I feel like I want to hurt myself," because that's not true either. It can't even be, "I feel I need to blot it all out," because I don't feel that way...

I certainly feel like blotting it all out for a while at times - quite often of late, in fact; and you might say I'm being tempted if that's how your belief systems work. Sometimes I feel like burning it, or even drowning it. Invariably, I end up stifling it by eating until I feel so sick, that I almost stop feeling anything else.

I probably need asylum. But I don't need institution - and all too often, that's the only type of asylum that's on offer. It's certainly the only type that things like doctors, sick notes and employers generally recognise. Amd in truth, if I can't get any other sort sometime soon, I might end up needing asylum so much that the institution part won't really matter any more. Which would be a shame really, wouldn't it?

Diazepam 'R' Us

2011-11-21T21:56:00.002Z

Well, diazepam, chocolate, ice-cream, sausage rolls and quite a few other things actually. Emotional chaos 'R' Us: need I say more?

And, as the painkillers begin to do their jobs....

2011-11-20T08:03:00.004Z

I forgot to add tags to my last post, which is pretty apt when you think about it. I might add them to this one if I remember - which I expect will really confuse some people, but hey, I'm sure you get the idea!

I've always believed that everything happens in the way and in the sequence it does, for a reason. I mean, these blogs - I don't really plan what I'm going to write - it's just thinking aloud really. Or whatever the word is that describes the writing equivalent of 'thinking aloud', to be more precise. And so, here I am - having just referred to Ecclesiates 4:9, which says, two are better than one because they have a good return for their work, and then, quite unwittingly, I reveal I've taken some painkillers for my headache, and that they're now beginning to do their work. And how many painkillers did I take? Two...

Sometimes it's very hard to imagine what possible reason there might be, for life's events. I mean the kinds of events for which the painkillers don't work...

Just a couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of making contact with a young relative whom I knew suffered from a life-shortening illness. His immediate family (with whom I'd also had relatively little contact up to that point) were getting kind of desperate, as he was already choosing to not use the drugs that could prolong his life by a few years; and what I thought I saw was a situation whereby he didn't really feel he had anything sufficiently desirable to try to live on for.

For you see, this is where western society really can't see the wood for the trees. They want to solve problems and cure illnesses, and, while nobody could ever fault the worthiness of their intentions - quite often, life's just not like that. As I shared the other day, I'm a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse: and all the counselling and therapies under the sun aren't going to change that. What's done is done - some of my wounds might heal up a bit in time, but they're not going to be erased from history: I am damaged, and that's that. And my relative is going to die as a young man. It's horrendously tragic, and so sad that his loved ones can hardly bear to think about it - but it's fact: it's going to happen, whether we like it, or not.

So as a society, would we not be better diverting some of our energies into supporting people to live with the lives that they have? Ever since I made personal contact with him, I've tried to respect my relative's choices. It's mighty hard, but it's the right thing to do. Concentrate on the here and now, worry about the future when the future comes - and for pity's sake, let go of the past. Inevitably the past will have shaped what you have to work with in the present anyway; and you can't re-live the past - you can only live in the present. So, let's help people to live with what they have, eh?

Minor tribulations, major headaches

2011-11-20T07:23:00.002Z

I seem to have lost one of my 'S' badges. You know - the lapel patches that appear on the tunic of a Salvation Army uniform? Well, I've only got one - and I've not had any shoulder trimmings for quite a while - as apparently, the corps has run out of them. So I am now lopsided. Is that a sign that I'm only half-salvationist...?

If I thought I could get away with keeping it that way, I probably would - because I'm quite rebellious about that sort of thing; and actually, I think half-salvationist is probably a label that fits me very well! Although I'll qualify that: it depends where the particular bit of the Salvation Army is, that I'm engaging with at the time.

For the last year or so, I've openly said to quite a ot of people that the only thing that keeps me engaging with Gorgie Corps is the fact I'm a songster. Now, I'm going to qualify that too, because I also have lots of nice friends whom I enjoy being with who also go there; I have one or two opportunities a month to share some ministry with elderly people - whom I've always got on with very well; I usually get to carry the flag in front of the band on the rare occasions it leaves the comfort of it's hall; and actually - it's just where the corps is right now that I don't really care for - it's been different before and has the potential to be again!

Yesterday, our songster brigade was in Govan. For some reason we'd been chosen to sing for an hour, following the local songsters and the West Scotland Youth Chorus, whom I have to say were excellent; and after that we were treated to an evening event by Regent Hall Songsters, which is just so stuffed with professional singers and students of all of London's best music learning centres that I end up thinking it's just as well I live where I do, as I'd have no chance of belonging to anything like that!!

If you've read my previous post - the most recent one, it'll probably come as no surprised to you that my emotions are all over the place right now. I've somewhat unwillingly and unhappily woken up with a headache, which I've already started battering with painkillers; and as soon as I remembered about my missing 'S' I did consider not going to church this morning. But no! That'd be the start of a slippery slope - half a salvationist is surely better than no salvationist; and if anybody can't cope with that, then that's their problem, isn't it? And with luck, there might be somebody around who can sell me some replacement badges!

(And in the meantime I'll probably share the half-salvationist joke - which doesn't have to be a joke at all if you think about it; and could certainly form the basis of my next prayer meeting - perhaps accompanied by Ecclesiates 4:9, where it says that, two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. I mean, think about it - single people, of which I'm also a member...

People - especially traditionalist church people who think they know and have seen or done it all, need to be made to think about these things...!!!

Surviving historic abuse

2011-11-18T16:54:00.005Z

Have I ever written about my past abuse here? I think its about time I did, or maybe did some more: I am a male survivor of various forms of abuse, including sexual abuse. There - I've said it. I've just come out...

This might sound daft, but I first became aware of this during the mid 1990s. It was during a routine appointment I had with my community psychiatric nurse at that time, when we'd been discussing problems I was having in the relationship at the time - namely that I couldn't cope with my partner's sexual expectations. When my CPN asked if I'd had similar problems before in any previous relationships, I had to say yes - and that led onto the question of whether anybody had ever done anything untoward during my childhood.

My initial answer was an emphatic no - but I went away and thought about the wisdom of this afterwards, as for as long as I could remember I'd had three separate flashbacks, as I now understand them to be.

But I didn't know they were flashbacks then - I'd never heard of the word up until I returned for my next appointment. I didn't know what they were - they kept recurring on a completely involuntary basis, and on one level they were like movie stills - except that they had accompanying thoughts and feelings attached to them. I'd puzzled over them for years actually, dismissing them variously as fantasies, dreams, and hallucinations. I felt guilty about having them at all - even though nobody else had any way of knowing even of their existence.

In addition, I had lots of pretty raw memories of serious ill-treatment by nurses who were supposed to be looking after me, in a certain Scottish psychiatric hospital, where I spent a good deal of my adolescence. One of the flashbacks involved a particular nurse there, in fact.

So, the following week I asked my CPN, if anything had occurred, would I remember it. "Not necessarily," she informed me, adding that the brain sometimes shields us from memories of events it feels would be too traumatic for us to deal with. "But you would probably have flashbacks," and, as she went onto explain what these are, I instinctively knew that I had indeed been abused, both as a small child and as a vulnerable and naive young adult patient, within a psychiatric hospital.

Well you know, that would have bad enough, but the trouble with discovering such abuse is that, when you start to explore what exactly abuse is, you often discover there's a lot more stuff in your past that can be classified that way, too. In my case, a lot of it was stuff I remembered very well - and which I knew at the time was a bit odd, and which I hated; but for which I'd made excuse after excuse in favour of the perpetrator, to whom I'd felt I owed a great favour, and so allowed to have his extremely wicked ways with me, over a period extending to almost three years. I'd been in complete denial about it, but this had been an abusive relationship - and out of all that's happened to me, it remains by far the most damaging, in terms of what I perceive to be my abilities to cope with sex and relationships. In consequence I've led a lonely and rather unfulfilled life.

Oh, I've had years of specialist counselling - twice over; and I've done lots of therapies of various types to try to accept and come to terms with it all. The first four years was with a wonderful counsellor who employed Gestalt techniques: working very much in the present and relating it to the past by identifying why I think and do things the ways I think and do them - and then introducing the possibility of doing them differently in future. Gestalt is often treated with a good deal of suspicion in this country - especially by psychiatrists and other professionals trained within the medical model; but in my view it is far more life-changing than anything else they've ever offered me.

Then for the past three years I've had a person-centred counsellor. He's been very good in many ways, supporting me to completely change the way I relate and respond to my mother, whose behaviour might also have been termed abusive for much of my life; and also the ways I relate to my employers and others. He's also tried to get me to view my bouts of depression not as something that will inevitably happen to me every now and then; but I'm afraid he's been less successful with that!

And throughout all that time, I've completely dismissed and possibility of reporting anything to the police, as I was advised early on in my process that the possibility of being cross-examined in court would re-expose me to the abuse as if it were happening all over again, and I may not be able to survive it a second time.

Well, a lot of water's passed under my bridges, and at length I've managed to accept and file away for good, two of the flashback incidents. I've had less success with the third one however, and although I've not seen him for 25 years, the man who so constantly abused me within the context of my first significant relationship continues to appear in my mind, every now and then - most probably because I still feel seriously handicapped as a result of his abuse towards me.

So I had my first meeting with the police today. It appears they can't take a statement in relation to the flashback nurse, because even after all this time I still have no memory of what actually happened; and there are some questions over issues relating to my consent in the abusive relationship. However, on two occasions he involved a third party without my prior knowledge; and because he always blindfolded me as part of his ritual, I have no idea of who they were or what they looked like. While it will be extremely difficult to prove anything, the police have agreed to prepare statements about these incidents, as he did break the law in setting them up without my consent.

Once the statements have been recorded, they'll be sent to Essex Police for investigation, because that's where most of the abusive incidents took place. As yet, it is unclear as to what kind of outcome might be expected, as the English police forces are known for sending cases to court without much evidence, relying instead on judges and juries to decide on the probability of allegations; whereas that would be much less likely in Scotland, unless there was lots of corroboration available. In any case though, his name will be flagged on police databases and will show up in any future disclosure applications; and in the event of any existing or future allegations being made by others, it is possible my statements will be used as evidence.

I feel a wee bit better than I did before this meeting: during the last week and a half I've eaten about ten boxes of chocolates, amongst lots of other junk - as well as hit the prescribed diazepam, as the anxiety's been pretty intense. And now I'm heading out with a friend, for a well-earned Chinese...

First new posting for over 2 years...

2011-11-18T16:26:00.002Z

Oh, my goodness! You know it's been a long time since you posted when you can't even remember the name of your blog, let alone any of the login details...

I've been feeling I should probably try to resume the blogging habit for some time, and have been encouraged to do so today by a friend, who has just created a new blog of his own. So, here I am, password reset and that jazz; and to those whom I have just discovered have been kind enough to comment on my previous posts, I heartily thank you, and apologise if I've not acknowledged you before now!

I need to find my way around again, so I'll not write anything interesting just yet. But, I will be back....!!

A Good Friday Testimony

2009-04-10T23:41:00.005+01:00

I was supposed to be going out on a works do tonight - as my supervisor, Jude, has recently left the organisation to take up a post with another employer. Now I'm sure I'm not the easiest person to employ as I require various 'reasonable adjustments' to be made, including extra support; but Jude has been wonderful with me, and I really wanted to be part of her send-off party...

It is however Good Friday - which for me has long been the most emotive, and one of the most significant dates in the church calendar - and, aware that I'd have a church meeting to attend this evening, I had already said I'd be late...

If I'm honest, these were two events I really wasn't keen to combine! However, armed with an Easter Egg for Jude, I set out for Edinburgh City Corps (of The Salvation Army) where the church meeting was taking place and did my best to resign myself to undertake popping into the pub they were all at for half an hour or so, after the meeting.

To begin with, I just couldn't get into it at all - and reflected on how unlike this was to the enthusiasm I had for such events during my earlier years in the Salvation Army at Gosport - wondering as I did whether the lack of any meeting on Maundy Thursday, and on Good Friday morning here in Edinburgh, had anything to do with that.

But the fact was, my mind kept wandering to how on earth I might make a reasonably discreet entrance into a crowded pub full of rowdy Leith revellers on a Friday night - dressed in a Salvation Army uniform - complete with the word 'Gorgie' on the shoulder epaulettes (Gorgie being the home of the Hearts football club - complete sacrilige to many Leithers, whose allegiance is mostly towards Hibernian, Edinburgh's other main club...!!

Then the meeting turned to a song that I'd heard only rarely since it was sung at my enrolment (as a soldier of the 'Army) back in May 2003, If crosses come, if it should cost me dearly.

Now let me explain. Sometimes, people being enrolled are allowed to choose their own songs to help illustrate their journeys towards their decisons to commit themselves in that way - but, as I was a group of four such individuals being done together, the officer chose this song on our behalf - and at that time, I only barely knew and really didn't much care for it...!

But tonight was different, and as I joined in with the singing, I realised just how close its words are to my own story. In particular, I'd not be sitting here in Edinburgh at all were it not true that, if doors should close, then other doors shall open; for in the intervening years I had tried to gain access to the Army's Officer Training College and failed almost at the final hurdle and, only as part of my eventual recovery from that terrible disappointment did I even consider a move back to Scotland, let alone enlist God's help in the process, as I eventually did - which was rewarded with the home in which I now live, and the new life that I now enjoy.

And, were it not true that, the Word of God can never be contained - nor that his love cannot be finally frustrated by narrow minds or prison bars restrained; I'd probably not be sitting anywhere by now as it was - some 27 years ago, behind the bars of what was then Polmont Borstal, where I made my first serious exploration of part of God's Word and - as the very lost soul I then was, woke up one day and felt sure that Jesus, the love of God, had found me there!

Good Friday is a time to consider the ultimate sacrifice made by Jesus, the love of God and, again as the song lyrics relate, If tears should fall, if I am called to suffer, If all I love men should deface, defame; I'll not deny the One that I have folllowed, nor be ashamed to bear my master's name; it surely is also a time to reconsider our responses.

Therefore, I'll not turn back, whatever it may cost, for I'm called to love and save, the lost. The very least I could do tonight was pay the 'cost' that was not going out to that pub and therefore preserving myself in the attitude that God requires me, for the remainder of this Easter weekend, and beyond.

I thank all who have taken the trouble to read this and pray that you too, will feel prompted to make a special response to God's gentle touch, this Easter.

Exciting Stuff!

2008-08-15T06:15:00.002+01:00

Having been pulling my hair out for months over the rather erratic hours my employer has been offering me, my patience has paid off as they have now offered me a six-month temporary contract (which is likely to remain open beyond that time if we're all happy with each other) to work 24 hours per week, starting 1st September!

So I'm off the to Job Centre this morning to arrange a hopefully smooth transition from incapacity benefit to working tax credits - they assure me it should be a smooth transition anyway. Very exciting really, as this will be the first time for over twenty years when I'm not officially 'sick' or claiming benefits relating to my incapacity for work!

And so, another year passes...

2008-06-18T04:07:00.002+01:00

Last night, I had a message from my supervisor at work, informing me that the 8-hour shift I was due to work today has been cancelled, as the service user is unwell and doesn't need our support this week - but as the notice is so short, I can still include the hours on my timesheet!

As it happens, this happy incident coincides with my birthday! But I'm not one of those people who seems to think he has somekind of divine right to not work on his birthday - to me, that seems really self-centred.

Nor do I bother much with parties - though I've had my share over the years; and in fact, one of the most memorable occured a whole 40 years ago! My mother has numerous, faded old black and white photographs of that event - attended by numerous, long-dead family members, as well as others who have changed almost beyond recognition in the intervening years; and yet, I can remember it almost as it it were yesterday!

I spent my 21st in Ravenglass, Cumbria, with my then partner and another couple we were friendly with, one of whom shared my birthday - as the guest of a somewhat eccentric friend of theirs, who cooked an enormous banquet including courses I'd never had before, such as fish and sorbet - in addition to mains and pudding! The latter was an enormous, extremely boozy pavlova - goodness knows how long he'd soaked the pineapples and raspberries in vodka!

My one and only surprise party was in 1992, for my 28th. I thought I was just going to stay with a friend who lived in a big country house in the Wye valley in South Wales for a couple of days of walking, when he picked me up and took me over there as arranged - but of course, unbeknown to me, he'd invited lots of other people too - who had all made their own ways there...!

And for my 40th I had a meal in Gosport - which to be honest, was a bit disapppointing as I had to organise it myself, and the menu turned out to be a lot fancier - and more expensive - that I'd been given the impression it'd be at the planning stage!

Today should be safe - if only because not very many people in Edinburgh know it's my birthday! Thanks to friends down south who have sent me greetings - ten cards, two emails and a text message so far - you know who you are; and I consider myself fortunate indeed to be remembered so fondly by you. Amen!

Whew!

2008-06-03T05:58:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I had a whopper of a headache, and so remained in bed for much of the day. Despite this, I managed to sleep quite well overnight, and today I have no headache. Alleluia!

Less consolation, more consolidation, please!

2008-05-30T12:49:00.003+01:00

I've been rather depressed for the past week or so.

Now, I know that we sometimes see things in different lights when we're depressed, but in a way it has been quite useful this time as I've been able to identify a few areas of my life that could do with a bit of weeding...

First off, I must stop accepting consolation prizes as readily as I've been doing. It isn't too much to expect to get a first-bite of the cherry occasionally, I'm sure of that. So I think I need to speak up when time after time, all I get offered is some of the juice!

All too often it seems, organisations value their own above all others. The Salvation Army is terrible for it: people with existing connections - especially, dare I say, those who happen to be related to officers - seem to have much greater ease of access to employment and other opportunities than those of us who are relatively new to it and not otherwise connected. Admittedly we get a much more sympathetic hearing than we might have done a few years ago, but I still think we're treated with a lot more suspicion than we deserve; and subjected to a lot more red tape, than those who are lifelong members with family connections.

I also had a minor run-in with the Scottish Recovery Network the other day over what seems like largely the same issue. I did stage 1 of a particular training course a couple of years back while I was living in Hampshire, and was encouraged by them to apply for a place on their stage 2 course; but failed to get a place. On the surface they've been really good about it - telephoning to inform me rather than just emailing - and adding that they hope I'll still support their cause, and suggesting that I look out for some co-facilitating experience over the next few months...

Now, I've no doubt that experience would be very useful and certainly, if I am to support the cause further as they say, it would help me do so - but who exactly is all that about? It seems to me they're very happy to use whatever I have to offer them, yet still reserve the right to exclude me from any meaningful developments - and to be perfectly honest, I'm getting rather bored with that particular game of soldiers...!

And I've also worked out that, despite all that I told my mother as regards the Slimming World eating plan I'm currently following; I neither need nor even want lots of extra food to get me through my depression. I just want to feel normal again.

I'm not one to blow my own trumpet, but...

2008-05-14T19:06:00.003+01:00

This morning, I was elected 'group man of the year 2008' at Slimming World!

Now, I don't normally do great visual displays of excitement, but I will admit to feeling rather pleased and very proud of myself today - I have a nice certificate, and paperweight, to prove it!

Not only that, having lost another five pounds I was also 'slimmer of the week', for which I have a bag of fruit and a fridge magnet - they have a series of ten, that you can collect - this is my second.

And the statistics? Well, I have lost a total of 2 st 12 lbs so far - I am now under 19 stones for the first time since I really can't remember when, and I have lost four inches off my waist...! The eventual aim is to get down to around 14 st 7 lbs - by which time I shall be 33% lighter than when I joined the group, on January 23rd this year.

A welcome sign - well, ish...

2008-05-11T20:08:00.002+01:00

In an ideal world, I guess that stretch marks across the stomach might not feel so welcome, but, at two and a half stones less than I was three months ago, these feel like a sign of real progress.

And I was very good today, as while all around me tucked into delicious-looking pizza slices, sandwiches and gateaux, I didn't have so much as a morsel of the buffet after church, which had been laid on by a family celebrating the dedication of their latest child.

Mind you, I have just had a toffee eclair, and a chocolate. Well, nobody's perfect!!

I'm shattered!

2008-05-09T10:05:00.004+01:00

I'd no idea that commuting to Glenrothes by bus was so tiring - and I've only done it twice so far. Tomorrow will be three times in a week.

My mother is unwell you see. Vomiting bug - started Tuesday evening, continued all day Wednesday. When I got there first time she couldn't even sit up and speak, so there wasn't much I could do - but I expect knowing I was around for a few hours might have given her some comfort. And yesterday was more of the same - she attempted to get out of bed after an hour, but immediately buried her head as soon as she reached the kitchen, and staggered straight back again.

Mercifully, she sounds a bit better today - been up and had a shower, and even watched some TV - for the first time since Tuesday. Still not eating solids, but managed a little milk earlier. Alas, she's lost 6lbs in weight, and it really shows - she told me she burst into tears when she saw herself in the mirror; and yes, I'm afraid she does look just like her own mother did in her closing weeks - so heaven knows what must be going through her mind.

I ought to be down at the Salvation Army cleaning right now - but I'm afraid even I'm not infallible. I was up earlier, but returned to bed and slept until after nine; and this, I'm afraid, is me time - we all need it after all, and the cleaning can wait a few more hours!

It doesn't look as if I'm the only one identifying my need for me time either, as I arrived at Glenrothes bus station last night with half an hour before the next Edinburgh departure - and so I joined a Glasgow bus as far as Dunfermline, thinking I'd get a quicker onward connection there. Alas, there was an even longer wait - necessitating a lovely walk through Pittencieff Park in the evening sunshine. Hence it seems to me there's nothing God won't use to tend his sheep - even Stagecoach!!

Hence, here we are at almost 7pm - and I've nothing but attendance at this morning's prayer meeting, where I collected a pile of War Crys I'd intended going to Princes Street to seel this afternoon - to show for the day...

I just needed to catch up on some sleep! I was going to go on an organised walk tomorrow morning (before going to my mother's) - I was on one with the same group last Saturday and really enjoyed it; so perhaps the best thing to do would be to forego that and go sell the papers then instead!

Even then, I have the small problem of no clean white unform shirts - because I've not had sufficient time or energy to go to the launderette with them. There's also a meeting to prepare for Tuesday (I am honoured to have been invited to lead this, a regular slot in the mental health chaplaincy drop-in), two application forms - one of which is urgent, as the closing date is getting near (I need to do these online as I have writers cramp - and I need to do it at home as there's no internet connection available at my mum's), my own correspondence, shopping - oh, and the washing-up etc - as I've not washed a spoon since Wednesday!!

Hey, it is now 5.15am - having slept most of the night as well, I off to do my cleaning - and papers. See if I don't!!

The pains of letting go...

2008-04-25T09:38:00.002+01:00

I guess most of us will have experienced the pain of someone we love not loving us back the way we'd like them to, at some point in our lives.

Michelle and I met properly on a Salvation Army corps retreat some years back, and immediately tuned into each other's sense of fun and playfulness. At that time, she worked in the corps' charity shop and, largely thanks to her encouragement and friendliness, I began working in the adjaccent cafe shortly afterwards; and as a result of this, many people began to put two and two together...

Of course, this appealed to our sense of humour and we decided to play along, and wind them all up! We had weekends away - in Brighton and Llandudno, discovering our deeper selves as we also got to know each other, as we were each able to stimulate the other's somewhat latent self-confidence. Amidst all our uncoventional behaviours - such as walking along the seafront from 2-5am and sitting alone on the back seat of an open-top bus through Snowdonia on a cold damp day - waving and gesturing at strangers like a pair of schoolchildren; we helped each other grow in faith. We share the hobby of people-watching, the characteristic of restlessness, the desire to be on the go as much as possible, discovering new places and yet, all the time just soaking up God's wonderful creation. And we're also rather partial to eating...

Those of you who've been reading through my posts will know that I've lost quite a bit of weight through the Slimming World regime in recent months. It was Michelle that put me onto the idea originally as she herself went a few years back and lost over three stones initially - much to everyone's relief as she is very probably the fattest person that most people will have ever seen, and very is obviously hugely at risk of all manner of serious health problems in consequence.

Alas, it didn't last, and she put it all back on - and more. There have been numerous subsequent attempts - she does it for a few weeks, relapses, and end up heavier than she started out in the first place. I've no real idea how heavy she is these days - people keep asking me this when I share my worries about her with them; the only guide I have is several years old, when she was 28 stone. But as she said herself just the other day, at that time she was able to cycle to and from work, then all around Gosport and back - but for the past couple of years she's not been able to use her bike at all, because the tyres become flat and the wheels buckle, as soon as she gets on board...

What I can offer, by way of size indication, is her dress size - 32. This time last year it was 28 - so perhaps you can understand the extent of the problem, and how much I and others who love and care about her are concerned. Last New Year's Eve, she arrived in Edinburgh with just an old baggy fleece, which indeed she had in St Bees this week too - it's the only item of outer clothing she has that fastens. She looks in vain for a waterproof jacket designed for either sex as mens' clothes are often made bigger and when you get into those sizes it doesn't matter much anyway, but of course she rarely if ever finds anything.

In her better moments, she reflects that what she really needs to do is to lose some weight so that she can fit into her expensive, rarely worn waterproof that she managed to buy from a specialist outlet in Bournemouth a couple of years ago. She did so the other afternoon in fact - adding that she knows how much her weight resticts her and giving opportunity for encouraging interjections about how better her quality of life could be, and how many more places she could go and enjoy; and she even admitted that it will probably take a heart attack or stroke to give her sufficient impetus to do something about it. The trouble is of course, that's always assuming she survives such a attack - which is an outcome that she - poerhaps understandably - doesn't seem to want to consider...

As she was leaving for home at new year, I did tell her that I didn't want the next time I saw her husband and friends to be at her funeral, and she did agree to have another go at losing weight then. Her husband even tried doing it with her, even though he doesn't really need to - but to no avail. She's started, aborted and restarted the slimming plan three times since then...!!

I did moot the idea of contacting Overeaters Anonymous the other day - and it seems her doctor has already betaen me to it, offering a referral to her local group. Alas, she knows some people who already go there (and who, at just over 11 stone, really don't need to), and she doesn't want to go if they're there, which I can understand. That's the trouble with such groups - they really should offer specialist services for the really obese). I might just send her the contact details anyway though. She does qualify for gastric banding on the NHS - she has been offered it umpteen times by various doctors, but refuses to go down that route...

As we were talking about this the other day, it occurred to me that I need to start letting go. I'm not sure exactly what tht entails at this time - but quite clearly, the chances of Michelle seeing the end of the decade are really not very great. Every time we meet and say goodbye, I can't help wondering whether it is for the last time - and I really don't need that kind of pressure in my life. I don't want to lose contact with her of course, and she is the last person I'd want to hurt in any way - but maybe that could be part of a solution? I don't know - I guess I'm just desperate enough to consider all of these thoughts.

She is planning to visit me again in August. Perhaps I need to make it conditional, upon an agreed amout of weight loss, and some exercise? I feel awful for even thinking along these lines, as there's a risk we won't meet and she'll hate me for it - but as it stands, there's an even greater risk that unless somebody can find some kind of bargaining chip that she values more than endless eating out and take-aways, that we won't be seeing each other again anyway.

And yet, who do I think I am? Everyone hoped she'd do it for her new husband, who she married four years ago. But if anything, she's got worse in that time - not least because he does everything for her, and she has even less exercise than before - and of course, greater availability of money to buy yet more food. She is already unable to travel by coach or air - and dislikes modern trains that don't have opening windows, while most of the others are impractical because she simply doesn't fit into any of the seats. Increasingly, this is no longer a matter of mere comfort - it is actually that she quite literally does not fit. The same is true of accommodation - hotels they've booked have turned them away more than once, having mysteriously lost their booking when they've turned up to claim their room. When they visit me, they very considerately choose to sleep upon just the mattress of my bed, on the floor, rather than risk the bed frame. She is even restricted in her choice of cafes and restaurants, as the seating used by many simply will not accommodate either her shape or weight.

What I do know is, I can't handle waiting around for her to die. I need to think of something!!

Cumbria & the English Lake District

2008-04-25T06:50:00.005+01:00

I have just returned from a short break in the Lake District with my friend, Michelle. We had a caravan at Seacote Park, St Bees - a beautiful setting indeed, spotlessly clean, well equipped, nice and warm and staffed with people that just couldn't do enough for you - highly recommended, in other words!

Apart from a short distance to the south of Ravenglass - of which I'd no real memory as it was over 20 years ago, I'd never been along the Cumbrian Coast before. That's no mean feat for me as I like to travel along the railways - and there's not many bits of the UK network left that I haven't done at some stage! It is quite an experience - jointed track, mechanical, semaphore signals & signal boxes, pretty stations, old signs, lanterns, buildings etc - all with the usual atmosphere of advanced decay; especially around Workington, which was obviously heavily industrialised until quite recently. And unlike the majority of so-called 'coast' lines, this one really does hug the coast for much of the way - built quite literally upon the sea wall in many places. And to cap it all, the southern part especially has a backdrop of wonderful, dramatic mountain scenery - all of which is absolute paradise as far as I'm concerned!

My one and only previous trip to the Lakes was in June 1985, just before my 21st birthday. I'm afraid my memory had faded rather more than I'd thought. All I remember of the jourmey there is a fleeting glimpse of the Windermere branch railway as it descends from the main line at Oxenholme! I know we did catch the 555 bus from there to Keswick, and then the 77 to the youth hostel at Longthwaite (Borrowdale), where we spent the night - and I got up early in the morning and went outside to wash my hair in the stream that runs in front; yet I don't remember actually making that journey...

Then I remember our walk - it must have been on the 17th June - the day before my birthday - very clearly indeed. Up the dead-end road past Seatoller to Seathwaite, then up a track to a mountain col, where there was a big tin box which, according to the map, contained a mountain rescue kit - I assume it's still there; then down a long path on the south slope of Green Gable with views of a helicopter rescue taking place on the north slope of Sca Fell - near a waterfall known as Taylorgill Force; and eventually down to Wasdale Head, where we stopped for lunch; before ascending again, over to Boot, and the narrow-gauge railway to Ravenglass...

We'd arranged to meet friends there - who were staying with another friend of theirs, who had one of the four cottages between the two railway stations - it is still instantly recognisable. I shared a birthday with one of them, and he did a joint meal for us - which I don't remember a great deal about, save for it having many courses including sorbet, fish, and an enormous, extremely boozy pavlova with mountains of cream. And, late at night, we wandered outside for fresh air, looking over the darkness of the sandy river estuary...

And on the Sunday, we were driven to Ulverston to catch the train for some reason. Perhaps there was no Sunday service to Barrow-in-Furness (there still isn't); and I've a vague idea there might also have been engineering works between there and Ulverston. But which route our drive took is anyone's guess, as I retain no memory of it whatsoever!

It's funny how your memory plays those tricks on you, isn't it...?

Mobile phones again!

2008-04-20T03:44:00.002+01:00

Having left saying that she might put some credit on it and use both mobiles until she got use to the new one, I had a call from my mum last night - she'd discovered how to check how much existing credit there was - and there was £19.92! Methinks she's done rather well out of this!!

Mobile phones - and suchlike!

2008-04-19T06:11:00.002+01:00

It is only 6am, and my head is already buzzing...!!

It seems my mother's mobile handset is no longer cool - even for a 65 year old. All her friends have newer, smaller, lighter models apparently - supplied by family members who have themselves had upgrades. Whether any of the said friends are actually able to see - or work - these new handsets, she hasn't actually said...

Now, inadvisedly I'm sure, I've always had contract mobiles - so I'm just assuming that the theory is the same with pay as you go handsets. You charge the new handset, get it unlocked if it is designed to be used with a different network from the one you normally use, swap the SIM cards, and away you go basically - am I right?

And if you want to keep your original phone number - which I can guarantee you my mum will, you have to ring your network for some number that I can't even recall the name of, right?

You see, one of the reasons I have a contract phone is, they do all this stuff for you! Because I just don't understand all this at all!!

Unfortunately, knowing that doesn't stop my mother expecting me to be able to advise her - and all I can really say is, 'we'll take it to the shop'!

I'm very much an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' sort of guy you see. All those folk out there claim to be totally committed to recycling - but not, it seems, to mobile handsets which, so far as I can see, they change every five minutes...

The fact that the last time something went wrong she took it back to the shop for repair - and ever since, has suspected the handset that was returned isn't the same one that was deposited, really doesn't help - it could only happen to my mother!!

Anyway, it occured to me the other day that Winnie - an old lady at church - had given me two new mobile handsets a few months back, despite my best protests that I didn't need them. Not only that, but also a camera and MP3 player - and I can't work them, either! Hence they've all sat in their boxes, in the back of my cupboard ever since - I'd all but forgotten about them, and indeed only found them whilst looking for something else the other day...

(At 82, Winnie's expectations of my ability to understand what all these things are for - let alone how to work them - are even worse than my mother's. She keeps arriving with CD-ROM drivers and manuals, insisting I take them because I have a computer. I just can't get her to understand that they're absolutely no use unless you want to use the appliance they refer to with your computer, and that they're no use otherwise. But, as far as she's concerned, I have a computer and she hasn't, so they're more likely to be of some use to me...).

So, the upshot is that both new handsets are now charged - I did that overnight. Neither will so much as turn on without spending several hours browsing through instructions - that I really don't have; and of course, neither are on my mother's (Virgin) network so far as I can make out - though one of them seems to be locked in German language anyway - so I've not a clue what it says!!

"So why doesn't she just change over to one of the other networks," I hear you say. "What's so special about Virgin?"

Well, she has £27 credit on her existing handset you see. This, for the woman who sends at best, two or three texts a week and only ever makes any calls in an emergency. There really is nothing like obsessive 'just in case' topping-up, is there?

And you know what? As soon as she realises she'll have to use some of her credit to advise all her contacts of a number change, she'll decide not to bother anyway...!!

And if on the offchance she does start to use one of them, she'll be on the phone every five minutes asking me how to do this or that - and I won't have a clue, nor any way of finding out - as she'll have the instructions by then as well.

So I'm just consoling myself here with an earful of Shirley Bassey as I type! It's going to be an interesting day, I fear. Better nip out for some migraine pills, I reckon...

new shoes

2008-04-11T17:35:00.002+01:00

Why are new shoes always so difficult to break in? Is it compulsory that they have to redden, then skin both your heels and show you who's boss, before they start feeling remotely comfortable?

For the past few years I've had no such problems - Millet's has supplied me with Pennine walking Shoes - 100% waterproof, polishable black and brown lace ups which I fit into like slippers. Alas, they've stopped making them; and so here I am in a surprisingly tight pair of Clark's.

"Wear them in the house for a few days," said the shop assistant, "and if they still feel overly tight you can always bring them back."

That was fine - I've worn them all evening twice now with no problems. But even just nipping to the end of the street to collect my laundry has resulted in sore heels!! Am I missing something, here??

It had to happen sooner or later I suppose...

2008-04-10T09:09:00.002+01:00

As of yesterday, I am the proud owner of TWO pairs of glasses - one for distance and general use, and one for reading. It was either that, bifocals or varifocals - neither of which I fancied learning to walk in just at the moment - as I'm reliably assured that seeing through your first pair is the least of your problems...

Added to the grey hair and missing teeth - I suspect I may be getting old.

But hey, I'm still 2 stones lighter than at the start of the year - and with a bit of luck I'll be 4 stones lighter by the end of it!

Brace yourselves, world, the new me is heading your way!!!

They don't call us 'the barmy army' for nothing...

2008-04-08T21:48:00.004+01:00

'Barmy' isn't a word you hear very often in Scotland. Maybe it was a regional thing - and in any case, I reckon it was probably some time ago now, back in more innocent times - when The Salvation Army was referred to by some as 'The Barmy Army'.

But, never let it be said that, whatever it may jokingly be called these days, The Salvation Army doesn't deserve such a description - which I suspect was always more affectionate and light-hearted, than critical; as I arrived at DHQ this morning, just in time to join the assembled team in a ten-minute discussion about spiders - featuring overgrown boys doing their best to scare female colleagues with their suggestions that their biggest, hairiest clockwork specimens might just make an unannounced appearance at some point in the future...!

I suppose it at least it proves we're as human as anyone else - and hopefully you'll be pleased to note that, we did get down to prayers eventually.

Meanwhile, in the Gents at the Salvation Army...

2008-03-31T06:21:00.002+01:00

I had one of those potentially life-changing conversations - as it just so happened that I was not the only one in need of a sharp exit from yesterday morning's meeting. The Divisional Commander had beaten me to it and, seeing as we were alone, I mentioned I was aware that my name had come up in conversation, regarding the future possibility of sharing ministry elsehwere within the division...

"I don't have my diary on me just now, Paul, but ring the office - and if I'm not there, speak to Sandra - she knows when I'm likely to be free. That is a conversation I look forward to sharing with you very much indeed!"

What a nice, encouraging way to respond!

Andrew...

2008-03-29T07:19:00.005Z

Why do some families find it so necessary to make such dramas out of the minor crises if their sons? I don't normally delete posts and start over again, but it feels right to do so here - as the person who had been described to me by the mother on Saturday evening simply isn't the one that arrived yesterday morning at all!

Admittedly, he has already told me that he had at one point in the emotional turmoil of the last few days not intended on returning home - on the grounds that whatever awaited him in Edinburgh couldn't possibly feel much worse than his life back home in Gosport; and that he did almost turn back en route, and was pretty scared when he finally arrived as he's never travelled so far away on his own before and at that point, wasn't sure he was doing the right thing...

But, tea and talk, sleep, a good meal and a walk along the Water of Leith walkway later, he announced that actually, this was really relaxing - not the kind of thing he normally does at all. In other words, the fear had subsided and he actually began to recognise the value of his achievement - and indeed, from that moment on, he's been a different person - even singing in a karaoke bar in Leith, last evening!!

Andrew is on a sharp learning curve about life - and in particular, about how much better it can be when you just take some time out for yourself occasionally, rather than trying to please others all of the time. I just wish for his sake, that his mum and sister would take the same journey...

Chilling out time

2008-03-27T09:32:00.002Z

Well, mostly. I've been asked to visit someone in hospital, which I'll do later, but otherwise I have the day to my own devices. So far that's mostly involved sleeping!!

At the beginning of the week I was expecting to be free on Wednesday. Then on Tuesday, that was swapped for Friday - and yesterday, Friday was swapped for today!

Methinks I can definitely add 'flexibility' to my CV...!

Going solo

2008-03-22T06:03:00.002Z

Whew! I've just rescued my reduced fat hot cross bun - it almost became too blackened to eat there!!

Fortunately I was doing it for me and not for David - they guy I'm working with. He'd have thought that so funny he'd almost certainly have told everybody about it - for weeks. As it is, the other workers I've been shadowing have remarked how well David seems to have taken to me - apparently it is not unknown for some service users to blank new workers for a while.

But no - he likes my beard, my shoes, my watch - and patting my belly and telling me I'm too fat - to which I return some light-hearted, faceitious remark which makes him laugh. So I think we're going to get along just fine. Today I'm working with him alone, from 10-12 and again from 4-6: this will be the first time I'll have worked with a client one to one.

Good Friday was quite action-packed, actually! I'd forgotten that the buses were running to a Saturday timetable - so getting to work on time was a little hairy, though I was comforted greatly when both my boss and my fellow worker got on the same bus further down the road from me! (Lothian Buses are always winning awards for being Beritain's best bus company - which I wholeheartedly support, save for the fact that they reduce the service levels on both English Bank Holidays AND local ones - what's that about?).

Then I had only just enough time to return home and get changed before meeting Richard and Liz at Sainsbury's at 1pm - as time was running out before last night's divisional meeting, I'd roped them into helping me with some hall cleaning for what I thought would be a couple of hours - and promised to buy them lunch as a reward for the favour. Which is what we did - except that Sainbury's was busier than any of us had ever seen before and everything took much longer. Plus, Iain and John were already in the hall - they'd been painting and doing odd jobs - and as I said, the neighbours must have been saying to each other, "The Sally Army's getting visitors again - you can always tell...!"

And all that took much longer too - though it has to be said, we're nothing if not enthusiastic. It was snow and hail that eventually stopped play - or window-cleaning, to be precise - at 5.20pm. By then it was too late for Richard and Liz to get home and back in time for the meeting, and I again had less than half an hour at home - just enough to get changed into my uniform etc. And of course, it was then a case of all hands on deck - I ended up being default welcoming sergeant, as well as caretaker, etc - and didn't get home until nearly 11pm.

While there are many others with keys who could do so, part of my caretaker role is to lock up after special events you see. The trouble is, you always get a crowd who sit around chatting at the end - and it's very nice that they do that - though I do wonder how many of them had been out since 8.30 in the morning and have to return to work again today? Fortunately not until 10 - had it been any earlier I suspect I'd be ringing in sick with burnout, come Tuesday.

Finally, I could have spoken with the divisional commander last night about the subject in my last post, but I need to pray about it a while first, I think. I'm certainly not against the idea - I'm quite taken by it actually, but if I'm going to survive I need to start as I mean to go on and pace myself a little. Along with Advent Sunday, Good Friday has always been one of the most spiritual days for me, and so I treated the meeting and subsequent social time as my personal space. If he doesn't reappear at the corps for another few weeks I'll drop him a line or phone, requesting some time to meet, and leave to forward some of my thoughts on paper, prior to the meeting. To me, that sounds far more satisfactory than grabbing a few minutes in a crowded room with millions of distractions around...

Work, work and more work!

2008-03-20T05:39:00.003Z

I had my first three hours of employment for some years on monday afternoon - just the boring induction stuff; and another four hours yesterday - which consisited of reading support plans, attending a case conference thingy, and arranging some shadow shifts for the next week or so...

The purpose of these is to introduce me to the people I'll be supporting, as well as their needs and routines. I have one such shift this afternoon, and another tomorrow morning - which will hopefully equip me sufficiently for my first solo shift with the same client on Saturday - well, actually that will be a split shift, so I'll have the middle part of the day free!

Then next week, I have three more shadow shifts booked...

Meanwhile, down at the Salvation Army, it is of course time to prepare for Easter - and as the divisional Good Friday evening meeting takes place in our hall - not to mention one of the Sunday meetings and a Saturday evening social event which will use two of the other halls - there's rather a lot of cleaning to do - somewhere. So I've got permission to rope in a couple of friends to assist with this on Friday afternoon - I just hope they can make it!!

And it seems that my name has been mentioned to the Divisional Commander as one of the potential solutions to his ongoing problem of arranging cover for the several corps in the division that currently have no officer, or whose officer is on long-term sick leave... I expect those of you who have known me in the Army context for the past few years will be cheered by this particular bit of news - though don't get too excited, as there's nothing official yet. We're most probably talking in terms of some part-time, Divisional Envoy role, or something similar. Apparently I need to approach the DC directly, if I want to set that particular ball rolling again. Comfortable as I currently am with my lot, I'm really not sure that - in spiritual terms - I actually have much choice in the matter!

never felt more like...

2008-03-17T05:16:00.002Z

I was SO uncomfortable in church yesterday. It was a shame, because it was a good meeting (well, all the bits organised by different parties fitted well together - that's what I call a good meeting; even if the overall thing was about Home League, which is in internal Salvation Army women's organisation that would mean absolutely nothing to any non-Salvationist who happened to be visiting). But I sat there feeling more and more wierd, and squirmed.

The trouble is, when you're not used to taking pills, you forget - or I do, at any rate! And I guess that's partly because I don't really want to be taking pills anyway - especially when its just to make me feel more comfortable doing the things I normally do unaided. I was fine on Saturday (excepting a few minutes in the cafe), but yesterday I felt like running out screaming!! I think its the large crowds that makes the difference - and that's really odd, as they never usually bother me at all.

At times like these, I need reassurance more than anything else - that there are people around (in ones and twos) who are willing to hold my hand. Sounds daft I know - but there you have it in a nutshell. And funnily enough, the people I thought would be most challenging are actually proving to be the most supportive - which only goes to prove, there's nothing quite like lived experience...

God made it all, just for you!

2008-03-15T18:38:00.002Z

Have you ever written anything in the sand? I don't just mean your name, but something meaningful...

I caught a bus to North Berwick earlier. It's the sort of place that I find really condusive to chilling out, with it's small, wooden-fronted shops and cafes, stone harbour with lobster creels piled up, natural swimming pool that gets filled by the tide, houses opening right onto the beach: it really has a rather wonderful, old-fashioned, traditional air. Enough to see and do for a few hours without feeling suicidal, and yet quiet enough to just sit back and take in the air...

After a delicious lunch of a baked potato stuffed with baked vegetables, mozerella & fresh green salad and an equally wonderful pot of tea in the excellent cafe at the Scottish Seabird Centre, I decided to walk along the shore towards Dirleton - whose castle is on my 'to do' list - only to wind up eventually in Gullane! That coast has beaches like beaches should be - wide, smooth sandy expanses with dune systems, and rocky outcrops and pools at low tide; with lots of different shells, seabirds, driftwood and even the odd cave!

At various points along the way I wrote things like, "God made all this just for you," or "Look how much God loves you," and suchlike. I pray that somebody will feel moved to give him thanks, before the tide comes in and reclaims them...

Chilling out - without my mother...!

2008-03-15T07:42:00.004Z

I don't know why mothers are so unpredictable, but there sure are times when it works to your advantage!

At the beginning of the week, she was for coming over to Edinburgh today. I wasn't keen. I prefer not to let her see me when I'm not feeling 100%, because she'd go away and worry herself silly when there's absolutely no need for doing so - and then come the middle of next week, she'd be full of aches and pains caused by the worry I'd 'given' her. It would therefore be all my fault. That, dear friends, is the sort of emotional pressure that has been going on all my life, and which has largely caused me to become like this in the first place...

So I was expecting a big showdown when I called her last night - but no, she'd already made alternative plans with her friend!

I'm feeling really thankful for this, as we'd almost certainly have ended up falling out otherwise, and it just isn't worth it.

The day's results...

2008-03-13T19:28:00.004Z

My fast lasted until 1 o'clock. I probably could have held on a bit longer, had I not gone shopping - but what, pray, do you do when you're neither eating nor shopping? My mind is all over the place as it is at the moment - there's no point in making it any harder than it is already!

There were no doctors appointments left at 8.30am, so I went walking. Well, I caught a bus out to Balerno to be precise - and ended up walking; having taken a few very indecisive paces in umpteen directions first.

But I managed to get an appointment with Dr Ali during the afternoon. I was really surprised and impressed with this young man when I met him for the first time a few months ago - he moved his chair closer to mine so he could maintain good eye contact, and I really felt listened to. I think there's a lot to be said for recently-qualified GPs, its nice to feel you're working with your doctor, rather than just sitting there passively, like a lemon!

Well, it seems that thioridazine, my usual anti-anxiety drug, is no longer used in the UK - he'd never heard of it, and patiently looked up its' various names in front of me, to prove the fact! I must admit I do have a few misgivings about his suggested alternatives - I think the last time I had diazepam was from some unkempt-looking police surgeon, having just been sectioned in the late 1980s; and here I am home with 28 of them...

He's written me up for up to 3 a day - but said I can have 4 if I feel I need them - and it's also okay to just have one. He reckons they'll make me feel really good - and warned that because they're addictive, I can't have them long term - but hey! So I came home via Boots and took a couple. I have to say, so far, so good - they always used to give me tinnitus, dry mouth, tremor, palpitations and sweats pretty well straight away, but so far I've not experienced any adverse side effects, which is pretty amazing really. Maybe they've refined it a bit, from the stuff I've had before? I guess I'll have a better idea in the morning...

Anyway, I've to keep in touch with the good doctor - he wants to see me again when I run out of pills - which I guess could be in as little as a week's time. I've also to continue trying to go out and keep myself occupied, and he even thinks that starting work on Monday is a good idea - I was terrified he'd tell me not to.

He's a bit of a one for antidepressants mind you, which I'm not so keen to have. I'm afraid the only sort I've ever had that make a significant difference to the depression are such that their side-effects render me incapable of day to day functioning, and in particular, the newer SSRI type really don't suit me at all, so far as I can tell. But we'll see. At the moment I'd be willing to try just about anything, within reason!

A bit of internet research has confirmed that thiroidazine - also known as Melleril - was indeed withdrawn from UK pharmacology in 2005. You know, it's actually quite worrying when you consider that, not many years ago, I and countless others were being prescribed 200mg doses on a daily basis! Though in its defence I have to say, four or five days in hospital with that kind of treatment used to serve me very well - and the jury's still out on whether that might still be preferable to long-term use of ineffective antidepressants.

Disclosure update!

2008-03-13T07:08:00.005Z

I've just realised that I forgot to mention - I now have my enhanced disclosure - at last, it came through last Tuesday!

Rather disturbingly, it seems there are new guidelines about to be introduced, regarding people who have had jail sentences - no matter what for, for how long, or how long ago. It is as yet unclear how exactly these should be interpreted, but the inference is that such history would automatically bar such persons from doing care/support work - which, as my boss at Enable said, does seem rather harsh, especially if the sentences in question occurred many years ago and the person hasn't been in trouble with the law again since...

Fortunately for me, they seem to be taking the view that as these guidelines haven't actually been introduced yet, that they don't apply to me - and in any case, they're happy to accept my explanation that the only reason I ended up dallying with the criminal justice system at all was in order to escape the dreadful abuse I was receiving from the mental health system at the time.

Taken literally, these guidelines could have pretty awful implications for a lot of people who, like me, went off the rails as teenagers, or those whose crimes arose as a result of their mental health issues, who were only sent to prison as a last resort, because there was no secure hospital accommodation available for them - which again, was arguably so in my case. At the time, I was assessed by three doctors, all of whom said that while I did not fit the criteria for admission to the high security State Hospital at Carstairs, I was also not fit enough for a prison sentence; and in the end I only got one because the local hospital refused to re-admit me, and there was no medium secure facility available!

I met with Sean, my new boss, for a couple of hours last Friday, and learned a bit about the two people they want me to support. Both live fairly close to me, and have very mild learning disabilities that, nevertheless, have resulted in them spending significant parts of their lives in hospitals. One also has autism, and the other obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The next stage is induction training - which is next Monday afternoon. I just hope I feel up to it on the day...

Fasting!

2008-03-13T06:40:00.002Z

During the past week, I managed to gain some weight for the first time since I began attending Slimmers World! Only a pound and a half, so not a disaster, but a gain all the same. The truth is I'm getting really sick of fruit, vegetables, Quorn, yogurt, etc - and I'm not really in the right space to prepare more interesting foodstuffs at the moment...

A few weeks back, the subject of fasting came up in a church house group. I've always kind of admired people that can fast, and wondered how on earth they can possibly be so self-discplined to achieve such a thing! I'd really quite like to feel able to do it if I wanted to - and you know, I think the time has come to just give it a go. So today's the day - I shall drink tea, but not eat - not until after lunchtime anyway - that feels like it could be a realistic goal!

Of course, I know that you're not meant to tell anyone you're doing it if it's for spiritual reasons - so let me say that this time it is about me, and not specifically about my spirituality - I just need to know that I can do it if I want to. Know what I mean?

As regards other matters, the visualisations I described a few days ago have subsided a bit, but there have been others - usually these occur as I'm walking over high bridges and the like. Don't be alarmed - I'm not likely to act upon them - but they are very disturbing indeed when they occur, as I can actually feel my feet moving towards the edge or the parapet. I've always been scared of heights anyway - perhaps this is why - I'm the same on underground platforms, as the train is pulling into the station; and as for cliff edges - don't even go there.

One visualisation I used to get that thankfully, doesn't seem to occur these days, involved walking off into oblivion. It was always worse whenever there were reports of bad weather, snow, blizzards or fog - I'd just have this overwhelming urge to take myself off to some remote moor or mountain and just walk into the thick of it, never to return.

I'm probably way off mark, but in a sense I feel I can identify with the police chief guy that was found dead on Snowdon the other day, as he appears to have done just that...

As a precaution, I've decided to tell my doctor about these thoughts and visualisations - again, I'm kind of needing to know that such a revelation won't result in me being carted off to hospital - as I'm pretty certain it would have done in former times! I have an applointment for Monday - but they also do same day appointments, and as both of the doctors I normally see are working today, I'm going to go up to the surgery in a bit and see if they can fit me in today - the sooner the better I think - just in case...

What a difference a year makes!

2008-03-10T05:07:00.002Z

It is now a whole year since I moved to Edinburgh!

If anything, it feels a lot longer - for me, that's a sign of being settled. And, even if it has taken a long time to come about and it's still not exactly certain, the future's reasonably bright...

'Back later!

more warnings...

2008-03-09T21:34:00.003Z

You know, sometimes I don't see any wood for trees. For the first time in several years, I've recently been bothered with eczema. I had put it down to my weight loss!!

Doing the sensible thing

2008-03-07T09:33:00.003Z

I've not been anywhere since I signed off my last post - I've just been sititng relaxing, having breakfast, watching tv and snoozing in my chair. My guest is still in bed - normally, that'd wind me up as I'm always raring to go, but today it's an advantage. I'll get myself ready for the prayer meeting after I've done this - but the cleaning can wait!

Yesterday, we went on a bit of a grand tour, by bus. First to Stirling for an hour - just time to walk up to the castle esplanade, take a few photos and buy some postcards. Then, on to Crieff, where we had lunch and a seat in the square (it is surprisingly mild), before catching one of the twice daily (schooldays only) buses through the Sma' Glen to Aberfeldy. This was a treat indeed, as we had the bus to ourselves, front seat, lovely scenery and all that. Then after another little wander, a twice-daily bus (which also just runs on schooldays) along a single track road to Dunkeld, and onto Blairgowrie - where we crossed the road and immediately caught another bus to Perth, arriving there at about 6pm. Here we had tea - carvery for a fiver - before catching another bus back to Edinburgh!

Now, I feel a bit embarrassed about describing this, so forgive me if it seems a bit odd or inappropriate - that, I fear, is oftent the nature of mental illness...

During the journey I began to visualise the sensation of a really prolonged snog. Very localised - really just concerning the mouth and tongue, and breathing - I didn't have a picture of myself actually doing it, just the feeling and the sensations. Try as I might, I just couldn't get that picture out of my mind. Now that for me is an early warning sign: the earliest stages of my depression could easily be a cold coming on, or a myriad of other things and are therefore hard to identify as such - but when that sort of visualisation starts to appear like that, I know I'm getting depressed as opposed to anything else...

Amidst it all, I also get other visions of a more sexual nature - and again, I don't actually appear in the picture as such (and nor does anyone else I can identify), it's just the extremely localised feelings and sensations - such a a hand giving a sharp smack, and stinging flesh - and well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

It stopped happening when I'd decided I was going to post it here. If it comes back, I will ring the crisis line I think...

So there you are - a good example of an early warning sign - some very subtle, entirely internal occurrence that nobody else would have any way of knowing about unless I told them about it - that follows on from triggers being set off. This post - and any subsequent conversations arising from comments, or phone calls to the crisis service or whatever, is my action plan. Let's pray that it works, and doesn't worsen!!

WRAP in Action!

2008-03-07T05:31:00.004Z

A while back I posted a brief definition of WRAP - Wellness Recovery Action Plan. If you remember, you list all the things you do regularly to keep you well, then identify external events (triggers), subtle signs (called early warning signs) and more serious symptoms before writing crisis and post crisis plans...

Over the last few days, I've encountered a number of triggers. Yesterday, I started getting some early warning signs. As soon as I realised what was going on, I thought I'd better ring the Edinburgh Crisis Centre, and still might; but it also occurs to me that as I'm good at writing things down, sharing some of them here might be a good action plan. Certainly, the signs have started to subside since I decided I'd do that!

I can cope with many things, but sleep deprivation isn't one of them. For weeks, I've had very little sleep - barely four hours a night, if I'm lucky. I have always been an early morning person - but waking up at 4.50 when you've only been asleep since 12.30 is no joke...

The funny thing is, through the day I have boundless energy! Though I've lost some weight (one and a half stones now) and that probably contributes, I've been charging around at previously unknown speeds, doing all sorts of things very effectively!

I have lots of new projects on the go, I've been writing a lot, cooking and eating really well, looking after myself, feeling great. I've been sociable, making new friends, and taken myself out and about without effort.

And I've had some really good news too - feedback from the meeting I attended the other week and a possible opportunity to continue some of that work; and yes - at long last, my enhanced disclosure has turned up, which means I can start my support work job - I'm going to talk to my employer about the next stages on Monday afternoon!

Thinking about it, I did notice that I was unusually annoyed by having to go and visit my mother last weekend. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't that I didn't want to go, it was simply that during that particular weekend, it really was very difficult to identify the time, at least without digging deeply into what might otherwise be described as 'me time'. But it was mother's day last Sunday - so I didn't really feel I could make too much fuss about giving her half my Saturday - even though she'd been over here the Saturday before...

But the inane, endless conversation about nothing in particular or certainly, nothing particularly interesting, got to me more last weekend than it has done for a long time. I found myself answering through clenched teeth. I suppose I just felt that I was too busy, for lectures on how to run the life I've been running successfully on the whole for the past 43 years - from somebody who refuses to have a life of her own. My uncle says that my mother is never happy unless she has something to moan about - and you know, I rather fear he may have a point. I also think that's probably why she doesn't get many visitors. I'm afraid she loves being the centre of family attention, and so expects them all to visit her - but refuses to make return visits to them - even after I've pointed out that if she doesn't, there's surely a risk they'll interpret that in a negative way, and visit less often in consequence. She just doesn't see that she has any responsibility for cultivating such relationships at all - and of course, they all resent that...

It's also well-nigh impossible to make any sort of observation on any subject, without it being taken as a personal criticism. I thought I was bad for feeling the need to be everyone else's fire and rescue service - but my mother, well! It's not hard to see where I get it from!!

I'm afraid, dear reader, I find all this extremely wearing. Add to that her favourite game of criticising olther relations for not supporting her as much as they might - and then putting pressure on me to agree, and take her side; and you'll perhaps have a flavour of the problem that is my mother...

Almost everything outside of her usual routine is too much effort even to contemplate. And nobody else is allowed to be more adversely affected. She'll acknowledge their loneliness or pain - but then add that it isn't so bad for them, because they have family nearby...

Anyway - enough of her - this isn't about her...!!

On Tuesday, I had a major falling-out with a colleague. As those of you know me in person would probably testify, it really takes an awful lot to make me that angry - I'm normally a really placid person. Though there are common triggers within that - humiliation being the biggie. I think it relates back to abuse that took place earlier in my life...

We were in the Old Council Chamber (big long table in an oak-panelled room with huge chandaliers, fancy leather chairs, enormous portraits and sculptured busts of former Lord Provosts), trying to encourage a new intake of 'Get On' course participants of the importance of service user involvement. We'd had several meetings beforehand, at which we'd planned our lesson - the bulk of which I was supposed to be delivering, using an agreed imaginary scenario to
illustrate my points...

Just before we started, he suggested what I thought was going to be a quick icebreaker, which I agreed to. Having said we'd stick strictly to an hour, and that I'd be doing the bulk of the workshop; he proceed to hog the floor for the next 30 minutes - covering most of the subjects in the scenario as he did so...

I sat there feeling more and more humiliated. Just what was I meant to do now? Carry on as planned and then look stupid and inflexible, for covering the same ground again? Mustering all the strength I had to not simple grab my bag and coat and walk out; I eventually decided to just use the second part of the two-part scenario - I mean, one of us needed to be professional...

Of course, it ruined the whole thing - it wasn't nearly as effective. And worse still, having asked (as per plan) for people to come up with their own service user involvement plan, they came up with lots of issues instead, which before I'd had a reasonable chance to park elsewhere - my colleague proceeded to answer; thus effectively shifting the attention forever away from the matter in hand, and hijacking the entire session!

Eventually, we came out more than an hour later than planned (and allocated, within their course timetable) and when asked how I thought it went, I decided to go for the diplomatic response, and said it was far too long - and that maybe we should consider allocating ourselves far more time if we're going to take such questions as these...

"I think we have to answer those kinds of questions though," says my colleague. "I feel I have a moral obligation to answer them!"

I don't disagree with that - but not in the middle of my lesson! However, it didn't feel like the time or the place...

Then he tried to justify his actions by suggesting that my scenario was leading them in particular directions. Now, at that point I really began to see red! I mean - he didn't have a problem with what he was now calling your scenario when we were planning it - and far from it just being my scenario - I was actually under the impression that it formed part of our lesson plan...!!

In these situations I always try to take the advice on James, in the first chapter of his short book - always be quick to listen slow to speak, and slow to become angry...

At that point I felt more hurt than anything else I think. It felt like I was being attacked for just doing my job, or even just trying to. I felt like an unwanted, spare part - and I said so. But of course, it did make me angry...

I thought I dealt with it well! I have a friend staying with me at the moment - and I chatted about it with him for a bit. I phoned another friend who also knows and works with my colleague and spoke to her at length - ending up laughing about it all, as I knew I would. And I slept on it, before sending him an email in which I expressed my various observations, feelings and suggestions...

In response, he's saying that I have been personally attacking him. I certainly didn't intend that - and I'd thought I'd taken steps to avoid doing so...

But this sort of thing has occured before. Not often - but, somebody humiliates me, and I feel compelled to write and tell them what I think may have caused it, why, and what I suggest they/we do about it. Maybe only five times in the past 8 years - but somehow it causes major rifts and everyone seems to gang up and conspire against me; and on more that one occasion, I've been told I'm no longer welcome to work with them, in consequence...

So I hope you'll forgive me for feeling worried by these developments.

And the insomnia is getting worse!! All this week, come 9pm I can hardly even keep my eyes open, and feel like I'm going to fit, in consequence of feeling so tired - and yet, still I can't get a decent night's sleep.

Nor is there anything around that I can really drop - not without it having a negative impact upon my life anyway. Things have just started to gel for me at the Salvation Army: I have a few specific roles to fulfill and at last, I feel I'm really forming relationships with more people, so I daren't cut any of that activity out - apart from anything else I enjoy it and it is my main support network. So the last thing I want is to be relieved of some of my workload there - which in itself is not great anyway - and then earn a reputation of being unreliable or incapable of anything remotely interesting...

Even sharing it with my mother isn't an option, for she'd just make it her problem and start experiencing all sorts of aches and pains - and tell me they were caused by the worry I was giving her...

Having waited for months to start work, I daren't go to the doctor - in case he says I'm not able to do it. That would set me back so terribly far - I don't think I could cope with that at all. And as I've just described, there are problems within my main voluntary work arena at the moment.

I need to go and get some breakfast, shower, do 2 hours of cleaning at the Salvation Army - before the prayer meeting at 11am - from which I need to go straight to the next (and for now final) service user involvement workshop (with the same colleague, who I've not spoken with since the emails) at 1.15. But assuming I've not been locked up, I shall be back to tell you about the early warning signs later...

Busy, busy, busy!

2008-03-02T22:27:00.002Z

I've not been around for a week or so, because I've been doing lots of other stuff! But, just to update anyone bored enough to read this,

my weight has now dropped by 1st 3lbs in the five weeks since I started attending Slimming World
I'm still waiting for my enhanced disclosure - which a phone call yesterday suggested might be on its way - but as they've said that before I'll believe it when I see it - hence I've still not began my support work
the cleaner at Gorgie Salvation Army has been signed off for a month, and I've been covering for her absence
last week, I gave my third service user involvement presentation and will be doing three more - on each of the new Get On courses this coming week
today, I led the evening meeting at the 'Army - on the subject of 'how to avoid divorce' - which was very possibly the hardest I've ever had to do - and although there were only ten people there, I had lots of positive feedback
I have another friend coming tomorrow evening, for the week
and I'm exhausted, already!!

Jean Grainger - where are you?

2008-02-19T17:34:00.004Z

Galashiels always reminds me of Jean, as it is her home town.

I originally met Jean during a drop-in at 219 West Street in Fareham, Hampshire - then a day services centre for people with mental health issues. It was of course her accent that drew my initial attention - a lovely, broad Border drawl.

Jean was not my worker, so we could afford to relate to one another on a different level as long as she worked there; though even if she had been, it would have been a special relationship. All her clients - me included, were routinely addressed as "bonny lad/lass," and all were made to feel special in an individual way.

She was not - and indeed, could not be - one of those workers who came to work wearing a hat bearing their job title. She came as Jean - the Jean that was married to Bill - a chief inspector in the MOD police, and the mother of Paul. They had lived all over the country - moving every few years with Bill's job; and indeed for a while we kept in touch after they left Portsmouth and moved north to Carlisle, where Bill had a posting: based at Longtown, but covering the whole of the north of England beyond the Mersey/Humber estuaries.

Like me, Jean is practically-minded, generous and yet also thrifty, a realist - and a natural rebel - always up for a laugh, especially if it was at the expense of management, or others in authority! She freely admitted that her professional approach had evolved over the years and there had been times when she and her colleagues had thought they were doing the right thing - but in a more enlightened age and with the gift of hindsight, she could see they most certainly were not. But she worked tirelessly, having founded and managed a Portsmouth day centre that broke all the usual rules and conventions about opening hours, and thought nothing of working late into the evening, at weekends and even on Christmas day if there was a need - which there usually was. Likewise, she had suffered her own demons, particularly with ME, and appreciated the need people often have for a 'wee cuddle' more than any other mental health professional I've ever known.

She was, quite simply, a very large part of my recovery process - just by being herself. Even when I felt at my most wretched, I knew I could turn up at the lunch club she ran, and somehow she'd manage to reach inside and soothe my hurt, where nothing or no-one else could - and I'd come away feeling better!

For a time, I visited Jean and Bill at Carlisle, usually on the return leg of my trips north; and on two occasions I was accompanied by other old pals. But as my father's health deteriorated sharply towards the close of 2002 and my visits had to become much more frequent, I usually travelled by air or sleeper train, and could not easily stopover at Carlisle.

By June 2003, when my father passed away and, perhaps more than ever before, I could have done with Jean's cuddles and cheerfulness; their phone number was no longer obtainable, and my cards and letters went unanswered. Last time I saw Jean, she was saying they might just have to make one more move before Bill's retirement, and while that does appear to have taken place, it does not explain why none of the people she kept in touch with ever heard from her again. For years, we have all compared notes, and nobody ever has.

Jean just isn't the sort of person to not get stay touch, no matter how long the absence. While it is possible her ME might have returned and rendered her physically or mentally incapable, no-one has heard from Bill either...

So if anybody knows the whereabouts of Jean and Bill Grainger, originally of Galashiels, who were living at Durdar village, Carlisle in 2002/3; please tell them their auld pals would love to know they're safe and well. And likewise, if you happen to know they're not - then please consider putting a lot of people out of their misery...

Bordering on the Inaccessible!

2008-02-18T06:58:00.012Z

The Scottish Borders region is a gem, largely by-passed and undiscovered by all but the most intrepid traveller. Largely devoid of its industrial past, its towns remain surprisingly busy and even prosperous - as is the beautiful, unspoilt countryside surrounding them, dotted with well-kept villages and historical houses, castles and abbeys. Right through the middle runs the mighty River Tweed - rising in the Moffat hills in the west, then flowing through Peebles, Innerleithen, Selkirk, Melrose, Kelso and Coldstream en route to the North Sea at Berwick - forming the actual English border for some of its' course. With the exception of the Teviot, most of its tributaries have the suffix, water, rather than the usual prefix, river...

The area is of course by-passed because of the lack of a decent road network, and the complete absence (since the 1960s) of a rail network. While there is talk of reinstating the latter south from Edinburgh to Tweedbank, between Galashiels and Melrose; and the A7 is signposted as a 'tourist route' to Edinburgh off the M6 near Carlisle and perhaps the A68 is also, from the Newcastle area; even the merest glance at a map reveals so many twists, turns and gradients - that few choose these routes after a lengthy drive from the more populous parts of England.

So you might have thought - given the ongoing absence of any railway link - there would be a decent bus terminal at Galashiels, the main town (as much because of its central position as anything else). Well - think again...

Now, lets take a moment get this into some kind of proper perspective - because when you consider the number of awful bus stations dotted around the country, this really takes some doing: Galashiels wins first prize, in my opinion, of the grottiest, most cramped, least user-friendly, most unfit for purpose and desperately needing replacement bus station - that I have ever come across...

The site is triangular - hemmed in by a town centre by-pass road (with room for a single track railway line on the far side, should the Borders Rail Link project ever come to fruition - that's surely what you call wishful thinking, on the part of the town planners!); a supermarket car park; and Gala Water - one of those rivers that aren't actually called rivers. Evidently, it also gets used as a bus depot these days, and most probably to encourage local youth to vent their frustrations of boredom elsewhere, the whole is fenced in by one of those metal grey, spiked affairs. Likewise, the windows in the single-storey chalet-type building are all covered with sturdy wire mesh...

You're not warming to it really, are you?

There are six stances arranged in a straight line in front of the building - which buses are required to reverse out of in the usual fashion. In itself, that would be fine - if there weren't spare buses parked in every available space - such as in all the corners, and parallel to the northern boundary fence - in what might otherwise be considered the reversing space. Hence most manouvres require multi-point turns, within the tightest of spaces!

Within the building are public toilets - which cost an exhorbitant 30p to enter (hence I usually go elsewhere in the town, for free), a drivers mess room, and a tiny waiting room - just enough space for four seats. The latter is usually closed. Outside is more seating - under cover, but only just! There isn't really any room to queue and pass at the same time - resulting in frequent collisions between would-be travellers. Above each stance is a metal sign which I imagine is supposed to tell you which buses call there - only, unless you happen to have some local knowledge, most of them do nothing of the sort!

Then the best bit - remembering there's no enquiry office of any description - is that there are no timetables. It doesn't even look as though there ever were, as there are no display cases - save for one at the end, which gives details of Munro's Border Courier services - one bus in each direction per day, Monday to Friday, between Peebles and Borders General Hospital, plus another from Eyemouth - that serves different villages on different days of the week. That's it!

So how, pray, are you meant to know which stance to wait at - and for how long - for the mostly 30-minute service to Edinburgh via Stow, or the 30-minute service to Edinburgh via Peebles, or the frequent services to Selkirk, Hawick, Carlisle, and Melrose - running by several different routes? Not to mention the very frequent town services, or the hourly services to Earlston and St Boswells - with their various extensions to Lauder, Oxton, Duns, Berwick, Kelso and Jedburgh; or even the daily National Express service to Wrexham (yes, I did say Wrexham)!

Fortunately, I did know that my number 60 bus departed from the 'via Melrose' stance, and sure enough, our bus emerged from a corner parallel to the building, pulled forward, then back, then forward, then back again - and a total of eleven points later, eventually pulled into the correct bay! What I didn't know was which route it took 'via Melrose' however - and it was just as well I resisted my thought to pick it up from what I thought was it's first stop on the way out of town, as it didn't go that way at all! Instead, we took a pleasant run along the north bank of the Tweed, crossing the river by a single-track arched bridge just east of Tweedbank, before looping through the grounds of the relatively new Borders General Hospital...

Melrose - whose parish is home to some of my earliest traceable ancestors - is a pleasant town indeed. Of all the border abbeys, Melrose's is the most complete, and there's the added attraction of half the former railway station to look at, too! We then passed through the village of Newstead, scarcely fitting through its steep, narrow main street; before emerging on the A6091 just short of Leaderfoot roundabout - named of course, after the famous (former) railway viaduct which crosses the Tweed valley just to the north - at its' confluence with the Leader Water - which gives its name to Lauderdale, and the town of Lauder, of common riding fame...

A few miles up the A68 - now largely built upon the former Berwickshire Railway trackbed; we passed though the attractive village of Earlston - where it is possible to connect with of of Munro's awful vehicles to Edinburgh, Jedburgh or Kelso. If Gala's bus station is the worst-ever, then Munro of Jedburgh's single-deck buses are the worst-ever vehicles - rendering the Borders an even less atractive proposition to would-be daytrippers. They are the usual modern low-floor affairs - inoffensive enough to look at - but boy, that all changes when you try to find a seat you can actually fit into...

Now, these are not busy services. Apart from Edinburgh and Dalkeith, none of the communities they serve have a population much greater than six or seven thousand. So why, oh why, do they feel the need to squeeze in as many of those horrid, hard, narrow seats as they possibly can? I may be quite tall, but my thighs are short in proportion to the rest of my body - and there are just two places in those vehicles I can sit with any semblance of comfort - right at the front, or right at the back! In any other part of the bus, I need an aisle seat - so that I can put one knee out in the aisle itself, and point the other towards the window. There is absolutely no way I can sit forward at all - and when you consider a goor proportion of the passengers using these routes are people younger than I - most of whom are considerably taller; that's nothing sort of totally ridiculous...!

East of Earlston was new territory for me - at least on the west to east axis. I'd been down the A697 north to south road a couple of times in the late 1970s, but apart from that, the former county of Berwickshire had simply proved too difficult to get to.

Note the name - Berwickshire. Always a Scottish county, the town whose name it bears has of course been part of England since 1482 - though a recent local referendum has shown that over 70% of Berwick Upon Tweed's population wants the town to return to Scottish jurisdiction again! Absolutely everybody's talking about it!!

Our bus passed through two of its subsequent administrative centres, and if the most recent - the attractive but tiny, market town of Duns - seems unlikely; that's nothing when compared to Greenlaw! http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/greenlaw/greenlaw/index.html tells the story far more eloquently that I could - and shows the 'town hall' in a rather better state than it now appears - fenced off, boarded up, with weeds growing out of the masonry...

Duns is also terminus of two further bus routes to and from Berwick - and very occasional weekday journeys to places such as Coldstream, and Kelso. Indeed, one of the thrice-daily 34s was awaiting our arrival - giving a connection for Coldingham, Ayton and Eyemouth; and we met one of the 260s travelling in the opposite direction as we passed through the large village of Chirnside, which generated more passengers than everywhere else put together!

I'd never stopped in Berwick Upon Tweed before, but I shall certainly return - what a beautiful town! Built on quite a steep hill, the lower part is fortified against the once frequent English/Scottish raids and indeed, much of the enormous ramparts are walkable. Traffic on the main street also passes through a town gate, which is a rare feature indeed this far north. At the foot of the busy, but relatively uninspiring shopping area is the spired town hall - with roads passing on all sides; and below that are numerous narrow, winding roads leading to either the old town bridge or harbour - both of which are still in use. Many of the buildings are Georgian and pastel-painted - always a feature I've appreicated, as it really does brighten up what would otherwise be a fairly drab scene. There are also riverside walks at various levels, not to mention sandy coves and very Scottish-looking golf links!

Indeed, there are Scottish accents everywhere. The banks are Scottish, people are purchasing their goods with Scottish banknotes, they attend Scottish churches and Scottish league football matches - English voices seem very much in a minority. So perhaps it is little wonder the locals are voting to return to Her Majesty's northern kingdom, once more.

On the down side, I couldn't find Chapel Street. The main bus stops in Golden Square - not so much a square as a part of the road leading to the Royal Tweed Bridge (that's the concrete one built in the late 1920s) said in their timetable cases that Eyemouth & Edinburgh buses left from Chapel Street - but gave no indication of how to get there; and neither did any of the tourist town trail signs reveal where Chapel Street might be. So I walked up to the top of the hill, near the railway station (yes - it does have one, being on the main line south; and thinking of it, if they did restore Berwick Borough to its former Scottish county, the Scottish Borders council area would no longer be bereft of a railway station - that'd be much cheaper than reopening the line to Tweedbank! I do hope nobody thinks of that...), and caught my next bus there...

Eyemouth is in some respects a smaller version of Berwick - vaguely reminiscent of West Cowes and Lynmouth too - I guess because of its' slightly north-easterly facing aspect, and the fact that its' docks straddle the mouth of a river. As a mark of respect to its tragic history of losing large numbers of fishermen to rough seas, I had a piece of fish from the chippie - with most of the batter removed, as per my eating regime - and lovely it was too. Then I walked along the stunning cliff-top coastal path as far as beautiful Coldingham Bay, and into historic Coldingham village, where I caught the last 253 of the day home to Edinburgh.

So of Berwick and Berwickshire I can only say, make the effort to go there and spend some time there - you won't be disappointed! As for me, I shall be back...

Diet? What diet??

2008-02-15T08:26:00.002Z

Yesterday, I broke my new eating plan - there are times when only some serious carbohydrate intake hits the spot!

I'm not beating myself up about it though. I've so far lost 10lbs in three weeks after all. Rome wasn't built in a day...

Takin' over a new asylum!

2008-02-13T17:53:00.005Z

Having developed and for several years managed a unique service user involvement group within Fareham & Gosport's adult mental health community, I have been very pleased in recent weeks to have been offered opportunities to transfer these skills and experience to the development of service user initiatives within Edinburgh's employability sector.

This morning, I attended a meeting - and gave a short presentation about my journey, which I've entitled, Institution to Employment, within a large gathering of (mostly) voluntary sector agencies. The feedback and support I received was very positive indeed - and without too much effort, I succeeded in getting two major items on the agenda, as well as making a significant impression for the need for a complete overhaul of the values, beliefs and practices widely held within the Scottish employability sector, in relation to service users and service user involvement!

Tomorrow, I am due to co-present at another, much larger conference, which will include a number of statutory sector agents and service commissioners. As a number of the people present today will also be there, it seems likely that even greater weight could be added to my proposals - which incidentally, have already attracted suggested funding resources.

So I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself right now!!

Understanding youth crime...

2008-02-11T05:09:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday afternoon responding to one of those internet forum threads, which was on the subject of coming down heavy on young people who get into trouble, and ressurecting the old borstal system.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm very much of the opinion that there are currently far too few boundaries available to young people in this country, and something clearly needs to be done about that sooner rather than later. Unlike a lot of people - who seem to think that the existence of boundaries for young people will help protect their interests; I'm very much of the opinion that the existence of boundaries helps young people's interests...

The fact is, human nature has a lot to answer for. As small children, most of us will have learned the hard way why our mothers told us not to do or touch a particular thing - in one way or another, it hurt! But before we experienced hurt, we had no way of understanding why it was such a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs - or why our mothers (or whoever) didn't want us to experience hurt. There are some things in life we just have to try, to satisfy ourselves whether they really are or are not a good idea!

Of course, the first crucial point is, hurt need not be physical. Boundaries need not be physical. Taking an eye for an eye is never justified! Take something the offender values by all means and in the case of a younger person, still on his or her journey of learning what is and is not acceptable behaviour to society, take something they value for a period of time - but return it, later. Provide them with a means of learning that in order to have what they value all the time, there are certain boundaries that they must not cross, because if they do, they'll be deprived of something they value, for a while - and actually, that hurts...

The second crucial point is this: don't automatically assume that their values are the same as your own! Don't reach for a leather belt or willow cane and aim for their backsides - they might not like it very much, but it won't necessarily hurt them as much as it hurts you. And don't just lock them up either - don't assume their experiences of life are the same as your own!!

I'm going to reproduce here what I wrote yesterday, to explain why:

I was one of the last people in Scotland ever to be sentenced to borstal training in November 1981 - the system was phased out a few months later. So for the benefit of those not so much in the know, let's define exactly what the old borstal systems were. I say systems, because they differed between England & Scotland.

From what I understand, the English system was something vaguely reminiscent to what you might now call a boot camp - early rising, early to bed, cold showers, lots of PT and drilling and fairly menial work in between - it lasted six months, and you could be sentenced to it up to three times. I don't think there was any intermediate sentence between borstal and approved schools.

In my view, the Scottish system was better thought out. At that time we had what were known as 'list D schools', which were normally residential units for young teenagers who'd broken the law; but for those aged 16 or 17, there were detention centres where the approach was one of short, sharp, shock: six weeks of what most people would consider hell, basically.

The detention centres were an alternative sentence however, as not all borstal boys (and I don't think any borstal girls) went there - though it has to be said, the majority did - more of which in a minute. Borstal was a single-sentence option in Scotland, with a minimum tarriff of nine months - extendable by the prison governor up to a maximum of two years, depending on the behaviour of the inmate during his/her sentence. Any time previously spent on remand was NOT deducted...

All boys spent their first six weeks in the assessment wing at Polmont (which was officially called HMI Brightons), near Falkirk - a closed, traditional Victorian-style prison hall with a couple of dormitories on the ground floor, but mostly single cells around upper galleries, known there as 'flats'. (By the time I was in the system, the former girls' borstal at Greenock had closed, and the few female borstal trainees that existed were housed in a wing of the relatively new Cornton Vale women's prison, at Stirling). The purpose of the assessment centre was to push inmates as far as possible, to discover where their tolerance limits lay (they didn't have to push me very hard - I was being escorted to the cell block within ten minutes of my arrival; as a result of which I inadvertantly earned myself a great deal of respect amongst the other boys!!). It was as I think a lot of us would imagine borstal to be - early mornings, cold showers, PT three times a day, drill, parades, scrubbing floors on hands and knees, cleaning dirty toilets - and a great deal of rough justice and verbal abuse by staff.

At the end of the assessment period, you were interviewed by your wing governor and a panel of others (medics, social workers, officers and official prison visitors) and considered for one of three options. Probably around 40% of boys (those who'd survived the harsh conditions of the past six weeks relatively unscathed, not been on report for anything, and just accepted their lots), were sent to one of the two open borstals that existed at the time - Castle Huntly, near Dundee, or Noranside, up in the Angus glens. There they did maintenance or catering work, or agricultural or forestry labouring, to pass their days...

The lion's share of the others (including yours truly) were sent to one of the other wings at Polmont, which was a secure institution - and employed in either the joiners or welders workshops, the kitchens, or on one of the maintenance teams. A very small number - just two or three individuals every couple of months - was sent to Carrick House in the grounds of Polmont. This was what might now be known as the Muppet Wing, or something similar - a very small (capacity around 10) 'house' with a very high staff ratio including females (at that time, apart from wing Matrons, who were responsible for catering and laundry arrangements, screws were invariably male in male prisons) - and it was run on something akin to a therapeutic model, with rewards for good behaviour and so on.

Wherever you ended up in the system though, you were expected to perform a number of regular tasks, including pristine maintenance of your appearance, that of your room and its contents - all of which were strictly monitored and frequently inspected, both by wing officers and the governor. This involved regular scrubbing, washing and polishing of both floor surfaces and boots - and if you got the slightest mark on either, you had to start all over again. The items you were allowed in your room were strictly controlled, and had to be arranged in a certain way - as did your bedding and furnishings. You had to address the officers (who did not wear uniform - which I suspect was a deliberate ploy to make inmates feel even less human and individual) as 'Sir' at all times, and use only your prison number and surname to describe yourself.

Work ran from about 7.30am until 4.30pm with breaks for lunch and tea; recreation was limited to an hour and a half on weekday evenings, and on Saturday afternoons unless you had a visit (visits were once a month); and apart from Sunday morning church attendance - which wasn't compulsory, but most boys opted to go, if only to avoid the alternative - you spent the rest of your time in the solitary confinement of your room.

Everyone wore prison uniform at all times - at the start of your sentence you were issued with a pair of rough, itchy black serge trousers and matching jacket - which you kept as best, as well as a pair of work shoes and a pair of 'soft' shoes; and each week you were issued with two shirts, two vests, two pairs of underpants, a pair of homemade denim jeans and a matching jacket for work; and you got clean socks every other weekday. For the first five months, everyone wore red striped shirts, but at that stage (and every subsequent month thereafter) you were assessed for promotion to 'your shirt', which meant you wore blue stripes instead - but this could be and frequently was revoked for inappropriate behaviour. Blue shirts had more privileges, better jobs, were allowed outside (but still within the perimeter fence) to play football in summer months, and got higher wages for their work (something like £2.95 a week, instead of the £2.72 the red shirts got), which could be spent on sweets, tobacco and toiletries, or saved up for release - which was always four months after they'd been awarded their shirt - assuming they kept their noses out of trouble.

As you can probably tell, borstal made a deep impression on me. I went in an immature boy and emerged a young man on the road towards some kind of recovery - but I have to say, I was the exception. With the greatest of respect, I don't honestly believe that any of you who have not had a connection with the youth offender system at some point in your lives could possibly even begin to appreciate the extent of what I'm about to say - however much you may feel you want to...

Almost all young offenders are career-offenders. Out of the dozens of inmates I came into contact with, I was the only one who had never had dealings with any part of the penal system before. I was the only one I can recall who had attended a normal school, rather than a residential, bad-boys' institution. And what's more - I had attended it too; whereas left to their own devices, most of them had been perpetual truants!

I was also the only one with a stable family background. Not only were my parents married to each other, but neither had ever strayed outside that relationship. Both went out to work to ensure we had a comfortable style of living. They frowned upon people who squandered their money on alcoholic drink, tobacco and adult entertainments, leaving their kids wanting - they'd both had such experiences as children themselves, and were determined to ensure that I did not; and, despite everything that had happenned, they always stood by me and did their best for me. Also, I was the only member of my family ever to have been in jail!

I was also in quite a small minority of inmates that could actually read and write; and think a stage or two ahead - the vast majority were semi-illiterate, and from broken or abusive homes, mostly eeking out a meagre existence on some run-down estate in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee - or one of the grim, former industrial towns such as Motherwell, Wishaw, or Coatbridge. All the men folk they'd ever known spent their lives in and out of prison - while their mothers, aunts and sisters spent all their weekends visiting different husbands, fathers, brothers and sons in different jails! Prison was as much a part of those families' lives as chapel is a part of the life of monks and nuns - I kid you not - I use no form of exaggeration at all...

Employment wasn't so much a swear word, as just something that only other people seemed to have access to. None of them had ever known it - not in living memory anyway; nor had any of the others they were in regular contact with. In most of these places, even the official unemployment figures were between 15-25% at the time - so with the wrong address, any sort of record, and without any decent sort of education, they'd not a hope in hell - and they knew it. Poverty was a way of life, as was drinking, as was crime...

At breaktimes, we'd sit round in large circles, and there was just two lines of conversation (well, three when I was around actually, as I'd decided to come out - but that's another matter). Girlfriends and future plans. All told in a very macho, trying to outdo and impress each other sort of way...!

The 'what I'm going to do when I get released' conversations were very interesting. Invariably they included consuming copious amounts of alcohol, doing unspeakable things with their birds and - nine times out of ten - ending up in Glenochil (Young Offenders Institution - the next step on the prison system ladder) - usually within about a fortnight.

Honestly - that went for almost everybody there - they had ambitions lasting two weeks at best. In practice, I'd imagine the majority of them would have struggled to make it past their first drinking binge, to be perfectly honest...

Life on the outside was like a fairground ride to them - something you went on occasionally, for a quick thrill.

One or two of them even openly described how they looked forward to what seemed like the inevitability of an eventual life-sentence - because then they'd be king of their own bits of the castle, and have rights to such luxuries as tv sets in their cells.

Have you any idea just how sad that is, folks? Can you even put it into words? These were 17 and 18-year olds, whose entire experience of life suggested that the best they could expect from life was the occasional shag and drinking binge between prison sentences! Every last one of their role models had gone that way - every single one; and nobody they'd ever known lived in anything other that abject poverty - relieved only by the proceeds of crime!

Not one person in their lives had ever taken the trouble to try to get to know them as the individuals they were. Everybody related to the roles they played, or to the labels they'd received - thief, burglar, drunkard, layabout, irritating little bastard. They'd not have known love if it had hit them in the face - at best, they were an inconvenience that had once been cute kids, that their mothers visited grudgingly, out of a sense of duty. Most of them had never experienced any of the good things in life - never been outside of the city, or away on holiday. They had to conform to the standards of their families and neighbourhoods too - for any attempt to even consider alternatives resulted in bullying, beating and absolute ostracisation from the only communities they ever knew, or felt any sense of belonging to.

Is the penny dropping for you yet? Yes, you're right - the reason these guys keep offending and getting themselves locked up is because jail offers them a means of escape from this awful world! No matter how bad conditions are inside, at least they know at the end of the day there will always be somebody to talk to, who won't judge them, and who will relate to them as the individuals each of them is! There is a ready source of friends, of sporting chums and rivals - which helps a lot if the regime is tough, as they chivvy each other along by ridiculing those of their number that can't make it!

Prison is the only place in the world where they can expect to have some kind of work to occupy their days - and give them a sense of place, and belonging! They don't have to worry where their next meal is coming from, or the rent money; and they know they'll have a warm bed to sleep in! By making jail their home - they do get 'holidays' - those occasional, short periods they spend outside. It gives them something to look forward to, somthing to talk about, something to work towards...

To those of you who advocate locking up youth offenders, can I just ask - how much of this picture I've been painting, of such people's lives, were you aware of? Had you any inkling at all that the world we live in has such huge inequalities - even within our own country? Can you honestly say you knew that, for many youngsters, it is such a fucking diabolical place where all you get is hurt, fucked up, shit all over and then hurt, fucked up and shit on again and again - that actually, they'd rather spend their lives in jail where at least there are some positive certainties? And if not - do you still think as a nation, we should be punishing those individuals for what can only be their best efforts to express the inexpressible hatred and contempt for a society that constantly turns a blind eye to their awful plights - or are you thinking that the real problem - that is the root cause of it all - might just lie outside of the prison gates - and maybe we should be making a damn sight more effort to make that a better place to be?

I rest my case. Thanks for reading.

I fear there are far too many people in the world who don't have the faintest clue what they're talking about, and expousing opinions about. I just pray that by sharing a little of my story, I might persuade a few of them to think again.

And come to think of it...

2008-02-10T07:39:00.000Z

Today would have been my parents' 46th wedding anniversary.

Ten years ago there was no reason to suppose they'd not be in the running for breaking marriage records - they'd both married young - she was 19 and he was 21; and I was already having thoughts about Golden Wedding presents - as I'd not had the means to offer much at their Silver event.

That they might just scrape past 41 years together before one of them passed away was completely unthinkable...

Please spare a prayer for my mother - who has probably had quite a bad night, and will have another tonight - she doesn't sleep well at the best of times. Thank-you.

Two very special people

2008-02-10T06:03:00.000Z

I had visitors yesterday - my dear friends John and Mary Coard, from Gosport.

Like myself, Mary is a native Scot, and loves being here. Unlike me, she's never had many opportunities to explore and get to know many places in Scotland...

She describes a childhood of almost unimaginable poverty, in Cowdenbeath, Fife, in the 1940s. Hers was one of the poorest families in town: they never had money to do anything or go anywhere, and highlight of their week was to go and get a plateful of hot potatoes and peas from the nearby Salvation Army hall every Saturday morning.

Perhaps because of this, Mary values her family higher than anything else. John, and Englishman, was in the Navy and stationed at nearby Rosyth when they met - which explains how they came to settle in Gosport; and they remain there to be close to their only daughter and her husband, taking the view that, "if God sees fit to give us a beautiful child, then it's our responsibility to look after her and put her above all other considerations." If it wasn't for this particularly strong devotion, they'd move back to Scotland tomorrow...

They've been here three times in the last three months - but the first two were flying visits for family events - this is their first holiday here for more than a year. But there's still precious little time for exploring - amidst the endless round of visiting family members and laying flowers on the graves of those now departed. So it really was quite something that they managed to take some time out alone to come and visit me in Edinburgh!

Fortunately, Edinburgh looked its' best for them, as it was a mild, clear and sunny day. But where do you start with a couple who've never even set eyes upon the Royal Mile, or any of its' attractions? So we went firstly for a pot of tea at one of my favourite cafes - the one inside the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Queen Street, conveniently just around the corner from the bus station, where I went to meet them. Honestly! Before we'd even got throught the door, the two of them were gasping at the wall tableaux in the entrance hall, depicting all the famous Scottish characters over the ages, as if they were inside some never before discovered Egyptian tomb!! They are a joyful lesson to be with, as I've breezed past these paintings many times without even affording them a second glance...!

And the tea - that was the next thing. You would never believe that a perfectly ordinary pot of tea could possibly offer so much joy. Now, admittedly, one of the reasons I like that cafe is because you do get real - that is to say loose tea, that's not bound up in cheap soggy bags; and to me, that kind of thing adds to the pleasure of taking tea in a cafe - as do the accompanying tea strainers and of course real milk - none of those horrid little carton affairs - and things like big picture windows that allow natural light to flood through, and an aspidistra or three. But oh, it was just so lovely - she was thinking of going back to using real tea at home anyway - and this just settled it, she was definitely going to do it now - as everytime they had tea it would remind them of this place... And as for the scones and cakes - well, had it not been for my diet, I expect we'd still have been in there scoffing at closing time!

My next suggestion was to go on one of the open top city tours - we could always sit downstairs if its too cold - though some of the buses are covered at the front upstairs, I added in a helpful tone. Well - I don't get the impression it would have mattered if we'd had to stand in open cattle trucks, such was their eagerness to get there - no sooner had we seen such a vehicle in service as we approached Princes Street from St Andrew Square, John was worrying that the bus stop adjacent to it (which in any case it would not serve) was closed due to road works... As it happened we got the last three seats on the top deck of a guided tour - Mary insisting I sat with John while she sat some distance behind.

Their silence said it all - the two of them were just completely overwhelmed. Now, don't get me wrong, Edinburgh's tourist circuit is fascinating indeed, and there is something to look at in every direction - but, talk about children in sweetie shops!

Although we had all-day tickets, they'd not arrived until 11am, they'd arranged to meet Mary's sister back at the Park & Ride in Fife at 4pm, and we'd still not had lunch - so we just did one complete circuit without using the jump on-jump off facility. Practically in tears, all Mary could manage was, "Well, I'm definitely doing this again next time we're here - and we'll make sure we're here early, so we have all day and can get off at some of those places (that's the Anglicised version, by the way - as those of you who know here will realise, she has quite a broad Scots tongue!)

The tour guide's final comments had been about Jenners department store - so it was off to their restaurant now, for lunch. Again, this took some time to achieve because they just wanted to stop and marvel at every detail in the ceiling plasterwork, the door handles and big carved lions on the stair bannisters - and once they'd noticed the traditional galleried hall - well that was it! For the first time, I broke my new eating plan and had roast pork on a "green day," as there wasn't a huge choice - though I did think afterwards I could have asked for some of the roast vegetables that were sat next to the joint that I'd assumed must just be for display purposes when I'd not been offered any of them. And we'd a lovely scone too, for afters! This probably isn't the best place in town to eat, but it is reasonably quick if time's at a premium - and there are lovely views out over the Scott Mounment, and towards Arthur's Seat beyond.

Every department we walked through produced the same sort of 'wow!' reactions. Making one or two small purchases in the Scottish gifts department, she quite honestly declared she could spend all week in there - not to mention a small fortune too. And as for the lighting department - I think they seriously thought they'd just died and gone to heaven, at that point...

We ended our time together with a stroll along Princes Street - but not before John noticed the live lingerie fashion show in the corner window - complete with a large crowd of men taking photographs! Almost in a state of clinical shock, Mary stood between John and the window and declared, "I would be absolutely mortified - how can they possibly stand there wearing next to no clothes with all these lads watching, cheering and taking photographs? Where's their pride...?"

Last time I parted with John and Mary, she and I both cried. It was at Southampton Airport, where they'd dropped me early in the morning of Saturday 10th March last year - the day I moved back to Scotland. Yesterday, we had quite a struggle to avoid a repeat performance...

Fighting back the tears, Mary swallowed hard and said, "I know we're not supposed to envy - but I'll admit, I do envy you for where you live and for the life you have. John's life won't be worth living for the next few weeks - until I settle down again."

I'm not sure what it is about those two, or me, that makes us so close. It's funny how, in life, you do encounter people from time to time that you just can't see enough of. I think for me, they're all that I'd have liked my parents to be - had there been any choice in the matter. Don't get me wrong - my parents have loved and related to me in their own ways, indeed, my mother still does - and I don't wish to draw any comparisons; but it is so lovely and so refreshing to spend some good quality time with people of my parents' generation who actually share my interests and in particular, share my eye for small detail, express the pleasure they derive from them and even converse about it all.

I'm afraid I never really had such common interests with my parents, and while I must say my mother does try hard to not have me trudge round Marks & Spencer's and listen to her moaning about what they haven't got every time she visits - we invariably end up spending at least part of our time together doing just that; and while I try to think of it as a service to her, I'm afraid it is a chore, and I could hardly describe it as the kind of pleasure that John & Mary's company is...

I guess it's a question of attitude to life really - and as I'm certain my mother would point out, there's no fun in anything when you're on your own. She reckons its different for people like me of course - because I've always been on my own. I'm not so sure about that - though as I can at least crawl out of my lonely shell and experience real pleasure in the company of others, maybe she's right.

Methinks a 'thank-you for visiting me card' is in order for John & Mary. That'll really get the waterworks flowing right enough - but crying's cathartic too. I really wanted to sit down and howl after they'd gone yesterday - and I might yet do so...

Still on the disclosure trail...

2008-02-07T18:28:00.000Z

It seems somebody has been telling me porkies!

I actually spoke to Disclosure Scotland today - having got their phone number from my employer's HR department - and it seems that my disclosure is still with their vetting team, and not on its way to me yet, at all!

"After all, Enhanced Disclosures can take up to six weeks," the operator smugly informed me - adding, "When did you say you sent the application into us?"

"On the 26th November," I replied.

Pregnant pause...

"Ah. Well, it looks as if there's been a short delay in this case."

I resisted the temptation to ask him what his definition of 'short' is. I mean, he probably uses it to describe various bits of his anatomy; and it wouldn't be right to be so insensitive!

Where's my disclosure??

2008-02-04T05:43:00.000Z

As anyone who knows me in person would probably verify, I am quite a patient man.

But you know, even I'm only human; and I'm getting seriously fed-up with Disclosure Scotland!

Having waited for word since last November, I rang their HR department in Glasgow to find out what the hold-up was and, as I expected, it was the ongoing lack of disclosure paperwork. There had been a slight query about my drving licence number, but they took the information over the phone, relayed it to Disclosure Scotland - who promised they'd phone me at the end of the week if there was any further news. To my amazement, they did precisely that, a week past Friday now, assuring me I'd have my disclosure "by the middle of the week".

I'm still waiting.

I mean - what exactly is it with those people? As far as I can work out, they just take as long as they take - because they can. Never mind my ongoing lack of occupation or life structure - or even the fact that the longer this goes on, the more likely I am to get depressed and not be able to do the job I've worked hard to get! And what about the employers? Surely it is a disincentive to them, to employ people who do not possess previous disclosure documentation (the existence of which makes a new application much quicker, as they only dig back to the date on the previous form)...

And you know the worst part of it? People keep asking if you're working yet - and you feel so stupid to tell them, no, you're still waiting for your disclosure to come through! I'm sure half of them must think I'm some master criminal with a dozen aliases - and most probably no job!!

Apparently, it takes longer if you've moved around a bit. People on the course who applied the same time as I did, who have only ever lived in Scotland, receieved theirs weeks ago. Alas, I am suffering because I lived in England for 25 years. It is after all only another part of the UK, which uses the same language, currency and communication systems - so you'd have thought they might have managed to speak to each other by now!

And spare a thought for John, who was also on my course. John used to be in the army, and has visited umpteen countries in consequence - and he's been told to expect to wait at least 3 months... I mean, hello - army - that's an official government entity with its own pretty robust security screening arrangements - why exactly do you need to mistrust their investigations - I don't think John was ever at Deepcut...

I wouldn't mind, but by the time I've done Enable's induction training, and am therefore available to start actually working, it'll be at least six months after the end of the last course - by which time I shall have forgotten half of that through lack of any opportunity to practically apply the theory - and that's a complete waste of other people's time and resources too.

Oh well... Rant over - for now!

On the discovery trail

2008-02-03T06:50:00.000Z

As I was free all day yesterday, and as the weather forecast suggested it might be mainly cold and dry with a bit of snow on the hills, the wee boy in me made an appearance, and demanded to be taken out in search of some of this white stuff!

I therefore got the first bus of the day from Edinburgh to Stirling, where I stopped for an hour's window shopping; and then a number 11 to Balfron, on which I was fortunate enough to get the front upstairs seat with its nice view ahead and tons of legroom! This is one of several interconnecting routes I'd wanted to do for many years - at one time they were all variations of Striling-Glasgow routes via balfron and various other combinations of places; but now most of them run between Stirling or Glasgow and Balfron only, where they connect with each other to permit through travel...

Stirling is a remarkably compact city, the western side of the castle being literally out in the country, and soon we were running along the A811, parallel to the former Forth & Clyde railway - the remains of which is clearly visible on the right-hand side. (Former railway spotting has long been a pastime of mine, as I am interested in railway history). The first deviation was in and out of Gargunnock - a village that an uncle of mine spends a great deal of time in (something to do with it being home of the girlfriend I think). But I could see why he likes it there, the village and its surroundings not being entirely dissimilar to Almondbank, where he himself grew up and lived until not too many years ago. There were also many potential walks in evidence - that's another of his passions. Not much is left of Gargunnock's railway station - on the right of the main road a few hundred yards before you turn left into the village proper; though as the foilage was at its annual lowest, it was possible to see mounds where platforms and loading bays may once have existed - it is over 40 years since the track was finally lifted, after all.

The next station - also to the right but a little further away astride what now seems to be a sawmill - seemed a little more complete and even sported what looked like a former signalbox! This might be a place to return in good weather for a bit of exploration on foot, I thought to myself. The village it served - Kippen, did not disappoint either. Slightly further off the road than Gargunnock - and up a rather steep hill (it is easy to see why motor buses managed to syphon passenger traffic away from the railway as early as 1933, when the passenger service ceased), Kippen is more substantial. Not so long ago it probably had several shops, more than one church and maybe even a secondary modern, as well as a primary school. With lots of attractive cottages and lofty hillside views, this is definitely somewhere to alight from the bus on a warmer day - and maybe catch the next one onwards.

Until now, the road is very flat, but as it begins to rise, a valley drops away to the right as you head west - and here road and former railway part company for a while. Passing Arnprior - one of those typically Scottish road junctions with a few houses and a redundant kirk that for some reason still gets called a village, and then Buchlyvie - a really rather attractive roadside village with a pharmacy occupying a former church building; the top of the hill is just reached when the bus turns left and, having negotiated some pretty steep, sharp bends that must make for some interesting driving on clear winter mornings, enters the large village (or is it a small town) of Balfron.

It's funny how you picture places you've never been in your mind. Knowing that it has a roughly triangular shape on the map and that it was slightly larger than most of the surrounding villages, a bus-interchange point and some considerable distance from its former railway station; I always imagined Balfron to be a pretty, chocolate-box concoction of single storey cottages opening onto a wide, flat main street, with the junctions of the two other roads forming the triangle round the village both visible from the bus terminus. I imagined a few discreet gift or maybe even tea shops occupying some of the roadside cottages in the vicinity...

Now don't get me wrong, Balfron is quite a pretty place - but isn't even vaguely as I imagined! Apart from a 1950s 'scheme' (that's council estate for those of you from south of the border) at the top of the village - which the bus enters briefly, the lengthy main street is on a steep gradient; and most of the buildings are two-storey - and not a few gaps are partially filled with light-industrial and other premises set back from the road! As I expected, there is evidence of various public services such as a library, health centre, council office and public toilets - much of which is in my expected pink-marled 1930s style; but quite a few more modern furnishings and illuminated signs also exist, sadly.

The bus interchange predictably consists of a shelter either side of the road at the top of the hill - but all seems to work remarkably well! No sooner had we arrived but two other double-deck buses (a somewhat generous provision for the intending number of passengers) appeared - one for Balloch and the other for Glasgow! (At certain times in the day, it is also possible to connect for Aberfoyle, or even a direct service to Drymen - not going via Killearn first!) Leaving my nice warm and comfortable front upstairs seat I was pleased to get the same seat on the Glasgow bus, even though it was somewhat harder and in a decidedly cold and damp vehicle! And soon we were off - followed, to my surprise, by the Balloch bus, all the way to Killearn - the next fairly subtantial but somewhat prettier (than Balfron) village.

Before we'd even descended the hill, the main A81 road and the former Aberfoyle railway trackbed could be seen in the valley below. This was not part of the Forth & Clyde Junction railway - which itself ran between Stirling and Balloch and, in common with many railways, was primarily intended to transport coal - in this case between Fife and the heavy industries of the north Clyde; though it did connect with it at Buchlyvie Junction - which like most of the other stations on these lines, was some distance from the village of the same name and no doubt, this oversight would have contributed to the later debates about the lines' viability. I mean, think about it - you're 86 and riddled with arthritis, or even 26 and carrying your shopping and supervising three kids. Do you take the train and walk a mile and three-quarters down a narrow, dark, twisty road, or do you get the bus to your door? I know which I'd choose...

Two more buses passed in either direction on the main road - single deck ones this time. I suspect these were on a route straddling the Kirkintilloch-Lennoxtown-Strathblane-Drymen-Balfron roads...

Killearn is one of those names that sticks out of your childhood memory box for some really obscure reason. There used to be a big hospital here - one of the half dozen or so prefabricated affairs built around the country in readiness for second world war casualties - that in the event, remained open for many years after the war. (There was another at Bridge of Earn, which I'd visited a number of times; and others at Stracathro, near Brechin, Peel - a few miles outside Galashiels, Bangour - next to the mental hopsital in West Lothian, and Ballochmyle in Ayrshire. Strathcathro, Peel and Killearn were built in really rather unlikely, rural locations! Anyway, what sticks in my mind was the campaign led by the Daily Record in the early 1970s, to fight Killearn's closure. I think it had developed some really good specialities - which were eventually relocated in some of Glasgow's hospitals, if my memory serves me correctly.

Blanefield is the next village - though as soon as you get up the hill you realise that the modern blocks of flats on the top aren't as out-of-place as they look because, less than a stone's throw away is the larger settlement of Strathblane. Having disappeared round the back of Blanefield - where I think there was a station, there's now no evidence of a railway having ever existed - and large, mostly detached houses, almost as far as the eye can see! The tall flat blocks of Glasgow now dominate the distant horizon, and, despite a couple of not-terribly-natural-looking roadside nature reserves and a large reservoir, continuous street lighting and an irritating 30mph speed limit herald the outskirts of Milngavie, and then of Glasgow.

This route had one unexpected, if rather subdued, thrill for me, as it traverses Maryhill Road into the centre of Glasgow. A century ago, many of my ancestors lived here, and I'd had it in mind for some time to come and explore the area, and see if I could identify exactly where they had lived and worked. Alas, not a chance - all that remains of New City Road is a stopped-up, recently redeveloped street sandwiched between bits of motorway junction; while numbers 450 or thereabouts to 780 or thereabouts (and quite a lot besides) have been demolished and their sites landscaped; and there is no indication as to which part of Maryhill Road was known as Gairbraid Street - that information was presumably attached to long-gone buildings! Also gone and almost forgotten are the area's railways - the existing 'Maryhill' station having opened as recently as 1987, some twenty or so years after the original Maryhill stations and lines had been closed and redeveloped. The Forth & Clyde Canal and it's basin and aqueduct over the road remain - somewhat bare and forlorn. I imagine my grandfathers and their siblings must have loitered here and perhaps been chased away by workmen as youngsters; while the womenfolk cared for their younger children high up in squalid, red sandstone tenement flats.

I got off the bus a few stops short of the bus station and walked along Sauchiehall Street to Charing Cross, then up trough the Woodlands terraces to the very grand, broad avenues of Kelvingrove Park, before returning via Argyle and Buchanan Streets in light rain, for the 1600 departure to Edinburgh.

Needless to say, I was absolutely shattered last night - but, Kippen, Balfron, Drymen, Balloch - never fear, I will be back to explore some more; hopefully in more inclement climes!

Taking a breather...

2008-02-01T18:32:00.000Z

In Scotland, today is designated Breathing Space Day 2008. The organisation's website invites "everyone in Scotland to mark 1st February in their diary as a time to STOP and take some breathing space away from the stresses and strains of modern living," and you know, I reckon that's a pretty good idea myself. (I'd also like to extend the invitation to those of you not in Scotland as well...)

I only found out about it on Tuesday, at a short act of worship following a drop-in I go to, organised by the local community mental health chaplaincy service, led on that occasion by my friend, Maxwell Reay. As he pointed out then, many of the psalms are interrupted at various points by the word 'Selah' - the precise meaning of which is obscure - but it tends to be interpreted as a suggestion that we pause in our reading and just digest what's being said to us, and reflect a little, before we carry on to the next bit; and I reckon that makes a good deal of sense too.

As it happens, we have a little prayer meeting on Friday mornings at Gorgie Salvation Army, which we usually open with a bible reading of some description, and as we're normally all invited to suggest such readings, I suggested psalm 66, which we used and, together with the invitation described above, seemed to help prompt an unusually large volume of prayer - not all of which were of the terribly parochial variety - which, though valid and important, often put me off such meetings, as any outsider who chances by could justifiably observe that our group seems insular, exclusive and possibly not even too interested in including others - which of course, couldn't be further from the truth...!

We should guard against praying with a shopping list filled with only those people whom we know personally. Sometimes it's better to simply ask God to read our thoughts and make prayers from them - which he does anyway; and instead allow ourselves to pray for those people and situations our minds invariably stray towards; or even just shut up and listen to what God has to say to us! Go on, indulge me - contemplate!!

To borrow Victor Meldrew's catchphrase...

2008-01-30T15:52:00.000Z

During the past week, I have eaten:

- 1 microwave spaghetti alfredo
- 2 packets Uncle ben's microwaveable rice
- 6 large baked potatoes
- 800g very low far cottage cheese
- half a tub of Quark
- 2 kg of grapes
- 14 large bananas
- half a mandarin
- 12 cups of tea with milk
- 30 cups of herbal/fruit tea
- 700g of cooked chicken pieces
- 2 cups of white coffee
- 3 packets of sliced roast beef
- 250g of cherry tomatoes
- 500g of mircrowaveable vegetable packs
- 750g frozen fruit
- 1 shish kebab
- 1 dozen eggs (9 boiled and 3 poached)
- 2kg of fat free, natural yogurt
- 1 packet of sliced boiled ham
- 2 packets of sliced chicken
- 1 melon
- 5 kiwi fruits
- 500g back bacon
- 1 sweet & sour Quorn meal
- 100g mushrooms
- 2 tins baked beans in tomato sauce
- 1kg very low fat fromage frais
- 4 grilled beefburgers
- 2 Mars bars
- 2 Milky ways
- half a coffee & walnut sponge cake
- 18 Muller light fruit/flavoured yogurts
- 4 oatcakes
- 5 pieces of smoked mackerel
- 4 Alpen cereal bars
- 120g of porridge oats
- 1 litre semi-skimmed milk, approximately
- 2 small slices wholemeal bread
- 5 bits of Ryvita, sesame
- 2 packets of Ryvita minis
- 5 mini babybel light cheeses
- 6 laughing cow extra-light cheese triangles
- 120g smoked salmon
- 110g grilled whiting
- 1 tin tuna steaks in brine
- 1 tbsp houmous

...and I still lost 6lbs in weight!

Truly, I say to you, I don't believe it....!!!!

Watch this space - it may get smaller!

2008-01-27T20:23:00.000Z

Okay, I know. It is months since I've been here and added anything to this, but my good friend John - who has established a new Sallybloggers thingy, has invited me to join that - so I feel I should make some effort...

Last time I was here I'd just started an employability course. That's probably what took all my attention (and much of my energy) away for a while, hence my long silence. It was really good though, as was the result, as I am now employed for the first time in many years - or at least I will be soon, as there's been the usual hold-up waiting for my enhanced disclosure to appear, and I've not actually started yet. The course was for support workers, and we had guaranteed interviews at the end with employers we applied to; so it won't surprise you too much to know that my job is a support worker! I'll be working with people (most likely with learning disabilities) in their own homes, assisting them with everyday living tasks, so that they might maintain their tenancies and their independence...

For those of you who are Salvationists and wondering who I am and how I know John - well, that's easily answered. I'm at soldier at Gorgie Corps in Edinburgh - I moved here last March from Gosport - where John and Marta used to be the corps officers! I've recently been given the role of halls caretaker - with a seat on the corps council; and I'm also a songster.

As regards my title today - well, it went like this...

Just before Christmas, I overheard half a conversation between Captain Iain Hudson, my corps officer, and Richard, one of our adherents. "You'll come, won't you Paul...?" Iain said - in a kind of rhetorical tone - and before thinking of asking what I was coming to, I answered in the affirmative - as I'm always happy to do whatever I can to help...

Well, it began last Wednesday - the first-ever morning meeting in Edinburgh - of Slimming World! I have to say, this time last week, I was terrified! At over 21 stones I had no argument that I needed to go to such a group - and I have said for some time I might go if I had someone else to go with - but all the same, I'd visions of us having to be constantly on the phone to each other for support, every time we got the munchies...! To me, it was like a life-sentence as I have to say, I do enjoy my food...

Never fear though, for the SW regime is a strange one indeed. Depending on which type of day you've decided upon (basically a meat day or a veggie day), there's lots of stuff you can eat in unlimited quantities. They call that 'free food', and it forms the bulk of your total diet. Then there are 'healthy choices' - they differ slightly for the two types of days - and you choose one or two things from two lists of these. But best of all is the page that says in big letters - Choose your 'syns'! Now there's a sermon title, if ever I saw one...!!! Basically everything else has a 'syn' - short for synergy, apparently - value; and you're normally allowed up to 15 syns a day.

Alas, already Iain and his wife Alison have been having a good laugh at my expense! He just happened to tell me how little he'd eaten on Thursday - and I responded with a list of all I'd had... Apparently, it's the way that I write that had them in stitches as much as the content. Though it must be said, there was a lot of content - and there has been ever since. I'm panic eating you see - just like people panic buy loads of stuff they don't need as soon as there's the slightest suggestion of a shortage - well, I'm doing the same with eating! Well, that's my excuse anyway - and I'm sticking to it...!

Anyway, it is mostly 'free' food. Well - apart from the day I got up and decided I couldn't be bothered to make porridge, and thought myself very self-righteous in having four dry oatcakes instead. Until I discovered that they have a syn value of 2.5 each, that is...

Then it was downhill all the way - I had a little morsel of that coffee cake that was rapidly going out of date in the cupboard, then another; then half a small mars bar - then the other half. Total syns for the day = 22. Still, I assured myself, even if I end up eating six healthy options and 20 syns a day in addition to all the free stuff, I'm not going to beat myself up about it, because that's infinitely better to what I've been eating before - and if Slimming World doesn't like it, tough! I'm more important, after all...

Oh - and have you ever tried Quark? Don't...!! It's 'free' - so I bought two big pots. Maybe its okay when you cook with it - but the creamy, Philidelphia appearance is where the similarity ends - it is absolutely evil in a jacket potato - believe you me. Don't go there - you have been warned!!

Friday wasn't so bad - only 5 healthy choices and 12 syns all day; and Saturday even better - and even despite the provision of a buffet at Edinburgh City Corps where our songster brigade joined forces with theirs - the Northern Ireland Youth Band, and the ISS bass, Ian French - for an evening festival. I took my own mixture of free foods for a green day - wholegrain rice, flaked fish, boiled eggs - bound together with a spoonful of Quark, which actually, wasn't too bad; plus a banana and a packet of Ryvita minis.

And best of all, I had a lovely letter in the post from June, the SW consultant, welcomiong me to the group. "By the way," she added on the end, "your syn allowance is 5-25 per day." Alleluia! God's good - even when you exceed your 'syns' he organises it so that the goalpost moves in your favour!! Ha ha! So forgive me if I leave you for now with that nice little analogy - but never fear, I'll be back before another six months, as I have every confidence I'll soon be looking for things to distract me from yet more guzzling....

Suicide Awareness Week

2007-09-16T21:16:00.000+01:00

This, it seems, was International Suicide Awareness Week. Although I was vaguely aware that it existed, I was pleased to discover the other day that there were actual events here marking it - film shows, and today, a religious service for people touched by suicide - which I went to. While I've not been especially close to anyone who has ended their life, I have known quite a few people who have - I guess it isn't really possible to spend a significant period of your life in association with the mental health system, and not do so...

On the way in, everyone was handed paper flowers, which you were invited to write messages on the back of and place them on a 'meadow' at the front, at a given point in the meeting. I wrote, "Thank you, God, for foiling all my attempts" on mine - without which, I almost certainly wouldn't be here to tell such a tale today. In the prayers I tried to think of all those I'd known who were not so fortunate and to my annoyance, I could only think of two. I know there are at least eight - and probably more. And I thought of that sunny day - I don't really know how many years ago now - when I was out walking near my home in Hotwells, Bristol, when it slowly dawned on me what those firemen I could see over there on the mud banks of the River Avon were up to, fishing with their ropes - in a hole, under the Clifton Suspension Bridge...

Poems were read about departed friends - people the reader had spent time in hospital with; and even as I write, one or two missing faces are springing into my mind - people who were nice to me, talked to me, made and fetched cups of tea for me - when I was young, confused and lost in a world of my own.

In days gone by, I've sat upon the parapet of that bridge myself, even been carried off it by several policemen on occasion. I've been found wandering in a semi conscious, drugged and drunken state in near darkness in the Welsh mountains more than once; and I've sat in that same railway cutting close to Stratheden Hospital in Fife as the remains of one of my contemporaries were recovered from, some months later. I don't know why I've been saved so many times and against so many odds - but I'm so glad I was - so thankful.

If there's one thing that convinces me personally of the existence of God - then that's probably it - for I eventually reached the conclusion that I could try to end my life as much as I wanted - he just wasn't going to let it happen, for he has plans for me! I'm still not entirely clear what all of these are, but it makes some sort of sense - to me, anyway.

And you know, of spiritual warfare - well, I used to discount that as a product of over zealous Christians with too much time on their hands. I took the view that the devil existed only where minds had been exercised in his favour. But several times now, that view has been challenged as good things have occurred in my life - it happened several times just after I'd made my decision to become a soldier of the Salvation Army - and in fact it's been vaguely around these past few days too - just fleeting thoughts that seem to want to urge me to leap from a lofty place, or suchlike. Such thoughts may be understandable to a degree when one is depressed; but when they occur when things are going well, there can only be one conclusion. They're being put there, deliberately!

Of course, you have to be careful not to describe these things in too much detail to doctors...!!

It's MY life!

2007-08-10T08:29:00.000+01:00

I've just risen for the second time at 8.30am. There's one or two magazines lying around, last night's fish supper wrappers are still in the kitchen, and the dishes not yet washed. The bed is unmade, I've not put yesterday's underwear into the laundry basket yet. I've had a couple of tunnocks teacakes and some ice cream for breakfast; and it's great - I have my life back, MY life...

Perhaps I should add that my mother has been and made her visit. This was her holiday, apparently - the first time away from home in nearly three years. Now, don't get me wrong, I was pleased to be able to offer her the facility - I did say she could come and stay now and again, even before I moved. But it's the way she takes over my life that gets to me - she really never ceases to surprise me in that respect, coming up with yet more and more ways of assuming responsibility for decisions, lifestyle choices and areas of my life that I would never normally consider any particular need to protect!

We only actually fell out once during the week - and naturally enough, it was about bathroom mats - that I neither felt I needed nor particularly wanted and that we'd been trudging round most of Edinburgh looking for in a non-standard size! She's mentioned before she got here she might buy me a new shower curtain and, as the old one was a bit grubby I thought, fair enough, it won't cost mega bucks, so I'll let you; but you see, having got a nice new blue shower curtain (top of the range and from Jenners no less - all for my humble little tenement flat), we needed blue bathroom mats to match (and later, a blue handtowel, and blue flannels)...

I mean, thinking it through, perhaps I was being unreasonable. I only live here and pay the rent after all - so why should I expect the right to have any say in the matter?

So the upshot is that now - apparently - it all looks much better for 'folk' walking in and seeing. I've yet to work out who these folk will be, given that 95% of the time I'm here all alone and hardly ever have visitors, but hey - instead of my nice thick, generously piled brick red mats that did their jobs more than adequately, we can now all enjoy these little cold blue cololured stepping stones and watch the pattern of water dripping from us all over the underlying carpet - which of course I have no way of drying out. Totally impractical - but apparently, it looks nicer...

On Wednesday, my uncle came to visit. I was really pleased about this as I don't see him very often, and he'd not been before. She went to great lengths to discourage the visit, because she didn't want him here. Well, as I say, I only live here and I am only the nephew that he was brought up with who is therefore more like a brother - so why should I have any say? Yet, despite this, she was full of nothing but praise and sympathy for him afterwards...

Anyway, I went to meet him at the station, which gave us a chance for a chat - well, a moan actually. He agrees with me about her habit of taking over your life, and not for the first time, told me how much he hates his fortnightly Sunday afternoon visits to her as she seems to actually think she has a right to this portion of his life - and a right to spend the entire time moaning to him about other people he also has a relationship with, just as she does with me! "It just doesn't seem to occur to her at all", he says, "that other people might actually have a life of their own, that doesn't revolve around her."

For me, the best illustration of this, of the week and possibly of the year - is that the night after she'd received the (admittedly very upsetting) news that her neighbour had died - she had only two hours of very interrupted sleep - while even his widow managed four hours! As I told my very unsurprised uncle, it seemed that after that, she was just itching to get home so she could muscle in on that family's grief - which is just outrageous. If somebody did that to a member of our family, she'd be the first to rant on about how outrageous it was.

Please forgive me for this rant - I just need to let off steam!

Good days, bad days (and nights)...

2007-07-28T04:32:00.000+01:00

I've been wanting to write something about this for several days, but not yet felt able to do it, so here goes. Let's see how far I get...

At the beginning of this week I was actually on quite a high, and wondering whether my mood had taken yet another turn, despite the recent introduction of antidepressant medication, which is unlikely to have started to work just yet. That happens sometimes - I'm never quite sure how successful I am at telling people (especially doctors) about it either. I even got around to making a start on the painting!!

Anyway, two really good things happened on Tuesday. I had an appointment with the Disability Employment Adviser at the Jobcentre, and amongst other things, she did what they call a better-off calculation and was able to tell me that if I worked part time - say 20 hours, even at national minimum wage - my Working Tax Credit would ensure I'd only be £3 a week worse off than I am on benefits, which is a huge relief! I always thought I couldn't afford to work part time and that it was the £20 permitted work earnings limit or full time work, with no options in between. I do wish they'd advertise that more explicitly - I probably could have been in part time work of some description, ages ago!

Then I went along - well actually, I chickened out and walked past it the first time, but then forced myself to go back - to a drop-in organised by the mental health chaplaincy service. It turns out I know one of the chaplains already - we used to go to the same church in Bath, years ago! I had encountered him twice before in Edinburgh and been invited to go to the local version of the same church, which he still attends - but so far I've declined, as it would mean going there instead of the Salvation Army. Maybe I'll make the odd special appearance attendance there once I'm a bit more established in the Army - but it's complicated, as I really feel I've moved on...

Anyway, the drop-in was really good - I immediately felt at home. It was so nice just to have people to talk to, for an hour or so - even if they were strangers, we at least knew we had something in common, and everyone was really friendly and said I should go there again. They're even taking a bus trip to Peebles next Wednesday and have asked me along, so I'm minded to go - it will be a good opportunity to get to know some of them better. After about an hour of informal chat, there was a quick round the table opportunity for everyone to say how they'd been over the past week - which I thought was absolutely wonderful as the one thing I really miss is not having anyone in particular to check-in with in this way; and then at the very end, a short worship opportunity, which four or five people stayed behind for...

I'm meeting my chaplain friend on Monday afternoon for a catch-up, which I'm actually quite looking forward to now. At last, it looks as if I may have some local friends!!

Afterwards, I took myself off to one of my favourite haunts - North Berwick; had ice-cream, paddled in the sea for some time, got chips and came home smiling for a change. My bouyant mood continued into Wednesday, until just after my meeting with Simon described in my former post - and then just totally vanished, really suddenly...

It was one of those moments where I just felt frozen to the spot, in the middle of the street. I literally can't move one foot or the other when that happens - I'm just stood there feeling really conspicuous, completely unable to decide even which way to walk next, let alone where to. After about 20 minutes, I noticed an art gallery over the road, and having decided against it several times, at length managed to get myself over there and forced myself to look at some paintings - which at length did help get me out of the heat of the moment. I thought of doing something else, but decided I'd best return straight home while I still could. Even then, I let about six buses go past before I was able to get on one...

And there I've remained, basically. I've slept a great deal, updated my WRAP a bit, done some more painting, watched a bit of TV and read a little - all of which was quite hard to achieve as my concentration has been rather poor - so I can only manage little bits at a time. Yesterday I managed to shower, get out and do some shopping - for the first time since Tuesday; and today I'm hoping to make it out into the countryside - which is a bit risky, but if I stop and contemplate that for too long I'll end up returning to bed and going nowhere - I have to just do things as and when I feel I can, during these periods.

I knew I was unique, but...

2007-07-25T18:22:00.000+01:00

I think the contemporary internet expression would be OMG, which as a practicing Christian I usually translate as 'Oh My Goodness' and hope it doesn't offend too many people; or more often, simply avoid using altogether. But, on this occasion, I'm afraid OMG seems to be the only thing that fits the bill...

I had a meeting with the director of the Scottish Recovery Network today, to discuss the Scottish context in relation to WRAP. I wasn't entirely sure what exactly the 'Scottish context' was going to consist of, but in a nutshell, it seems I'm one of only four individual service users known to them who both reside in Scotland and have done some form of WRAP training! Now that's scary!!

Painting

2007-07-25T09:37:00.000+01:00

I hate painting. In fact, I think I really hate painting. I mean - I'm a big, clumsy sort of guy - we're not cut out for that sort of thing. And I don't do heights either - mountains are fine, but ladders and me - no, not a good combination, I assure you!

Mind you, the living room is half-finished, and the kitchen does need it - desperately. So I suppose I'd better put up with it. I have already had one friend come and do the high bits of the living room for me after all, plus all the cornicing; for which I was really grateful as I don't know how I'd have managed otherwise. Well, I suspect I do actually - I'd have had to pay somebody else to do it for me...!

It's the mess. People say, "oh, the good thing about emulsion is, it just washes out." Not when it's all over your t-shirt it doesn't - and my hardly-worn, if slightly oversized trousers. So I just wear boxers now - but even then, it gets everywhere - elbows, underarms, thighs, belly, backside - I mean, I ask you - is it really worth all the effort?

And what really gets to me is how it just takes over! I mean, my home's not my own anymore - the entire kitchen is a mass of paintbrushes, bits of roller, tins of paint, newspaper, tissue and wonderful, chemical-laden decorators wipes (thank you whoever invented these - they're a lifesaver); and I can neither cook, nor wash-up. Meanwhile, the rest of my flat is increasingly filled with bits that should be in the kitchen! It's a nightmare - and I just want it to be over - NOW!!!

Needless to say, my mother's coming to stay - the week after next - and not only that, she's invited her sister round to visit! Why do I get the feeling my home isn't going to be my own for quite a bit longer than just while I'm painting?!! I mean - they grew up in a scruffy council property, invariably dressed in poor quality, second hand or home made clothes as kids and rarely had two halfpennies to their names - so while I understand their efforts to better themselves as adults, where's all the pretentiousness come from? Everything has to be just so - and if you know me at all, you'll know that I really don't do just-so - any more than I do heights, or painting...

But they're not snobs of course - my mother often reminds you of the fact. Deeply worrying that...

WRAP

2007-07-19T08:02:00.000+01:00

WRAP stands for Wellness Recovery Action Plan, and having procrastinated about it for months, I thought I'd have a go a writing mine today - or at least making a start. Basically, a WRAP is a Recovery tool that anybody can choose to use or not, to describe their ups and downs of life to whomoever they wish - or just as a self-help aid, really. It's a relatively new idea that sprung from America a couple of years back, and although they're using it quite extensively now in the mental health services of Hampshire and some other bits of England, it is literally just hitting Scotland, as we speak!

Anyway, it occured to me that with so many new people in my life that really haven't seen me in much other than the one state - and who most probably wouldn't be aware of half the difficulties I have, which are not immediately obvious or visible anyway - it might be quite a good idea to take the WRAP I've kept in my head for the past 18 months and put it down on paper. Besides - it will educate them a bit, as the chances of any of the doctors at my GP practice for instance, having ever as much as set eyes upon one is virtually zero. And I doubt that most of the other people I'm likely to share mine with - Salvation Army officers, for instance - will have even heard of it!!

A WRAP consists of seven sections which in theory, can be laid out however you choose but which, in practice, need to have the information they contain in some reasonably legible, understandable and accessible format. The sections are (1) a Wellness toolbox - basically a general list of things that you've tried and tested before and know help to keep you well - as well as another list of the things you know you should best avoid; (2) a Daily Maintenance Plan - which consists of a description of what you're like when you're well and a list of things that you need to do at regular intervals to keep you well; (3) Triggers - a list of external events/circumstances that are likely to make you feel less well, and an action plan of what to do if/when they occur; (4) Early Warning Signs - those subtle indications that we all have that something specific is amiss - and yet another list and action plan in the same format; (5) When Things Are Breaking Down - a list of the more serious symtoms requiring urgent actions; (6) Crisis Plan - self-explanatory really, a bit like an advance directive or statement, of how you'd like to be treated/not treated in the event of serious incapacity, who you'd like to act on your behalf and so on - but really quite comprehensive; and finally (7), Post-crisis plan - an indication of how people can recognise your needs are subsiding, and yet another action plan.

Some of it - particularly the Crisis Plan - is quite similar to the Advance Statement provisions of the Mental Health (Care & Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, which came into force just under a year ago - and it remains to be seen how or whether WRAPs, or elements of WRAPs, will be accepted and/or interwork with these - but it will give them all something to think about - I'm all for that!

antidepressants

2007-07-18T08:36:00.000+01:00

I feel a bit wierd this morning. Yesterday, I joined the happy millions on fluoxetine, which is probably better known by its trade name, Prozac!

For the past five years I've exercised my right to choose which treatments I do and do not have and so, have chosen not to use any such drugs; but I'm afraid the point has come whereby I need to take this sensible precaution, as I've really not been feeling too good lately - and to be honest to a degree that I normally prefer not to be, it's getting worse.

I have to say, I do resent being in this position again - which has largely come about because of extreme social isolation! Apart from my mother (who is a decidely mixed blessing - more of which later) and the good folks down at the Salvation Army - many of whom are currently away on holiday; my ongoing lack of meaningful occupation (as the mental health system likes to call it these days - it gives them a cop-out clause, as regards offering you help to return to actual employment, you see) means that I've not really had much opportunity to get to know anybody or develop a personal friendship circle, since moving to Edinburgh over four months ago. And four months is an awful long time to spend on your own - even in one of the world's most interesting and beautiful cities, complete with a free, go anywhere anytime bus pass...

Maybe I bit off more than I could chew when I moved, I don't know. I just never envisaged it would take so long to find some kind of work! The trouble is, I'm neither experienced nor qualified in anything really; and while I was given to believe I might be able to get into some kind of social care as I've done a little bit of that in the distant past and much of my experience as a mental health service user relates to it; that's not proving so easy either - not least because the mental health system here is a full two years behind that of Hampshire in terms of modernisation & development - and rather more in terms of culture - or at least, the type of culture that would actively consider employing service users, at any rate!

Indeed, I found out yesterday from one of the Salvation Army's social services centre managers, that all social care staff are expected to have qualifications these days. Now that's probably no bad thing - but to make matters worse, you actually need to be employed in social care, in order to access the vocational qualifications they require! So I don't quite know where I'm meant to go from here. I have an appointment with a Disability Employment Adviser next week - perhaps she'll have some ideas...

Depression's a funny illness really - one of those conditions that you never really know how much you're over without risking a paddle in the waters occasionally - and likewise the therapeutic value of antidepressants! That's wht I stopped taking them back in 2002 - it was really the only way of finding out whether I still needed them...!

Okay, so maybe moving to what is effectively another country was more of a complicated dive than a discreet paddle - but you know, all I actually want is a life. Is that really too much to expect?

Britain's tallest teens - part 1

2007-07-13T07:53:00.000+01:00

I've just been catching up on last night's TV. I don't normally watch much after the nine o'clock watershed - not so much because it's the nine o'clock watershed, as that's just my habit. I get bored and restless after a couple of hours you see - sometimes not even that long. To me, watching TV is best done in company so you can excahnge the odd view about progress - and of course, I never have any company - or at least if I have, I'm not usually watching TV...!

Anyway, having seen the trailer for this programme, I made a point of recording it and I've just been catching up - and what a nice programme it was, too. For all three of the characters it was focussed upon, there were nice endings - I like nice endings.

But you know, my heart goes out to them - especially to the girl who is 6'1" at the age of 12 and was being offered drugs to stop her hormonal activity - because 30 years ago, that was me...

If you looked at me now, you'd see a somewhat overweight but otherwise normal bloke and wonder what on earth I mean by that statement; but back in the first months of 1977 when I was still 12, I was approaching 6'1"...

Okay, so it's always been unusual to grow so tall so early in life, but in the 1970s it was virtually unheard of - especially in places such as Glenrothes, where I then lived. Just as those kids struggle to get clothes and shoes to fit them now, my mother and I were well-used to it then too - even though the sizes we sought for me are now well within what might be considered normal ranges and are easily obtainable. But it wasn't the case back then - size 11 shoes were difficult to come by in any style, let alone styles that allowed a 12-year old at least a modicum of street-cred in an increasingly fashion conscious world. And those were the days of narky bus conductors and conductresses too, who rarely suffered fools and frequently ejected unruly or argumentative passengers - even those of us who were legally entitled to pay half fare, but looked older...

Of course, the adolescent's world is also very competitive. Almost as soon as the first signs of puberty appear, boys are anxious to start shaving, and girls clamber for additional items of underwear. All the talk at school is focussed upon moving onwards and upwards and reaching the magic ages that allow you to leave school, watch films with 18 certficiates, drive cars, have sex, smoke and drink, legally. Much to the chagrin of parents and teachers, beards and make-up start to appear - and whether they want it or not, everyone is assigned at least a nominal boyfriend/girlfriend. I found the latter was useful if only to lessen the likelihood of playground bullying, for there was an unwritten, unspoken and yet well-known and recognised expectation of others - a way of being; and you had to have a very, very good reason for being outside of that, if you were to avoid bullying...

As the TV programme illustrated very well, having an unusual physique doesn't actually achieve this in itself. It's probably worse to be too fat than too tall - and there comes a time when its also worse to be too short, or undeveloped in terms of the appearance of body hair or suchlike; but outside of the school playground, the first two definitely attract the most attention. People point the finger - and if you're exceptionally beyond what might be considered the normal range of sizes for your age, you might as well be a bearded lady in the circus so far as they are concerned - you're feel like you're a part of the free freak show. The attention is fine to a degree, but there does come a point - much earlier than most people realise, I might add - when you really just want people to relate to you as you...

Medical verification that your physique is indeed unusual for your age does tend to be widely accepted as a very, very good reason for being outside of that unrecorded expectation of others, however. I'm not sure that people relate to you as you exactly - as the adults tend to take pity and the other kids a stance of somewhere between curiosity and fear - but the finger pointing tends to be a little more discreet and the bullying doesn't happen so much, which feels like an achievement of sorts!

Medical verification - or at least, sufficient medical attention as to suggest they think you have something very unusual indeed, achieves even more! It may not be the kind of street-cred you set out to achieve, but to the average teenager, any street-cred is better than none - especially if it's of a quality that your mates can't compete with!

Ans so it was with me - just like the lass on the TV programme. I had a side-effect, that proved sufficient 'evidence' for the medics to investigate! For as long as anyone could remember, I'd had shaky hands. In childhood, this wasn't really a problem, but now that I was expected to write and draw more legibly at school and perform such mundane tasks as carry food and drinks across rooms at home - and was finding myself in trouble for making a mess of something I really couldn't help, it was a problem. So off I went - in secret - to the doctors...

Rather unexpectedly, it went, "That's very interesting. How tall are you...? Let me just take a blood sample, and we'll have you in next week for more tests - don't worry about your parents - I'll contact them and explain that I think it was entirely appropriate that you approached me in this way..."

That was the second week of March, 1977. By the first week of May - when I was admitted to one of the adult medical wards in the old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh - under the care of a rather grandly-titled, consultant endocrinologist - there had been two further batteries of blood and urine tests lasting several hours apiece, referral to the children's ward at the local hospital in Kirkcaldy - where I didn't even get across the threshhold, as they'd no beds that were even remotely big enough to accomodate me, referral and examination by neurologists at the same hospital; and frequent measurements of both height and weight everywhere I went...

Getting admitted to hospital was unusual enough, but being turned away from the local hospital and transferred through to Edinburgh in just over six weeks - well, that was quite something else. Only the most serious cases were ever transferred to Edinburgh - the Royal Infirmary there was considered quite a prestigious hospital and the message was clear - what I had was very, very, very unusual indeed...

At the time, I lapped up all the adult attention and really didn't see what all the fuss was about. I remember my mother crying when they left me in the ward -and I really couldn't understand why, as I considered myself to be in good hands and what's more, I was there to get better! Everyone was interested in me - everything about me, and that felt quite good! No longer did I have to suffer my mundane everyday life - and boy, was it mundane: I was quite a celebrity here - and I liked it!

Now, I'd always been brought up to cooperate with authority figures, so yes I'll admit to having been a little scared to begin with. Especially when they asked me to get undressed and get into bed - that was pretty unchartered territory at that point in my life - I'd never spent as much as single night away from my family before. Nowadays I'd even say it was invasive - but I'd no concept of what that really meant in those days and anyway, even if I'd had and said as much, that would have involved being uncooperative. So I just took a deep breath and did as they asked...

Later on the first day, I underwent a very lengthy and full medical examination by a youngish house-doctor. He was quite friendly and obviously going out of his way to be gentle, so I tried not to be afraid of him - but of course, I wasn't used to so much one-to-one time with an adult I didn't know. Even when I'd spent six hours having blood and urine tests in the surget a few weeks earlier, I'd been in the company of a practice nurse I'd seen on and off for years; so this was quite a new experience.

He wanted to know everything about me and my family - even things I didn't really know, such as what my grandfathers had died of; and eventually asked questions using words I didn't much understand - puberty being one of them! To his credit though, he was quick to explain just enough for me to understand the context - it wasn't a birds and bees lecture by any means, but at least I was able to answer his questions about hair growth, and suchlike.

Later still - and for the rest of the week, I spent an even longer one-to-one period being examined by a medical student. That was easier because he was younger - the same sort of age as the uncles I'd grown up with, and from an early stage we established some similarities, such as that he'd previously lived in Glenrothes - so to me, he was much more of a friend than an authority figure. Whether he'd been detailed to befriend me in this way I don't know - looking back, he was probably one of the more senior students and I was part of a fairly major piece of project he'd had the chance to work upon; but befriend me he did - and because he did, I was to suffer some very, very serious psychological scarring for years to come, as I mourned the sudden severance of this new and interesting friendship...

Some of their tests were more of the same - urine and blood samples - morning, noon and night. The latter was also what I'd now call invasive - especially as, on my second day, they failed to locate a vein on which they could fit a ventolin tap - resulting in a total of 14 individual needles having to pierce my skin at half-hourly intervals throughout the day. Of course I laughed at their jokes of being made a pin cushion, but both arms ended up bruised and sore in consequence.

The medical registrar hadn't quite perfected his bedside manner at that point in his career either. To be fair, he didn't really scare me, but he was a bit distant - and while the others examined and did most of the leg work, it was him who told me most about what they were looking for - which was chemical evidence of an overactive thyroid gland, which they thought was the cause of my abnormal growth. They weren't yet sure what they were going to do about it if they found this was the case, but they'd certainly do something, as without any treatment I'd most probably grow to over seven feet tall and most probably die before I reached the age of 30. I'm sure the latter phrase made a great deal of sense to him, but again, it was to haunt me for many years to come - and indeed, I didn't really even begin to settle down and accept my life until I'd surpassed my 30th birthday and satisified myself that I wasn't going to die...

One day I was sent - alone, in nightclothes, and by taxi - to the other end of the huge hospital site, to have eye tests done. I can remember feeling so glad when they started these tests, just to be in the company of people whom I felt I could trust; or who might at least be held to some account, even if only because of the uniforms they wore - and the same when I returned to the ward: it really was quite terrifying to be alone in the middle of Edinburgh's busy streets in a black cab, wearing only pyjamas and dressing gown...!

In the mornings, during the consultants' ward rounds, all the doctors and students wandered round the ward in a huge gang - twenty or more of them. Mostly they didn't all go to the same bed - but they all came to mine! I can still remember lying there - completely closed in by this sea of white coats and spotty faces with big eyes looking down towards me, as if I were some kind of undiscovered species of animal!

But most terrifying and humilating of all, was the day they sent me to the 'medical photography' department. I was picked up by a friendly young porter and given a somewhat thrilling, if unneccesary ride, in a wheelchair! The first part of this - along the huge, seemingly endless marble corridor that linked up all of the wards in the old infirmary building - at some speed, was great fun; but I have to say I began to feel distinctly uneasy when we turned off up a dark, winding corridor I'd not been up before. If I could have clung to that porter I think I would have done - we were passing the operating theatres I think - people dressed in surgical suits and masks, wheeling unconsciuous patients in trolleys by us. I felt sick, nauseous - and terrified! I think we had a ride in an old-fashioned lift - one of the draughty, rocky ones with the big iron shutters and steel, concertina outside doors - but we then had to abandon the chair and walk up a narrow, dark wooden staircase to the top of the building. It was deadly quiet here compared to the rest of the hospital, where there were lots of people rushing about - I felt trapped, and lost in a maze. My porter friend knocked on the door at the end of the corridor, marked 'Medical Photography', and ushering me inside, left me in the company of the two ageing male technicians. I'd never been so terrified in all my life - I wanted to run after the porter and scream at him to stay with me, but I feared I'd be apprehended and pinned to the floor by these two older men...

I don't know how long I was in there. Probably it was no more than ten minutes - for all they wanted me to do was strip completely naked and stand by this measuring rule, while they took photographs with an old-fashioned, flash camera; but all I can remember about it was my pounding heartbeat and profuse, cold sweat. I was absolutely terrified, embarrassed and totally humiliated.

Unbeknown to me, the porter was actually waiting for me just the other side of the door! I'd never been so glad to see anyone in all my life - I could have kissed him, quite happily!

It's a fair while since I've visited this part of my memory, and I'd really no idea that the fear I felt during the various incidents I've described is still so active, and raw - so I'm going to remane this blog as part 1. Maybe I'll write part 2 another day.

Genealogy

2007-07-12T20:59:00.000+01:00

My grandmother was quite a storyteller. Even though she'd married for a second time after the death of my grandfather - when I and most of my cousins were either too young to remember him or not yet born, she made sure we all knew something of his character, as well as some of the fun they'd had together. She spoke of pre-war Dundee, where they'd lived and from where she felt obliged to flee with her three young children during the blitz, and, rather mysteriously; of the very different lifestyle she'd led there before she and my grandfather had married. In contrast to their years together, she seemed to have been very well provided for before her marriage - even as the rest of the world struggled to make ends meet during the depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Yet it was never clear how that far off lifestyle was financed, for save for the death of her natural mother when she was just two weeks old and her subsequent adoption by an aunt, she rarely spoke of her own relations.

At the time it just seemed pure chance, that I should happen to visit her one Tuesday afternoon, during one of my trips north, in 1997. Her friend, Joan, was there too; and during the inevitable reminiscence after coffee, she produced from her hallway cupboard, that old document which she claimed proved her entitlement to 'real estate' - that is, the one remaining place in an old cemetery lair in Forfar! I'd almost forgotten this existed, it had been such a while since I'd seen it, but as ever it was accompanied by her suggestion that when her weary days were over, she might just take herself up there...

Sat as I was with two ageing ladies with failing sight, I was egged on by one or the other to try to decipher the old copperplate script, which was of course an account of the three existing occupants - David Christie Ballingall, his wife, Mary Ann Thomson Ballingall and daughter, Margaret Thomson Ballingall; and upon Joan's enquiry, Gran confirmed that these were her grandparents and aunt, on her mother's side. The script continued, to the effect that if no claim had been made upon the remaining lair within fifty years of the date of the last internment, Forfar Council or its successors could forfeit the right of access to it; and so the joke about Gran's trip up there became all the funnier, as we realised she had just five and half months left to stake her claim...!

For the first time ever - to any of my living relations' knowledge - my gran then spent the next hour recalling names of the relations of her youth - and provided me with pen and paper, to make note of them, for future research! This really was quite a momentous occasion as I arrived there really only knowing that the aunt who'd raised her was known colloquially as 'Granny Broon' and her grandfather had been Samuel Moss, a brassfounder - but I left with details of the names of that aunt, both sets of grandparents, several cousins - and perhaps most revealing of all, the names of both her parents, her father's second wife, and her half-brother and sister from that marriage - which up until that point, no member of the family had even any clue existed.

Joan left, and some time later, I bid my grandmother farewell too, and returned to my parents armed with all this information, and they too, were pretty amazed by this sudden revelation. Then the next morning, the phone rang just as my father was leaving for work - his mother had suffered a stroke during the night that had left her half-paralysed and unable to speak...

Just how uncanny is that? She lived for a few years more in a nursing home, barely able to move without help; and although she recovered some speech, it was hardly enough to make even the most everyday conversation possible, never mind recollection of past events and names of long-dead people. I've never really believed in premonitions - but it makes you wonder, doesn't it...?

Now, ten years later - and five years after her death, I have quite an insight into my ancestry, thanks to that old cemetery deed paper, and the subsequent conversation. I have traced the Ballingall family back ten generations, to their Fife roots, and made connections with Thomsons, Morrisons, Craigs, Strachans and Peacocks - all in the Forfar area - the latter as far back as the early 1600s. I have traced the Moss family - which was quite extensive for much of the nineteenth century but may no longer exists as such at all, back to the same period - they'd not arrived in Dundee until the 1830s, and had previously been in Edinburgh - and in Melrose, Roxburghshire, before that. I've connected them to the Goodales of Stenton and Whittinghame parishes of East Lothian; as well as the Kennedys of Minto and Wights and Waughs, of other Border parishes.

On my mother's side - and with the help of pre-existing, yet unknown to any of us, websites prepared by a distant cousin we never knew existed - I've connected us with Cormacks, Anguses, Andersons, Alexanders, Youngs, Bruces and others - all from the rural glens of Angus and north-east Perthshire. And at length, I've even tracked my own Harvey family back two more generations and connected them with Herons - which previously only appeared, somewhat strangely, as a middle name of one of my aunts. Alas, prior to the 1860s both of these lived in Ireland and as yet, I've no idea where - so that's a project for another rainy day!

A few skeletons continue to rattle in my Gran's cupboard! As well as the hitherto unexplained 'Heron', she gave her second daughter another middle name - McFarlane; and the only connection I can find with that is that it was a middle name of Jessie, the second wife of the father she claimed to hate so much and have nothing to do with. And what's more, her own marriage to my grandfather took place in St Paul's Cathedral in Dundee - and as his family were Roman Catholics and hers Church of Scotland - yes, you've guessed it, Jessie's were Scottish Episcopal - and members of St Paul's!

And somewhat sadly to my way of thinking, she never did join the grandparents whom I'm almost certain funded her illustrious youth, at Forfar - my father and his sisters simply had her cremated at Perth, where her ashes were presumably buried in the garden of remembrance.

testimonies

2007-07-06T07:52:00.000+01:00

Testimony is an old-fashioned word in some respects. I daresay there are those that think of it as a legal term, and have never considered its use elsewhere; but the action has never really gone out of fashion - as anyone who has ever tried to sell anything will know! There's really nothing more effective than somebody standing up and saying how greatly improved their life has been, since they acquired or began using this or that...

And so it is in a religious, faith context - and the best part of that is, most people who testify the effectiveness of their faith, or of God or one of the persons of God or their relationship with him, don't even realise they're doing it! Songs and hymns are perhaps the most obvious means of such unconscious testimony; but some churches also use more conscious, deliberate testimony to help 'sell' their goods. As far as I can gather, this also used to be more fashionable, and is now largely the preserve of some of, what in the UK might be thought of as the more obscure and probably American-inspired (because for some reason, lots of people think that anything wierd and religious must be American-inspired), denominations and traditions - and everywhere, the Salvation Army!

For years, I struggled to fit myself into other churches and occasionally eyed the Salvation Army from afar, secretly wishing I might be accepted there despite all that I am, should I ever find the courage to transfer my allegiance. There's just so much about Salvation Army worship styles that I feel I can readily identify with - it just presses the right buttons for me. Okay, so there's no sacraments - not even the quarterly communion tradition that I was raised with, in the Church of Scotland - but for me, the whole bread and wine ritual was always a bit of a mystery too far anyway: I mean, why do it like that? The bible quotes Jesus as having said, "do this each time you eat or drink," or words to that effect - not just when you happen to be celebrating something the church calls communion; so is it not better to remember Jesus and his sacrifice every time you put something into your mouth, as opposed to concentrating the memory into a weekly (or whatever frequency) ritual? Though I'd be the first to admit that, try as I might, I don't often achieve that...

'Army worship leaders also tend to make much more of the actual words of songs being sung, than any other Christian church I've come across. To me, this is important, because otherwise, you soon fall into doing things without thinking about them - especially if like me, you're not especially good at singing and thinking about what you're singing - at the same time! They'll often read words, or have others read words and therefore highlight them before they invite you to actually join in the singing of them - so that by the time you do so, you're fully conscious of the words passing through your lips, and what they mean - both to yourself, and potentially to others in earshot - and to me, that's really important as true worship is not passive!

Each to their own, but personally, I think a lot of churches in what the English might call the reformed traditions, fall into this trap of allowing worshippers to be too passive. Indeed, I'd also go as far as say that churches of the Anglican & Roman Catholic traditions are even worse in this respect - with their worship services often taking place in beautiful, historic, interesting buildings that are, nonetheless, not suited to their purpose and arguably, never were suited to it - because most of the people in attendance simply witness the worship taking place! How can they be doing otherwise if the priest/clergy/professional choir/minister is doing all the talking - especially if they also happen to be doing so in a room that's at least half-hidden from view, by a rood screen - or worse still, doing it in latin, or some other language that most of the lay congregation does not use or understand?

And the 'Army makes extensive use of conscious testimony - and I think that's just great, because however educated the worship leader may or may not be - however good or gifted they are at teaching, or putting their message across - there's nothing more encouraging than hearing the voices of ordinary folk in the crowd, confirming that it actually works for them! To hear somebody's account of how their prayers have been answered - never mind the theory, or how a particular passage from the bible moved them - well, to me, that's just awesome. Even to hear what it is they're struggling with or concerned with - that changes them from being just another faceless member of a congregation, into a real person - and that's important too, because it is real people with who I feel I can most readily identify. Of course, I know that clergy/priests/ministers/what have you are also real people - but they don't always behave like real people, or at least like ordinary people. I mean, we don't all get to wear brightly coloured vestments, stoles, surplices, dog collars or funny hats - so they can't be quite the same as the rest of us - can they?

Back to Planet Normal!

2007-07-06T07:23:00.000+01:00

I received an invitation to a book launch the other day. Unfortunately, I couldn't go because it was taking place in Gosport, where I used to live. "Service Users are very proud of this," the invitation said...

It's funny how quickly people erase your achievements from their memories. Now I'm nobody special, and don't expect to be treated as such, but you know, I'm actually one of those proud service users - even though I wasn't aware I'm meant to be proud - or that the publication I was working on with the rest of the crowd just three short months ago, is even now a book!

As far as I know, the book is still called, "The Good Information Guide to Psychosis;" and it still takes you on a visual journey to Planet Psychosis and back - noting various space-themed factors and influences along the way. The planet analogy started off as a joke about being back on planet normal at the start of one of the early, Monday morning meetings of what christened itself the Good Information Group - which had been establised within the Fareham & Gosport locality of Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust, to look at how service user-friendly psychoeducational material might be produced, in accordance with the National Institute for Clinical Excellene (NICE) Guidelines for Schizophrenia. From the joke came the suggestion that if there's a Planet Normal there must also be other 'planets' - and I was the first one to say it - Planet Psychosis - everyone else was too busy laughing...

I don't really mind the whole group taking the credit mind you - they all worked incredibly hard, with drawings, editing, wording, negotiating - and at the beginning of March, we even made the heady heights of what turned out to be an otherwise boring and stuffy Clinical Governance Conference in Winchester - at which we made a joint presentation, complete with PowerPoint illustrations. But I do wonder whose names the finished article includes in its credits page. Nobody has even thought to send or offer to send me a copy. Is it wrong to feel a little hurt by this, or to covet the potential results of flashing it under the eyes of those who may wish to give my CV more than the casual once-over?

Oops...

2007-06-08T22:16:00.000+01:00

I've just been speaking to my mum on the phone - part of our twice weekly ritual. I see a lot more of her since I moved north - indeed, we spent last Saturday together...

Several times during the day, she suggested I go and stay over for a night this week - and saying I'd have a think about it, I kept wondering what on earth was bringing all this on! She asked me again when I rang Tuesday - and I remained puzzled by it, and worried that she was becoming more dependent on me than I'd like...

Well, she's just had a good bitch about everybody. I hate when she does that, because it feels like she expects me to take her side and unfortunately, because I see how much depression obscures her view, I don't usually feel able to do that. She's not had a good week, not been sleeping, in lots of arthritic pain - and boy, does it show.

The penny finally dropped, mid call, as to the reason for this current downturn. Last Monday was the 4th anniversary of my dad's passing. Until now, I have to say I completely forgot...

Grief is such an individual experience. I've not forgotten my dad of course, and nor would I want to; but I guess where I've managed to put him away in a special compartment of the 'people I used to know' file of my mind, my mother has not. Funnily enough, I don't feel bad about this oversight - perhaps I should, but I expect my dad would understand.

Evangelism

2007-06-06T09:30:00.000+01:00

I tried to write about this the other day, but I found myself linking it with somebody I'd named in earlier posts - whose name I've now removed. I only used his first name and most people won't know who he is anyway - but it probably wasn't the right thing to do. I just felt so angry with the way he's wasting his life, that's all...

I used to think evangelists were those wierdos you sometimes encounter, preaching from a well-worn old bible in the street - usually to nobody in particular; because even those of us that might otherwise be interested are rushing past at a discreet distance, because we don't really want anybody to associate us with them... Otherwise, the word conjures up images of those impeccably dressed, usually young American men and women with the neat black with white lettering, Brother, Elder, or Sister So-and-so badges - or people like Jehovah's Witnesses, who turn up unannounced on your doorstep - usually halfway through Emmerdale...

But evangelism is a much-misunderstood word. Okay, so it might include those groups and individuals most of us love to hate and strive to avoid - but they're just the tip of a very large iceberg - which otherwise consists of people of faith going about their everyday lives and thereby demonstrating - not with words but with actions - that they're actually not wierdos with old worn bibles preaching on street corners or people who turn up on your doorstep at inconvenient times or otherwise accost you as you go about your daily business - but just ordinary individuals, much like everyone else...

To me, these are the most effective evangelists - those who don't actually go out of their way to evangelise, but just live lives amongst others, in the styles they choose! Not very many years ago, I hosted a few parties and organised a few holidays that quickly became either notorious or legendary, amongst those associated with Fareham & Gosport's adult mental health services at the time! We'd even fundraise before these events - amassing what in the event amounted to a drinking fund, and we'd mix our own cocktails, giving them rude names, there'd be lots of bawdy humour and flashing of body parts...

Some people described us as immature - and you know, they may have been right - but maybe not for the reasons that immediately spring to mind. Just ask any one of the people concerned and they'd doubtless tell you how those parties and holidays were the first time they'd ever felt they could let their hair down that way - either because they'd been oppressed when they were younger, or unwell, or simply too poor at the time. In most cases, they were shy, withdrawn, introverted individuals in their younger days - and certainly did not have friends with whom they felt sufficiently comfortable to do such things with - or whom they knew they could trust sufficiently, that it would not turn into some kind of unwanted sexual orgy! It was just a laugh - the kind of laugh they'd probably never enjoyed much before or since; and invariably, it brought them out of themselves, so that they ceased to be such shy, withdrawn, introverted individuals - and for the first time in their lives, discovered that they had enough confidence to consider themselves part of the gang! And that gave them something to live for - a reason for existing, that they'd never enjoyed before. Quite a few stopped self-harming, or repeatedly getting themselves admitted to hospital - because they had something to look forward to, or something to look back upon - discuss in social situations, have a laugh about...

You see, everybody needs to have a life to call their own - and yet, so many people just exist. They find themselves wherever their circumstances have delivered them - and they just drift, rather aimlessly from there. They get institutionalised. They internalise all the negative messages that society - and in this case, providers of mental health services - keeps imposing upon them. They tell themselves they don't deserve any better, or can't themselves achieve it. They frown upon such behaviour - believing it to be bad, or possibly even liable to attract the wrong sort of attention - and land them back in some kind of care or custody, or on medication they don't want.

As our holidays grew, we became more and more a self-help group. People with public transport phobias supported each other to overcome them - one woman who had actually attempted suicide some years previously by throwing herself under an approaching train, and who had lost one of her legs in consequence, actually spent five hours happily riding on one, relaxing, sleeping, listening to music, gossipping, playing games, eating, drinking and sharing jokes along the way - just as anyone might expect to be able to do...

Of course, we attracted a lot of stick from the service providers. They prevented us from recruiting from their groups and activities, or from fundraising among its members. Our photographs were banned, our toys - such as playing cards featuring nude male models - were confiscated. They tried to deny us opportunities to stand for election as service user representatives - saying that we attracted the wrong sort of publicity. They even managed to turn the next generation of service users against us - and made us feel like outcasts in our own backyards...

But you know what? That generation remains largely shy, withdrawn and introverted. Lots of its members remain on the edge, looking like they don't feel they fit in - or could ever want to. They don't laugh much, don't socialise, do self-harm (if that's one of their issues), and do still spend quite a bit of time in hospital...

So what's all this got to do with evangelism, you might ask?

Well, a few years ago, I stopped hosting parties, and I started to help others arrange the holidays, rather than do it myself - because I joined the Salvation Army. I signed the pledge, and stopped drinking. I took on the massive responsibility of maintaining the Army's good reputation - for whether I'm actually wearing the uniform or not - people are watching me, looking for any signs of impropiety, or any double standards or other evidence that I might not be all that I claim to be, or stand for. Not least my fellow partygoers...

Yet, I still go with them to the pubs and clubs. I have soft drinks - and as they've banned smoking, I don't even have to passively do that anymore - although I didn't let it bother me before the ban. We still have a laugh - the bawdy humour remains, as does the odd flash. We're tactile, because we play practical jokes on each other, such as hide things in pockets and handbags, and fight over various hidden objects. We still laugh at the old days, look at the photos occasionally - and we still plan future events and trips together...

You see, I don't have to act like a prototype Salvationist! I can still let my hair down in the right company. I can still laugh at jokes that are basically harmless. I don't have to frown upon other people's choices or behaviours - as long as I don't actually drink, or smoke or swear - or do any of the other things I said I wouldn't; there's nothing to stop me joining in with all the rest!

And they respect me. They don't try to spike my drinks - because they respect my choices and decisions and the reasons for them - just as I respect theirs, and so don't refuse to buy them alcohol if that's what they'd like when it comes to my round! They respect me because I'm not one of those people who get up their noses in the high street, or call round unannounced - I'm still me - still the man they all know so well, and have had so many laughs and trials with in days gone by...

But the evangelism runs deeper. They go away, and in their quiet moments, they contemplate to themselves how much morew fulfilled my life seems to be these days - and how nice it must be to be able to say you're a part of, not just a rather naughty group of overgrown schoolkids - but an internationally respected organisation. And then they think to themselves how wonderful it is that I can do this - and yet still be me. And maybe - just maybe, they'll eventually get round to thinking or even just wondering whether, if I can do it - if I can come from where they are, maybe they could too - if they wanted to, or ever chose to give it a try...

And you know, if they have a problem - well, you can guess who they come to! And sometimes there are questions - spiritual, or moral questions, or even questions about the Army. If there's an odd special event going on and I invite them - they'll usually come along. Maybe they go to other churches occasionally - mostly not, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that just a few of those people who arrived in a place some time ago that wasn't necessarily of their choosing, and then just drifted and existed - but didn't live, nor even consider that they were entitled to live - now do so; and by even the most tenuous connection, maybe feel that there's a place they could go to or approach, if ever they needed a spiritual angle in their lives - that wouldn't judge them or expect them to change into something they're not, overnight...

That's evangelism. I'm not blowing my own trumpet either - I'm just a part of the equation. I simply go and mix with people - God does the rest!

Between visitors - 2

2007-05-30T08:58:00.000+01:00

Two things worthy of note happened yesterday. The first was a job interview for a project worker post in one of the Salvation Army's hostels, which went reasonably well - though I have to say, selling myself in such environments really isn't my strong point - I'm much better putting it all in writing. I have my doubts whether I'll have got the job - I should hear later today. Really, it will get down to what they're looking for - which being who they are, I strongly suspect they won't really know until they've heard all that's on offer from all the applicants - they can be quite an opportunistic organisation that way! I don't say that's a bad thing in itself, but it does make moving within it rather challenging, to say the least!

The other thing was the departure of my second visitor, whom I have to admit to being quite glad to see the back of! Though never perfect, he's always managed to redeem himself before by taking at least some interest in me; alas at the present time anyway, he only seems interested in himself - his new interests, etc. Almost every conversation we had ended up going there - and I was bored silly, to be perfectly honest!

The final straw has to be the texting. Picture the scene - there we are, the two of us, sitting in a pub at the end of a reasonable day out - and having got a text message, he decides to reply. Fair enough - I'd probably have done the same. But then it got a response - and he replied again, then another, and he replied again - and so it went on for the best part of an hour; with me sat there like a right gooseberry...

Between Visitors!

2007-05-26T03:43:00.000+01:00

The visiting season, it seems, has begun!

I've always enjoyed visiting friends, and receiving them in return - I'm just the sort of guy who likes sharing his favourite places I guess - and compared to most people, I'm rarely in a position to afford expensive holidays, so exchange visits is a useful means of getting around. Gosport - where I lived from 1995 until recently - was one of those places that not everybody wanted to go - understandably, as it's fairly workaday; and takes hours to get in and out of on acount of its' awful transport infrastructure!

Edinburgh on the other hand, is a rather different matter! This is one of those places that almost everybody wants to come to! (One lives in hope they want to come and spend time with me too, not just see the place...).

My friend of some years standing, Angus (no, he's not Scottish, despite the name), was my first visitor last weekend; and he helped me redecorate my living room, and so proved to be worth his weight in gold, as I really don't do heights! As soon as the stepladder starts to wobble, I've passed out - and if it's near the window I'm even worse, living as I do on the top floor of a tenement building!! Mind you, I did find that once I'd set my mind to it, I was able to emulsion the walls myself with one of those telescopic rollers - it is now a nice fresh shade called 'Jade White', and I even managed to sand and undercoat most of the gloss paintwork before his arrival. But he did the ceiling and cornices for me - three coats of paint; as well as the edges, which I couldn't do to save my life; and the higher parts of the glossing. I have a few doors left to do myself, not to mention the kitchen - but at least I now have a better idea of how to go about it!
Angus left on Tuesday, so spend a couple of nights with other friends he has in Edinburgh, and is now back home in Bristol...

My next visitor arrives later today! I tend not to categorise friends - all of my friends are my best friends in different ways, but this one has been quite a special one for many years. Years ago, we went to the same church group in Portsmouth, and we just got talking, and soon found we'd a good deal in common - not least that we were both emotional wrecks at the time!! He's one of those guys who doesn't tend to keep friends, on account of spreading himself too thinly and earning a somewhat unreliable reputation - and indeed, there have been many times when even I've wondered whether he really is worth all the effort. But then I promised very early on to be there for him no matter what, because I could see that's what he needed, and if anything he still has that need - probably more than ever.

It's one of those hidden costs of being a Christian - at the end of the day, you've little option to concede that no matter how much somebody lets you down (and boy, he's better at it than most), you can hardly call yourself a true follower of Christ if you call it a day and leave to struggle on alone - because the fact of the matter is, Jesus wouldn't do that - not ever, or in any circumstances...

Even at the moment, I'm in no small turmoil over this friendship! He was the one who'd said, in response to the news I was moving away to Scotland, that we might actually get to spend more quality time together, as he'd have to make time to come and visit me; and indeed it had seemed that at last, he was keeping to his word, as he'd originally said he was staying until Thursday. I was really looking forward to this - being able to take him to lots of the special places I've discovered over the past few weeks, and not being in too much of a hurry; but of course, he's taken a slice of the time he'd pledged to spend with me and offered it to somebody else, whom I can only surmise has made him a more interesting offer! So he's leaving Tuesday instead and to be honest, I do feel rather hurt by this eleventh-hour alteration to our schedule - I am only human, after all. But then he is a politician - yes, a real one, albeit only within local government at the present time - and well, robbing Paul to pay Peter - and not admitting it until absolutely forced to, is what politicians do, isn't it...? I guess I'm supposed to feel grateful he's coming to see me at all - but for the moment, the jury's still out on that one as yet again, he gets all his needs met and I have to just make do with a few crumbs...

I guess this is how Jesus feels all the time though - and while I'm sure God doesn't want me to suffer just for the sake of it, perhaps he feels I'll be a stronger person for knowing exactly what this feels like. I generally find that even if there's no obvious reason for life's occurences, God does tend to use them for what lies ahead - as invariably, I find myself drawing on past experiences - very often in order to support others going through similar issues in their own lives...

Better late than never!

2007-05-24T11:05:00.000+01:00

Okay, here goes. I've often thought I really should do this, but have never got round to it - or at least if I have, it was such a long time ago I've forgotten where it is, and what the passwords are, etc. I was much the same when it came to getting a mobile and pc actually - it had to reach the stage that I actually felt left out of social circles before I overcame my technophobic tendencies...