2 (39) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XI.

THE END OF AN ERA.

The nineties. The decade started with the departure of the largely disliked poll tax and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. 

Within a week John Major became prime minister. (Whoever chose him, apart from his spouse and Edwina Curry, is a mystery to me. I always thought he looked and sounded like a serial train spotter.)  

It was around this time that I became part-time (five mornings a week) secretary of Age Concern, Isle of Wight. The office was in the seaside town of Ryde (one room at the top of a steep flight of stairs) and the honorarium barely covered the cost of parking my car in the nearest council car park. 

I gave it three years before advising on future local expansion (which included moving - lock, stock and barrel - to the county town, Newport). I then got out. Truth to tell, the last contact I had with it was to buy (just after we moved here) a rather nice bed-settee, at a very good price, from its Newport shop. 

Nationally, Age Concern later joined forces with Help the Aged to become Age UK. The merger was a sensible one. How many old folks' groups do you need in a small country? I was, however, in no way surprised at recent allegations that it has been advising the elderly to purchase overpriced products from firms who are paying it commission for the favour. From experience I wouldn't touch Age UK insurance with a barge pole, but that's very much a personal thing. It is, like every solvent charity, a business. Say no more. 

In 1992 the Conservatives headed by John Major won the general election, the Channel Tunnel was opened and sterling was withdrawn from the ERM. In 1994 the Church of England (to the gnashing of reactionary teeth) ordained its first women priests. There was then little of import until 1997 when New Labour, led by Tony Blair, gained a majority of 179 seats in the general election: it was the end of socialism as we, who remember the likes of Ernie Bevin and Manny Shinwell, knew it. In the same year, Britain handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese and Diana, Princess of Wales, a loose cannon much loved by the populace (if not by older royals and her ex husband), was killed in a car crash in Paris.

National empathy with Diana soon became apparent. Flowers were piled five feet deep in front of Kensington Palace (proof, if it were needed, that there are more out than in) and the royal family, forced to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, the warmth of public feeling for the princess, returned from Scotland to attend her funeral. An estimated one million people lined the route: no more than a handful of them would ever have met her. 

Finally that year, almost as an afterthought, Scotland and Wales voted for devolution. A profoundly sensible move. 

In 1998, Mo Mowlam moved the whole of Ireland towards civilized government (and hopefully an end to violence) with the Good Friday Agreement. Her reward was a typically political one. She was shunted out of the Northern Ireland job by PM Blair and his Machiavellian sidekick Peter Mandelson. 

Poor old Mo really should have known: it doesn't pay to become too popular in politics. 

Maybe the urge to move was in the air, for we were living in a pleasant bungalow in Wootton Bridge (where we should have remained to this day) when family voices enticed us to examine the joys of sea views from a flat in Ventnor. 

We moved. Once a day the mail boat to the Channel Islands could be seen through our patio doors and once a year the Round the Island Yacht Race straggled by in a few sail-powered hours. There was little else. 

We liked Ventnor; but by early 2000 we were ready to move on.

2 (38) SOME START TO A YEAR (Pt. 2)

SADLY EARLY FAREWELLS. 

Michael Mann (1 July 1934 - 3 January, 2016). Mr. Mann was an Island resident and the father of our daughter Jac's friend from childhood, Rachel, who lives in Australia. His death from a heart attack at his home on St. Lawrence was sudden and unexpected. Rachel journeyed here to be at the funeral and to present the eulogy with her brother, Steve, who came down from Wales. We met Michael only on social and formal occasions, but he and his wife were good friends to those of our kin who have kept in touch with Rachel. By all accounts he had a wacky sense of humour and his amiable presence will be much missed. 

Alan Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016).

 In Post 5 of this blog (27th September 2006) I wrote: A few random thoughts about some people I have never met but who have constantly entertained me over the years. For a start there is the actor Alan Rickman, a wonderfully hateful Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. How can anyone help but admire a man who, in 1988, had Bruce Willis running barefoot through broken glass and in 1991 cancelled Christmas. What a worthwhile chap. If he'd never done anything else I'd still like him. 

The news that he had died, at the same age (69) and from the same illness (cancer) as David Bowie a few days earlier, was a shock to his millions of fans around the world. Like Bowie, he never gave a poor performance in his life and his Severus Snape was, to my mind, one of the best antihero portrayals of all time. 

Commiserations to his lifetime (from their teens) partner, Rima Horton. 

RIP Alan Rickman. 

Then the news, yesterday, of the death from cancer of broadcaster Terry Wogan at the age of 77. 

For years I laughed my way to work listening to Wake Up to Wogan in the car. Remember the TOG (Terry's Old Geezer) who wanted to fly around the world by balloon but only if he could keep one foot on the ground and go home every night for tea? Remember the 'silent' fireworks parties on the 5th of November which were specifically designed not to frighten children and pets? Remember the weekly reports on television dramas like Brideshead Revisited? 
“Lady Marchmain fell down the stairs, killing the butler. Lord Marchmain died of the Chinese wallpaper.” 

We shall not see his like again. 

RIP Sir Tel, broadcasting genius.

And this list would not be complete were I not to mention that my one time editor Ian Dillow's family cat, sixteen year old Rosie, “finally went to meet her maker” on 11th of January. Her health had been in decline for some time. 

Ian wrote: “We keep imagining her in the house. It's silly really but they do become part if the family, don't they?” 

They do, old friend, they certainly do.

A FEW MORE CHANGES. 

Mo and I managed to move my desk and computer into the back room looking down the garden. Somerset Maugham would not have approved. No matter. Nice spot. 
Token exercise equipment to my left and bed settee behind me. I have draped Ellis's Super Mario duvet over the settee to give a splash of colour and added matching pillows as cushions. 

The cat Shadow is now in semi-permanent repose there. He opened one eye as I went by just now. 

“I've copped a look at the blog post,” he said. “Some start to a year, eh?” 

I smiled ruefully. “Yeah. They were all younger than me, too.” 

“Don't think about it, buddy,” he said. “In cat years I'm older than you are. You keep scribbling, I'll keep sleeping.” 

And in an instant he was gently snoring again.

Guess I'll keep scribbling.

2 (37) SOME START TO A YEAR (Pt. 1)

HOME. 

Daughter Roz, still awaiting a left knee replacement, slipped on the new flooring in her kitchen, broke her left elbow and tore the ligaments in her right leg. Arm in a sling. Crutch to walk. Could we look after grandson Ellis for a few days? 

We could. We did. 

On the following Monday my Leader, who does all the driving nowadays, took him the four miles to school and then drove over to see how Roz was coping. At around midday she telephoned me from the local hospital. It seems she was only doing a routine task in Roz's kitchen when she slipped. She had cracked a bone in her left wrist and could not drive home (insurance risk): could I come and drive her? 

I could. I did. 

I'll be so glad when the plaster cast comes off her arm, though. My friendly motorist's language is getting worse by the day. 

The good news is that Roz is driving again now and went back to work yesterday. She is a LSA at a local high school and loves the job.
TELEVISION. 

Various television series have popped in and out (some of them almost unnoticed). Longmire, Luther, Ripper Street, Grimm, The Great British Bake Off and, if you can stand it, All Star Mr. and Mrs. are noticeable examples. Episodes of Father Brown are still appearing (most of them repeats) and you can still see dear old John Nettles in ancient offerings of Midsomer Murders, while his successor, Neil Dudgeon (above), is currently appearing in the latest of that ilk. I mostly give the old 'uns a miss. Always liked Nettles, but have to draw the line at repeat repeats; even Miss Marple can pall when it reaches the fourth time around. Long ago gave up on Jonathan Creek, Frost, Poirot, Wycliffe, Dad's Army and Only Fools and Horses. Crikey, I still have the entire last series of Ripper Street to watch.

 On a brighter note, my Leader and I have enjoyed the early career yarns featuring Montalbano (The Young Montalbano) and Morse (Endeavour). 

We also liked series 3 of the Danish/Swedish TV series The Bridge (which I always think of as the Saga saga). Be a shame if it is discontinued. 

READING.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (Corgi) combines a glorious send-up of the peerage and all things noblesse with a dire warning that robot workers should not be taken for granted. Loved it. 

Quips, quotes and retorts for Oldies (Parragon Books) was one of my Christmas presents as was Authorisms by Paul Dickson (Bloomsbury): both make good reading if you are of that turn of mind. 

I have also started Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin. It's Rebus. Think I may have read it way back. I'll know around page 200. 

Which brings me to end of Part 1. Part 2 will be along later today or tomorrow. It is written, but Google can be a bit cranky if I go too mad with the wordage on a single post.

Anyway, if Warner Bros. can divide Deathly Hallows in two, surely I can do the same with a bloody blog post. Back anon. 

2 (36) ANOTHER YEAR GONE.

PEACE FOR OUR TIME? 

How wrong could they be? According to Wiki (an organization, along with Google, which I resolutely try to appreciate) the phrase “peace for our time” has been quoted by two British politicians, Benjamin Disraeli in 1878 and Neville Chamberlain in 1938: both were speaking of a peace agreement with Germany. 
How wrong could they be? 

There followed war with Germany from 1914 to 1918 and again from 1939 to 1945. The former was initially described as the war to end all wars. There must have been at least one major conflict somewhere in the world ever since. 

Now, as we drop bombs on 'selected targets' in the Middle East and send ground forces - but only in an 'advisory capacity'(?) - into areas where military support has been sought, how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing? 

Parliament voted for it? Well...yes...it did. 

So why not impose military conscription on all those MPs who voted in favour and tell them they will be the advance party for our next 'friendly' invasion force out there? Like to bet the buggers wouldn't change their minds then? 

Meanwhile...

CLIMATE CHANGE? 

Or lousy maintenance? To those of us who live in an area that has so far avoided flooding, the thought of homes awash with effluent-littered water is wholly abhorrent. 

The heartbreak, fury and helplessness besetting those actually hit by the floods we can only imagine. 

How do you cope when your home is unfit to be lived in for months on end and never again insurable or saleable? 

And in an era when somebody or something has to be blamed for the slightest mishap, who or what do you blame for something so enormous? 

Do you blame climate change? I'm sure the government and all the local councils concerned would like to. 

Or do you blame the lack of drainage caused by modern farming? 

The neglect of waterways? 

The lousy maintenance of current flood defences? 

Even those conspiracy theorists who hold that climate change is just a massive con must be having their doubts. 

Whatever the cause, it can no longer simply be put on hold. One way or another the powers-that-be are going to have to spend money - lots of money - to tackle it, even if that eventually means the removal (with compensation) of entire communities to flood free locations. Daft idea? Well, if they can do it in wartime when they want training grounds...

THIS YEAR. 

The phrase I can most do without: 

Lessons will be learned. No they bloody won't.

That having been said: 

A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

To anybody who still reads, or has lately taken to reading, this blog. It will be ten years old on the 26th of next July and any kind soul who has read all 235 outpourings prior to this one has not only braved an awful lot of words but possesses the patience of Job. 

I hope, whoever you are, that your Festive Season went well and that 2016 will be happy and healthy for you. 

And I do rather like the following as a cautionary thought for the year.

2 (35) NO? AH WELL...

THE MIDDLE EAST.

 Ever wonder? Seen those television shots of underground tunnels housing ISIL - ISIS - Daesh (whatever) fighters - terrorists - nutters (whatever)? 

Seen those bombed to buggery buildings wherein lived women - children - collateral damage (whatever)? 

Ever wonder whether, every bit as much as twisted religious teaching, big power bullying has done nothing but escalate fanatical hatred over there? 

Ever question whether raining bombs down willy-nilly can possibly bring an end to it all? 

Ever ask why the hell we keep sticking our noses in? 

No? Ah well...

HOME. 

Promises promises. So a government that was not going to allow fracking below protected sites has now agreed to said fracking. 

Another U-turn? Another promise broken? 

Well, no, the drilling will have to begin outside the sites and can then insidiously encroach below them. 

Does that sound like political flimflam to you? 

No? Ah well...  

What flood defences? Here we go again.

God knows how much is supposed to have been spent on improving flood defences in Cumbria over the last six years but it hasn't had much effect, has it? 

Right now the poor devils suffering from that disastrous flooding of the past few weeks must be asking: what flood defences? 

It might take a ludicrously simplistic mindset, but wouldn't we be better served pouring money into flood-proofing places like Cockermouth than in pouring bombs down on foreign countries with whom we are not officially at war? 

No? Ah well...

BOOKS. 

Finished reading No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (my thanks go to Viv, for putting me onto it) and was inordinately pleased when I again guessed, very early on, who the 'surprise' villain was. 

Also read Hogfather, Terry Pratchett's 20^th Discworld novel and a glorious send up on the subject of Christmas. I chose to read it, quite by chance, at exactly the right time of year, which was an added bonus. HO.HO.HO. 

TELEVISION. 

Clear out time again. 

Nurse Jackie, played by lovely Edie Falco (above), was a drug addict, two-timer, liar, thief and, at her best, a superb nurse. Her story, sad to say, has just ended in the only permissible way a story like hers could end. Presumably she won't be back. 

Dr. Who, played by Peter Capaldi (who I like), has taken his leave again. I did not much enjoy the last series, have no idea where he might land next time and, sad to say, no longer care. 

But he will be back. 

Grimm, played by David Giuntoli, has shoved off on half term holiday taking the rest of the likeable cast and their make-up artists with him. 

They'll be back. 

The Walking Dead, headed by Andrew Lincoln, also tend to disappear for short breaks, usually when a mainline character has fallen prey to lurching scriptwriters dressed in rags. 

Occasionally this viewer disappears, too, but that is only when he loses patience with the strangulated cacophony of approaching zombies. 

Who made that bloody soundtrack? 

What? 

Oh, they'll be back (in one form or another). 

THE FESTIVE SEASON. 

Lor, don't it come round quick!

Half our Festive gear is still unpacked. 

But a week away from Christmas Eve. 

My Leader has done what she can in the card writing and present wrapping line.

I have contributed only by taking it to the local post office, which is now in the Spar shop up the road. 

I'm sure many nice people will have been missed in the controlled panic that inevitably surrounds us every Yuletide, so I take this opportunity to bid 

A HAPPY AND PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS 

from Mo and I and the cat Shadow to all who read these words, be they: Google Staff, Government Snoopers, Net Browsing Insomniacs - or simply 

Cheerful Regulars. 

GODBLESSYERWUNANALL! 

2 (34) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY X.

WHAT A WASTE.

The eighties. In 1981 there was race rioting around England and hunger strikes by Republican prisoners at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The Conservative government was having a rough ride and blaming it on the last Labour government because that's what politicians of all parties automatically do. 

I was wryly amused when, in 1982 (and as quickly as they had been formed), Area Health Authorities were abolished. On the Island there was a muttering departure of top egos (most of them carrying fat redundancy cheques) and that was that: work procedures changed but little, the remaining top jobbers - many of them prize examples of confidence over competence - cultivated new ways to justify their existence and most patients either did not notice the changes or were stricken with apathy. 

A couple of weeks after it was all over I ran across the departing AHA Chairperson in a local department store. I had first known her when she was a quiet little member of the NHS Executive Council. 
Promotion to Chair of the AHA had magically transformed her into a provincial Margaret Thatcher, complete with the patronizing voice and dutiful, sycophantic retinue. Demotion had clearly upset her and she bemoaned the removal of her favourite high-flyers with the words: “What a waste.” 

I tried to look sympathetic as I responded: “Well, we all have to accept change don't we, my dear.” 

It was one of her own 1974 pearls of wisdom. We never spoke again. 

Those still working were the lucky ones. The country was in a state of recession with 3 million out of work. Things were looking increasingly grim for the Thatcher regime when along came the invasion of the Falklands by Argentina. 

Prime Minister Thatcher sent a task force to liberate the islands and its success carried her back to power in 1983 by a landslide 379 seats (a 144 majority) There followed a massive programme of privatisation and deregulation (just about every nationalised concern except the NHS) and the eradication of the entire coal mining industry. 

This appeal to the self-serving profiteer in many a worthy citizen, together with sympathy for those Tory MPs and their families who had suffered in 1984 from the IRA bombing of their conference hotel in Brighton, led to a third Conservative re-election in 1987. 

Did I say somewhere that the eighties had to be an improvement on the seventies? 
I was joking. 

Job-wise I plodded along giving the best I could to whatever I did and gradually becoming more and more disenchanted. 

Finally, late in 1988, with another gigantic reshuffle of the NHS pending, I got to the office one morning to be told that a colleague in the hospital finance department had been given early retirement. The member of staff who met me with the news was one I trusted implicitly. 
“Good for him,” I said. “I wish I could.” 
I then went into my office and waited for the summons to the Administrator's room: it took about half an hour. 

“Ah, Dennis,” he said, “I am told you want to retire...” 

So, at the end of March, 1989, I took early retirement. The following month my last Barnden's Beat was published in Link, the Wessex health staff newspaper. It was headed No regrets... and summed up - past, present and foreseeable future - why I was not unhappy to leave the NHS. By the time it was published Maureen (pictured below with our young buddy Hannah) and I had taken off on a driving holiday that took us up as far as Inverness in Scotland. 

  No. I had no regrets.

2 (33) WORLD NEWS.

THE MAYHEM IN PARIS. 

Murderous, quasi-religious zealots. 

I had started on a post about the eighties when the headlines from Paris came through. Memories of Thatcher, race riots, picket strikes and the transfer of the utility services to privatisation, faded into insignificance when faced with the news that murderous, quasi-religious, zealots had butchered and maimed over two hundred innocent civilians in the French capital. 

Clearly the lunatics had broken out of the asylum again. 

There is little I can opine that has not been better expressed by informed minds in the media. In i this week there was an excellent article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown expressing, with regret, her belief that we shall need more state surveillance in Britain.* 

There was also thoughtful input on the mayhem in Paris from i regulars Ian Burrell, Stefano Hatfield, Simon Kelner (below) and Matthew Norman. 

Kelner's View (Thursday Nov. 19th), headed Glorious night for football – just forget about the game, was particularly pertinent. Whilst lauding the “great dignity and wholeheartedness” with which English football fans showed their empathy with the French people at Wembley last Tuesday (“ ...it is at times like this that we see how powerful, emotionally connective, and – yes – relevant sport can be”), Simon Kelner saw it as just a one-off. It would not “turn us into more thoughtful, compassionate people,” nor would it “encourage us to put national interest aside for the greater good.” And it would not stop “England supporters screaming abuse at French players should the two nations meet in proper competition next year.” He concluded that we must celebrate this welcome “outbreak of humanity” for now and added: “I just wouldn't read too much into it.” Too right, mate. 

My apologies to Mr. Kelner and i for so cheekily quoting his work in this amateur blog post and I promise him (the first editor of The Independent, no less) that it won't happen again. He did write what I was thinking better than I might have done, though, and I wouldn't credit that to many scribblers. 

Personal thoughts on the entire Middle Eastern conflagration are hard to portray. My sympathy for the kith and kin of those irrationally murdered in France and elsewhere by stupid born bastards calling themselves ISIL - or whatever - is matched only by my concern for the many innocent souls killed and injured in the (don't tell me it's not indiscriminate) bombing of locations in Syria and Iraq. 

What (I constantly find myself asking), in the name of all the oil in the ground, are we and the Americans and the French and any other nation outside of the Middle East, still poking our noses in there for, anyway? And is it worth hundreds of thousands of lives - maybe even WW3 - to get it? 

For chrissake, somebody, find a cheap alternative fuel for motor vehicles. Let's get out of this nightmare. 

*I think we are already the most photographed populace in the world, even when the powers-that-be no longer have the funds to keep all the cameras running. But who knows? Yasmin A-B could be right. 

Be back soon. 

2 (32) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY IX.

SOME THINGS JUST DON'T HAPPEN. 

The seventies (continued and concluded.) 

Edward Heath's beleaguered Tory government departed in 1974 and a Labour government led by Harold Wilson finally gained control, though only with a very narrow majority. In 1976 Wilson was replaced by James Callaghan and the Labour government borrowed from the International Monetary Fund.

Things, as my mother used to say, had come to a pretty pass. 

On the work front, I could see no point in the new Area Health Authority which, I was convinced, was a totally unnecessary tier of management. I did not like hospitals, had never wanted to work in or around them, heartily disliked the more overbearing of the buggers who did, was blunt in conversation about it and fell out rather pointedly with one or two of the more arrogant of the ilk along the way. 

Honesty is not always the best policy. (Ask Gerald Ratner. Ask Brian True-May.) So in 1978 when my (former Southampton; still living there; got to the office every morning at about half ten, went home every afternoon at around three) boss, the FPC Administrator, took his retirement, I applied for and, unsurprisingly, did not get the vacant post. The interviewing panel, which included at least one of the aforementioned ilk (judge not a man by his friends but by his enemies), gave it to a good talker. He came over from the mainland. I had come across him in the past: he had scant ability but had neatly mastered the art of moving from place to place before his mistakes caught up with him. Within a year he moved onwards and upwards. A bearded version of him then obtained the post. I didn't apply. No point. 

Some things just don't happen. 

What did happen was that Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister in May 1979 and three months later Lord Mountbatten (cousin of the Queen and a popular governor of the Isle of Wight) was assassinated in Ireland.

My Leader has since remarked that the NHS in the seventies (like the Dementors in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books) drained me of all joyousness. I do regret putting her through that. A man brought up in the thirties really should have done better than bring his workplace home with him. 

Anyway, most of the protagonists are now dead and my dealings with them best forgotten. The eighties surely had to be an improvement. 

HOME. 

Nice people. 

We are blessed with an abundance of nice people who come by to tell us how much more the old surgery now looks like a family home. 

We have also been visited by the fire brigade's safety officer who fitted the place with smoke detectors and advised us how to reduce the hazard of accidental fire. A pleasant and worthwhile bloke. Our thanks to him.

TELEVISION. 

There has been much coming and going about which more next time. For now: 

The Graham Norton Show (BBC1 last night) captured the first television interview in 42 years by Maggie Smith - a magic appearance. 

If you missed it, look it up on one of those repeat thingies. Worth the viewing. Even the ubiquitous Mr. Norton is tolerable in such company.

2 (31) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY VIII

AND THAT WAS THAT.

The seventies (continued). 

The man from the ministry was Sir Richard Hayward CBE (1910 - 1994), regarded in some quarters as a poacher turned gamekeeper, but a pleasant bloke man to man. I met him at the wet end of Ryde Pier and drove him to the Executive Council offices for his appointment with my boss. I was quietly impressed by him and he was openly impressed by my elderly, midnight blue, Humber Hawk. (Of all the cars I ever owned that one was my favourite, too.) 
It transpired that the forthcoming NHS shakeup planned to bring together the disparate governing bodies of hospital, family services and local health. Area Health Authorities would be formed and, since it was an island, the IOW would have its own Area Authority. At the same time, Executive Councils would be disbanded. (City offices like Portsmouth and Southampton would be closed down entirely and taken over by the County office.) Nationwide they would all be replaced by Family Practitioner Committees with brand new members and lay chairpersons. 
It was a prize example of the political/civil service maxim: “If it ain't broke, for chrissake mend it.” 
Executive Councils were Insurance Committees up until 1948 when the newly formed NHS took them over, amended their function and renamed them. They were run by Clerks who, in the main, were qualified Insurance Institute members and knew their business. 
I don't know whether the same could be said for hospital management which was predominantly headed by the medical profession until the establishment of the NHS. Non-medical administrators were then recruited, largely from local government departments which, in all too many cases (I always thought), must have been bloody glad to see the back of them. 
In 1974 they, together with all the Clerks of E.C.s and allied health bodies, were to find they were jobless and their jobs had been put up for grabs. They could, of course, reapply for that job or they could seek a similar or improved post elsewhere. 
The new Authorities (Sir Richard told local heads of departments) would have new members and they would choose their own top officers to suit new, forward thinking, requirements.
By the time this esteemed Departmental spokesman had departed, all the top dogs in health on the Island (other than those already on the retirement list) were hastening to hone their interviewing techniques and assess the opposition on their ladder to Area Health Authority greatness. The smell of ambition was palpable. 
My own boss went for an interview at Portsmouth E.C., where my old boss had just retired. I might have gone for it but, in the circumstances, judged I would stand no chance. In the event, my boss was offered the job and tactfully turned it down. It transpired that he was also in the lineup of hopefuls for the post of Area Administrator on the Island. He was interviewed for that and he got it.
I became Acting Clerk of the IOW E.C. for the last six months of its existence (which included all of Ted Heath's three day weeks).
The Portsmouth and Southampton E.C. offices were duly closed down. The boss at Southampton was four years away from retirement and of similar experience to my old Pompey boss. He joined the shortlist for the post of IOW FPC Administrator and, unsurprisingly, was appointed. I was shortlisted, but the interview was a formality; in that company I was not to be remotely in the running. 
Much later I learned that Departmental specialists like Sir Richard, who had been sent to disseminate reorganization propaganda nationwide, had left firm advice that where Clerks departed from Executive Councils their Deputies should not replace them as Administrators of the new Family Practitioner Committees: such vacancies should be filled by outside applicants. So the 1974 reorganization changed my title from Deputy Clerk to Assistant Administrator. And that was that. (To be continued.) 
HOME. 
Surprises. 
Maureen had a change of hair style. (We both tend to be rather conservative about such things.) I like it and everybody says it suits her. 

That's my girl.
Moving house is a traumatic and at times surprising experience. Among the pleasant surprises afforded us has been an awakening to the many damned good books we had so far failed to read in our library. Meanwhile, the cat Shadow (below) has discovered the simple pleasure of cross-legged repose. I told him it wouldn't be allowed in a hospital and he muttered something. It sounded like 'Bollocks.' 
READING. 
Finished Maskerade by Terry Pratchett. Splendid. The Phantom of the Opera will never be the same again. 
Have read A Fresh Wind in the Willows (1983) by Dixon Scott; one of the previously unread books in our home library and a creditable little follow up to Kenneth Graeme's masterpiece. 
Am reading No Time for Goodbye (2007) by Linwood Barclay, another overlooked gem from the home library: more next time.

2 (30) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY VII.

EVERYTHING WAS TO CHANGE.

The seventies. 

In March, 1970, daughter Rosalind came into the world; a lovely little caulkhead (person born on the Isle of Wight). I think I knew there and then that we would stay on the island until we kicked the bucket. Now she is a lovely grown up caulkhead with a smart daughter at Uni and a great young son whose picture can be seen at the end of Post 2 (29). 

Everything was to change. 

In April 1970 the Beatles finally broke up with the departure of Paul McCartney (Lennon had gone in '69): pop groups would never be quite the same again. 
In 1971, London Bridge was transported to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, as proof that the almighty dollar could buy anything. Didn't bother us. Our little family was settled in a charming old semi-detached house at Wootton Bridge and I was firmly established in my NHS post. 

Decimalization was introduced into Britain and overnight our spending money fell to less than half its value the previous day. A cheerful 240 pence to the pound was reduced to a paltry100. Governmental claims that prices would adjust accordingly were bullshit; prices didn't - and never have - adjusted. 
A twopenny box of matches was still twopence after decimalization, but a shilling was worth a mere five pennies, not twelve: QED. 

In 1973 Ted Heath took the country into the European Community (I do not recollect being asked whether I wanted to join, but suddenly the 100 pence to the pound caper made sense). 

The decade had started with the ruling Conservative party struggling, among other things, with the organizational needs of an ever growing and increasingly costly National Health Service. 

Politicians of every persuasion, their civil servants and their advisers (clinical and academic), have forever been disruptive fleas on the NHS hide. It's what they do. 

From a career point of view the seventies is not a time I care to remember. 
There was one bright spot. 

In 1972, Ian Dillow, the then supremo of Wessex Regional Hospital Board's trail blazing (and eventually award-winning) quarterly newspaper, Link, accepted my first light-hearted contribution to its pages: this became a regular column, Barnden's Beat, which survived until my departure from the service in 1989. Life was pretty good. Our baby was flourishing and the youngsters were doing well at school. At work I was deputy to a boss who was ten years older than me and with whom I got along very well. My dealings with the professions and the members of the Executive Council were amicable. In the scheme of things the Clerk would retire at the age of 65 and I, with some seventeen years of management experience under my belt, would succeed him. 

Then, in the words of an old Frankie Laine song, along came junior swinging his little axe. 

Junior was in fact a senior civil servant who came hotfoot by train and boat to the Isle of Wight from London to smooth the way for a huge reorganization of the NHS as we knew it. 

It was to put an emphatic end to any future career prospects I may have thought I had. 
(To be continued.)
HOME. 

Settling in is still taking longer than anticipated, but the back garden trees have been cut back (and down where necessary). The garden is enormous. 

My Leader has been re-covering a chaise longue in the conservatory. Guess who decided to try it out before she was finished? 
More when I can take it all in.