Clik here to view.
In Memoriam
Spike has died. Anthony Martin, a teacher who gave his life to teaching at St Bede’s College died yesterday in Wythenshawe Hospital after a long fight with a failing heart. My heartfelt condolences...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Anthony William Martin “Spike” RIP
Well I was here back in Manchester for the second time in a month, the last time was full of joy for my new grandchild but this time was a sad mission. I was here to attend the Requiem Mass of a truly...
View ArticleIreland For The Fit And Healthy. If Not???
As the title says, Ireland is a lovely place if your fit and healthy but if you have a twinge, a cough or a problem of any kind with your temporal being; stay away. You could be on the road to...
View ArticleGallipoli Galloped
Last week I had the doubtful pleasure of taking 20 people to Gallipoli for an eight day tour of the battlefields and a chance to follow in the footsteps of the 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers. I say...
View ArticleCritical Claptrap
I am all for criticism, keeps one on one’s toes you know but some stuff that gets sent to me is pure balderdash but looks good because the writer seems educated and erudite. Here for your very eyes...
View ArticleSt Bede’s College In Manchester And All That.
I have just returned from Macedonia and I am in the process of producing a blog or two about my trip but in the meantime just one or two thoughts on my old Alma Mater and the diocese that runs the...
View ArticleGrecian Gropes and Macedonian Meanders- Part 1
It was the 25th September 2015 and I was on another trip following in the footsteps again of the 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers. Fresh from their annihilation in Gallipoli in August 1915, they were...
View ArticleGrecian Gropes And Macedonian Meanders-Part 2
After two hours of being bored by foreign speeches and absurd ceremony whilst having the cobwebs blown from us and being washed with rain, the party ended, the uniforms were saluted, the Greek Army...
View ArticleGrecian Gropes And Macedonian Meanders-Part 3
The native staff on our tour bus were an interesting mix. One Greek with a Macedonian mother and two pure bred Macedonians. The Greeks look down on the Macedonians as being people without a country,...
View ArticleGrecian Gropes And Macedonian Meanders-Part 4t 4
After leaving Lembet Road Cemetery we returned for our last night in Thessaloniki and enjoyed a fantastic meal of many courses of meze preceded by the traditional glass of Raki. a liqueur taken as an...
View ArticleGrecian Gropes and Macedonian Meanders-Part 5
We left the once malarial infested Struma Valley and took the long road west to Lake Doiran and Macedonia. 100 years ago this part of present day Macedonia was in Serbia and we crossed the Greek...
View ArticleIt Is Not The Bishop’s Feet I Can Smell Here, But He Does Have Bad Breath
I would like to drag the reader back to a posting I put on the system on 5th October 2015 entitled “St Bede’s College in Manchester And All That”, where in the second half of that article I complained...
View ArticleHoly Ghostly Tales
Living where I do, on the banks of the Boyle River where even on a bad day you see more wildlife than cars, more rats than people, more rain than sunshine, our major task is the gathering of correct...
View Article2016 -The Year Of Commemoration and Justice
As I get older my existence becomes more hermitic. Although I am in touch with the world, I see nobody but my wife, the lovely Helen, the bane of my life for 43 years. Only when I go for provisions do...
View ArticleThree Score And Ten And Still Living.
There comes a time in a man’s life when he suggests to himself that “I’ll have one last lash”. It has been a while in coming, slowly and recently I have begun to have a distaste for a session down the...
View ArticleHelen Patricia Teresa Malpas nee Towey
She died at 5.30pm on Christmas Day 2016 in an isolated single room in the Women’s Medical Ward of Sligo Hospital. 43 years and 252 days after our “I wills” were said on St Patrick’s Day 1973. 43...
View ArticleA Trip To Malta
Helen, my wife, had died on Christmas Day 2016. The late winter and early spring of 2017 were real hard days for me but by April the corona of light that signifies the end of the tunnel, the dispenser...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Morocco – A Renewal Process Part 1 of this posting
It was late April, a month after my Malta trip, I was approaching the end of the tunnel I had been in since Helen died on Christmas Day. The weather was warmer, I had met a few people. The lows of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Morocco – Renewal Renewed. Part 3 of this posting
La Perle de Mogador – my tipple of choice for the fortnight M. Ricard – my other tipple of choice for the fortnight The heat, the dust, the goodness of the people, the greenery, the gris, M Ricard, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Morocco – Renewal Progressing Part two of this posting
I am at the start of my 2nd week of renewal, I find myself stronger but there is a fuzziness at the back of my head and I think that will be there for a long time. We were up early that Saturday...
View Article