Tuesday, 27 February 2018
Monday, 26 February 2018
MEL COOPER ON BREXIT - 22 FEB 2018
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| SIR JOHN VINCE CABLE MP |
From: Mr Mel Cooper mel@melcooper.co.uk
22 February 2018 17:32
To: vince.cable.mp@parliament.uk
Leader of The Liberal-Democrats Party
Subject: Message for Vince Cable about Brexit
 |
| MEL COOPER |
I admire and totally agree with your position on Brexit.
I never thought that I would find myself on the same side as Anna Soubry or Ken Clarke or Michael Heseltine, but I agree with them and you that this is not about Party Politics. I am very alarmed by both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn and their refusal to be clear about what Brexit really means.
I am also very concerned because the people who can see that Brexit is a disaster waiting to happen are not running a positive campaign to educate the nation about what is to be gained by remaining fully engaged in the EU. Instead of telling Brexiteers and the undecided about how dangerous Brexit is, which they do not want to hear, how-about creating a narrative about what staying in the EU will do for the UK; about all the benefits we have because of it.; about all the things that have happened and enriched this country because of being in the EU for the past 43 years?
For over 3 decades the irresponsible and self-serving Right Wing Press of this country have been blaming everything they can on the EU to deflect attention from their own greed and power; and ordinary people have been unable to engage with being Europeans or even with voting for their MEPs. No one has publicised all that the EU has given to underprivileged areas like Wales and Cornwall in the UK; no one is publicising the good that is being done in scientific research, education, human rights, workers' rights and assuring minimum levels of safety in terms of food and drugs.
All this is under threat if we leave the EU!
Is it not possible to counter this lack of positive publicity and create a narrative that people will be able to appreciate?
Also to point out that 12 billion pounds a year is merely our membership fee and represents less than 0.5% of the annual spend of the government once you add back all the rebates and contributions from the EU? No one did the maths represented by Boris's and Farage's bus.
Even if we did not send this 10 or 15 billion a year to the EU, it is not going to solve all the problems of the NHS or anything else! However, because we send that pittance to the EU we have total access to one of the largest markets in the world, a market with which we do nearly 50% of our business freely and easily. What kind of trade deals with the USA, India, China and Australia or Canada will we have to do to replace all that? And what will those countries demand of us as the price of the trade deals?
Also could you please change the narrative about “getting our Sovereignty back!” We never gave away any sovereignty. We pooled our Sovereignty for good and sufficient reasons to do with the "strength in numbers" narrative. Also, Brussels has no more bureaucrats than, say, Manchester; and the EU civil-servants serve 28 countries. Finally, please explain how the EU is actually a very democratic system.
Yes, the EU has flaws. Yes, we can face these flaws. But no deal that we get from the EU if we leave it, is going to be as good as what we get by being in it. And how browbeaten are we by the EU when we have managed to stay out of the Euro, out of Schengen, etc?
I fear that too many Brexiteers are in the main simply delusional xenophobes and quasi-racists who are dreaming of a return to a Great British Empire that actually never really existed. Is it not time to straighten the narrative? The worst of them also have a kind of Fascistic belief in a racially Pure British Person that echoes that old Nazi belief in a pure Aryan race. Surely the genome and all the experiments since then have proved that there is no such thing as a pure race of any sort; and that the more there is a mix, the healthier for everyone!
Well, I wish you luck. I fear that the world wants to repeat things like the Dreyfus Case and nationalistic hogwash of the 1930s in new guises. Brexiteers would much rather think about leaving the EU and arouse fears about a United States of Europe than think about solving all the urgent problems internally and externally that this country and the world face. They also clearly believe that you can reverse globalism. The only way they will understand the error of their thinking would be if we do go ahead and exit the EU and live through all the bad consequences. But that would/will be damned hard on the 48% who voted for REMAIN; and on all the people who really did not understand what they were voting for at all. It is a recipe for potential disaster for everyone; and a risk to the Irish peace accord.
So is it not time to find a positive narrative to convince people that it would be in everyone’s best interest to stop the whole Brexit process and simply stay in the EU and deal in a mature way with all the problems that that would entail? As well, of course, as enjoying all the benefits we are about to lose?
With all best wishes for a successful campaign to wake up the British Nation to the folly it is about to commit,
Yours sincerely,
Mel Cooper,
OXFORD, UK
More Mel Cooper:
Friday, 23 February 2018
GUNS - CLASSROOM SHOOT-OUTS
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| Spot the Hero Who dodged the Draft? |
Will anybody tell President Trump the truth?
Or will US school kids remain as collateral damage, sacrificed for the gun-runners' profits?
The 2nd Amendment gave local militia the right to be armed - not for deranged individuals to own machine guns. The local militia, as a platoon, could defend their villages against attack, with single shot muskets.
Get your 7 a day here:
Gun Violence by the Numbers - EverytownResearch.org
https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/
Seven children and teens (age 19 or under) are killed with guns in the U.S. on an average day. Rates of firearm injury death increase rapidly after age 12. And unintentional shootings of children and teens are under reported in the CDC data, possibly because of the difficulty of characterizing a child's intent.
Facts - New Scientist - Branas's study found that
people who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as
likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens. When the team looked at
shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of
getting shot were even higher. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html
******************
Facts - Wikipedia - In
2009, according to the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in
the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[4] There
were 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in
the United States during 2000.[5] The
majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides,[6] with
17,352 (55.6%) of the total 31,224 firearm-related deaths in 2007 due to
suicide, while 12,632 (40.5%) were homicide deaths.[7]
Beretta Pistol – 19 rounds in 3 seconds – Legal.
"You
have a true friend and champion in the White House. No longer will federal
agencies be coming after law-abiding gun owners," Trump said in his
speech. "No longer will the government be trying to undermine your rights
and your freedoms as Americans. Instead, we will work with you, by your
side."
From: mel
Sent: 23 February 2018 14:32
Subject: Re: Carry a gun and earn a bonus???
Sent: 23 February 2018 14:32
Subject: Re: Carry a gun and earn a bonus???
I think the NRA had seen too many Westerns where the
good guy shoots the bad one? But in many films with people like Gregory Peck
and Gary Cooper and even John Wayne and James Stewart the gun is a last resort
and they are actually speaking out against the gun carrying culture. DESTRY
RIDES AGAIN is one famous example. Mel
From:
Nick
Date: 23/02/2018 12:09 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: Carry a gun and earn
a bonus???
Absolutely. The answer to the gun problem is more guns!
Its not the guns that kill it is the people who carry them!
I’ve got it! The answer to the gun problem is to provide
free of charge an AK47 or similar to every man, and, in the interests of sexual
equality, woman - who are over 21, of course.
Sorted!
Really. Such an awful situation, I feel guilty making fun of
it! - Nick
Demented
Donald speaks for The People. Gunfight at the OK Corral.
He
will dodge the bullets – as easily as he dodged the draft.
Kids
are collateral damage.
What did Trump say?
The US president has stepped up his calls for teachers to be
armed, a day after he floated the proposal at a White House event to hear from
survivors of the Florida school shooting.
Discussing school safety with state and local officials on
Thursday, he said: "Shooters won't walk into a school if 20% of people
have guns."
Mr Trump added: "What I'd recommend doing is the people
that do carry, we give them a bonus. We give them a little bit of a
bonus."
The president also said he supports raising the age at which a
person can buy a gun from 18 to 21, insisting the NRA would back such a proposal.
A step in the direction of peace would be to
confiscate all firearms and licence them back – provided the owner can give a
sane reason for needing the weapon/s . Free of charge. That would Make Trump’s
America Great Again.
Sent: 23 February 2018
10:45
To: Noel Hodson
Subject: Carry a gun and earn a bonus???
To: Noel Hodson
Subject: Carry a gun and earn a bonus???
Friday, 16 February 2018
UK V.I.P.s MIGHT PAY SOME TAX.
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| Nigel Farage MEP |
16 Feb 2018
Dear
Members,
You
will be distressed to learn that my wife calls me ‘paranoid’; due to my
opinion that Brexit is driven by UK tax-evaders.
UK media has given
Brexit’s chief architect, Nigel Farage MEP, hundreds of millions of Euros worth
of TV, Radio and newsprint time and coverage – on all platforms, including the
BBC. Nigel Farage founded UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, a
fascist leaning group which has no members of Parliament, is facing bankruptcy
and has no policy other than attacking the EU. But, he and his Brexit gang are
given a high profile. Why?
These Google Search headlines, I think, support my paranoid
conspiracy theory. The UK has become a nation whose VIPs habitually avoid,
evade & dodge tax. The surprising, good news is that UK tax-collectors are
investigating – many years in arrears, but they are on the case. Their
investigations could spread to other areas – such as to tax-havens (about 300,000 UK names leaked) that hide
more than $3 trillion (my estimate) in UK tax-dodging assets. – Best wishes -
Noel
Over 100 BBC stars face paying back thousands in tax as
HMRC wins ...
www.telegraph.co.uk
› News
1.
13 hours ago
- More than 100 BBC presenters are
facing tax bills that could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds after a former star lost her case
against HMRC.
Missing: big victory guardian
BBC presenter ordered to pay £400k in unpaid tax after
HMRC wins ...
14 hours ago
- A TV star who was the BBC'S highest paid
regional presenter has been ordered to pay the Inland Revenue more than
£400,000 in unpaid taxes. Christa Ackroyd, 60, was on an annual ... Christa
Ackroyd has been told to cough up £400k in unpaid taxes after HMRC's landmark victory. She was
paid through ...
Missing: back guardian
HMRC
wins tax case against BBC presenter - Ireland News
ie.shafaqna.com/EN/IE/572285
1.
17 hours ago
- Over 100 BBC stars face paying back thousands in tax as HMRC wins claim against
presenter .... BBC presenter ordered to pay £400k in unpaid tax after HMRC wins
landmark victory – and it could mean other stars face huge bills ... Cleaning
products a big source of urban air pollution, say scientists.
Noel
Hodson - Director
Tax
Reconciliations, Oxford UK,
Thursday, 15 February 2018
COSTS OF BREXIT - 9 OCT 2018 - BLOOMBERG
Brexit will cost 7 million UK jobs or equivalent in lower wages
The politics of Brexit are trivial and can be changed in a few weeks. Compare them with the immense, long-term consequences for business and jobs. The UK could lose the equivalent of 3 million to 7 million jobs in the 12 months following Brexit - from March 2019 to March 2020. That is £175 billion a year - every year.
Taking the better-than-expected world growth since then, the economy is up to 2 percent worse off than officials could have expected, the governor said. That’s a 900-pound difference when translated into household incomes, “which is a lot of money.”
9th OCTOBER 2018 - BLOOMBERG ANALYSIS:
9 Oct 2018 - Send this to your MPs and colleagues.
22 May 2018 : British households are about £900 pounds ($1,212) worse off than they would have been without Brexit, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said.
9 Oct 2018 - Send this to your MPs and colleagues.
BLOOMBERG say the cost so far of the threat of BREXIT is 700,000
jobs already lost. The reality of any form of BREXIT will cost the UK 6% of GDP or 2.1
million jobs of £50,000 each. Apply the average wage of £25,000 and the total
jobs lost rises to 4.2 million. HM Treasury calculations are a
loss of 8% of GDP (gross domestic product, everything we produce & services
in a year) which is 7 million jobs.
Our car factories are closing down. The City is migrating to
Europe and the US. Scotland & N. Ireland will break-away. We are risking
50% of our export customers – in the EU, the largest, richest market ever.
Because Farage, Trump, Putin and Rees-Mogg insist that our 63 million citizens
must leave the EU.
THIS IS MAD. WE DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS. WE DO NOT HAVE TO COMMIT
ECONOMIC SUICIDE. STOP BREXIT TODAY!
"As Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union enter
their crunch moment, let’s be clear on one thing: The EU doesn’t need to punish
Britain for leaving; the referendum did that just fine.
Latest figures show the warnings of
economic self-harm Brexiters like Boris Johnson derided as Project
Fear are fast becoming real, while the promises of a Brexit
dividend are still too remote even to assess.
Most studies seek to calculate the
economic impact of the various degrees of Brexit. The U.K. Treasury puts
the damage at as much as 6 percent of GDP. Bloomberg Economics analyst Dan
Hanson estimates that the level of U.K. GDP could drop between 3.2 percent and
6.7 percent by 2030, depending on the option chosen.
Such
estimates are controversial. We don’t know the shape of the Brexit deal,
including what arrangements will be put in place to keep trade flowing.
And Brexiters complain such exercises tend to use assumptions that favor
negative results.
Yet it is possible to make some unbiased judgments about the costs
of the vote itself to date. Doing so is useful as those unhappy with the
prospects of a compromise Brexit deal advocate more extreme alternatives, such
as leaving without one.
In November 2017, four
academics affiliated with the Center for Economic and Policy
Research — led by German associate professor Benjamin Born — modeled how
the U.K. economy would have grown had the referendum gone the other way. Their
approach was to create a synthetic U.K. economy using the attributes of 30 OECD
countries, including the U.S. and Canada, whose GDP between 1995 and 2016
most matched that of Britain.
This
month, they increased their estimate of the cost of Brexit to 2 percent
of GDP, or about 35 billion pounds ($46 billion), from 1.3
percent. The researchers’ new output cost is 350 million pounds a
week, the exact amount the Leave campaign claimed Brexit would save for use in
the National Health Service.
Other attempts to measure the costs of
the referendum all produce losses. An FT average of several
models back in June arrived at a Brexit cost of around 1.2
percent of GDP by the end of the first quarter of 2018."
22 May 2018 : British households are about £900 pounds ($1,212) worse off than they would have been without Brexit, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said.
Speaking to lawmakers on the Treasury Committee Tuesday, Carney said that compared to the bank’s forecasts made in May 2016 -- which were based on the U.K. voting to stay in the European Union -- economic output is more than 1 percent below where officials had expected. That “was predicated on a relatively weak European and global economy,” Carney said, an assumption that has also not panned out in recent years.
STOP PRESS - 7TH MARCH 2018: UK car industry stops investing until Brexit terms are known.
Vauxhall chief warns of Brexit threat to Ellesmere Port
The UK vehicle industry, employing 155,000 people, is threatened with import and export tariffs which have stopped investment into the next models, including electric-vehicles. This Tory-Brexit government has already promised to pay any tariffs on Toyota and Nissan vehicles made in Britain, but cannot afford to pay all the tariffs that will result from a No-Deal, Hard-Brexit. WTO rules, which are the UK's fall-back position, impose 9.8% tariffs. Such imposts will shut down UK vehicle manufacturing. We export vehicles worth £15 billion per annum to the EU.
On the same day, the EU tells Britain that The City, employing 415,000 people, cannot have Passporting rights to EU markets. Financial and professional services sold to the EU are £81 billion a year (2.7 million jobs); including £23 billion of banking and insurance. We will lose our industry and our banks. They will migrate to Europe - taking the jobs with them.
How will this happen?
On the same day, the EU tells Britain that The City, employing 415,000 people, cannot have Passporting rights to EU markets. Financial and professional services sold to the EU are £81 billion a year (2.7 million jobs); including £23 billion of banking and insurance. We will lose our industry and our banks. They will migrate to Europe - taking the jobs with them.
How will this happen?
1) 20% collapse in sterling has happened, on the Referendum vote. In March 2019, sterling will fall again, by an estimated 10% = 30%. The UK has an import/export deficit of £100 billion, so the direct cost is 30% of £100 billion = £30 billion or 1.2 million jobs every year into the future - unless we can cure the trade deficit.
2) Europe cannot give us a favourable deal, without betraying the other 27 Members (500 million people). A good, special deal for the UK, would break-up the European Union; they cannot allow that. The logic is that WTO Tariffs will apply on our exports, which range from 5% to 47% (47% on food). e.g. Vehicles and parts are taxed at 9.8%. WTO rules are governed by the DSB, Dispute Settlement Body, essentially a Swiss court. So much for UK sovereignty and taking back control.
As a leading Member of the EU since 1948, via and with the EU the UK has settled terms for all our exports. Applying new tariffs will cause initial chaos worldwide, and reduce UK exports by approximately the amount of the tariff. The average tariff will be 10% - of the £400 billion annual exports (ask UK Sales Directors how sales will fall) - costing £40 billion or 1.6 million jobs - every year.
No UK politicians claim to have read the World Trade Organisations WTO rules. No Brexiters speak of the legal structure/s that will govern UK trade after Brexit. No politicians comprehend the complexities of unravelling sixty years of European cooperation between the UK and the EU on 70,000 products and services.
No major trading blocs will do trade deals with the UK until the UK-EU trade relationships are known and are confirmed in global and EU law. All blocs will circumvent the UK to deal direct with the EU. The UK will be sidelined. The costs of this isolation are incalculable. It will take decades before the UK's position is known.
3) Much of the UK's Inward Investment such as from Nissan, is because the UK is a gateway to the EU market. This will reduce to near zero. Inward and Outward investment flows change daily and are difficult to quantify. 120,000 UK jobs are estimated to rely on net-inward-investment.
4) UK Government assessments for adopting WTO rules (Jan 2018) indicate an average 8% reduction in UK Gross Domestic Product GDP - being all the goods and services the UK produces in a year. The UK GDP is about £2.7 trillion; 8% is £216 billion or more than 7 million jobs. Subtract the 3 million job losses accounted for in 1) 2) and 3) above and this item 4) means the loss of 4 million more jobs.
Scotland and N. Ireland voted REMAIN. They will not cling to a sinking ship. The UK will break-up and lose Scotland and Ireland. This will have a large cost. We will lose most of the City of London's financial business.
WHY ARE THEY DOING IT?
5) Tax-evasion drives the main Brexiters. They want to escape ever-increasing EU tax laws limiting tax-havens.
6) The USA wants to break up the EU, which is the largest trading bloc ever created - 500 million compared to the US 350 million people; so that American trade-laws will apply globally.
7) Russia wants to break up the EU, simply to divide and rule. The Far-East see opportunities to pick the UK's economic carcass clean.
Wednesday, 14 February 2018
THE DEATH OF BROTHER JEREMY
I don't recall ever having a one-to-one conversation with Jeremy. Born in 1953 at the local Nursing Home on Bonfire Night, he was ten years younger than me. I was married and away from home when Jeremy began at secondary school, St Ambrose College, Hale Barns, which he often missed due to transport difficulties from the hill farm Father had moved to - where Jeremy acquired the skills of horse-bareback-riding, tug-of-war with the local farm lads and heavy drinking. My knowledge of him is largely from our sister Stephanie, with whom he wrote plays and pantomimes for schools and old peoples' homes, and from Mother, who lamented Jeremy's drinking and lack of discipline. Father, I imagine, approved of and indulged Jeremy's hill-billy life on the 1,500 foot high moors above Macclesfield.
Mother was correct, as it happens, it was the demon drink that killed Jeremy, who was the youngest of us and the first to die. Last in - first out.
He appears in my book "The Haunting of a Favourite Son" in the chapter, The Last Family Christmas; which relates that aged 15, not licensed, drunk and six-feet-four tall, he drove the farm Land Rover in a blizzard across country, at night, abandoning it miles from home, and, wearing jeans and a white shirt, walked home across the hills, very drunk - triggering a police hunt. He was a worry to his parents. But Jeremy survived that adventure.
From riding his horse, Jonty, and from getting superbly fit by often loping several miles on foot from the main road, up the hills to the farm, he somehow met a wandering troupe of stuntmen and women who earned a living giving displays of Jousting and mock battles as Knights of the Round Table. Thus, as a young under-educated man he wrote plays, sometimes scripts for TV, and learned to be a stunt-man. I guess it was a precarious life. Throughout, he drank heavily. His Catholic religion had no place in his world.
My only near contact with Jeremy, after that Family Christmas in 1967 was a time when brother Martin, who was an AA Rescuer, kidnapped Jeremy in 1980, from his flat in Cambridge, and dumped him in a rehab clinic, somewhere in Oxfordshire. Jeremy escaped the kind and well intended ministrations of his guards - hiked and hitched lifts to my house (we were abroad on holiday), got our house key from our next-door neighbour, lived in the house for a couple of weeks - and made off with my wife's car. He was however a gentleman not a rogue, and a few weeks later he returned and abandoned the car, unharmed, a few miles from our home - complete with the keys. I think he was essentially a kind, creative, considerate soul. We didn't meet or talk of his raid on our home.
Technically and medically, it was not the alcohol that killed Jeremy, but the lack of alcohol at a crucial time. He lived in Cambridge with his wife /partner, who was a nurse and an alcoholic. Martin said that he lived a life very close to being a derelict - but not quite in the gutter. They were not homeless. One weekend, his wife went to see her parents, leaving Jeremy alone. He drank himself into a stupor and when he came round, in desperate need of refueling with strong drink - there was none. Jeremy had lost the ability to care for himself - he had a seizure or a fit, and died alone - in 1995, just 43 years old. What a tragic waste of a good-looking, basically intelligent, super-fit, talented man.
Martin organized the funeral in Stoke-on-Trent, with the help of a business friend, who owned an undertakers. There were few mourners - but we did learn that Jeremy probably had a son - somewhere in Canada. Jeremy's legacy to the world.
THE DEATH OF BROTHER RICHARD
Tuesday, 13 February 2018
THE DEATH OF BROTHER RICHARD
"I'll bet.." said Richard with his familiar triumphant smirk when he knew he was on a winner, and had something to tease me about "that the national health has never spent as much on you, as this hospital has spent on me." I was visiting my nearly dead brother so despite the inevitability of me losing yet again, I was drawn into being taunted and belittled. I felt that I should allow him his Right of Kings and Superiority once more before he croaked. But I needed more information from my older brother. "Why, how much have they spent on you." I asked, consciously walking into the sucker punch.
"Guess" he said. I groaned inwardly. I had only just arrived a minute ago from London. How on earth could I guess what the Aix-en-Provence Hospital had (a) done to him (b) charged for (c) paid for hi-tech equipment. I wasn't remotely interested in guessing. They had clearly cut his chest open to get at his heart - which I'd been told had been failing fast, and he was clearly recuperating in an immaculate private room, with the very best of care. And I knew he'd been there for at least two weeks. At what cost?
It immediately took me back to tedious tiring hours of playing Monopoly with this consummate games player, two and a half years my senior; and just as I thought I could finally go bust and escape the humiliating boring game, Richard would find some convoluted way of re-financing me; and keep me in the damn game - which he would never fail to win. He won so often at cards and on horse-racing that aged 22 he was banned from three betting shops in central Manchester. His winning of games at home - and my constant losing to him - put me off games for life. It transpired that he had a natural, effortless talent for card-counting. He knew what was in your hand.
The hospital total, Richard claimed, including the very latest heart-pacemaker, his operation, his two - yes two - top consultant surgeons, his fine room, for which he only contributed ten euros a day - a peppercorn - and dedicated nursing by sexy, pretty French nurses who, he knew, doted on him; was over half-a-million euros. I could not beat that. I had lost again.
It was Richard's betting that had made him twice win and lose a million in Britain, move to Cote-D'Ivoire with his wife, Sylvia, seven children two dogs and a cat, win then lose an oil equipment supply business, win then lose an agency supplying currencies, passports and other security printing to the whole Gold Coast, which he serviced from his own small plane - and had him swim in disease infested waters, catching a liver-fluke that would have killed him but for The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine curing him.
He had also bet that when playing golf with his son-in-law in Australia - warned to wear boots but triumphantly wore flip-flops, that he would not be bitten by a white-tailed-spider. He was bitten, of course, and nearly died of suppurating wounds in transit through Heathrow; and nearly lost the poisoned leg. During twenty years in Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, he insisted against all advice on running every day in tropical heat to keep fit for rugby, and insisted on drinking beer all day and whisky all night. This drove up his blood-pressure to the highest level ever recorded in any mammal. We will skirt round the dumb risks he probably took in romantic African liaisons. He risked remaining in Abidjan as civil war broke out, on the false-logic that people liked him and would do him no harm. It was only when his "friends" shot at him in the streets, that he fled to join his wife in Aix-en-Provence. But, they hadn't killed him, he had won again.
He had won - except that he had become an addict to alcohol, which he continued to drink in large quantities when he moved to France. It was this consumption that had recently buggered up his heart - and sent him to hospital, not once but several times.
It is a longish journey from London to Aix, and I only made it for weddings, funerals and near-death events - such as Richard's. When I went into his hospital room we had not met for months, maybe years, but, as I've explained elsewhere, we never touched in our family - not even to shake hands. So there was no chummy, brotherly hugging - Ugh! We had however spent 17 familial years together, sharing a room until Richard left home, to get married aged 20. You need to start early to sire seven children. More bets, more risks - in this case - all worthwhile.
Now in the grip of alcohol, he was not capable of doing business, jogging or playing rugby - a sport at which he excelled. He did clear the woodland around their home - about five acres; toiling hard in the midday sun - as do Mad-dogs and Englishmen. Eventually even Richard's constitution could take no more and he had several heart attacks, leading to the hospital. The problem with the best heart pacemaker in the world - courtesy of the French and UK national-health service, was that the damn thing wouldn't let him die. He collapsed dramatically and often - nearly dead; then the machine would kick-start his heart and he'd be off again; but growing infinitely weary and depressed.
Richard had never had dreams. He didn't dream and he didn't imagine stuff. But during a major attack, as he lay unconscious, when the ambulance took half-an-hour to arrive (they lived 40 km from Aix), he did have a near-death-experience. In this dream, or visit to the other side, all of Richard's friends who had died were on a pebble beach; it was half dark and half light. The departed souls were on the light side; and they all urged him to join them. Richard said no-thanks and opted to stay on the dark side - and continue living here. He lived another few months. This removed any fear of death - and he told me it was more real, more vivid than real life.
He did in fact have one dream in his life. As an infant, say two years old, he had a recurring nightmare that he was in an igloo, in the middle of a limitless dark flat plain. Alone and frightened. It was his only link to the unconscious. He never expressed any religious beliefs; never prayed; never saw ghosts; hardly ever talked of spiritual matters, an exception being once joining in a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall meeting and enquiring about the afterlife.
Richard's biography
Richard's biography
When he died, a service was held in a large local French Catholic church, packed with several hundred people - and friends came from around the world. I think he was sober by the time he was cremated - as there was no spirited fiery reaction.
THE DEATH OF BROTHER MARTIN
THE DEATH OF BROTHER PETER
It wasn't raining, which was odd. It always rains in Stockport. But we were glad of our coats. Stephanie, our sister, with Peter's son, had opted for one of the practically sited hospital burial businesses, who did their duty with suitably blank faces, conveying Peter's coffin to its bier in one of the several chapels in the large cemetery. This chapel was Roman Catholic. We forbore to mention that Peter had abandoned his Catholic religion a couple of decades ago; which would have been a breach of good manners as the aging priest shuffled his papers and prepared to bring comfort to the allegedly stricken mourners. The priest of course had never met Peter, nor his two now grown-up children, nor either of his two very pretty wives - one an ex-wife. And the priest had not met any of us, the brothers.
Of the brothers, the youngest, Jeremy, had died a few years earlier, and Richard didn't do funerals - he was at his home in Provence or Cote D'Ivoire, probably drowning his sorrow in a few bottles of wine. His wife, Sylvia came over from France. Martin and I attended. Martin was still well-enough to travel the thirty-miles or so to Stockport. And of course Stephanie was with us. Our parents were dead. They were mercifully spared the sadness of burying any of their children - but they were undoubtedly with us in spirit. The chapel was surprisingly full. Peter had spent his last years in a flat in the centre of Stockport and as a friendly soul he had many local friends and acquaintances. His wives and family all came and Peter's colleagues from his past accountancy practice were there. Stephanie, Sylvia, Martin, my wife and I sat on the same bench, with one or two strangers.
This was not a congregation from which skilled speakers volunteered homilies, odes and orations. Peter was a simple soul, which the silent gathering reflected. The priest, tired but experienced, rose to the occasion. He would smooth Peter's path to heaven and bring us solace. In one hand he held the Funeral Service Prayer Book and in the other a note of relevant names and dates supplied by Stephanie and Peter's son.
Unfortunately, the priest had no knowledge of our Mother - or our family relationships.
"...and so we pray for the soul of our dear departed ...er ...Peter who will enter heaven to be with all the holy angels and blessed saints (we drew comfort from that thought). And will be re-united with his father ...er ...Edwin; and with his mother ...er ...um ...Winifred, who departed this life in ...1963 and in ...1966, who wait for ...er ...Peter to join them. And his brother ...er ...er ... Jeremy who tragically died before his time in ...1995. His dear mother ...Winifred, will welcome and embrace him to spend Eternity, in bliss, with her and ...er ...Edwin. Forever, in the bosom of Christ and his Holy Father (our bench was vibrating along its length in rhythm with our quaking shoulders and we dared not look at each other. Eternity with Mother was not compatible with anyone's vision of heaven. But the priest felt he had not comforted enough and pressed on in a sing-song cadence, in a quietly compassionate voice). And ...Peter will be held forever, in the loving kindness of his mother ...Winifred, forever, for eternity, (our bench was now quaking; would it shake and split at the seams. We stared straight ahead, very, very hard and rigidly did not dare to glance at each other. Forever? With Mother? Even leavened by Father and his bumper-fun-book of bad puns, it would be Dante's Seventh Level)."
The priest was now gazing up to heaven, raising his weary but kindly eyes in transcendence, contemplating his own eternal conjoining with the heavenly hosts and his loving and beloved mother. He glanced at his notes in-between his raptures. "And so, ...Peter and ...Jeremy and ...Edwin and ...Winifred, will be forever, eternally joined in joy..."
We imagined that our facial muscles could take no more, and feared our shoulders would lock up in deadly cramps as we suppressed our manic giggling. This Minister of The Lord, clearly had never met Mother.
Peter died of cancer, caused by life-long cigarette smoking. After he lost his small, business, split up from his wife and children and moved in with his second wife, he worked as a chauffeur, driving to and from the airport with wealthy travellers. He had been a steady and reliable soul, but gradually increased his pub and drinking habits to the point where it interfered with his career; having inherited Father's wealthy thriving central Manchester accountancy firm - which I guess Peter did not have the capacity to manage. We recognized that he was less bright than his parents and siblings - due, Mother told us, to a difficult birth that deprived him of oxygen. "Peter had been born blue - with the cord around his neck." In compensation, he was by far the best looking in the family, six-feet tall with a taut Greek god physique and blond hair. And he was affable; popular with the ladies and with many friends. Everybody liked him.
Peter's main fault, obvious from early childhood, was obstinacy and stubbornness. He was difficult to persuade, dissuade or reason with. Peter was hampered by fixed-ideas. It was this trait that finished him off. Although he had several symptoms of lung cancer - he could still stubbornly function and drive his taxi. It was only when the cancer blocked his throat and stopped him swallowing that he consulted a doctor. Within a few weeks he was admitted to Stepping Hill Hospital, where it was decided his cancer could not be treated. On my few visits, it was obvious that even at 63 years old, he was the nurses' favorite. His good looks and good nature stayed with him to the end. His two wives and children moved him to a hospice in Heald-Green where he had great palliative care - and retained his good-humour; like his father, trotting out really bad puns in place of deep conversation.
His most regular visitor was brother Martin, just one year younger, with whom as children he had shared a bedroom. Martin always looked after him. Peter and I had a few conversations at the hospice, which made it clear to me that he had no religious or overtly philosophical thoughts. The next world did not preoccupy him. He approached death without fear or heightened emotions. It was inevitable, we are all going to die, he accepted it. He died quietly, on 26th April 2008, aged 63, surrounded by his family, including both wives. How very civilized.
When Peter arrived in heaven - he was undoubtedly eternally reconciled with Mother - and lived happily ever after.
THE DEATH OF BROTHER MARTIN
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