Gateshead Grump

Well it’s nearly here - though, as ever, it will be an anticlimax when it actually arrives. Yes, the traditional meal on Christmas Day will be nice, and we’ll probably get some friends and family calling - there might even be something on TV worth watching - but Christmas is like a lot of things; much better in the planning, preparation and anticipation than in fulfillment.

I’ve had some pleasant Christmas meals. December 8th with fellow Gateshead Council volunteers where we got to sit beside some old friends from my home village. Lovely. December 9th with the Retired Members Association of my former union - a nice bunch, though I hardly know them. (New Year’s Resolution - attend more events). And last, but certainly not least, December 16th with a small group of good friends. delightful.

And I’ve been to some pleasant shows and events. Two great concerts at the newly-restored St Mary’s Church on November 26th and December 16th, and the Theatre Royal Pantomime on December 6th - a treat, as ever, though I wish they’d do a show just for us oldies with no noisy, smelly, irritating kids allowed.

So I cannot grumble. But I will, especially when its over and I’m looking back and figuring the cost, the hassle and the worry. But, of course, I’ll do it all again next year - in fact I’m already looking forward to it!

At last some common-sense from the EU - they aren’t going to force the UK to give up imperial weights and measures. Let us hope that Westminster repeals the metric legislation which is already on the statute books so traders are free to use whatever units they choose.

He does annoy me, that Rowan Williams. A few weeks ago he was pontificating on the Trident missile system and now it’s our policy in Iraq. Even if I agreed with him I’d want him to shut up on defence and foreign policy. Every four years or so we elect a bunch of guys to govern the country and look after such matters, and even if they make a mess of it, they do have our mandate do do the job. This Williams guy  should spend his time doing the job he was picked for  and leave running the country to our elected representatives. Perhaps he could start by getting rid of the misogynists and homophobes that infest his organisation.

Looking at the beauty of the fields as sunset approached, I was reminded that in my younger days High Spen was a place of contrasts. On one hand the noise, dirt and ugliness of the colliery, and on the other the fantastic beauty of the woods and fields all around. How dreadful it must have been for granddad Pears, who started his working life as a farm hind, to end up down the pit.Both were hard, back-breaking jobs, but a farm-worker had the beauty and healthy conditions of the countryside. A miner had none of that, and he had the constant danger of explosion and collapse plus a myriad of less obvious threats to health. And grand-dad was a victim of his work. The pit damaged his eyes, forcing him to work on the surface; and leg injuries suffered in an accident undoubtedly led to the fall which killed him four months later - though, of course, the NCB claimed otherwise. The “good old days” indeed!