A strange question I know but there's an age when aches and pains become the norm and something we have to learn to live with.
I remember my father as he got older when asked how he was always said "not too bad apart from the usual aches and pains."
I also remember him going to the doctors and saying how tired he was after going for a walk. The doctor apparently told him that walking wasn't good for him, which of course was nonsense. He pretty much stopped walking after that
Mind you I was never sure about what my father said anyway. He claimed that he once met Chiang Kai Shek and Winston Churchill and shook hands with Joseph Stalin. This seemed to impress him. I don't think I ever pointed out that Stalin was a mass murderer.
He also claimed to have met Robert Baden Powell the founder of the Boy Scout movement and that Baden Powell on a visit to Norfolk visited my grandparents to say hello and tell them how their son was getting on as an RAF engineer.
I always took these comments with a pinch of salt similar to the claims of my Great Uncle that he was a champion draughts player despite the fact there was no evidence in his house of a draughts or chess board.
My father also claimed to be a good darts player, reaching a very advanced round of the News of the World championships when this was a really big deal. I never saw him play darts or heard of him going out to a darts match.
He had one phrase he could say in Russian, presumably given to him by Stalin. It was something about being an English comrade.
But enough of this waffle. What should I talk about today.
Well at the moment I'm reading a book about British Prime Minister's and before I checked with the book I tried to remember how many PMs there had been during my lifetime ie from 1952. Could I name them all and could I get them in the correct order? So here goes.
Winston Churchill
Anthony Eden
Harold Macmillan
Alec Douglas Home
Harold Wilson
Edward Heath
James Callaghan
Margaret Thatcher
John Major
Tony Blair
Gordon Brown
David Cameron
Theresa May
Boris Johnson
Liz Truss
Rishi Sunak
That totalled 16 and the ridiculous thing is I remember them all other than Churchill and Eden. I had to turn to the book to see if I had them in the right order. I was very surprised that I had put them in the correct order.
So do I have a connection with any of them? That was my next question. The connections are very vague. So here they are in order.
I have visited Harold Wilson's grave on the Scilly Isles. He used to holiday there and may even have had a home there. Last year when staying on St Mary's we met a man that had holidayed every year on the Islands for over 50 years. He remembers Harold Wilson regularly walking to the newsagents in the main town and chatting to people. Apparently on the Scilly Isles he was just treated as just another Islander.
Margaret Thatcher - my other threequarters was Once Upon a Time a careers' officer in Derby. One day she was at the Rolls Royce headquarters when a lady started talking to her. It turned out to be Margaret Thatcher.
John Major. I was once in the same room (I told you these connections are very vague). It was some meeting connected with my job with the Police. I believe it was somewhere in Cambridgeshire and it could have been something to do with Crimestoppers as I was on the Norfolk board. Didn't get to talk to Sir John though.
Tony Blair - as a very young politician visited Norfolk Constabulary and was shown around. I didn't meet him but was in the same building.
David Cameron - the only PM I have actually spoken to. I put Hethersett forward for a PM's Big Society award. As a result me and the other threequarters went to Downing Street to pick up the award which was presented by David Cameron. We were all placed in groups and visited in turn by the PM who kept saying "Hello I'm David Cameron" something we would never have realised without him saying it. We do share a birthday although I'm quite a bit older.
Theresa May - we stayed for two nights in her Oxford college. Ok ok I know that's really vague. It was an interesting stay. We were allowed to eat in the refectory and we had a nice room. Got up after our first night and went into Oxford for the day. When we got back our room was empty.
We went along to the porter's lodge. You're only down for one night so your room's let out, we were told.
"But where's our stuff," we asked fearing it had been put in a skip somewhere.
Turned out they had moved it to another room pending our return. I had a letter stating that our stay was for two nights. After a couple of phone calls it was sorted out. We stayed the second night in the new room which was comfortable but not as nice as the first. We then received a fulsome apology by phone. We had the cost of he second night refunded and they left three bottles of red wine in our room for our return.
Boris Johnson - I read one of his books once.
Liz Truss - we once had an evening meal with someone who knew her.
Ok come on. Give me some latitude here. Who else could waffle on with some vague stories about a subject they dragged up from the nether regions of their mind? But then that's typical of my blogs.
And there will be more dregs from the nether regions tomorrow.