I think the fear a few years ago was that the further we move away from the various conflicts, the less younger people will remember them. But this just isn't the case. In fact I think we are even more tuned in to the relevance of Remembrance today. Young people are well educated in what happened. At our grandson's football match yesterday a minute's silence was perfectly observed by the young players.
Here in Hethersett, we once again marked the day with a short service around the war memorial which included the laying of wreaths by local groups and organisations. The youth uniform groups didn't attend the church service which last year was cancelled altogether.
I am not a military person, in fact quite the opposite. But I am proud to be an honorary member of the Royal Anglian Regiment due to my work with the Le Paradis Commemoration Group to honour 97 soldiers who died in the massacre in Northern France in May 1940. Many of those who died were from the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
So for me Remembrance has a special meaning. I am hoping that by this time next year our book on the subject will have been published.
I watched the Remembrance Service coverage on television on Saturday evening. I don't enjoy these programmes much and grimaced as Gregory Porter (and I usually like Porter) destroyed "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother". Alfie Boe also destroyed a song as well. I have never liked Boe's voice which for me is very very ordinary and certainly not suited to more up tempo pop pieces. Strikes me he's more famous for being famous than for being a decent singer. As for Porter the real question is does he have any hair under that ridiculous hat he always insists on wearing?
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I spoke yesterday about the feature I'm working on for Hethersett Herald about William "Bill" Olson. After the Remembrance Service I visited his grave to pay my respects.
So let's ruminate today on days' gone by when times were very different.
Yesterday I cogitated today I'm ruminating.
Ruminate - Think deeply about something.
I mentioned Hethersett resident Nanette Olson and her beauty queen days. It led me to watch a You Tube coverage where the tone was sexist and the language just wouldn't be acceptable today.
The coverage was from Pathe News of the Ocean Princess competition of 1968 which Nanette won. The announcer and I'm pretty sure it was Bob Danvers-Walker who used to do the Pathe News and who some people will remember for holding the gong for Michael Miles' Take Your Pick yes-no interlude.
Obviously somebody wrote the script for Bob and came up with the following:
"This line-up of lovelies is enough to stir up the heart of any man worth his salt. Twenty pairs of shapely sea legs went aboard the liner."
Obviously nautical jokes and remarks are the order of the day here as we soon found out.
"The captain reviewed the final line-up with an experienced weather eye. There's nothing rough about this lot."
Can you imagine that kind of thing happening today?
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On my way home, despite having to hobble due to a couple of blisters caused by shoes I don't usually wear I called into the Memorial Park to have a look at the damage caused by vandals to the outdoor table tennis table. Last time I mentioned this when it was damaged I was berated for saying that young vandals had caused the damage. Some people even suggested that the damage could have been caused by accident. Well there can't be any doubt about this latest damage as there is a massive hole in the surface and I doubt very much that it can be repaired. It will have taken a very object to cause that much damage. And I really don't think pensioners could have done it as was also suggested last time.
It's such a shame when a facility is provided and abused in this way. Just in case anyone is in doubt this time I include a photo of the damaged table along with more palatable pictures of the Remembrance event.
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As mentioned recently I'm currently reading A Year in The Circus by BBC North American correspondent John Sopel. It talks at one point about reverse chequebook journalism. In my naivety I have never thought about this but it does make sense.
The idea is that a newspaper or magazine pays for an exclusive interview that will say dish the dirt on a certain person (yes you've guessed it: in this occasion it was Donald Trump). They pay the person off for their story and then don't print it. This prevents a negative story coming out and the recipient of the money is prevented from selling their story to any other outlet. That Media outlet is obviously a supporter of the subject of the interview.
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Put a music quiz on television and I will start shouting answers at the screen not realising that nobody can hear me.
On Saturday I watched The Hit List. It's not my favourite quiz programme I have to say, but I did get lots of the answers. I even shouted one from the kitchen which is a good few yards away: "That's Lay Lady Lay by Bob Dylan" I screamed. The other threequarters told me I had got it right, sounding rather surprised. They even had a fifties music section which included Here In My Heart by Al Martno which was the first ever number one in the British charts and was top of the charts when I was born.
At one point one of the contestants guessed a song. They got it wrong but their guess was Smack Your Bitch Up by Prodigy. The word bitch was bleeped out as we were reminded that this is a family show. I sometimes think that the lengths we go to homogenise our lives is ridiculous.
When watching football matches the commentator will often say "we apologise if you heard anything inappropriate." This is a football match for goodness sake. You can't go to a football match without hearing bad language. Doesn't make it right but it is unavoidable.
I always remember when I was writing a rock music column in the Eastern Evening News I reviewed a record by Patti Smith entitled "Piss Factory." I was berated by the editor for printing a swear word. My defence was simple "It's the name of the record." He wasn't impressed and told me not to do it again. I don't think the situation arose again. Certainly if somebody had come out with a four letter word in an interview I wouldn't have used it but this was the name of the record. It didn't seem right to refer to it as ____ Factory.
Nowadays of course newspapers, magazines, television programmes are littered with four letter words. Sometimes TV drama is liberally sprinkled with the word f--k. I remember when there was an outcry when Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols first used the word on television. It ended with the interviewer Bill Grundy being sacked. Now four letter words are two a penny.
Another illustration of how times have changed despite the fact in many ways we have become much more politically correct than in the past. I always think that the times we are living in are slightly two faced in this respect.
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Did watch a programme on Abba at the BBC which transported me back. Interesting to see that the Swedish global superstars appeared on children's shows like Basil Brush and the Multi Coloured Swap Shop as well as Top of the Pops
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Very interested to see that one of England rugby union's new stars is Freddie Steward. I'm always interested when somebody with the same surname hits the headlines and wonder if we are related.
Freddie Steward plays for Leicester Tigers. So I checked where he comes from and he was born in Dereham - which is about 15 miles away from where I'm sitting now. Likewise jockey Louis Steward was born in Norwich. So I suppose there could be a link as Steward isn't the most common of surnames and is primarily centred around East Anglia. One thing that makes me uncertain is the fact that Freddie is 16 stone and 6 ft 5in which is almost a foot taller than myself. He did go to the Norwich School, however, so at least we have that in common. Interestingly one of his other names is Overbury and there is a firm of Norwich solicitors Overbury, Steward and Eaton. I have never found a connection to that branch of the Steward empire.
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A pre-Christmas visit to Great Yarmouth is on the cards. We have promised to take the grandkidles to the annual Christmas circus show at the Hippodrome. Apparently the Hippodrome now has a cafe with lots of circus memorabilia. Also one of the local galleries on South Quay - The Yare Gallery - has a display of circus art and props that will be worth a visit as well. You can see from this that I have always been fascinated by circus and I have no idea why. Perhaps it has something to do with watching Billy Smart's circus on television every Christmas Day as I was growing up. Granddaughter Poppy insists that this time she won't start screaming at the noise and loud music as she did last time we went just as the wall of death motorcycle riders started their set.