Yesterday was actually my son’s birthday – of course, parents remember the birthday vividly of their first born (and in my case, only) son. All those years, I actually helped to deliver him as they were short-staffed that night in the maternity hospital – plus ça change! As I remember it, he was born at about 5.23 on a Monday morning. I remember walking back from the hospital, feeling elated and we drank to the new born baby’s heath in the flat I was sharing with my university friends with NHS Orange juice and gin. In those days, new delivered mothers and mothers about to give birth were supplied with excellent orange juice but upon some investigation find that this practice did not survive for very long after my son’s birth. NHS welfare orange juice was officially withdrawn for young babies on 31st December 1971.The supply of this concentrated, sweetened orange juice, which had been provided to children under five since 1941 to combat vitamin C deficiency, was replaced by synthetic vitamin drops and tablets. All that I can remember was that it tasted very good and the Spring morning and the daffodils in full bloom. Meg was discharged from hospital very quickly as in those days she was regarded as an older mother (at the age of 21!) as most mothers were then aged about 16. Both my son and I got up promptly at 6.00am because I needed to up in plenty of time before my trip out for the day to Jodrell Bank and he needed to motor over to his flat to open up for the kitchen fitters who are making very good progress with the installation of his new kitchen and may be finished in a few days time. An interesting snippet of news from the USA emerged yesterday morning to brighten at least some of our day. The Democrats have won a Florida special election, flipping a state legislative district that is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate, beat Republican Jon Maples, who had been endorsed by Mr Trump. Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, declared: ‘If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what is possible this November.’ That refers to the upcoming midterms, when the Democrats will be looking to inflict major damage upon the Trump presidency with potential wins in the House of Representatives and Senate. Actually, it is only one of a series of electoral defeats inflicted on Donald Trump but flipping the constituency in which Trump has his stately pile must be especially sweet for the local Democrats. Trump’s hold on reality seems to be more and more challenged these days as he recently tweeted that a CNN poll indicated that he now received 100% support from the electorate, but the most recent opinion poll from CNN put Trump with an approval rating of 37% and a disapproval rating of 60% If this is sustained until the Autumn mid-term elections in November, then it spells the end of Republican control of the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate as well.
Yesterday was the day of my trip to Jodrell bank so I walked down into town to pick up a copy of my daily newspaper and then made my way to the bus station. The coach arrived fairly promptly and as we set off, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my travelling companion in the seat next to me was the person ho I had met in the Musical Appreciation Group who had worked at the National Lending Library in Yorkshire but some eight years after me. We carried on exploring our joint experiences of working both before and leaving university and the journey to Jodrell Bank flew by in no time at all and we arrived just after 11.00am. The weather was pretty cold upon our arrival and we were given a map which showed which of the various sites we could visit for free and which we needed to pay £5 per site to visit. I think that some of us, including myself, were expecting some kind of guided tour but instead we were rather left to our devices. By this stage and after an early start, many of us headed for the coffee shop to regale ourselves before we sampled some of the (free) exhibition sites and films. We left the site at 2.00pm (although originally scheduled for 1.00pm) and then made our way to Nantwich which was about three quarters of an hour away. Here it is was bitterly cold and many of made for a nearby parish church which was more like a small scale cathedral and reminded me very much, probably because of its use of a local red sandstone, as a sort of miniature Chester cathedral. We admired some of the misericordias (half seats in the choir stalls used probably by choristers inn the past so they could half stand, half sit during long church services) On a local recommendation many of us made for a highly recommended local book store which also incorporated refreshment facilities. As it as so bitterly cold outside and I had had only one sandwich for lunch. I treated myself to a bowl of soup and a roll which was delicious and many of the party ended up in this particular locale. Then at 4.00pm we started the journey back to Bromsgrove where we arrived just after 6.30 I chatted to the same travelling companion all the way back and again we had an entertaining talk. What was interesting when I asked around several of the other visit members and when I responded to some of the questions that I was asked, it appeared that many of them of they had been widowed then it was a period some 15-10 years ago and not recently. To that extent, I was regarded as a relative newcomer to the group but everybody with whom I spoke seemed very friendly and not at all stand offish. I was a little dismayed that I had taken a little travelling case with me but my coffee flash had leaked into it. When I got it home, turned it inside out and then gave it a good cleaning, it fell to bits in my hands but then I calculated that it was about thirty thee yeas old so perhaps it was not a wonder that the seams had rotted away.