As I awoke yesterday, I could not but remember that it would have been the date of my 59th wedding anniversary and I thought that day might be a little difficult to bear emotionally. But I was due to be on a U3A trip to Shrewsbury gaol for all of the day so that this will help to divert my thoughts. As it was, I had set the alarm so as not to oversleep but got up and turned off the alarm 15 minutes before it was due and got going with my normal morning routines. Getting up to speed with the political news of the day, I read this morning that the normally rock-solid Republican state of Texas might be wavering in its support of Donald Trump. One factor uniting both right and left in the state is the emergence of huge data centres which are enormous consumers of both water and power and are springing up everywhere but appear to be universally unpopular. The other Texas factor is the price of beef as Trump has done a deal with the import of beef from Brazil and Argentine do the detriment of American producers. Ironically, the EU has rejected the import of beef from these two countries despite the surplus because those countries do not meet the safety standards on the use of antibiotics. The anniversary of 9/11 is fast approaching as are the many celebrations of this macabre anniversary as will be 25 years after the event. But Donald Trump has recently caused a great deal of offence amongst 9/11 survivors as at a recent memorial gathering he released a host of several memories of the event that were obviously a tissue of lies. He claimed to see the second plane strike the twin towers from Trump Tower but the sight lines are such that this would have been impossible. In fact, he was on TV bragging about the fact that with the twin towers collapsed, Trump Tower would now be the tallest building in New York. He also claimed to send a 100 of his construction workers to help out with the disaster and to have contributed $10,000 dollars but there is no evidence that either of these claims are true. In fact, so pronounced his Trump’s narcissism and false memory that he is actually claiming that he himself was pulled out of the rubble by two emergency workers whereas he was in fact in a TV studio miles away. So these very evident lies are now causing a great deal of offence amongst the families of those who died in the disaster and is even more evidence, if more was needed, of his deteriorating state of mind. But such is Trump’s hold upon setting the agenda of the Main Street Media that none of these evident falsehoods are being given the denial that they deserve. The anniversary of 9/11 is now two days away and we will be subject to a barrage of recollections about the events of that terrible day. Meanwhile, our British institutions seem to be disappearing day by day as there is news this morning that Monty Don is to step down as the presenter of Gardener’s World after 23 years of presenting the programme each week on the BBC. In fact, many viewers will recall not only Monty Don but his faithful dog which often featured in the programme. Monty Don’s most famous faithful companion is his golden retriever Nigel, who became a beloved fixture on BBC Gardeners’ World before passing away in 2020 and must have been one of the most well-known dogs to grace our TV screens.
As my family are away in Swanage, I walked down the hill to collect my newspaper and then stopped off to have a coffee before completing my journey on foot to pick up the coach for the outing to Shrewsbury today. I arrived at the pick-up point some 17 minutes before the planned departure time of 9.00am but the coach was already three quarters full. I sat alone for my journey because everyone else was already in a dyad or triad of friendship groups but a travelling companion would have been nice. Such the scale of the roadworks ere in Bromsgrove that it took the coach practically half an hour to reach the outskirts of the town where we picked the motorway system to covey us northwards along the M5/6.Once we got there about an hour and a half later, most of us made our way to the tearoom so that we could refresh ourselves before the tour that we knew was going to be an hour long in duration. The prison was firstlaid out in the 18th C but was subsequently rebuilt by the Victorians with the principal architect being Thomas Telford no less, probably because of the vast amount of iron work deployed in its construction. Early public executions began in 1795 and continued until 1863 and they appeared to be exceeding popular attracting huge crowds of onlookers. The gaol was only closed in 2013 having been in use for some 220 years as a county gaol. Our guide was an ex-prison officer who had worked there and could therefore add a lot of first-hand accounts and local ‘colour’ to his account, of which more later. After the tour was open at about 12.00pm we were all issued with a map of Shrewsbury and told to entertain ourselves for the next four hours until the pickup time of 4.00pm. Many of our number (but not myself) had done a lot of research about the town but we were left to navigate an extremely hilly town by ourselves. This is one part of these U3A excursions which I do not enjoy when a map is thrust into our hands and we are told to fend for ourselves and whilst many of the more intrepid of the party enjoy these particular challenges, I for one would not be averse to a little shepherding. So the prison was on the edge of the town and so a walk was in prospect before we could enjoy the sights and sounds of the town. I teamed up with a couple of the group who had joined us from the Redditch branch of U3A and we fond a little bit of local park where we could consume some of the things we had brought with us. Fortunately, they had prepared some sandwiches for themselves and I had myself taken along a flask of coffee and some jaffa cakes which I had bought but not taken with me on my trip to Yorkshire. Then we had a communal fish about as my two companions wanted to have a walk near the river .Eventually, we managed to locate this but found ourselves on the ‘wrong’ side of the river where we really needed to locate the riverside walk and the only thing to do was to retrace our steps towards the prison ad then to renavigate from there. This we did and hunted around for a ‘staircase’ of some 60 stone steps that we were assured would take us down to the river but even the local shopkeepers seemed unsure about this to give us some more precise directions. At this point having walked down and up through the slopes of the town my left knee was hurting so I let my two new found companions go on their own way whilst I sat on a wall and contemplated how I was going to fill my time. After a rest on the wall, I found the steps that led to the river and enjoyed a riverside walk but could find nowhere to sit down for a break so I occupied the rest off the day with a fiendish Sudoku until it was time to. catch the coach home.