Some Thoughts and Memories

From 1977 to 1990 I lived in Stoke Poges in Park Road where alot of  rich people with big houses exist. A well-known family who used to live there were the Ramsays. Their son Alasdair by chance used to go to the same school as me...the Tutorials. His  brothers though were doing very well in life. One of them was a doctor, and the other a merchant banker who was for a while married to the actress Fiona Gray.  Mrs Lillian Ramsay who headed the family did a lot of excellent charity work. But she tended to be somewhat arrogant, and I found her difficult to get on with. Apart from the Ramsays I had a connection with the vicar Reverend Cyril Harris whose vicarage was nearby. He was an affable sort of person, and bit on the trendy side. He had a large family of  grown up children*. He was also an author of s short book on the poet Thomas Gray who wrote the Elegy in a Churchyard, and is buried at Stoke Poges Church. Incidently, the wonderful Gar...

The following may not be suited for the squemish! But here we go...Also we are not talking about NDEs or near death experiences or out-body-experiences or OBEs but happenings that very nearly ended the blogger's life  as well as witnessing the deaths of the three other people. I) Three  Fatal Experiences At Serena Hall in Slough I was talking to a friend who was sitting on the other table next to mine. He also had next to him an elderly  woman called Pam (not her real name). I think she just finished her coffee. Anyway, I looked to my right,  and I saw her face up under the other table. Her face was frozen with fear, and shock. Her eyes wide open...and unblinking.. I knew she had "gone." However, at hospital she was physically still alive, but her brain was dead. Her daughters decided to turn off the life support, and her funeral was arranged. What struck me as extremely odd was that I felt no real sadness, or horror about witnessing the sudden passing of Pa...

In around 1979 I started work. In those days it was generally easy to get jobs unlike now in the UK. Let us go down memory lane. The following I present are my key employments plus some minor ones.. i) Dannimac Shop Assistant. This appointment was quite interesting at first. But ofcourse after a time it soon got dull. The job I had was at Suters which was a large store in Slough. Here, I advised ladies about clothing notably coats, and dresses. Naturally enough, I had to deal with money whenever anything was bought. I was trained by a certain Mrs Woodcock who was quite pleasant, but after six months or so I left. ii) Department  of Health, and Social Security, or the Old DHSS (now notably known as the Jobcentre) This employment involved right at the start with the signing of the Official Secrets Act. Several "top" civil servants in suits witnessed this. The job itself sometimes involved writing out benefit giros, and a certain degree of filing was involve...

My late grandparents on my pater's side lived in King's Road, Slough. I liked them very much, and I do not think I ever had a cross word with them at all. They were a happy couple. They moved from Sudborne Road in Brixton London in the early 1960s if I  recall correctly. My grandmother (Helene) was a lover of classical music, and enjoyed playing cards, and other homely entertainments such as Majong, Bagatelle, and Monopoly. She was directly related to a once powerful family known as Ritterhsausen meaning the House of the Knight which has its own coat-of-arms plus a latin motto...Voluntas Ferrea, or Iron Will. Her pater was Baron Von Rittershausen, and he like her was an Austrian. Due possibly to the rise of Communism (he originally had a huge mansion notably in East Berlin) he and his family fled to England loosing their huge wealth. He  was possibly the Rittershausen who was  once the head of the Austrian Railways. He was among other things a world chess champion, a...

I was visiting Kings Langley  in Hertfordshire selling tickets for a charity. For some reason, or other I entered a local pub...and there was barely a sound. Customers were simply staring at a huge screen which showed one of the twin towers/skyscrapers on fire in New York. The word LIVE could be seen at the corner of screen. Then, I saw a passenger aircraft appear and hit into the other skyscraper. I was stunned..everyone was. It was so surreal, and bizarre. However, as the day progressed the full horror of it all was becoming more apparent, and people including myself watched through a shop window with tv screens. It was unbelievable.....what we were seeing.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

Back in the early 1960s, and to the start of 1970s  I had a number of long journeys in my parent's Daimler to a place outside of the farming town of Oswestry in Shropshire. This so-called place to be more precise was really a large run-down "Victorian" house set out in the countryside. It was known as the Villa, and was essentially a farm in its hay day. My mater's mater lived there with her cats whose names she would shout out in the mornings to call them in for feeding! She was an elderly pleasant woman, but she seemed to be always dressed in old clothes of the 1920s, and 30s! Maybe this reminded her of "happier" days of the past. Her late husband was a farmer who mater referred to as the "Old Chap". He originally wanted a son to look after the farm but instead he had her, and no further offspring. I met a number of  farming folk especially Welsh ones. They seemed to be very kind, and generous, and lived a simple kind of existence. Unfortu...

Over the years I have met many people who could be classed interesting. For me, such a person has to be knowledgeable in virtually everything, and above all they have to have an enthusiasm for sharing it. In other words, they have to be akin to a polymath......I should add that when this post was set up originally I have across two other people who may be regarded as interesting. They were Tony Osborne a prolific composer and  the author and poet Keith Bosley. They appear separately on this blog. Anyway....... Arthur Nicklin He was a good example of what I am on about. He always seemed to know everything about anything. He also expressed this enthusiastically. He was a real character. He was a professional free lance writer, and he had written and published an endless number of articles on all kinds of subjects. The last time I saw him was in Slough High Street. He was going to do a book on psychic healers, and was intending to interview some of ...

The following may be of interest. Some of the "tales" here in brief are banal, comical, and in many cases odd to say the least! Please note I cannot  always vouch for the accuracy of some of the things said here but they may be of interest..R Searle 1  The Human Chicken?  On occasions I used to see in Slough  a man making clucking sounds like a chicken! When he tried to engage people in talk he spoke nonsense.  2  Bible Mania  Once I used to know a Bible basher. He  believed in every word in the Bible. In other words, he was a literalist.  I used to call him Old Nick (an old expression meaning the devil, and Nick short for Nicholas which was his real name), and he was able to see the funny side of that. However, he became too much, and our friendship soon ended.  3  A Tragic Chap There was a chap who lived near me in a special home. We will simply call him M. He had  what appeared to be a ...