Tis the time to be jolly so the song goes, yes it is the time of year for parties and the rather LARGE gentlemen in red suit and white beard leaving nice expensive presents under the tree for you…..and hopefully me. But I’ve also found this period in time is always filled with quiet moments of reflection, a time to assess your actions throughout the past year, and a time to remember loved ones who are no longer with us physically. As you can guess folks I’m a firm believer our friends and loved ones never really leave us, they drop in and out of our thoughts at the funniest of times as well as relevant dates in the year, a song on the radio, a look in your child’s eye, or a familiar voice in your head…..that split second and they are there alongside you. Chatting with one of our members who’d lost his good wife this year, he was telling me how he’d had a couple of bad days feeling really down and missing her so much. I explained how those feeling never go, but with time they do ease. I went on to tell him how Lesley had dragged me Christmas shopping up in Fleetwood and Cleveleys, we sat in a café, me mindful of the piped music when Glen Miller’s ‘In the Mood’ filled the air, nothing wrong there…..big bands are back in fashion? It was the intuitive notion ‘String of Pearls’ would be next, so when that oh so familiar tune started, a smile came over me and it was Sunday morning, mam was cooking breakfast and dad had his LPs on the gramophone again! This put a smile on Mike’s face as he mentioned he’d been brought up with the big bands, I think he was surprised when I said I knew of Arty Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and the like. Although both my parents have been gone nigh on thirty years, they have never truly left me, and I know our Colin is lurking in the garage when I’m tinkering; after all it was his yank motors that got me started in the first place. So when Bing starts to sing this Christmas, I know that tear in your eye is for JOY and HAPPINESS remembering the GOOD times, for that’s what our loved ones do leave us…..Happy memories.
So on behalf of your committee and myself I’d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year Graeme S…..
