A tribute to Ziggy

Ziggy

Wonder what he's thinking at this moment? He looks so serene, is he miles away or years, looking forwards or remembering? I know he does have memories because he remembers more of my words than I do of his, and understands what they mean. He is my partner, my loyal friend, my best buddy and I love him dearly.

   Eight years ago I came alone to the Isle of Lewis. A couple of months later was offered a council house and went to view it. As I went back to the car I turned and looked again and saw a dog in the garden. It was throwing a fluffy toy into the air, two or three feet high. Suddenly I realised the `toy` was a cat. Not screaming but just going up and down. I went to the house they lived in, next to the one I was going to have and asked the lady if she knew what the dog was doing. She said they were just playing as they lived together.

   Ziggy was just nine months old then and I realised he was rather special and told friends that somehow I would adopt him as the lady did not walk out with him. A couple of months later I was lucky enough to be looking out the window when the SSPCA came to take the pets from next door. Ziggy was being taken on a lead and when I rushed out to ask where he was going the man said," He is being `put down` within the hour". I said I would take him, but was told I would have to get council permission first. The housing manageress, Edna Morrison was stood next to me so I just turned to her, raised an eyebrow and she said," I think you already have it Roy". Edna, I give thanks every day for that and I wonder if you know that you actually saved TWO lives with those words? I of course, would not have died like Ziggy, but something inside would have.

   In last eight years Ziggy has brought happiness to lots of people wherever we go. Some of the comments have been,--From the SSPCA" one of our successes", the Vets, " Thank goodness you took him, we would have had a terrible time injecting him",  from a friend," you could not have got a better dog if you had ordered it", and one tourist put him on the internet as," The happiest chappy on the Island"

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Here he is at one of our favourite spots high above the sea on one of our daily walks. Yes he does have four legs, just that the heather is very thick.


   I think some people are tired of me extolling his virtues,----- but he really is that good to me. I have lost count of the people who have said they want one like him. Even some who have never had a dog, but I don't think they will get one.


   Our relationship has developed over years of living just for each other and I hope we enjoy many more, because I don't want to think of a life without him.


   As I said earlier, " he is my partner, my loyal friend, my best buddy, and I love him dearly".

   

    

This wonderful age.

Last night I watched three programmes about the space shuttle and the emergence of rockets. Plus a look into the life of a Russian who was predicting all this before man had even taken to the skies. Also a documentary about the Cassini  Project, a satellite that took a landing vehicle to Saturn's moon, Titan. After seven years travelling it arrived and fulfilled it's mission, sending information back to Earth, from billions of miles away.

   It took me back to my school days. I vividly remember a man in a estate car at the school gates giving out copies of the first EAGLE comic. It had stories about a fictional space traveller,Dan Dare, who went to different planets. It also showed people talking on phones without a wire connection, huge strange vehicles that carried large metal containers from ships to road vehicles. This was about 1949 and all us boys said " this will never happen" We  were lucky to have radiograms with record players then and  Television was by no means common. Even food rationing was still in place from the war years.
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   About twelve years later the Russians sent a man into space.

   By the seventies, mobile phones, although very large were fairly common, and I was carrying containers on my truck all over the place, and we all know how far technology has got since then. I for one would not contemplate predicting what we will be doing or where we will be going in the next sixty years.

   I feel that I have been privileged to live in such a exciting and wonderful age.

      

Humour & Odour

I have always liked to see people smile. I love humour, not the kind that a lot of stand up comics do today with all the swearing and sexual stuff referred to and even, jokes? about infirmity.
   Not for me. I am a simple man and like simple, kind, clean, humour.
As I have got older I've found that I can `get away` with a lot more. If people `don't get it`, they look at me as if I am demented. Does not matter because most times I put a smile on some ones face.
   Years ago when babies had dry, tinned food the tin had printed on the bottom, `Open other end`. On the other end,(the top) it said, `Keep Lid tightly Closed`.--------so?
   I was reminded of this when I took an old lady to a day centre. As I got to the door there was a large sign on it saying,`Keep door closed at all times`. A young chap was up a ladder at the side of the door fixing a light so I called out," Excuse me, how do I get in?" He answered of course," just go through the door". I said, "--- but it says, Keep door closed at all times". " no, no, just go in". Me, " but it says------" Then thought,` some falls on stony ground `and gave up.
   Some years ago I saw the following. The difference between HUMOUR and ODOUR!  Humour is a shaft of wit, and Odour is a waft of sh--.    So if I post something that I think is funny, you can comment on it with one of two words, SHAFT or WAFT.
   Hope snippets like this raise a few smiles.
  Roy

War years. 1939 to 1945

I started this trip through my own personal memory bank with only the details of the first chapter drafted out in my mind. When I finally completed that, after several  re-writes, I could then sit back and think about the next one. It was only then that I really thought of the project I have been persuaded to pursue. 75 years of my experiences, wow!  I only hope that I live long enough and keep mentally and physically able to finish it. More than that though, I hope that it entertains and in parts puts a smile on a lot of faces. There seems to be far less good, kind, fun in the world today.

   I had no idea of the significance of my third birthday, 3rd of September 1939. The day war with Germany was declared. At the time of my New Years Eve adventure that year, I, of course knew nothing of it, but within the next 12/18 months I certainly did. By this time I had started school. Most people I think, have seen pictures from those days of little boys in short pants, school cap askew, with a fairly large cardboard box ( for a small boy ) hanging by a string from his shoulder. The dreaded Gas Mask was inside that box. Issued by the government and  a compulsory addition to the school bag and lunch box you had to take with you each day.

   Teachers gave instruction on how to wear it and the first time was frightening. It smelled that awful rubbery smell, cause that’s what it was, and was hard to breath through  till you got used to the filters in the removable can on the bottom  it. It also had piece of rubber opposite your nose, actually a flattened tube, that allowed breath out, but not in. That was fun, you could actually make it sound like a fart when you blew though it. It was also disconcerting as you had to look through two round holes, like portholes. They were some distance apart, so you had to keep turning your head to see things.  The worst thing about it was carrying it, no matter how you tried adjusting the string, the damn corners of the box continually dug into your leg or your buttock. That hurt! When we all had the masks on and were heading for the air raid shelter, banging into each other because of the impaired vision, we must have looked like a horde of demented aliens from another world.

  That thought always makes me smile.

  

  
    

Just me!

I was born in Oldham, 3rd September 1936, that makes it 75 years this year, but it doesn't seem such a long time ago. I am very fortunate that I am still pretty mobile and appear to have, as they say,`All my faculties`. Not that I use them all now, life here on this island is I believe, right for my time of life. Very picturesque, very quiet and in no way demanding. I live alone with my dog Ziggy, a most splendid fellow. As some people have remarked, " Couldn't have got a better one if you had ordered it". So generally I live a contented life.
However, what is born into us never really goes away and I was born to travel and I do it when I can. What I do miss is the opportunity to do more of it. All my travelling,(except for holidays) was done in the course of my work. Here there is not enough work for the young without oldsters like myself coming in and taking the few jobs there are. Besides, as an "Old Trucker" I would not enjoy driving a vehicle with all the technology they have today. On board computers and GPS tracking devices so the office,(BOSS) knows exactly where you are, if you are moving or stopped, mobile phones to call you anytime, you don't even carry a spare wheel, not to save the driver from having to change it but because the equivalent weight in cargo is paid for. Even breakdown repairs are organised by the office. They even plan your routes, departure and arrival times. The driver is just that and does not get his hands dirty, or his uniform. UNIFORM!! Yes it is that regimented now. Taken all the fun out of the job, and the camaraderie and that was international back when you stopped to help another driver with problems, no matter what nationality, --- because it could be you tomorrow.
So what am I doing writing ? Well new friends do ask about your former life, not the personal stuff, more about your work etc; and that in my case means my travels. When I am sharing the details of some experience in a far off place, I do what all travellers do, re-live it. This is I think, what makes the tale interesting, it is what enthuses people. The outcome is that someone always says, "Why don't you write it down?"
So, having no scheduled work and a lot of, "Time on my hands" as they say and especially the persistence of a fiend,(sorry) friend, I feel I must at least make an effort to do just that.

New years eve, 1939.

I am sure this is my first accurate memory, as opposed to remembering something that has been told to me in later years. I did not know at the time of course, that it was the custom in those days for the darkest complexioned person living in the house to, `Let the New Year in.` It involved the person leaving the house just before midnight carrying a piece of coal, bread, and money. At the midnight hour the elected person would knock on the door and being duly admitted would wish everyone a `Happy New Year`. At the same time presenting the home with the symbols of, warmth, food and money, in an effort to ensure the prosperity of the home in the coming year.
I think that my mothers concept of me was flawed at that time, or mam would not have agreed to me being the elected person. She probably did not know that I wasn't exactly the "good, obedient boy" she thought I was. But then again, neither did I. When I thought to do something, `right` or `wrong` was not considered. I just, did it. Fortunately for me we do develop the intelligence to differentiate between the two. Or maybe it is because a heavy strap laid across the buttocks by my despairing father on more than a few occasions did the trick. Whatever, it does not matter, the fact is if I had not learned, I might not be here today. If it was you, " Good on you, Dad." I might also take this opportunity to thank dad for teaching me the time. On each occasion when I did not arrive home from school when I should, and I am not talking by minutes, I am talking about hours. Leaving school at 3.30pm and arriving home four or five hours later, I had to suffer, `The Strap`. Dad would tell me how many strokes I would receive for each hour I had been absent. Then I had to count the hours, tot up the number of strokes I was going to get. After a few strokes he would pause, I had to keep count and tell him how many more I had to suffer and I had to be correct, then he would repeat the process till I had received the correct dose.
Let me make it quite clear, my father was not a cruel and vicious man. He was the most patient, kind and honest man I have ever known. He just did not know how to deal with his errant son. He never did cure me of `going off on my travels`, but he did show me the right way to go about it, and so, so much more that has shaped me and my life.
Dad eventually went to California after my mother died, married again and spent, in his words, " the best three years of my life overlooking the Pacific Ocean, scanning the sea for whales and Catalina Island through a telescope set up on the patio." He deserved it and I was lucky enough to go over and tell him so before he died in 1982.
I mentioned earlier his honesty! When he re-married, the UK pensions people of the time sent him a wife's allowance and he would not spend it. He got in touch with them and explained that Emily was his SECOND wife and he did not think he was entitled to it. He had to have a printed hard copy assurance that he was entitled, before he would touch a penny or cent of it. Some man my dad.
My family lived in a modest `two up two down` terraced house, it was the third house from the ginnel, (an alley separating the next block of houses.) so the instructions mam and dad gave me were hardly daunting. "Just go out the back door, past two doors, left through the ginnel, left again, past two doors and when you hear a lot of bells and people shouting knock on the door of our house." The thing I couldn't understand was the fact that it was way past my bed time, I was in my pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. Strangest of all, I had to carry a piece of coal, a piece of bread and a coin. I remember feeling as if this was a trick of some sort that would get me laughed at in the street. At that age I didn't know the word `embarrassed` I just felt uncomfortable about it. However, mam and dad were deadly serious about it so at the appointed time I was ushered out the back door with the `bits and bobs`.
It was a mild night and very pleasant with all the stars in the sky, it was rare to be outside when it was dark, except to go to the lavvy that was in a brick building across the yard, so I think all us kids walked with heads upturned looking at the moon and marvelling at what we later learned were constellations. I duly turned into the ginnel and came to the street where I was to turn left to my house and something startling happened. I didn't fall over, I wasn't accosted, I didn't pee myself with fright at the dark. I HAD A THOUGHT !
I looked left, looked right and thought, `We take my sister to school this way`, and off I went. All what mam and dad had told me to do gone from my mind. I was off on my travels.
Sometime in the middle of the night a lady found me wandering near the school my sister attended and took me into her home. It was a normal `two up two down` house, the front room converted to a shop. The backroom a living space with a regular cast iron fireplace. A boiler on one side and an oven on the other and a lovely warm and glowing coal fire in the centre. The room was dimly lit and the lady fussed over me and when she cuddled me she smelt like mothers do, very pleasant, warm and comforting. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep. I must have slept for a long time and when I awakened the lady assured me that mam and dad were coming for me. It had taken so long to contact the police etc, that by this time it was the afternoon of the next day. I think that at three years old I did not feel I had done wrong and was not troubled at the prospect of facing mam and dad. Or maybe I just didn't give a damn because I was enjoying myself, tearing up newspaper and eating Jelly and cream.
That was the first of my many adventures and over the years, I hate to the think of how many times my mother uttered the words," He's off on his travels." I once overheard her say to a neighbour," That lad will drive me to distraction." Guess I have been guilty of that too many times as well.
My only excuse is, " I was born to travel."