Wednesday 27 August 2025

Did you know that 70 years ago today, the first GWR (Guinness World Record) book was published?

Yes; that is the glorious news that broadcasts from my radio this morning and over a morning cuppa, I listen to the fascinating back story of this stalwart of British society. The beloved tome, actually stems back to 1951, when Sit High Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery had an idea for a book to settle a pub argument about the fastest game bird. He hired Norris and Ross McWhirter, who compiled facts and statistics, resulting in the first edition of The Guinness Book of Records, published on August 27, 1955, in the UK. Initially intended as a promotional item for the brewery, the book quickly became a bestseller and an annual Christmas gift for so many of us in the 1970s and 1980s.

Did I say glorious news? I absolutely did. Because for the next 15 minutes, in place of the usual grim news that has clouded this Summer in the UK, we celebrate memories of the crazy, the quirky and the downright fabulous. The world’s longest moustache, the most people on a surf board, the tallest lego tower, the record for winning the most gurning world titles.. and of course those longest of curling fingernails … there really is no end of creative ways to get your name in the history books!

It is the tales of often ordinary folk doing something extraordinary for the very joy of challenging oneself, grabbing life by the horns and living it to the full. And, unlike most of our daily depression of news, it cause no hate, no harm and no division. In fact, it makes me laugh out loud and transports me,  in an instant, back to my childhood.

You must be with me, fellow UK survivors of the 1970s and 1980s. For who doesn’t recall the TV show? The exuberant Roy Castle, tap dancing across the screen, trumpet in hand and inspiring the tea-time viewers with his round up of the latest wacky record to fall.

Was it a simpler, nicer time back then? Is the crazy, the quirky and the downright fabulous actually the best of ‘ being British’ …or is it just an affectionate wave of nostalgia?

All too soon the radio presenters of 2025 move onto other stories. It is predictably gruesome, so I opt for a few more moments in the past. I flick the off- button  and head to my desk instead singing a cheerier tune

If you want to be the best . And you want to beat the rest . Ooh-ooh! Dedication’s what you need

26 January 2025

My eldest child is in Nepal…

Scarcely has the ink dried on her final exam that my eldest is off on medical elective… in Kathmandu!

My lovely girl pops home for 24 hours before she goes and because I am a flexi work-from-homer these days, I am able to make the most of it. The washing machine whirrs on overdrive, I cook favourite meals, I help to find room in her rucksack for: 5 sets of scrub, a stethoscope and a stock pile of painkillers.

And then, somewhere amidst the busyness, I just stop and stand still for minute. Over thirty years ago, I was the girl frantically packing and re-packing my backpack for a 5 month trip to South East Asia. Excited, raring to go and full of adventure and I recall, moments before I set off , my mum appearing, bursting into tears and saying,

‘It’s just such so far away…’

And today that is me – oh how the tables have turned!

Four and a half thousand miles, fifteen plus hours by plane, a new culture and working in a hospital that will feel entirely different to her experience in the UK. Gosh; it is quite a challenge! And if she does need help – not even my flexi work from home status will be of much use for the next two months.

But, rolling the years back to the start of the 1990s, when I boarded that plane to Bangkok, I was on the verge of some of the best months of my life. An unbelievable time of joy, amazement, wonder – 5 months of feeling on cloud nine and more full of life and excitement than I could have hoped for.

So I keep my worries to myself. But as I drop her off at a friend’s house in Sheffield for the journey down to Gatwick I do give her a very big hug. And I also allow a little voice in my head to say,

Please keep her safe…

Friday 25 October 2024

“Half term already?” laughs one of my friends.

Already? Coping with new jobs and being very much out of my comfort zone, I can assure you that the last eight weeks have felt like eight months! What I need right now, to recharge these batteries is ..something familiar! And nothing can be a better familiar than family. So roll on a city-break reunion with my squad as we all descend upon Small boy, the newest university child, for a long weekend.

Some of us drive down and one of us flies in but by Friday evening we are all together, catching-up over some fine food and wine in a riverside eatery. And it feels great to be a four again.

Saturday, after a lazy morning and a lovely hotel breakfast, we shop a little and chat a lot. As night falls and this liveliest of cities ramps up for Halloween celebrations, we head to ‘Urban Tandoor’. Top-rated on Trust Pilot, this restaurant, is rammed and bursting with life. The Indian food is delicious and the atmosphere unbelievable – on at least two occasions, the diners all break into communal song – including us … and we love it!

On a crisp, sunny Sunday, a proud Small boy takes us on a tour of the University itself. The science buildings are beautiful, set in leafy parks and greenery and my son points out places where he sits for lunch, takes a class or attends labs. He clearly loves it!

It is also here that we come upon the bronze life-sized statue of Henrietta Lacks. Hailed as the ‘mother of modern medicine’, Lacks was a young black woman and mother  who died in 1951 of an unusually aggressive form of cervical cancer. While her disease was a tragedy for her family, for the world of medical research – and beyond that, every one of us on the planet – it was something of a miracle.

Because, in the years since her death, Lacks’s cells – taken from her tumour while she was undergoing surgery – have been responsible for some of the most important medical advances of all time. The polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping and IVF: all these health milestones, and many more, owe everything to the life, and death, of a young mother. Henrietta’s cells however were taken without her or her family’s knowledge or consent and as a result her name is also synonymous with ethical issues, eloquently expressed in the statue’s inscription

More than a cell.

To all the unrecognised Black Women who have contributed to humanity, you will never be forgotten. 

It is very inspirational. To remember that we are all actually, ‘more than a cell’ and have a contribution to make, whether this be like Small boy dreaming of a Nobel Prize or me, now old and wise enough to recognise that it is these very family bonds and deep relationships which anchor us to humanity and ensure that we are ever-remembered.

So as night falls and I hit the road back North, I definitely feel re-balanced and back in kilter. A new job, a new car, a new music gig these are all just transient superficial changes. The important stuff, your core values and closest ties…they rarely falter and will always be there to steady you at the rockiest of times …

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Friday 4th October 2024

From the dreamy candlelight of the Cathedral … to a community pub in Hulme!

Autumn weekends; they have been kinda fun! Be it the liberating empty-nester effect or the fabulous change to a four-day week, something has given me a welcome boost of energy and put me in the mood the step out and soak up the city.

So when my nephew posts his band’s latest gig on Social Media, I call one of my favourite people and we set out to track it down. Thank the Lord that my companion has a great sense of directions because, left to my own devices, I am not sure that I would every have found the pub, hidden in the depths of the Science Park!

There is a quite a crowd and, having dashed into town at the end of a very busy day, only time for a couple of (very tasty) IPA before the bank strike up. Gosh, I love it, the music is ‘right up my street’, old style jazz and swing, richly orchestrated and played with oodles of heart and soul. In some numbers, there is a singer and she is just, top-drawer-amazing with terrific tone, timing and timbre. I find myself wishing my dad was still around as he would also have really enjoyed this!

Eventually, three sets later, we bid farewell and head back into the city centre for some late night food.

‘We are playing Band on the Wall in January’, my nephew reminds me.

Well, count us in, say I. Live music; be it classical, jazz or good old rock and roll…you just can’t beat it!