Do you live in New Zealand?

New Zealand is where we're heading this Christmas, and really looking forward to it. Only time to visit the North Island this time, do you live there? 

The Milk Boy Who Became a Soldier

When they left school, everyone remembers their ‘first job.’ I bet you can? By the time I’d left in 1966, I’d done fruit picking, potato picking, shoplifting and had two paper rounds, though I didn’t get paid for all those!

Daniel aged 14

My first real job was as a Co-op ‘Milk Boy.’ It was August 1966, and I’d left school in the July, aged fourteen and a half. England had just won the World Cup, and there was optimism around the country that I’ve hoped to, but never experienced since. I’d already applied to join the Army (see the world, learn a trade), and to the Australian Embassy to become a ‘£10 Pom’ but the real objective was to leave home as fast as possible, and I’d have fled with a travelling circus, such was the desire!

So, as I went for the interview that morning at the Co-op Milk Depot in Colchester, I knew it was temporary, but I had to convince them that this was indeed a career choice! I sailed through the 3-minute session, and the lady then gave me a math’s test paper. She went to get a pencil, but I spotted one on the windowsill, and when she returned I’d already completed all the questions. She was amazed, even more than my math’s teacher who’d always excluded me in mental arithmetic tests so as not to demoralise the rest.

Yes, I was in, but thanks to the math’s test, got offered a far better job as an apprentice in the Co-op Laboratories. It was twice as much money, more paid holidays, I could work indoors, wear smart clothes and get free dinner in the canteen, BUT I didn’t want a job for life, just a job until I could escape from Essex! I didn’t know what claustrophobia was, but I’d heard of people who were scared to stay inside, and this was the card I played, the card that led me to my alarm clock ringing at 2.30 a.m. the next Monday morning.

I’d never seen the clock at that time before, and when I looked from my bedroom window, the street lights were off, there was nobody to be seen! I dressed, threw cold water on my face, then crept from the house like a scared cat! My sister Jacqueline was only two, a ticking time bomb sleeping in my parent’s bedroom; if she woke, the whole house would! A 3-mile run (I ran everywhere) landed me at the depot, half an hour early. Wow! I’d seen milk floats on our street, but never this many, there must have been over a hundred! I was spotted quickly, the obvious ‘what the hell happens now’ face betraying me, and was taken over and introduced to Len; a lovely guy as it turned out. First, we had to check the stock put on the float by the night workers, making sure it tallied with Len’s book, a record of what each customer wanted. There were no calculators then, but there was me, and Len soon realised that he could forget his pencil and notepad, as he shouted string after string of numbers, and I just shouted back the total; he loved me! Twelve pence to the shilling, twenty shillings, ten florins, eight half-crowns or two ten-bob notes to the pound, and a guinea, a nice round twenty-one shillings; nothing easy in those days!

There were only a few different things on the packed float, mainly pints, half pints and third pints of milk, small jars of cream and bottles of orange juice, all which came in glass. The milk float was a relatively new thing, batteries the size of suitcases but drove along almost silently. However, you couldn’t appreciate that silence because with all that glass in metal crates, rattling along the bumpy road, you could hear us coming from three streets way; it was deafening!

By 4 am we were out on the delivery, and Len would make up the hand crates, about three houses at a time. He’d shout what to drop on each step, then off I’d go. Trouble was, every time you got to a step there was a note, ‘one extra pint’ ‘no milk today’ ‘don’t walk on my grass,’ it was as if they were all compelled to say something! I first witnessed why Len was a lovely guy when one morning he said, “Stop! Stand very still and look away from the float, Mrs. Jackson’s coming for her milk.” From the corner of my eye, I watched as this frail old lady sneaked from behind the hedge, tiptoed to our float in her slippers, and helped herself to half a pint. “But she’s nicked it,” I said. “It’s OK,” Len said, “I put it down as a breakage, she lost her husband last year and went a bit batty. What should I do, call the police?” He laughed, and we moved on.

As we walked up East Hill, Len told me he’d seen almost everything imaginable in his thirty years with the dairy. He’d bagged burglars coming out of houses, helped put fires out, saved a guy who’d had a heart attack and delivered two babies! “You wouldn’t see that much action if you joined the army,” he joked, as I blushed. At the end of the street, we looked back at the float, and Len seemed sad. “You know son, when I had Dobbin, I used to just whistle, and he’d trot along with the milk cart, he saved me a lot of walking, but that said, I suppose I’m fitter now.” Of course, I’d seen the horses only a few years before and knew what he meant. The coalman, rag-and-bone man, undertakers, everybody who carried anything bigger than a letter seemed to have a horse. “What happened to them all Len?” I asked. “They all ended up at the glue factory son, every one of them, young and old.” I guess at the time I was trying to imagine how you turn a horse into glue, would they be sticky enough? Who could possibly need that much glue anyway, but Len said it was called ‘progress,’ and we left it at that.

As the days turned to weeks, I got into the routine, and Len especially liked me on Fridays, because that’s when he collected the money. He would get his scruffy old book out,” Two pints, one cream, one juice and sixpence owing from last week,” to which I’d shout out, “Two and tuppence Len.” He’d knock on the door, the lady would pay, then he’d often show me off by making me calculate any obscure thing he could think of in front of her; it was fun, and for the first time in my life, I felt rather important. Friday was also pay day, and that little brown packet with fifteen shillings and sixpence in was a bag of gold to me. Over six weeks pocket money in one go! Looking back, I’ve never felt that wealthy since!

Very often, especially after 7 am, housewives would have tea and even biscuits waiting for us. We’d sit around the kitchen table, the grown-ups all dragging the last sliver of goodness from their cigs as I put my sugar in. “Three sugars!” they’d often shout, “It’ll rot your teeth.” I’d never drunk as much tea and was always needing to sneak into bushes for a wee! One lady, Val used to insist that Len had his tea upstairs because she wanted him to help her “lift some heavy things” in the bedroom. I had to look after her cat, who she said ‘got scared’ if it was left alone. Looking back years later, I can laugh and still see how happy Len was after all that lifting. Maybe it was a ‘perk of the job,’ everyone’s job had perks back then. The coalman got free coal, the dockers seemed to get free everything, the civilian workers at the Army stores dressed their entire family, rather conspicuously I thought! So, on Fridays, Len and I helped ourselves to a few bottles each, which he recorded as ‘breakages,’ and everyone was happy.

Winter soon arrived and getting up at 3 am with an inch of ice on the inside of the bedroom window and a foot of snow outside was a whole new game for the ‘Milk Boy.’ Our hands were so cold that we lost all feeling, and the chilblains were terrible, but still, we managed to have fun, though Len seemed to go through three times as many fags. Customers were complaining that the birds had pecked through the foil caps and drank the cream from their milk, others moaning that the milk and cream were frozen. What could we do? I was delighted that the birds were so clever, and at the posh looking houses, I’d pop my frozen little finger through the foil to give them a head start!

A big day at the depot was the introduction of ‘Yoghurt,’ and we were given a tasting sample because they were going to turn us into ‘salesmen.’ After one spoonful, Len and I looked at each other and grimaced; it was like sour milk, we knew it would never catch on! It came in four flavours and in ‘plastic tubs,’ and they would never replace glass! On my very first yoghurt delivery, on the way across the slippery path I went flying, and out popped six plastic tubs like mini-missiles. I thought, ‘thank God they’re not glass,’ until they hit the ground, the lids popped off and I’d painted a ‘Jackson Pollock’ in the snow. I shouted to Len, “Have we anymore Yoghurts?” to which he yelled back, “No son, why?” I paused, “It’s OK!” I then had to make sure it really was OK. There was a rusty spoon by the frozen fish pond; I remember seeing the fish still alive and moving under the ice, how bizarre! I scooped a mixture of yoghurt, snow, and perhaps a little muck, equal amounts to each tub, then pressed the lids back. Then I broke the thin ice on the pond, washing each carton in turn, drying them on my shirt tail. As I ran back to the float, Len said, “You were a long time?” “Needed a wee Len,” I said, more than relieved! That Friday, Len asked the lady at that house if she’d liked those new yoghurt things. I went red; it was a sure giveaway, I’m dead! “They were delicious, thank you,” she said, “Not sure about the flavours though. Did they have nuts in?”

Daniel aged 15

Before I knew it my time with Len was nearing an end, and I never would see him again. The Army wanted to interview me, and the Australian Embassy had offered me a ‘£10 Pom’ position, but I’d have to wait a further six months to sail. So, the British Army it was! The Milk Boy became a Soldier on 9th May 1967 and still smiles when he sees yoghurt, and enjoys it occasionally!

BCCT Award Winners 2018 - Kensington International School

I'm proud to feature Kensington International School where my wife has been Head Teacher for over three years...

Online tool can help men make prostate cancer treatment choices

A web-based tool can let a man with prostate cancer see how thousands of other men in his situation have chosen to be treated, which may help him better understand his own options, a US study suggests.

Early-stage prostate cancer may not need treatment right away, or ever, because these tumors often don't grow fast enough to cause symptoms. Because treatment can have side effects like impotence and incontinence, doctors sometimes advise men to put off surgery or radiation and instead get regular screenings to reassess whether the cancer warrants intervention.

"There is often no one correct treatment option because the choice of prostate cancer treatment depends on personal preferences around treatment benefits and risks," said senior author Dr Karandeep Singh of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

"There are already a number of great resources available to the prostate cancer patient community to support this shared decision-making process," Singh said by email. "However, there are no tools that help patients discover what treatments similar men chose when faced with a similar decision."

Singh and colleagues set out to develop a tool that fit the bill. They used data on treatment choices made by 5,016 men diagnosed with prostate cancer to develop a web-based tool that predicts the most likely treatment choice based on what other men in similar circumstances have chosen.

Then, they asked another 2,527 men with prostate cancer to try out the tool and see how often the program predicted the treatment choice these men would pick for themselves. The tool, it turned out, was highly accurate.

"This tool is not meant to replace the shared decision-making process but rather to augment that process by helping patients focus their preparation on likely treatment options prior to meeting with their urologist," Singh said.

Patients and doctors can use the tool here: https://bit.ly/2Kjprcw

It's only meant for men with early-stage tumors that haven't spread to other parts of the body. It won't predict treatment decisions for men with more complex cases.

For men who do have early-stage tumors, the tool focuses on aspects of the prostate cancer diagnosis, patients' age and weight, and any history of heart attack or diagnosis of diabetes.

When men are only 45 years old with lower-risk tumors, they will probably see that similar patients are pretty evenly divided between opting for radical prostatectomy surgery and choosing active surveillance, that is, skipping treatment in favor of periodic reassessments to see if cancer warrants intervention.

By age 55, men with low-risk tumors might see that more than half of similar patients choose active surveillance and less than 40 percent opt for a radical prostatectomy. And by 65, men with low-risk tumors might see that about two-thirds of similar patients pick active surveillance.

One limitation of the study is that it wasn't designed to prove whether or how the web-based tool might help men make treatment decisions or see how happy patients are afterward with the choices they made, the study authors note.

Even when men seem similar on paper in terms of their demographics and the particulars of their tumor, how well the web-based tool predicts what's best for them might vary from one man to the next, said Dr. Kari Tikkinen of the University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital in Finland.

"Sure, this data can be reassuring to those whose own values and preferences concur with the option machine learning is suggesting as the most common choice," Tikkinen, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.

"However, even in this kind of excellent situation it may not help patients," Tikkinen said.

A man who is very opposed to surgery because of the risk of incontinence or impotence, for example, may not want to choose surgery just because that's what the tool says most similar men would do, Tikkinen said.

But tools like the one tested in the study can still help men have more focused and nuanced conversations with their doctors about what treatment may be ideal for them, Tikkinen said.

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2Bm8MlN European Urology, online October 11, 2018.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/health/online-tool-can-help-men-make-prostate-cancer-treatment-choices-10952258

Harry Patch - An amazing man

Harry Patch was part of a bloody war of which today we are being asked to 'remember the dead.' 

I'm asking you to also remember the few people who sent all those millions to their deaths so that maybe, just maybe, we can prevent it from all happening again one day.

Read some of Harry's story here...

By Peter Parker

Pte HJ Patch, number 29295, C Company, 7th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, took his place within the fighting force at the bottom of a long and complex chain of command that ended, by way of a regiment, company and platoon, in a section of some 14 men. 

Patch, who was called up in October 1916 at the age of 18, served as a private and became part of a Lewis machine-gun team when he arrived in France the following year. At this time, companies tended to be allotted four Lewis guns each. Gun crews were special, excused the everyday duties to which most rankers were subjected, and were expected instead to spend their time keeping their weapons in good working order. They operated as an individual unit under the command of the “No 1”, in Patch’s case a man called Bob Haynes. Patch always knew, and later could only remember, the three other members of the team by their nicknames. No 3 was known as Maudy (“There was an actress of that name. He had a good sense of humour,” Patch recalled), while Nos 4 and 5 were known as Jack and Jill. 

The bonds between Lewis gun team members were particularly strong. “We were just that little body alone and we shared everything,” Patch recalled. “You could talk to them about everything and anything. I mean, those boys were with you night and day, you shared everything with them and you talked about everything.” Such camaraderie helped men endure the harsh conditions at the front. 

The son of a master stonemason, Henry John Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath, on June 17 1898, and his family’s roots were buried deep in the Somerset soil. His father, whose family came from a village near Glastonbury on the other side of the county, had been born at Claverton, a mile or so from Combe Down, while his mother was from the neighbouring village of Monkton Combe. The Patches had thoroughly colonised this small corner of England, and by the outbreak of the war there were 14 different Patch families in Combe Down. Harry was 16 and an apprentice plumber when war broke out in 1914, and was anything but enthusiastic. 

“While a lot of the local lads went and joined up in the local regiment, the Somerset Light Infantry,” he recalled, “I never gave it a second thought. I never felt the need to get myself into khaki and go out there fighting before it was 'all over by Christmas’. I’m not saying I knew any different, but at my age I was keen to continue my apprenticeship.” 

By 1916, however, Britain could no longer rely on volunteers to fill the ranks. Conscription was introduced at the start of the year and Patch was drafted into the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI) in October. 

The following July, he and the other four members of his close-knit Lewis-gun team were pitched into the Third Battle of Ypres, otherwise known as Passchendaele, the last major battle of attrition fought on the Western Front. The offensive began on July 31 1917 in heavy rain – the heaviest for 30 summers – and they soon got bogged down in the Flanders mud. When it ended on November 6, with the capture of the ruined village of Passchendaele, Britain and her Empire had suffered some 310,000 casualties. 

During the four months, from June to September, that he spent in the trenches, Patch never had a bath or a change of clothes. Body-lice were a constant irritant, as were the rats, grown fat on the plentiful corpses, which gnawed their way through equipment, devoured rations, and ran across the faces of sleeping soldiers. “It doesn’t matter how much training you’ve had,” Patch recalled, “you can’t prepare for the reality, the noise, the filth, the uncertainty and the calls for stretcher-bearers. Anyone who tells you that in the trenches they weren’t scared, he’s a damned liar. You were scared all the time.” 

Patch first went into battle on August 16 in an action subsequently named the Battle of Langemarck, after the village that was its chief objective. “I’m told we attacked on August 16,” he remarked, “but the date doesn’t mean much to me. I know it was about six weeks before I was wounded, so I suppose the middle of August is about right. I remember the names – Pilckem Ridge was one and the other was Langemarck – but it is such a long time ago that I can’t quite connect them up in my head.” 

Patch may have forgotten the exact dates and places, but he knew what a battlefield was like. It was during his unsteady progress through a hellish landscape, ruptured by countless artillery shells, that he came across a young soldier from A Company of the 7th DCLI, which had led the attack. Of all the terrible sights he encountered, it was this that would remain with him throughout his extraordinarily long life. The soldier, Patch recalled, “was ripped open from his shoulder to his waist by shrapnel, and lying in a pool of blood”. Seeing men from his own battalion, he begged to be put out of his misery. In Patch’s terse but eloquent phrase, “he was beyond all human help”, and died before anyone could draw a revolver and comply with his desperate request. “It is an image that has haunted me all my life,” Patch said some 90 years later, “seared into my mind”. 

The battle was not over, however. At one point during the advance a German emerged from a trench, bayonet fixed, and ran towards Patch. The 19-year-old drew his service revolver and shot the German in the shoulder. Still he came on. 

The gun team had made an unusually humane and highly irregular pact that they would not shoot to kill unless absolutely necessary, and Patch remembered this code as he again took aim. “I couldn’t kill him. He was a man I never knew, I couldn’t talk to him. I shot him above the ankle, above the knee. He went down. He said something to me in German – God knows what it was – but for him the war was over.” 

When C Company reached the German trenches at around midday, they found them empty. By the harsh standards of Passchendaele, the attack had gone reasonably well. Patch and his comrades had emerged unscathed, but their luck would last only another month. On the night of September 22, the Lewis-gun team were making their way back into the reserve trenches, walking across open ground because there were no communication trenches in this area of the front line. They were waiting in a huddle while No 1 was “attending to the call of nature”, when a shell exploded above them in a flash of light. Patch was thrown to the ground, and lay there conscious but “incapable of anything” for a couple of minutes before realising that he had been hit in the groin by shrapnel. He applied the field dressing that all soldiers carried with them and waited for the stretcher-bearers. 

Taken to a casualty clearing station, he had his wound cleaned and dressed by a doctor, but the shell fragment that had caused it remained in place. The anaesthetising effects of shock were wearing off, and he began to feel acute pain. Since his injury was less serious than many of those at the clearing station, he was obliged to wait until the following evening before being seen by another doctor. 

He was told that the shrapnel could be removed but warned that no anaesthetic was available. Patch decided it was worth enduring two minutes of further pain, so four men held him down while the shell splinter was cut out of him and the wound stitched. Patch declined to accept the two-inch-long metal fragment as a souvenir, and was relieved to learn that his wound had been classed as “a Blighty one”, meaning he would be invalided back to Britain. 

He was taken initially to hospital in Liverpool, where he received a letter from Bob Haynes informing him that the three other members of the Lewis team had been killed by the shell that had wounded him. “There was nothing left, nothing left to bury. My reaction was terrible; it was like losing part of my life.” Patch’s physical wounds would heal, but the death of these men was something from which he never really recovered. 

Following his discharge from hospital he was sent to a convalescent camp at Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham. There, he met his future wife, Ada Billington. 

It was not until August 1918 that he was deemed fit enough to resume training, at Tidworth camp in Wiltshire. He dreaded being sent back to the front, but an additional chest injury, suffered when he was shelled, had not healed and prevented him from carrying heavy equipment, so he was ordered back to hospital. This delay, lasting several weeks, may well have saved his life. When the guns fell silent on 11 November 1918, Patch was still in training on the Isle of Wight. 

“The war might have been over,” he recalled, “but its effects were never far away.” 

Like most of those who had survived the war, Harry Patch simply returned to his former life as a civilian and settled down to married life. But he returned to Combe Down “thoroughly disillusioned”: “I could never understand why my country could call me from my peacetime job and train me to go to France and try to kill a man I never knew. Why did we fight? I asked myself that, many times.” 

He never spoke about the war – not even to his wife of 57 years. In this regard, he was not unusual. As Dennis Goodwin, founder, along with his son, of the World War One Veterans’ Association, puts it, these men “simply retreated into their own shell hole of memories”. 

Patch was haunted, in particular, by the dreadfully wounded soldier who had begged to be finished off. The young man had cried out “Mother!” as he died, and Patch believed this cry was one of greeting rather than despair. “I’m positive that when he left this world, wherever he went, his mother was there,” Patch wrote towards the end of his life. “From that day I’ve always remembered that cry, and that death is not the end.” 

He left the Army with his faith in the Church of England “shattered”. In an attempt to revive it, he joined the church choir. “In the end, I went because I enjoyed the music and had friends there. But the belief? It didn’t come. I felt shattered, absolutely, and didn’t discuss the war with anyone from then on, and nobody brought it up if they could help it.” 

This attitude persisted well beyond the immediate aftermath of the war. Patch refused to join veterans’ associations, had no wish to revisit battlefields, never attended a regimental reunion and avoided all war films. He did, however, keep in touch with his old “No 1”, Bob Haynes, until he died in the 1970s. 

Patch did his best to repress all memories of the trenches. It was only at the age of 98, when he moved to Fletcher House, a residential care home in the Somerset city of Wells, that a minor incident brought those memories back. The door to his room was opposite a linen cupboard, and one night someone switched on the fluorescent light inside. Flashes of light came through the glass panel above the door to Patch’s room. Half asleep, he was transported in an instant back to Passchendaele. “It was the flash of a bomb,” he recalled. “That flash brought it all back.” He had been suffering from bad dreams about the war, and decided that the time had come to face his demons. 

In the autumn of 2004, aged 106, he was persuaded to travel to Flanders for a BBC documentary, The Last Tommy. He was filmed at Tyne Cot, the largest British war cemetery, containing almost 12,000 graves, many of them holding unidentified bodies. 

“Some of the boys buried here,” he remarked, “are the same age as me, killed on the same day I was fighting. Any one of them could have been me. Millions of men came to fight in this war, and I find it incredible that I am now the only one left. Just like them, when I went over the top I didn’t know whether I would last longer than five minutes. We were the PBI – the Poor Bloody Infantry – and we were expendable. What a waste. What a terrible waste.” 

The documentary makers also persuaded Patch to meet one of Germany’s last-surviving veterans on September 22, the anniversary of the loss of his three comrades in the Lewis-gun team. A year older than Patch, Charles Kuentz had also fought at Passchendaele. He, too, had suffered the loss of a close friend, killed by shrapnel beside him in a trench. Like Patch, Kuentz had never talked about his experiences until being asked to do so after reaching his centenary. When the veterans laid a wreath together, Patch leaned out of his wheel-chair to pick up an acorn, and presented it to Kuentz. The German died a few months later. 

Patch never courted publicity and occasionally complained that he was tired of talking about the war, but it was inevitable that he would attract attention as he became one of the very last survivors. Even towards the end of his 111-year-long life, when he was widely recognized as a spokesman for his generation, he was not in the least afraid to state his opinions. “For me, November 11 is just show business,” he once said of Armistice Day, and he rarely lost an opportunity to express his abhorrence of warfare. 

Last year, he returned to Flanders to unveil a stone plaque at the spot where he went into action for the first time. It would be the final visit to the Western Front by someone who had fought there. In recognition of his status as the last surviving soldier who had fought in defence of Belgium, he was appointed Knight of the Order of Leopold. He was also made an Officer of the Légion d’honneur. 

“I greatly appreciate the way your people respect the memory of those who fell, irrespective of the uniform they wore,” Patch told the French ambassador. “I will wear this medal with great pride and when I eventually rejoin my mates it will be displayed in my regimental museum as a permanent reminder of the kindness of the people of France.” 

On June 17 this year Patch celebrated his 111th birthday with a party in the garden of Fletcher House. The following day, his portrait went on display at the National Portrait Gallery. 

At 9am on July 25, only a week after the death of Henry Allingham, aged 113, Harry Patch died. At the time of his death, Britain’s last veteran was also the oldest man in Europe and the third-oldest in the world. He remained alert and articulate until the end. 

Following his death, much was made of the example he set as a soldier, joining up “to defend the nation”; but this ignored the facts. “I didn’t want to go and fight anyone,” he wrote in his autobiography, “but it was a case of having to. When it came, army life didn’t appeal to me at all, and when I found out how rough-and-tumble it could be, I liked it even less. I had no inclination to fight anybody. I wasn’t at all patriotic. I went and did what was asked of me and no more.” 

When asked what he thought about the idea of a state funeral for the last veteran, Patch had replied: “Overall, the idea was all right, I suppose, wanting to honour the generation who fought, but I wasn’t interested. I want to be buried in Monkton Combe alongside my family in the churchyard.” After a public funeral at Wells Cathedral, this wish was granted. 

The poet Charles Hamilton Sorley, killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915, wrote of the “millions of the mouthless dead”, but until now those dead have always had a spokesman. Now that Last Post has sounded for the last veteran, there is no one left to say: “I know what it was like. I was there.” 

* 'The Last Veteran: Harry Patch and the Legacy of War’ by Peter Parker (Fourth Estate) is available from Telegraph Books for £12.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

Tears in Heaven...

A post from my great friend Dusty's blog...

It’s late afternoon and I’ve just finished a haphazard first meal of the day and am sitting in front of my computer screen crying to Eric Clapton’s, “Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?” His heartfelt lyrics make me wonder if anything would ever be the same again. If we would know each other over “there” and if it or we would finally be better when our tears were wiped away?

Today, however, my tears have not yet been wiped away and they flow freely from a deep well of groaning and grief that has no other way to express itself. I participated in the cremation of younger brother Nong Dton, our palliative care team’s 27-year-old sole male nurse. He was the same age as my daughter and the only child of parents similarly aged to me. He was cheekily playful, musical to the core, and an ethical hard worker when it came to caring for those in end of life. He tragically died last week in a midnight motorbike accident.

Hearing the news, the hospital staff collapsed on the floor, wept, and was unable to eat for a great while. “I’ll find my way through night and day…” Then bravely reaching outside of their loss, they rallied to ensure his religious ceremonies and cremation would be a success. They wanted to lift the family’s burden and show that their child was loved and appreciated. They worked tirelessly for many days with tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces. They tended to a myriad of details with the greatest dedication in order to send our brother off well.

“I must be strong and carry on…” Thais are experts at facing death. They have been actively involved in religious rites and sitting with the bodies of their dead relatives before they can even walk. They do so gracefully, tenderly, and kindly. They also contain an inherited sense of resolute acceptance that if you are born then you must suffer, and finally die. Today, I was deeply impressed by the number of attendees whose considerable difference in social standing meant little in contrast to the shared sense of love and loyalty. Yet no matter how used to dying any of us may have been, we all had to be very brave as we cried, sang, prayed, hugged each other, and sat for long stretches in painful silence. No matter how long you have worked in palliative care, imbibed a healthy death culture, practiced religious beliefs and forms of paying last respects, or given grieving processes there seems to be a timeless thread throughout our shared humanity. We all hurt deeply over our losses. We try to make sense of tragedy, even when there may none to be found. We often search out eternity from our narrow, earth-bound perspectives. We vehemently resist believing that birth, suffering, and death is all there is to our existence. We also come together in grief and prove that we are more alike than different!

The master of ceremonies, much like any traditional religious leader, instructed us that there was no death, just a change of apparel, or body and residence as she put it. She said we would miss Nong Dton, we would hurt and feel empty, yet he was not lost to us. She then cleared his karmic slate by asking for his forgiveness for any intentional or unintentional hurts or mistakes we’d made towards him and assured him that we’d forgiven him for any of his misdeeds. Older sisters P’ Dtuck and P’ Jim, the heads of palliative care reviewed his life and sang a Thai song of eternal love for him. P’Jim crooned just as soulfully as Eric Clapton had over the loss of his young son. She declared we’d never forget our younger brother, and asked him not to forget us. “Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?…”

As we placed fragrant incense and sandalwood flowers and his nurse’s uniform and motorcycle gear under his coffin, we prayed we’d all know each other forever in a better place. A place where tears are wiped away and sorrow has been forgotten in the light of the joy and love we share. I knocked on his coffin and announced that it was Susan, his older sister visiting him, as Thais have taught me to do. I thanked him for being him in such a beautiful manner and wished him safe, good travels. P’Jim added as his coffin was being shuffled into the furnace, “Go well young brother. I love you. Do not forget us. We’ll follow you when it’s our time to go!”

“Beyond the door there’s peace I’m sure and I know there’ll be no more tears in heaven…” In the meanwhile brother Dton, “Would you hold my hand, would you help me stand…” so our sense of shared fragility and oneness would lift us from our knees in order to better navigate this messy thing called life, loss, and death.

Tears In Heaven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gygCzRaSSss

Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven?

Would it be the same

If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong and carry on

‘Cause I know I don’t belong here in heaven

Would you hold my hand

If I saw you in heaven?

Would you help me stand

If I saw you in heaven?

I’ll find my way through night and day

‘Cause I know I just can’t stay here in heaven

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees

Time can break your heart, have you begging please, begging please

Beyond the door there’s peace I’m sure

And I know there’ll be no more tears in heaven

Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven?

Would it be the same

If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong and carry on

‘Cause I know I don’t belong here in heaven

Songwriters: Eric Patrick Clapton / Will Jennings

https://sudustin.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/tears-in-heaven/?fbclid=IwAR140F-yc7CrJRRsRgk0C02XqD0EBeL02HrK8ts5cdIf1QA3-roFMdbJ8mI

Susan Dustin “Dusty”  Hattan (Aldous) – An Arsenal of Optimism





© Susan Dustin Hattan (nee Aldous) October 2018

Kensington International Officially the Best in Thailand

Beverley Petch (my wife), has been very busy in Thailand for the past three years, building what is now recognised throughout Southeast Asia as a flagship school of Early Years Education. Kensington International School has won the award for ‘Outstanding Small Company’ in the Thailand International Business Awards, held annually by the British Chamber of Commerce. Beverley said, “I am so proud of the directors, teachers and every member of staff, who through sheer dedication to a ‘child first’ philosophy have helped to make our school so successful.”

Kensington International School is now an internationally recognised beacon of excellence, attracting considerable interest and hosting deputations from governments and professional organisations throughout Southeast Asia, including Japan, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Macau and Taiwan. In May this year, they were invited to showcase at the ‘Annual Learning Spaces’ conference held in Singapore, where they presented their ‘vision of future education,’ and in December, they feature at the ‘Asia-Pacific International Schools Conference’ in Hong Kong.

Kensington website: http://www.kensington.ac.th

The Author can change anything!

 

 I’m here today with thousands of others, no idea why, I can’t ever remember not being here! I’m trying to memorise everyone’s name, but they all look so alike! It’s incredibly crowded, everyone talking at once, I can barely hear myself think! Food is plentiful; it’s as if they don’t want us to stop eating, though it’s a bit boring and hard to pick up as it moves by so quickly. They look after our health and any time I see someone sick they are whisked away immediately, though I’ve never heard back from anyone as to what the hospital's like. We see the sun shining through when the big rusty doors open at the end, but it’s always over too quickly, and we all wonder what it’s like beyond those doors. We’re told that one day we’ll all be out of here, so we must be patient! We were chosen, apparently, because we were the fittest and a special day awaits us all, but it only comes around once a year. We never get any news from the outside world, just the occasional sparrow that drops in through the ceiling grid to steal our food, but they never stop to chat. A pigeon told us once that we’re in a sort of ‘holding camp,’ but he was too busy throwing bread over his head to elaborate. I’ve heard ‘holiday camp’ mentioned by the human called ‘vet,’ who said she was really looking forward to spending just two weeks in one; so that’s reassuring. The pigeon also mentioned ‘Christmas,’ a time when you get lots of presents and take part in a big feast, so I’m looking forward to that too; more variety than we’re eating now, surely? There are no toilets so the floor is a terrible mess, but every night this giant machine slowly screams along, spraying everywhere, picking up everything and dropping straw behind it. We all get so scared when it bunches us up at one end, then we have to jump over it, that’s how I know I can’t fly; we are more frightened of crushing each other than of the machine, which does leave the floor clean and more comfortable! Maybe we’re being punished for something terrible we did when we were too young to remember; there must be some purpose to all this! Every day seems like the last here and you lose track of time, wishing something different would happen, anything really! I believe in a beginning and an end, so this must be the middle, but I’m not sure how far we are from either end. 

Well, somebody heard me because something different has started to happen! Towering machines belching black smoke have arrived outside, I can hear them, I feel the throbbing through the ground and everyone is getting very excited. The rattling feed conveyers have fallen silent, and the big doors screech as they slide open, and yes, they are staying open! It’s cold, windy and raining outside, but the smell of crisp, fresh air has filled our lungs with so much goodness, we’re all just taking deep breaths, staring at each other; hoping this moment will last forever! The machines seem to be offloading lots of youngsters; they’re not sure what’s happening or where they are, all running around like headless chickens! One shouts, “How long have you been here?” I shout back, “Nearly a year I think, but it’s our turn to join in the feast, so we’re leaving on that machine you arrived on.” They all look so scared, I guess like we did when we arrived, but they’ll soon settle in and look forward to the ‘Festive Season.’ The men loading seem anxious to get us on board, they are acting a bit rough, kicking out sometimes, but one mentioned “piece work” so I guess they can’t be that bad.

“First lorry ready!” shouts one of the humans. On the road now, so crowded we can’t move, but at least we can’t fall over and the fresh air is filtering through every tiny space, fluffing up our feathers, making us all look so much more elegant. As I peer through the open vents, I feel so lucky, I can see what’s outside, and it’s more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Creatures, like us but a lot smaller, soaring through the sky, other animals grazing in the lush green fields, young ones playing with their mothers; I wonder if I did that when I was young? Maybe I had a mother? Humans, just like ‘vet,’ pushing prams, old people feeding pigeons, young humans playing with dogs, oh such a wonderful world, I feel so blessed to be part of it. 

We’re turning down a bumpy side-road now, the rains getting heavier, turning white and flakey, and I see a sign pointing to somewhere called ‘Abattoir,’ sounds so French, exotic even. As we arrive, another lorry pulls out, a huge colour picture of one of us smiling on the side. I didn’t even realise we could, and now I feel silly because I’m trying to smile. ‘Happy Turkeys’ it says on the side of the other lorry, but I wonder why they can’t see out like we can? Our engine has juddered to a halt; the doors are opening, more shouting, looks like this could be the end of the line. It’s amazing how exciting the unexpected can be!

As the doors open to our new home a terrible smell, a stench of fear rushes out to engulf us! Nobody wants to go in, but the humans are getting angry and prodding, kicking shouting, forcing us forward. A pigeon by the door mutters, “Only the author can save you now.” “What do you mean?” I replied, “How can we contact this Author you speak of?” “His wife has read the first draft, it upset her greatly and she’s already spoken to him, so you’ll have to wait and see. He does have the power to save you; the Author can change anything!” 

Wait, something strange is happening, my wings suddenly feel strong, bursting with energy, and the others are furiously flapping too. Many have started flying out of the lorry in front of me, bumping into each other, squawking loudly as they soar into the cold, cloudy sky. This is amazing, we can fly, but how's that possible? We're all in the air now, circling in a big flock above ‘Abattoir,’ looking down at the humans who all seem to be in disbelief. But where do we go now, what do we do, who will lead us? The same pigeon flaps past, I’m sure he’s grinning, “Don’t worry, you’re safe now, the Author’s wife saw your plight, so he’ll script you to a place where you can all have a wonderful time, after all, it is the Festive Season!” 

“Happy Christmas everyone!”

Dedicated to our Granchildren: Quincy, Joshua, Dante & William

On the day that I die

On the day I die a lot will happen.

A lot will change.

The world will be busy.

On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.

The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.

The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me.

All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard.

The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me.

The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.   

All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.

My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past, where they should have always been anyway.

Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over; about my waistline or hairline or frown lines, will fade away.

My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others here, will be left to them to complete anyway.

The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain will be of little concern for me anymore.

All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night will be rendered powerless.

The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be before while I lived.

These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.

Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing that will happen.

On the day I die, the few people who really know and truly love me will grieve deeply.

They will feel a void.

They will feel cheated.

They will not feel ready.

They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.

And on that day, more than anything in the world they will want more time with me.

I know this from those I love and grieve over.

And so knowing this, while I am still alive I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite and fleeting and so very precious—and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.

I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment worrying about all the other things that will happen on the day I die because many of those things are either not my concern or beyond my control.

Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping you from living even as you live; vying for your attention, competing for your affections.

They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating 'NOW' with those who love you and want only to share it with you.

Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.

Don’t let your life be stolen every day by all that you believe matters, because, on the day you die, much of it simply won’t.

Yes, you and I will die one day.

But before that day comes, let us live...

~ John Pavlovitz

Greed!

This does it for me, it says it all! This should be shown in all schools at a very early age.

'Greed' has taken over! Personal, business, government, a festering swamp full of the world's most ugly people. 

I've witnessed it this year when a close friend died, leaving a small fortune to his daughter. She, in turn, wasn't prepared to give a penny to help her father's widow, now living in dire poverty in a very poor country. 

I saw it with the banks, who in the past decade, pillaged our society only to be rewarded with bonuses, bailouts, and knighthoods.

We see it in almost every oil-rich country that has a starving population, because only a few, the most powerful, the greediest...

THEY WANT IT ALL.

Greed! - the biggest problem that mankind faces today!

Miracle cures just around the corner - but see the price tag!

Ono Pharma shares jump with a Nobel-winning cancer breakthrough

Cancer immunotherapy forecast to become $44bn cash cow in 2025

Nikkei staff writersOctober 02, 2018 11:08 JST  Updated on October 02, 2018 15:48 JST

A doctor in Tokyo explains to a patient how the immunotherapy drug Opdivo works. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi) 

The work by the two immunologists, who share the Nobel Prize in
physiology or medicine, created the foundation upon which the
blockbuster immunotherapy drug Opdivo was developed.

The drug is projected to bring Japan's Ono Pharmaceutical, which
developed it with U.S. company Bristol-Myers Squibb, 90 billion yen
($790 million) in sales this fiscal year. Ono Pharmaceutical shares
jumped 6.9% in early trading on Tuesday and hit 3,430 yen, the highest
level since August 2016. The closing price was 3308 yen,up 3.5% from
the previous day.

The company has worked with Honjo for nearly 30 years, sending
researchers to his lab. Ono Pharmaceutical celebrated Honjo's Nobel
win with an announcement, saying, "We appreciate the fortune to have worked on joint research together."

Honjo discovered that immune cells contain a surface checkpoint protein, called a programmed death receptor 1, or PD-1. Tumors evade detection
by producing another protein, PD-L1, that attaches to PD-1 and
deactivates the immune cell. Opdivo works by interfering with PD-L1's
ability to attach to PD-1, thereby enhancing the immune system's
response to cancer cells.

Treatment with Opdivo has been shown to be effective in fighting cancer
and some patients have emerged cancer-free. But the drug is expensive,
with a 100-mg bottle costing 730,000 yen. That translates to more than
30 million yen, or $260,000, for a year's supply.

In Japan, the medicine's high price prompted fears that it would drain government coffers, given the strain the country's aging population
already puts on the budget.

The government took the unusual step of halving the price of Opdivo last February, ahead of biennial drug price revisions scheduled for this fiscal
year. The treatment is revolutionary not only in a pharmaceutical sense
but also in how it has spurred debate on reining in drug costs and
reforming social insurance programs.

That revenue, together with roughly 40 billion yen in Opdivo licensing
fees, will form a large chunk of Ono's estimated group sales of 277 billion
yen for the current year through March. After Opdivo debuted, Ono's
market capitalization doubled to about 3 trillion yen in 2016.

In addition to Opdivo, there are four other major immunological
anticancer agents that chase the PD-1 channel globally -- Imfinzi,
developed by U.K. maker AstraZeneca; Tecentriq by F. Hoffman-La
Roche of Switzerland; Keytruda, by U.S. company Merck; and Bavencio
by the German maker Merck.

Other companies, such as Novartis International of Switzerland, are also developing similar products.

Nikkei staff writer Eri Sugiura contributed to this report.