Ordinary and Extraordinary Means

Frankie's mum passed over yesterday at St George's well into her 90s. Difficult as it is to acknowledge, it was time. There is a video of me dancing with her at a New Year Party a couple of years ago. I have only seen it through my fingers. Though I have heard it is available on social media, I forbid you to search for it.

As I seem to have started an obituaries page above, let me also pay tribute to Neil Innes (the Paul McCartney to Viv Stanshall's Lennon in the Bonzos) who passed away over the New Year.  Chris Howell and I once drove from Swansea to Bridgend to see him play. regard comes no higher.

Finally, here is a link to a Times piece on our office landlord who died in November.

Terry Buckland’s ability on the football pitch was spotted at a young age. In his early teens he had played for Queens Park Rangers, Wimbledon and Barnet, but in 1977, when he was 17, he was signed up to Wimbledon FC as a professional player. He juggled an onerous training timetable — four or five evenings a week and every weekend — with A-level study. It was early proof of a stamina that he would display throughout his life. Aged 18, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which required an operation. A year later his Wimbledon FC doctor noticed a breathlessness in him on the pitch and insisted it was checked out; a secondary tumour on his spine was found attached to his lungs. Buckland turned to chemotherapy and radiotherapy to blast the growth, but the harshness of the 1970s treatments for cancer had an effect on his heart that would thereafter plague him.

I had no idea.