Raja Ram MohunRoy 1772 - 1833

This picture is of Bristol Cathedral and in foreground stands the statue of Raja Ram MohunRoy
an Indian reformer who died whilst visiting friends in Bristol.
I always feel like making a bow to him as I pass him by very often as he is a great hero.
As a religious and social reformer the modern day Indians owe him a great deal.
Whilst working tirelessly against what he saw as superstitious and unjust practises in his homeland such as sati (the practise in which the widow was burned on her husband's funeral pyre), caste rigidity, polygamy and child marriage he also fought courageously to get the British Government on the side of giving welfare to the Indian nation which they ruled and for the education system, such as it was, not only to improve but to include girls.   He died at the age of 61 of meningitis whilst visiting friends in Bristol who were supporting his cause with the Government but not before he had seen the Hindu Nation ban sati for ever.  He is buried in the Arnos Vale Cemetery in southern Bristol.   Lots of visitors from the Indian Continent visit his grave - he lived and died a hero.

football crazy

One good thing about England being knocked out of the European championship
was the demise of these silly little mittens that appeared on all the car wing mirrors.
Once it was pointed out that the flags attached to cars were coming adrift and therefore a danger to other road users some wit came up with these 'cute' little mittens.
I hope some other brains are designing some other symbol for the next tournament. 

weeds or flowers?

This lovely picture is of the Morning Glory that grew in a great mass all over the bottom
of our garden when we went to live in Spain:  I loved it and stared at it through the kitchen window and through the bedroom window every day and took numerous photographs.
We, that is all the people who lived on our hillside payed a small sum each which allowed us a few hours work weekly from the man, Juan who looked after the whole hillside
I was horrified one day to find him hacking all the beautiful Morning Glory down to ground level.  I ran down the garden to ask him to leave it but he told me 'pero son las
malas hierbas senora'  'but it is a weed senora' so I tried to explain that I loved it anyway
so could he leave it but he was having none of this nonsense from a newly arrived
foreigner - 'no van a crecer mas de la casa'   No, he couldn't leave it or it would grow all over the house!  He knew native plants and I didn't so when he said it would be just as big next year I had to believe him and of course it was true -  I had to struggle with his knowledge at Christmas though when I came back from the shops to find he had cut back
a 6 ft hedge of glorious Poinsettias - I cried. 
When you live in another country you have to deal with many different and to you strange
customs.  I never got used to the great love the Spanish have for Nispero fruits or Loquat as they are called in some countries.  They were brought to Spain more than 2000 years ago by sailors arriving in ports in the Valencian region and they do actually grow well wherever citrus grows.  I hated them as they tasted sour to me and I could only think they could be used to make a pickle but the Spanish adore them and the aforementioned
Juan would be my very best friend each year when I invited him to strip the tree and take
them away.   It all adds to the spice of life as they say.

Late Spring in the UK

Today I went over the Mendip Hills to visit a friend in Wells and what a beautiful sight it was.
The hedgerows are bowing down with the sweet smelling May blossoms whilst alongside the road at each side the Buttercups, Bluebells and Ox-Eye Daisies look their very best:  trees and fields will never show a softer green - it's as though they are saying - 'this is the best we can do'.
All the small villages and most of the farm houses were sporting Union Flags and bunting was entwined in all the trees and gardens.
It was just so lovely I couldn't help thinking I would not want to be anywhere else in the
world this week-end as we all get together to celebrate the Jubilee.  Yeeey!

Women!

Women!  why are we so much trouble?   For we females who call ourselves Christians the debate of the roll of women in the church continues.                                    In 1970
Pope Paul V1 warned the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Coggan) that there could be no reconciliation between the churches whilst Anglicans considered ordaining women to the priesthood.  Considerations, committees, synods, denials and even promises continued for
the next 24 years until in March 1994 in Bristol Cathedral, Bishop Barry Rogerson ordained 32 women to the priesthood.  It was a momentous day and many banner bearing protesters (the Press too, acting as if they cared!) surounded the Cathedral to denounce the Bishop and all he stood for.  Bishop Barry warned that in his opinion it would be 10 years before the first of these women or any following them made it to senior status in the church.  Well!  not 10 years but 18 years have passed by and the status of the female priests is largely the same, few have made it to Archdeacon but none to Bishop and the war still rages on.   One of the most respected leader of another faith - His Holiness the DalaiLama weighed in recently by stating that he hoped the next DalaiLama, the leader of 500 million Buddhists throughout the free world and over 1 billion  in the People's Republic of China (who are not officially allowed to declare their allegience to any faith) plus 1 million+ in Asia who commonly adhere to more than one religion of which Buddhism plays a major part........he actually said that he hoped a woman would be his successor as DL.  How could he?  We have had over 2000 years of arguments over the rights of females in a world of which females are half of the population.  Sort it out your Holiness and then announce your decision to the world
please no committees we beg you.

Molotov

Recently one of the newspapers mocked the speech impediment of the new England football manager; he said it did not worry him as he was used to it - there is a sadness in that comment.
At the same time there was a serious issue discussed in the newspapers in the USA as to whether Winston Churchill had a lisp or a stammer as apparently he always pronounced a
single s as sh - does it really matter?   In this country he was thought to have a stammer left over from a nervous childhood.  He developed a stage craft ie., long pauses until he found the right word he could say  -  through this method his speeches became quite dramatic as we all know.
Lately I was reading about another very famous Statesman who was making speeches at the same time as Churchill and also had a stammer which he managed to conquer for most of the time, when he didn't manage to do so it greatly angered Stalin who thought everyone would see it as a sign of a weak man.  His name was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich   who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Russian Government and protege of Stalin.  He put all the words from Stalin's mouth into powerful oration and was made to sign everything to keep Stalin's  'reputation'  intact.
He married a Jewess who was the love of his life but Stalin
 thought to show so much love was a sign of weakness in a man and during the war had Polina arrested and sent to Lubyanka Concentration Camp.  Molotov was a very important man but could not prevent the arrest of his wife;  in an act of defiance that could have led to his death he ordered a dinner for her every night and had it placed by an empty chair so that no one would forget her: a year later Stalin ordered her release from Lubyanka but sent her into exile in Siberia never allowing Molotov to know where she was.  She was released immediately on the death of Stalin and rushed back to Moscow never to leave his side again.
He was given the name Molotov early in his career which  is Russian for 'hammer' his other nickname being 'stone-arse' because of the amount of hours he sat working at his desk.
He died in 1980 during the reign of Mikail Gorbachev and is buried in Norodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, his head stone names him as 'Molotov' 
A weak man?.....never.

Mother

When my father met my mother in 1925 she had never seen a picture of herself as her
family did not own a camera and her family home did not own a mirror - her mother
thought mirrors were not only unlucky but made you think too much of yourself.
Dad took her to a photographer's studio and using most of his weekly pay had this
picture taken of her.  It was to send back to his parents and sisters and brothers to tell
them this was the girl he was about to marry.  It was the only picture she ever had of
herself as young woman it would be many more years before the next one was taken.
On this picture she was 23 and had never been out with a man or even spoken to many outside her own family, dad was 35; their happy marriage last nearly 50 years
only death parted them.