A New Venture - RETIREMENT

As the title implies we, Julia and I, are now basically retired. We are being paid for August 2009 so technically our retirement proper starts in September when we will not return to school.

Keeping a blog is going to be part of my new regime:

My first entry for some time will be the email I sent to all staff at Chellaston school.

A Family Story

My mother was the youngest of three sisters.
They all married and set up home but my mother was the only one to own her own house.
My eldest aunt, Marian, lived all her married life in an upstairs flat which changed little in all the years that I knew it.
The windows were single-glazed and I can recall often in winter that there was ice formed on the inside of the window.
At times Marian tried to update her flat with little enthusiasm and less support from her husband, Jim, who was always happy with things as they were.
The bathroom was strikingly old-fashioned; there was a large cast-iron bath standing on clawed feet and a large serviceable toilet with the cistern just below the ceiling operated by a rusty chain. The seat was a substantial painted wooden structure and this became Marian’s target for modernisation. While Jim was at work, he was a police constable; Marian replaced the wooden seat with a new plastic one to come in line with those of her sisters.
Jim was a large man, about 6’3” and heavily built, he liked to get home, change out of his uniform and settle to his paper – which he kept tightly rolled up in the long thin trouser pocket designed for his truncheon. On this particular day the flat was empty when he got home, having changed he retired to the toilet, his initial views on the new fittings are not recorded, he took his seat.
His bulk proved too much for the early plastic and there was a loud crack from beneath him!
Startled he attempted to rise but the crack in the seat that he had just created closed on his flesh as he released the pressure of his weight which was holding it open.
It was an impasse; he could sit in reasonable comfort on the broken seat but each attempt to rise caused the fissure to close agonisingly.
Only when Marian returned, and they worked together in a strained alliance did he escape.
Needless to say the wooden seat was replaced and outlived both of them.

The moral of my story is this: I think that I heard a crack some time ago but I have, after a few early painful attempts to escape, been sitting here in reasonable comfort and it will only be with the aid of a good woman that I go on to new things.

Thank you for listening.

The next few entries to my blog will be my father's autobiography, which he wrote in his retirement, and my comments on each chapter. I am aiming at one chapter per day while I am based at home before September.