A comment from me to Gaz Robertson Facebook friend and someone I knew in York in the early 1980s. Part of my personal history !
 
"Just out of interest after Teacher Training I worked for an Education Company. But to roll it back a bit I applied for a Coworker job at Juniper Communities home in York in 1984 with what were called then Mentally Handicapped People and if I'd got it, I'd have stayed there for the rest of my life . I was a full time volunteer there from 1983 to 1986 and was essentially paid in kind for the mostly full time work I was doing there with the men , most of which I became personal friends of as well. I got offered money sometimes but never thought I could take it from a charity. I tried to get work like this after Teacher Training but couldn't and I could have done a CQSW if I'd wanted to but I'd had enough college and training then. The point of this is being a househusband and all the duties it required with home-schooling my lads wasn't that different from what I'd been doing in Juniper and was prepared to do for the rest of my life .

When I say I'm still trying for a career it is simply this : if I get to work with the Learning Disabled , much better expression, I would seek to become a Senior House Parent , Lead Support Worker ,  it has various names and I'd organise and be responsible for the residents and the workers and that would be the best job for me . If I'd managed to do the Maths PGCE I wanted to run a Department and if I'd gone for Social Work all those years ago I'd have liked to be a Senior Social Worker . What I'm getting at Gaz is I have the potential to be an officer but not a general! If I'm lucky over the next year or so I may realise that potential and that will be a big thing for me. Being older , decrepit and disabled I probably won't but I have to try !

Little known fact about me is that I got into York University in 1985 not 1986 and I turned down the offer for that year and went in '86. I did this because I had a lot of things to do with the guys at Juniper and didn't feel it was quite the right time to be full time studying . That sense of social responsibility started first when I met Tom Owen in 1977 in Richmond Swaledale but got a big push from the many much more socially and politically aware people I met in York. Tom ,now in York as well, was still supervising me as a friend , very loosely! my university aspirations , qualifications, advice etc but I grew away from him when I started to think a lot more for myself come 1985. Still, he was a very useful bloke, knew everything I got up to in York and I'd still like to thank him now for all the help and encouragement he gave me with my education in the 1970s and early 1980s. I've never fallen out with Tom over anything and I still consider him a friend but he did find it difficult to come to terms with me becoming my own man, forming my own views , settling down and getting married and staying married!

I also started the Open University Mathematics Degree in 1994 but Clifford my youngest son arrived and that put an end to that . I should have been doing Sciences and Maths all along because thats where my main interests and abilities are . That is the one big regret of my life . Don't know why I'm babbling on about this . Sorry mate !"

A post from my Facebook mate Caroline Murphy about the housing problem in the UK . Really true. 

"The biggest scandal in my opinion, is the amount of unoccupied housing in the UK which cannot be accessed apparently by would-be housebuyers. I read of a fantastic scheme somewhere (forget where); a local authority had a stock of derelict housing which would cost too much for them to renovate and put back into the public sector housing stock and due to the extremely low property prices in the area it wasn't cost effective for developers to buy them. So they offered to sell them off, for £1.00 each to employed people. These people would instantly qualify for a £30,000 loan from the LA to do the essential repairs needed to make them habitable again (we are talking small, 2 and 3 bed terraced houses). After that, they could get a mortgage in the conventional way. The only caveat was that they had to agree to occupy them for five years and could not let them out. Awesome! a load of unavailable, current housing comes back into the market, the area benefits from the upsurge these newly renovated properties inevitably bring, local businesses benefit from the influx of new customers, the council gets rid of a headache and loads of people suddenly find themselves on the housing ladder - even the lowest paid workers can usually qualify for a loan of £30,000. We need to do more of this."

My response to a Facebook post mentioning "disability denial".

"This disability denial bit is a big problem . Many people over the years have said to me when I've said it will be tricky with my gammy hand getting a job " You not get a job Paul, all that hiking and clambering round the hills you do and blowing harmonica in those bands , whats wrong with you , you'll get a job easily!" And that has come consistently from friends and people very friendly towards me ! I've had to patiently explain that even with the Learning Disabled jobs I'm going for I can't do the Control and Restraint stuff, essential requirement in many places, lifting people in and out of beds and baths, the same and I may struggle getting through the First Aid Course because I can't use my gammy hand for fine motor skill jobs . Not being able to hold paper and cut it knocked me out of Primary Teacher Training 23 years ago because they suddenly woke up to the fact that I couldn't do parts of the job on the last half of the final Teaching Practice when I was passing gloriously ! I was to nice and naive to sue them at the time but I should of as was told me by a friend later well in the know. There was no assessment of my fitness to train as a teacher when I started . Disability denial, but this time they were being positive . See how tricky disability denial is . It can be positive as well . I've done it since I've been 6 when I got most of my arm ripped off and its the only way for me to manage my disability."

My response to a Facebook petition calling  upon Facebook to implement more effective child protection policies.

"The cause is good but reporting people directly who I think are doing something wrong is more powerful and also taking personal responsibility . Most abusers know a person or persons who knows what they are doing  but does nothing about it . This petition does nothing to encourage them to report and in turn is just another well meaning step that keeps in place the situation based social constraints that keep the victims of abusers and those that know about it silent. In other words in my view dealing  with child pornography is at the same level that womens rights were at in the early 70s when if a women was getting violently abused, lots of people knew about it but did little if anything because it wasn't in the culture to report such things as it is now .

I agree with a friend in York who said many years ago that victims and those who know the victims should speak out and report such things if they come across them. Its what I do and is taking responsibility not just for what I do but even more importantly for what I see being done . All this stuff is a very vexed question because I don't want an an  old East Germany style society where Stasi like individuals report everything  but neither do I want a totally free one where child abusers can do what they like .

Very vexed issue this : the way people  respond to child abuse when they come across it in their homes or in wider society. It seems men are most likely do abuse children but women are most likely to do nothing when they know it is going on . That is a challenging view because there is plenty of evidence for the former and not much for the latter because in my view societies globally don't treat children very well and women are not taken seriously when they  say anything and they exist in a social situation where they are likely to form the judgment that the abuse is bad but fear the consequences of reporting it ."

Last Saturday I had a really nice play with the Corner Boys Blues combo at Scarfe Hall Staindrop where the Beer Festival was being held. They played wonderfully , punchy , raunchy and very authentic . What were minor mishaps were instantly turned into exciting musical and non musical happenings. The audience didn't notice a thing but then again maybe it was what was supposed to happen! Who know : as the Blues Brothers said : " The Lord moves in  mysterious ways "!  Cool and its what improvised Blues is all about. Loved it .

One of my mis happenings was walking off stage before the last song because I didn't think I was playing on it. At the rehearsal the final song was a great showcase for John the guitar player which I wasn't playing on , so I thought  "This is the last song you're off now " So off I trundled offstage. WRONG! I was playing on the last song and Fiona told me later that Steve the singer said solemnly to the audience " We appear to have lost our  harmonica player " and the band and many in the audience were looking around wondering where I was when I was backstage having a good chat with some folk completely oblivious to the effects of my disappearance. It was only when I popped my head back on stage to see how the lads were doing that I realised that I was playing on the last number . Priceless and what a hoot ! Even though I've been a totally organised house husband for years I love the organised chaos which happens at these country  village gigs.

Last Thursday I was having a great rehearsal with the Corner Boys blues band who have temporarily adopted me and then  I needed to go to the toilet after a while . No problem , I'm on Heather Dunn's farm, there is the house and a lot of land around but where do I go ? So I ask Heathers husband and he takes me to a small shed a little way off , no door , just what I thought was an empty shed, because I couldn't see the bath tub hidden out of sight around the corner . He says " Just pee in there Paul so I head off to the corner , the most obvious place , and then he burst out laughing saying " No , pee in the bathtub I've got it running off at the back!" Fair enough , I'm invited to rehearse with the Corner Boys at the Dunn's smashing place and now I'm being told to pee in the bath. These are the sort of people I like! Anyway , the wetting was done and I looked around to wash my hands. No sink. Heathers  husband said " Wash your hands from this chemical cream dispenser and it dries your hands as well " . They have these in the Lake District bogs . Very green apparently . I got a great wadge of the stuff on my hands , to much and just as I was about to go back into the rehearsal barn with him and rejoin the band I looked down at my left hand and it was still covered in the thick white creamy stuff from the hand washing because I had used so much. Holding my creamy hand up to him I said " Hey man , this looks bad I can't go in there with a hand like this . What the hell are they gonna think?! He burst out laughing and got me a rag to wipe my hand clean! Tricky  being me sometimes . Things just happen.

From my Facebook page me  responding to an article from vegans cticising Green Party members for eating meating.

"Back in the 80's I upset several people by saying very  much the same thing but not by knowing the amount that animal agribusiness contributed to global warming . But while some vegans are finger pointing , which goes to show that writing and putting such ideas about just attempts to hide from the fact that every vegan contributes there own actions to killing animals by using public and private transport that kills hundreds of thousands of animals every year and publicly saying nothing about cat ownership that  contributes a nice 55 million bird killed a year. They say nothing about the cat bit , do no campaigning about and certainly say nothing about the transport stuff because some of them are playing the divisve political game like so many others and they need transport to live . 

 Am I against the ownership and enjoyment of cats and dogs ? Nope , I enjoyed stroking your cat yesterday Joe , particularly the biting bit , that moggie has character! But I know they go after the birds which doesn't cause me to have a problem with the cat or the owner  . I take responsibilty for my likes and actions and respect and appreciate what others do. There are some magnificently well looked after sheep in Swaledale and the onwers of them are great people as well . Appreciation.

I don't see the local bird population being seriously damaged by the presence of the furball death machines called cats. What can be a problem is anyone denying the fact that cats kill birds. I ran into some problems with folk in York by saying that if you own a cat , don't criticise me for trying to trap rabbits and hunting then with dogs when I was young , eating meat or accepting legal hunting . And there is also the foxhunting problem: its hard to criticise foxhunting when dog and cat ownership is held as a right in this country: both kill animals. This is the way I see the world Joe . No doubt many vegans want to protect the Amazon and its tribes but those tribes kill animals in very cruel ways in order to live and I never hear them complaining about that . Arggghhhhhhhh. Its heavy!

I would take vegans seriously in their political goals if they were lived up to them but they don't . They are as involved in killing animals just like the rest of us because they live in  our great modern society warts, dead animals  and all.

Just out of interest there is something else . In York yesterday a  pigeon misjudged its flying and ended up in the Ouse right in front of a load of people watching some boat race . Didn't see one vegan or anyone else diving in to save it  fluttering in the water on the way to drowning painfully . This it blows a big hole in vegan ideas : animals and humans are not of the same value, animals are less than us . How do I know this ? Because if that pigeon was valued as much as a baby falling in the River Ouse several people would have dived in to save it  . They didn't! I  have never known one vegan ever who would have saved that pigeon so they don't really believe that animals and humans are equivalent ! "

From my Facebook page responding to photo of a hedgehog

 "Smashing photo that . I'm getting Fiona a half decent SLR? , I think its called that so she can take some good photos because she's into that . I find the locations for her and  the good spots . Really wish we had the SLR a few months ago when watching a Roe Deer , just in a wood on a valley side and then it just bent its legs and settled itself down.  Wonderful!

Roe Deer have poor eye sight , brilliant smelling and hearing abilities though. They can detect scents they don't like months old and hear sounds from miles away. Fiona, me and Miles stalked one through a field several years back. It was July and the grass was long and it was about 200 metres away  upwind from us . We approached slowly and I knew it would  not  be able to distinguish us from the backround until we were around 50 metres away and even then if we stayed stock still it would have a job knowing what we were . To get really close , and past its hearing defences , everytime it moved we did and the sound of it moving through the long grass as it wandered and browsed masked our sounds of  pursuit . When it stopped we did  and it had no idea we were there. I got us to 5 metres of it , well within spear range if I was after it and even then when it stopped and looked around it still wasn't quite sure what we were because we were totally still and hard to distinguish from the backround .  After looking at it for a bit I waved my hands to give it a scare because that  was one dumb Deer that needed educating into some of the dangers in a Roe Deers life . Sometimes Roe Deer need educating.

 I was very tempted to bag it with my bare hands for the freezer but wasn't sure of the legality of that! Clifford was great , he was only ten at the time but kept a small group of hikers  back up at the path with the solemn words " Stay back my Dad is stalking a dear " . Great fun and I always liked to give experiences like that to the lads .  I know it is not PC these days but I believe that kids should be given the opportunity to hunt and kill and then eat animals that are in plentiful supply it sort of connects them to a major  part of being human particulary the meat eaters among them . I offered this to my lads but only  the sort of hunting that I know which is trapping and maybe using ferrets.  Even today walking  in the coutryside around Richmond in Swaledale we come across young men with ferrets using them to trap rabbits . A couple of young guys we saw had about 20 of them and they sell them to the butchers.

One of the deepest and saddest and only part of my marriage  that I really think is wrong is that Fiona won't let me keep a ferret or two. Of course in York in the early '80s I used to date Toni Bunnel the ferretologist  She has a  PhD in ferrets so I really like them . Brilliant hunters and lovely animals .  Boo for Fiona!"

Well, it is A Level results day so I trekked off down to Clifford's College with him to find out the best and possibly the worst. I was amazed, but not in the way that I expected to be amazed. For his Mathematics A Level he got an "A" the same as his brother Miles, but he actually did better than him! He beat Miles by two marks overall which is truly incredible because he has not done as much work as my Number One Son Maths Head Honcho. He averaged 96% over all 6 modules but didn't get the A Star because he didn't get 90% or more on the A2 Modules. Very good news. Here comes the sting.

He totally bombed out on his Computer Science and today said he wasn't interested in the subject and didn't do enough work which totally cheesed me off because what is the point of actually entering into an exam, facing the intellectual war with yourself and the information and then not actually fighting the battles. Bad dog and not the way a Bahai young man is supposed to do things. The only good that has come out of it is he gains some points to go towards his University application next year.

The other slightly minor sting considering the lad is very interested in history, which you would think puts a kid in the zone when they are interested in the subject, well yes, but only if they revise and do enough work. Similar problem to the Computer Science. Bad dog again except the results were an underperformance and not a total disaster and he will be re-sitting a paper in January. Grade C is not good enough and he knows it.

I have known for a long time that underneath any development of talent are moral and spiritual values expressed as intentions and then manifested as sheer hard work, determination, acumen and reflection. Miles has that in droves and that is a choice that he has made, since he was about five years old to be quite honest and it came out in his play, but his maths ability is not a choice it is something he was born with . So he can crow over his efforts but not so much over his latent abilities.

Clifford has done well today and he has a lot to celebrate with his Mathematics having bettered his brother, but over his other efforts we had a long and detailed discussion this morning with his Mother as well over where it went wrong and what he will do and has agreed to do to get it right. I don't mind if any kid fails or succeeds for that matter but what I do mind is when there is a failure of spirituality and morality by not being bothered, not making the effort and worst of all not talking to his parents about this moral failure. This is also what he feels the worst about just out of interest. Good.

So, very good doggy but he is in his kennel for a couple of nights. Well, until tomorrow night when we will give him a big treat for doing so well at his mathematics and beating his brother an indication of his true abilities something he is just beginning to wake up to I think. I expect him to get chewed over by Queen Elizabeth College when he gets back. Good!