tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40988943323058123452024-03-05T14:40:29.573-08:00Jan LoxleyJan Loxley shares thoughts and experiences about Asperger's Syndrome, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome , Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, parenting & disability, music, Dyslexia, MSBP, Politics, theatre, books and anything else she can think of.
Topical News items, reviews, family anecdotes and more.Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-12032242037064269292020-05-23T13:53:00.001-07:002020-05-23T13:53:28.513-07:00SHORT STORIES IN LOCKDOWN 1<br />
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They came looking for me.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">We were six weeks into lockdown and had become used to restful nights without the pounding of the tube trains and free from overflying aircraft. It was therefore all the more terrifying to hear a search and rescue helicopter circling low, very low. We’d heard it many times before, especially when there were news items about terrorists avoiding arrest. We are in the circle that the choppers use whist viewing the two most likely spots for someone to join the M1. I’d not heard news of terrorism during lockdown, what could this be?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">The chopper landed in the garden next door. They have a large green space edged with narrow borders whereas we have ponds and raised beds, shrubs, garden furniture and sheds. A uniformed officer descended. Reminding me of Matilda’s Miss Trunchball she blew a whistle to attract attention and demanded that neighbours open their gates to allow free access between gardens. She began her investigation of our sheds. To no avail she shouted, poked and shone her torch over our camping equipment, arts, crafts and DIY materials, garden supplies and accumulated junk. She moved noisily along these bigger than average gardens with annexed land, once intended as railway sidings. I sat down by our fish pond to wait until she was gone. All the usual sounds of hunting owls, prowling foxes, mice and rats trying to escape.. were obscured by the helicopter blades, whirring away just the other side of the garden hedge. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Eventually the chopper and it’s officious passenger made a noisy departure, I presumed that officers with more competence, experience and subtlety had been redeployed in the fight against Covid 19 and that she was all there was available. Neighbours returned to their houses and switched out the lights as the helicopters flew away. I stayed awhile to enjoy the garden as the owls took their last swoops, the sun began to peep over the horizon and the dawn chorus began.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">There was an unexpected sound. The gasp of a child. I maintained motionless and in silence, wondering what would happen next. Was the child alone or was the gasp a reaction to someone forcing imprisonment or danger? What should I do? My phone was in my dressing gown pocket and I’d heard on the radio that if someone in danger of domestic violence pressed one of the phone buttons repeatedly, it would call the police without the need to speak. Which button and how many times? I wished I’d listened more carefully. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">The sound had come from the one shed the officer hadn’t investigated. It was ramshackle and falling down but the roof was intact. It had been a garden house for my children to play in but when they grew too tall it was moved and redeployed as a wood shelter. It had no front but the remnants of a torn blue tarpaulin, used to keep the timber dry. I maintained my silence whilst waiting to see what would happen. I could hear occasional movement behind the pallets stacked in front of the shelter and was relieved to conclude that this was a child alone. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Suddenly I remembered that we were in lockdown and I’d no mask or gloves. If I encountered this child at close quarters I could endanger myself or my immune compromised son with whom I was shielding. My natural reaction would be to try to catch and hold the child in safety but this wasn’t possible. I thought of nurses and care workers having to make decisions about wether or not to treat patients without the vital PPE which our incompetent government had failed to procure. I decided to sit and wait and see what happened.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Eventually she emerged. A pretty little thing with a mass of curly black hair. She didn’t notice me but headed for the camping toilet which I use when I can’t get to the house in time. She sat there on the loo, turning her hands over and examining them intently in the pale light. As she looked up, she noticed me, gasped and prepared for flight. I put my finger to my lips, motioning her to keep quiet and signalled her to sit down again. She had no other way out and complied. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">So there we were, an older woman in a fluffy dressing gown and crocks, sitting on a wooden garden chair by the pond, and a young girl with her jeans round her feet, sitting on a plastic toilet by the bird table. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">I whispered to ask if she spoke English and she nodded the affirmative. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Speak quietly as the neighbours get up early. Who are you and how are you and which school do you go to?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“I’m Annalise and I’m 9 and I go to St Mary’s.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Hello Annalise, I’m Susan and this is my garden.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“I’ve been watching you for days. It’s the perfect place to hide. There’s a tap on the shed where I’ve seen the man drink water so I know it’s safe. There’s even a toilet. One day when you’d gone for your walk, I found a mattress and bedding and a cup in the shed by the house. My friend has been bringing me food but you’ve helped, I’m the giant slug whose been stealing your herbs and lettuce and the strawberries from your greenhouse.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“So why are you here?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“If I tell you will you help me?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Does your mother know you are safe?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Yes she does but, I do need your help.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Please tell me more.” </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“I’m hungry.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“If i go to the house to get food, how do I know that you won’t run away?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“You don’t, but I promise.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">I returned with a big glass of milk and a packet of biscuits. She’d pulled her trousers up and was sitting on a broken brown wicker chair against the fence. It had last been used by my daughter on her Mother’s Day visit, the last time I saw her before lockdown. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">999 words</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">(C) Jan Loxley Blount 23/04/20</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-77849733155201008332020-05-23T13:49:00.003-07:002020-05-23T13:49:59.763-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFf5hZXR5zmigOWX6e1EEWtIqBoRhKSyGLHQPl78MNztS0n9n51X8jQkXb9hyphenhyphenYiZWGjiE0k9tPHCAe8JZfhoBIgQoAtUPi88v3nqqCCAOa4WOc0V-Tuw0TaTPB2OnnlxylxGF-gDaonA/s1600/EB1DAFC2-4904-4066-9A21-7A8D89F0D986.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1600" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFf5hZXR5zmigOWX6e1EEWtIqBoRhKSyGLHQPl78MNztS0n9n51X8jQkXb9hyphenhyphenYiZWGjiE0k9tPHCAe8JZfhoBIgQoAtUPi88v3nqqCCAOa4WOc0V-Tuw0TaTPB2OnnlxylxGF-gDaonA/s320/EB1DAFC2-4904-4066-9A21-7A8D89F0D986.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Images in a strangely familiar new world.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Whilst I enjoyed the Easter Eve service from Kings College Chapel on BBC 2, recorded before so many people had died and before we were all confined to our homes, it felt unreal. The grandiose setting didn’t relate to the everyday realities of our lives in the here and now. We haven’t been able to celebrate Easter or Passover in our churches or synagogues or with family meals and celebrations. Our Muslim neighbours can’t celebrate Ramadan with nightly gatherings and communal meals, or gather to pray in the Mosque. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">All of us, wether religious or secular can only take part in communal celebration via Zoom, Skype, Facebook, YouTube or a myriad of competing social networks. Claire Balding and other familiar figures appear on TV to teach people like my husband, who previously shunned technology and derided social media, to use these as a lifeline to communicate with distant or vulnerable family members. Many of us use these means to join our religious communities, classes or meetings.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Easter was a very present experience for the disciples, Mary meeting the gardener, the walkers on the road to Emmaus, friends gathered in an upper room. This Easter and Passover we have seen our online celebrants in their kitchens and living rooms, just as we have been seeing our politicians, celebrities and sports stars at home on television.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We have experienced the ordinariness of participating in religious and cultural festivals from our own homes, surrounded by pets, toys, foodstuffs, cooking pots, sofas, cushions and duvets. The Easter and Exodus messages are reaching those parts of our lives which we normally leave behind when we don respectable clothes and head out to celebrate with our communities. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve particularly loved celebrating Holy Communion with an iPad on the breakfast or supper table and picking up the bread, toast, pita, crispbread or whatever was to hand to break and share - just as Jesus would have shared the bread of the disciples Passover meal. I think I’ve been able to experience the Christian story in its Jewish roots and context more clearly than I ever did before. The Exodus story has become more significant as I wonder what will become the “New Normal”. The present situation has allowed for greater detail and intimacy, a friend shared her excitement at seeing decoration on ancient scrolls, picked up by the camera but which she’d never have spotted if she was present in a crowded synagogue. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This experience of the sacred in the familiar took me back to my first trip to Naples. My friend had driven us to Pompeii and on the way back unexpectedly turned into the city and up a steep road from where we had the most astounding view of Vesuvius and the bay of Naples. I was tired and engrossed in my deliciously cold iced latte when I realised that she was chatting to Michael Palin, who had arrived with a film crew to get shots for a documentary about the abused and largely forgotten artist Artemesia Gentileschi, contemporary of Caravaggio. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">(Note: Artemisia has now become much more well known and the National Gallery will show an exhibition of her work when they reopen)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We headed into the coolness of the building behind us, where once again we found Michael Palin as he shared our fascination with the spectacular array of presepe for which the Museum of San Martino is famous. These are enormous complex nativity scenes, many the size of a room in which people could eat or sleep. In each a whole landscape has been built and the familiar figures of the nativity are found amongst scenes from everyday life in the surrounding villages. Horses pulling a simple plough, donkeys carrying household goods, the baker making bread and the cobbler repairing shoes, the old couple looking lovingly at one another as their grandchildren play nearby, the family roasting meat on a spit and sharing a meal. Three kings from the east walking their laden camels along the village street with nobody showing a flicker of surprise. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">These 18th century Neapolitan presepe are quite different to the smaller more familiar nativity scenes which came to the UK from Northern Italy, Germany and Austria. The nearest British art I have seen are the 1920’s paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer (Tate Britain) who portrays Jesus carrying his cross through the throng of activity on Cookham High Street and the dead being raised to new life when the opened graves open in the local churchyard reveal biblical figures alongside people known to the artist, including his wife and a self-portrait.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">On a recent trip I visited the great church of Santa Chiara in the centre of Naples. The 14th century church with baroque embellishments, was destroyed by allied bombing in WW2 but rebuilt like a Phoenix and consecrated by the Pope in 1953, amidst national celebrations. Unbelievably the majestic cloisters, built on the ancient remnants of a Greek, pre-Roman bathing complex survived the wartime assault. The unique decorations are another example of the profane amidst the sacred. The enclosed nuns had longed for knowledge of the world outside, so the ceramic artists had painted village and farming scenes, some quite unexpected for a religious order, into magnificent Majolica panels. There in a room adjoining the cloister I found another enormous presepe. Because protective glass panels make good amateur photography impossible, I treated myself to the purchase of an online professional image of this. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(To be concluded) Jan Loxley Blount 03/05/2020 </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Here are two museum notes: </span></div>
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<li style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Of course, the baby Jesus and the Madonna, who is worshipped in Naples, play an important role here as well, but these figurines are not in the centre of interest in the Neapolitan nativity scene. For example, it is perfectly okay to place a farmer’s wife cooking spaghetti next to the three Magi. (Museum of San Martino)</span></li>
<li style="color: #1d1e20; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">In 18th-century Naples, renowned sculptors and painters were employed by aristocratic patrons, including the Neapolitan King, to create figures and backdrops for magnificent presepie. These tableaux were highly detailed and theatrical in design, incorporating not just biblical stories but vignettes of everyday life in Naples – street-sellers, beggars, market and town folk would rub shoulders with shepherds, the three Magi (Kings) and the holy family amid an architectural backdrop of taverns and ruined temples.(V&A)</span></li>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-74619604615734584912020-05-23T13:45:00.001-07:002020-05-23T13:45:34.594-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWzGwAh3uRqYnLiQeawAlPoQwll2E0WN3mWxk7y6aV8W7FWigJ1S8GFL4PqufLfhEbhtwgIuYVyGBvfVTnNwc70nPZv4oWMYcfAFWhwltnL8-lqyq1_xM2-QTAq2FeDMW1mQgWUpMH0w/s1600/AF202FF8-53A2-4DD3-8A9C-9971F5C725E8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="1536" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWzGwAh3uRqYnLiQeawAlPoQwll2E0WN3mWxk7y6aV8W7FWigJ1S8GFL4PqufLfhEbhtwgIuYVyGBvfVTnNwc70nPZv4oWMYcfAFWhwltnL8-lqyq1_xM2-QTAq2FeDMW1mQgWUpMH0w/s320/AF202FF8-53A2-4DD3-8A9C-9971F5C725E8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
Happy Easter in Lockdown<br />
A very strange experience<br />
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This glorious flower has grown from a bulb planted in bare earth and given as a Christmas gift to a beloved friend - he tended it with care and it flowered for EasterJan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-51341909631329418222020-05-23T13:40:00.002-07:002020-05-23T13:40:54.494-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5NOKt_mJdUpTm1HvOmVCVrqrhicoK9UTa2vmz8F1Ha3aKZh5zQUJYQlzjWEOGMdF6vWPgDft1fhAGRu89-FmFQdgW6zuPugnkPg5Ezv-wAT613NknWS7525LX_Lkw1dRR-veMrWnraIg/s1600/AC048BC1-6A14-4455-B4A5-931A58ECBFF8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5NOKt_mJdUpTm1HvOmVCVrqrhicoK9UTa2vmz8F1Ha3aKZh5zQUJYQlzjWEOGMdF6vWPgDft1fhAGRu89-FmFQdgW6zuPugnkPg5Ezv-wAT613NknWS7525LX_Lkw1dRR-veMrWnraIg/s320/AC048BC1-6A14-4455-B4A5-931A58ECBFF8.jpeg" width="254" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 7</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Holy Saturday </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The Easter Bunny </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Digory photographed by David Loxley Blount. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has declared the Easter Bunny to be an essential worker, stating that the rabbit can go about its mysterious business as usual, despite a nationwide lockdown. Her youngest citizens, had wondered how the coronavirus crisis might affect the arrival of chocolate eggs and other treats.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Last spring we adopted Digory, a rescue rabbit, to fill the hole in our lives left by Papageno, who had left us after almost 10 years. Just before Christmas Digory broke his front right leg. All the PDSA could offer was amputation or euthanasia. Quite unexpectedly, some of our amazing friends clubbed together, to fund treatment at the charitable Royal Veterinary College’s Beaumont Sainsbury Animal Hospital. Digory had a long recovery and this photo was taken in March on his first walk in the garden since his accident. He really is our Easter Bunny as he’s resurrected just at the right time. I dread to think what life in lockdown would have been like without him. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Following the instruction not to venture out, one of our first strategic online purchases was three months worth of Digory’s favourite hay. Thank goodness we did, as it’s now tripled in price, if this has happened generally to pet supplies I fear for pets with lower income owners during the lockdown. Charging exaggerated prices for pet supplies is out of order. Pets are important, especially to families with mental health needs, neurological difference or learning difficulties, also to the lonely and isolated and those with young children. Some domestic animals act as guides or to provide warning of illness.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">“One day in March, something very strange happened. My cuddle girl came, but they only talked to her in the garden. They put their chairs ever so far apart and although I fixed my eyes on her, she didn’t cuddle or even stroke me and she didn’t hug or kiss her mum. Instead they made funny signs that the Bishop had told them meant the ‘Peace of the World’ and blew their kisses across the fish pond. She’s never been here since then, I do miss her.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">My people used to go out quite a lot. They’d put music on the radio, thinking I wouldn’t notice, but I’m not stupid. Now they are home all of the time. It gives me more chances to look appealing and get extra strokes and treats, but sometimes a rabbit likes a bit of peace and quiet for a daytime nap.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">My special boy has stopped letting me walk to and from my garden house, instead he carries me in a blanket. He says it’s because lots of cats come in our garden to watch the fish and he thinks the cats might give me something called coronavirus, which sounds a bit like the dreaded myxomatosis. I wouldn’t want that.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">All kinds of things have changed. On Wednesday mornings someone from the land of Ocado used to push past my cage with bags of shopping. They could be quite frightening to a rabbit, so I used to hide until they’d gone. Nowadays they don’t come so often, they leave the bags on the floor outside and my big lady has to wash all the bottles and packets before she brings them in. Then my people go off to deliver some of the shopping to people who can’t get ‘slots’, I wonder if a ‘slot’ tastes nice?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Both my big lady and my special boy spend far too much time washing their hands, they’ve got scratchy fingers which get stuck in my lovely soft fur. The stuff they use to make their hands less scratchy puts me off my food. I always lick myself clean and I would teach them how to do that, but a woman on their television keeps telling them not to touch their faces, so that wouldn’t be allowed.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Another strangeness is that they’ve started talking to our big man on something they call an ‘iPad’. I can see him and he waves to me, but he can’t stroke me and ‘iPads’ don’t send dandelions.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Anyway I must tell you about two really good things that have happened. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Someone from the land of Abel & Cole has started bringing us a marvellous big box of fruit and vegetables every Monday. This is much better than the dead chicken bones they used to bring. I never liked the smell of my people making chicken soup. On the last two Mondays Abel & Cole brought me really fresh organic kale, in big pieces with stalks on, way superior to the chopped up stuff in bags that my people used to go in their car and fetch from somewhere called a ‘supermarket’. I do hope some more will come on Monday.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The other really good thing is that the sky outside has got much clearer. I can hear the birds sing instead of all those aeroplanes and there are a lot less horrid noisy tube trains hurtling past the bottom of the garden. I can smell more flowers and it is easier to breathe. I do hope it stays like this.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Stay safe, be kind to yourself, those you love and those in need, have the happiest Easter and Passover that you can. Love from Digory and my friend the Easter Bunny.”</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-91009795084679323262020-05-23T13:36:00.003-07:002020-05-23T13:36:32.033-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis2UYwp6C98siXwwNhslc4zizhQ-SXJswHMDvQsRzsfsHfnH-CFkVAwOPs5m0Ge1Sg5uet2MsHuuxXX6RBENP8yDz-QuX8hEsC4aozYRPEb0pb5dsBIybP9yz4vmtoD3bPOBzr9GAjv3Y/s1600/BCAC46AB-5575-4D72-B334-30F6B4DC25EA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="892" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis2UYwp6C98siXwwNhslc4zizhQ-SXJswHMDvQsRzsfsHfnH-CFkVAwOPs5m0Ge1Sg5uet2MsHuuxXX6RBENP8yDz-QuX8hEsC4aozYRPEb0pb5dsBIybP9yz4vmtoD3bPOBzr9GAjv3Y/s320/BCAC46AB-5575-4D72-B334-30F6B4DC25EA.jpeg" width="179" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">1951 by Salvador Dali</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">A very personal account. This was painted when I was just one year old and I discovered it when I was 29. In those days it was much less well known than it is today. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">International Year of the Child 1979 had thrust me into the temporary limelight as I had unexpectedly become the UK face or coordinator of the campaign for after school and holiday provision, for what were then known as “Latchkey Children”. Today we think of such provision as standard - in those days it was highly controversial as children were seen as their ‘mother’s responsibility’ and it definitely was ‘mother’s’ not parents. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’d flown to Glasgow (that was something I’d never have done in normal times), visited some embryonic parent run play and care schemes, spoken at a conference and been interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland. They were heady days, the campaign was going well and I was terrified I’d put a foot wrong. I was extremely lonely, because in a few short weeks I’d moved into a fast moving world of media and politics, which didn’t fit well with my friends and family. I had a precious few hours to spare and visited Kelvingrove. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This vibrant painting jumped out and spoke to me. It engulfed me with a feeling of safety and of love, reminding me of a crumpled note wrapped round a crucifix, given to by an elderly priest whom I’d turned to in troubled student days “This is how it was and is. To realise that everything is known and one is loved just the same, then anything is possible.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">These days a copy of the painting and the old crucifix hang together on my wall. An officious self opinionated visitor once suggested that these and a couple of nearby icons demonstrated ‘an obsession with death and dying’, nothing could have been further from the truth. The Leonardo crucifixion is all about new life. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">There were notes and drawings on display beside the painting in Kelvingrove, which I think were by Leonardo, but sadly I can’t find them online. These pointed to the shape created by Christ’s hands, arms and body on the cross. which are reminiscent of the ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus. His feet in the birth canal ready to enter or re-enter our lives. His bowed head is the foetus in the womb - a human embryo or the origin of an idea, a neighbourhood support project, an artwork, an engineering discovery, a medical breakthrough, a campaign..... I’ve often wondered how I’d have managed if I’d not found this painting on my afternoon in Glasgow. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The Latchkey campaign continued through the UK Association for International Year of the Child and the British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres; until the Saturday in April 1982 when Mrs Thatcher recalled Parliament to launch her Falklands Armada. Instead of the anticipated government minister she sent opposition MP Alf Dubs to our conference (financed by Woman’s Own, Marks & Spencer and the Baring Foundation) to announce the first ever Government monies for Out of School Play and Care. The rest as you say is history. I suffered burnout and withdrew in 1986, but that April day was the acorn from which today’s vast local authority, school and voluntary sector service for children and families outside school hours was born.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And as new life will come from death</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Love will come at leisure</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Love of love, love of life and giving without measure</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Gives in return a wondrous yearn for promise almost seen</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Live hand in hand and together we'll stand</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">On the threshold of a dream</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Graeme Edge The Moody Blues “Dream”</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-10343281952662134592020-05-23T13:30:00.002-07:002020-05-23T13:30:50.081-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0SvMQg2VXydfV7ulsvypZg9zm8FnhLwkXIqT0QQHgdZEUAyi_ZROl-5IrTSPEt3bE8fr1elRLUkQUKf6J2p5fObYyDnHZ3YfF-5cQMhLUpWNofmxJbxqa0X4nZz4MbFqtmwEclQT3zl0/s1600/43D2458B-D80A-4D68-9223-EC1551D89EAA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0SvMQg2VXydfV7ulsvypZg9zm8FnhLwkXIqT0QQHgdZEUAyi_ZROl-5IrTSPEt3bE8fr1elRLUkQUKf6J2p5fObYyDnHZ3YfF-5cQMhLUpWNofmxJbxqa0X4nZz4MbFqtmwEclQT3zl0/s1600/43D2458B-D80A-4D68-9223-EC1551D89EAA.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 5</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This photograph was sent to a friend, by cousins from whom she is parted at this special time. The Jewish festival of Passover began last night and continues until the 16th, coinciding with the Christian festival of Easter. Today is Maundy Thursday and tonight Christians commemorate the last supper, when Jesus and his disciples gathered in an upper room, maybe above a dwelling, a meeting place or an animal shelter, to celebrate Passover. He added a new ritual, the sharing of bread and wine to represent his body and his blood, as he knew that his life was soon to end. Jesus was a Jew and the meal which he shared with his disciples would have been their equivalent of today’s symbol rich Seder meal. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I was introduced to this by a local church when my children were growing up. Each year we celebrated the Seder, on the night before Maundy Thursday, the first night of Passover. Sometimes my daughter was the youngest person present, and in line with Jewish tradition she had to ask the set questions which elicited the elders to share scriptural responses explaining the story of the Exodus. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The Seder is a ritual performed by multiple generations of a Jewish family or community, involving a retelling of the story of the Israelites long and difficult journey to escape from slavery in ancient Egypt. This is told in the Book of Exodus, which is an important text for followers of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Seder is based on the commandment "You shall tell your child on that day, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.'" (Exodus 13:8) Traditionally, Jewish families and friends gather in the evening of the first and second evenings of Passover to read the ancient texts, sing special songs, eat symbolic foods and perform rituals passed down to them. This year will be very strange as Jewish people celebrate Seder in their isolation.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In this difficult time when we all fear for our own safety and that of our loved ones because of Coronavirus it is all too easy for us to forget the plight of modern day slaves and refugees. People living in camps have no opportunity to wash their hands and self isolate. Their death toll will almost certainly be disproportionately massive. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The six foods on a Seder plate are variations around: </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Maror: A paste of bitter herbs (often horseradish), symbolizing the harshness of the slavery which the Jews endured.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Chazeret : Fresh bitter herbs such as endive or dandelion greens, in keeping with the biblical instruction ‘with bitter herbs they shall eat it’.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Charoset: A sweet, brown, pebbly paste of fruits and nuts, representing the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build for their masters in Egypt. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Karpas: Usually parsley or celery, which is dipped into salt water to symbolize the tears that the Jews shed in their slavery.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Zeroa: A roasted lamb bone, symbolising a lamb which was offered in the temple, before being roasted and eaten as part of the Seder meal.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Beitzah: A roast egg symbolizing the festival sacrifice, offered in the temple before being eaten as part of the Seder meal.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(Thanks to Times magazine & Wikipedia and friends for information)</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-63306084160249225232020-05-23T13:27:00.002-07:002020-05-23T13:27:56.967-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 4</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Wednesday of Holy Week</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Photograph of Westminster Bridge </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Earth has not anything to show more fair:<br />
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by<br />
A sight so touching in its majesty:<br />
This City now doth, like a garment, wear<br />
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,<br />
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie<br />
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;<br />
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.<br />
Never did sun more beautifully steep<br />
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;<br />
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!<br />
The river glideth at his own sweet will:<br />
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;<br />
And all that mighty heart is lying still!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">William Wordsworth: Sonnet 14</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Wordsworth’s poem “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” was read on the Today programme a few days ago as we looked towards the celebration of 250 years since the poet’s birth which takes place this week. The reader mused on the fact that the bridge and the river are now quieter than they have been for a very long time, allowing those who have cause to cross the Thames to experience something of Wordsworth’s sense of awe and beauty. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Wordsworth refers to the theatres and temples lying silent and bare. We all crave for our places of entertainment and public worship to be restored to us.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">It was this bridge that our Prime Minister was driven across on Sunday from his self isolation in the flat above no 11 Downing Street to the NHS hospital of St Thomas which had its origins in an Augustinian Infirmary established during the 12th Century. After the dissolution of the Augustinian order the hospital was re-established by Royal Charter to care for the sick poor.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">My daughter treats cancer patients at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, so everyday she crosses Westminster Bridge on her bike, in her car or on a bus. As she says she has “quite a commute” to work! Cancer doesn’t wait for Coronavirus so she and her colleagues continue to fight on as best they can, with the discomforts and inconvenience of PPE, and with reduced staff, space, drugs and facilities. I pray for their safety and that treatment outcomes for their patients won’t be too adversely affected by current circumstances. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’m hoping that the media and security personnel encamped around the hospital during the Prime Minister’s stay and crossing the bridge back and forth to Westminster, don’t create situations which make it more difficult or dangerous for other patients and staff, who need to get in and out of the hospitals for a multitude of reasons. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve never been a fan of Boris Johnson but the country does feel more fragile and rudderless without our Prime Minister. I wish him and all the patients of Guys, St Thomas’s and the adult patients using re-purposed children’s wards in the Evelina, wether there because of coronavirus or cancer or whatever reason, a successful and speedy recovery. I also remember in my prayers those parents of children whose anticipated treatment at the Evelina has had to be postponed because of the current situation, this includes a little girl very dear to me. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">As we draw nearer to the agony of Good Friday, I am thinking of all the families across the globe who have lost loved ones to this tiny virus which is wreaking so much havoc in our world. </span></div>
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<br />Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-53246412822744373212020-05-23T13:21:00.003-07:002020-05-23T13:21:16.216-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid7w4oGHk2ZudlByyJ14H48-RtpTjlLMoAZgZ6FMGBiSHe-XnLJAQq2bYJKNazCKQNnd3KmcVXOWJmgtbuEKGiJfX-fcg7TKB85t6kvHVc7Uw4AXLVHeiH81y9DnAGARHVHhX-HJnsEL8/s1600/1C4E4925-C89A-4245-B99D-587840C227F7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1515" data-original-width="1392" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid7w4oGHk2ZudlByyJ14H48-RtpTjlLMoAZgZ6FMGBiSHe-XnLJAQq2bYJKNazCKQNnd3KmcVXOWJmgtbuEKGiJfX-fcg7TKB85t6kvHVc7Uw4AXLVHeiH81y9DnAGARHVHhX-HJnsEL8/s320/1C4E4925-C89A-4245-B99D-587840C227F7.jpeg" width="294" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 3</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Tuesday of Holy Week</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Self Portrait as St Catherine of Alexandria by Artemesia Gentilischi </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I first discovered Artemesia on a sunny afternoon in Naples, when a film crew to turned up to get pictures of Michael Palin discussing her against the backdrop of Vesuvius. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Since then I’ve learned that she was raped at the age of 17 by her tutor, who was an artist friend of her father’s. She went on to become one of the finest Baroque painters of the 17th Century. Her work is increasingly displayed alongside that of Caravaggio. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Here she portrays herself as the martyr St Catherine of Alexandria, whom we celebrate with spinning fireworks. St Catherine is the patron saint of students, scholars and philosophers. She frequented the Library of Alexandria and confounded pagan philosophers by arguing the Christian case against them. Catherine’s courage and wisdom became widely known and many were inspired to convert to Christianity by her example. The Emperor failed to get her to renounce her faith and ordered that she die a torturous death on a breaking wheel. When Catherine touched the wheel it miraculously shattered, so she was beheaded instead. She faced her death bravely. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In Artemesia’s painting she is holding a palm which seems particularly apt for Holy Week.</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-71264577838301138902020-05-23T13:18:00.003-07:002020-05-23T13:18:52.020-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5KB5lC8eKGbsE-IC3m_GI0uuBGgYIbvyhhlCvBg9HkRFTHhCHROCJcur17idzoGDv5iVLny3gJccrKWFYOhrbm6Qt5F6kRjwZNszBa6MCu6yeAIhtWqcV3z8vuJjhGWcWIz3Kr6mxOaE/s1600/521F233C-F46E-4D80-9BF4-4D2C89296961.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1159" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5KB5lC8eKGbsE-IC3m_GI0uuBGgYIbvyhhlCvBg9HkRFTHhCHROCJcur17idzoGDv5iVLny3gJccrKWFYOhrbm6Qt5F6kRjwZNszBa6MCu6yeAIhtWqcV3z8vuJjhGWcWIz3Kr6mxOaE/s320/521F233C-F46E-4D80-9BF4-4D2C89296961.jpeg" width="306" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 2</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Monday of Holy Week</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This stunning image dropped into my email box this morning - sent to me by the artist who created it. Ruth Jacobson who I’ve come to know and love as a friend through HGS U3A. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This is what she said about her image. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">”In this image, souls are continually circling, reaching out for contact with each other, encapsulating the present time of fear and isolation in the shadow of Covid 19.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Stained Glass — Ruth Taylor Jacobson</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.ruthjacobson.com/stained-glass</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-42305092379976892912020-05-23T13:16:00.003-07:002020-05-23T13:16:44.593-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaajp5YBC_u3SYevTKI3gx4D7D5442vsbgY8UnyPzmBu7GkO7xg3YHFvs4NYlpzVBxT0Ts1FvyL8KiItdgu85VYvgAtWm1EBUD8zewgCX8BnE_Ogg_QR1lFYFmfYai3SfwDUcNglPtf9U/s1600/221BA888-4B42-45A2-A8D2-1CD34F9BA640.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaajp5YBC_u3SYevTKI3gx4D7D5442vsbgY8UnyPzmBu7GkO7xg3YHFvs4NYlpzVBxT0Ts1FvyL8KiItdgu85VYvgAtWm1EBUD8zewgCX8BnE_Ogg_QR1lFYFmfYai3SfwDUcNglPtf9U/s320/221BA888-4B42-45A2-A8D2-1CD34F9BA640.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">IMAGES FOR HOLY WEEK 1</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Palm Sunday </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">A new way of worshipping. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This is a phone photo of the screen of my iPad during the Palm Sunday Service from Trinity URC Baptist Church in North Finchley. The left hand image is the wall hanging from the front of the church. The centre image is two palm crosses made by a member of the congregation from materials salvaged from their garden. The right hand image of a palm beach, is from a card which was sent to me last week and which I photographed and sent to the Minister - the Revd Paul Martin who you can see as the small inset. He’s doing a marvellous job of getting services, meetings, reflections online.</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-84214393329607488982019-07-05T15:02:00.000-07:002019-07-05T15:02:00.186-07:00D Day letter from a young nun near the Pegasus Bridge. <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Chère Maman,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’m imagining writing this letter to you as it’s unsafe to put my thoughts on paper in case the German soldiers find it. I want to try to remember every single moment as such exciting and terrifying and important things are taking place, right here, right now. Reverend Mother has let members of the French Résistance use the Convent. We get messages from London, from the Allies who are trying to rescue us. It’s a waiting game. I’m sitting here quietly, waiting until I’m needed in the kitchen, wondering what’s going to happen tonight. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We thought the British would come yesterday, but the weather was so bad. We hope they will come today. We’ve had the signal but the weather is still dreadful. This can’t go on any longer. Something has to happen. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The German soldiers have taken all the food from the village shop, all the meat that the butcher had in his cold store, vegetables from the farmer’s barns and simply everything from the tabac, they cleared the shelves into boxes and bags. There’s nothing left. People are starving. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Villagers are breaking up treasured pieces of furniture to make heat to boil kettles as the water is unsafe now. One man called Sébastien even broke up his wife’s piano, he said she didn’t need it now that she’s dead and he was sure that she’d prefer he gave the children safe water. Water on its own isn’t enough for growing children, they are crying with hunger, but there’s nothing for them. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Reverend Mother has been very bad or very good or very good and bad together. She is very clever and has hidden food in the chapel. I helped her because I’m strong and because it’s my job to prepare vegetables and clean the kitchen. Reverend Mother took down all the robes used by the choir, I had to take one robe to each sister to hang by her bed so nothing looked suspicious and then we hung all the special robes used by the Monsignor and the Priests on the rack where the choir robes go and moved the big chest the clergy robes usually go in, to right in front of the altar. We filled it with bags of oats and flour and other dry stuff that the farmer and the baker had brought here for safe keeping. Mother locked it and told me to put a special cloth over the top, one of those white lace ones that are so very difficult to iron. She put a cross on top and candlesticks and a little pot of flowers from our garden. It looked like it was part of the altar and had always been there. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The butcher had brought hams and saucisson sec, we took all the candles out of the candle store and I had to arrange them on a high shelf at the back of the chapel, so it looked like we always kept the candles up there. That was hard work, climbing up and down the rickety old step ladder, we really do need a new one. Then we got Sister Belina to help us push the big heavy wooden candle box to a dark corner. Reverend Mother sent Sister Belina to do a job upstairs so she didn’t see what we did next. We quickly hid the hams and saucisson sec inside it and piled hymn books and bibles on top of it, nobody would think of looking there. I put all the bags of rice and beans and lentils vert and things like that right under the altar itself. Reverend Mother had thought of everything. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">When the Soldiers came she showed them how little food we had in the kitchen and the larder, they took some of it but left us some too, maybe they thought their souls would be damned if they left nuns to starve. She had organised a rota of sisters to always be praying and singing in the chapel, with some big old candles that were quite rancid, always burning to cover the smell of the ham. The soldiers could only look in so as not to disturb the praying sisters. Reverend Mother assured them that the sisters were praying for the souls of Germans as well as for the French. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We’ve just had another coded message from England, I think they are on their way. I pray they are on their way. I’ve heard the men from the Résistance whispering to each other. The English have to capture our bridge over the Caen Canal and the one next to it over the River Orne so that Allied troops can move towards Paris, and the Germans can’t get from the Somme to where the boats land. It’s all very secret and I’m not supposed to know. That’s why I can’t write any of this down. I think the boats are coming to Arromanches Les Bains.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I remember you and Grand-maman taking me there to make sandcastles and paddle in the sea when I was little. It’s a pretty town. I went there not so long ago with my friends, it was our last outing before I gave my life to Jesus. Arromanches has a lot of sand. I used to think the beach went on for ever and ever, but then the sea would come in so quickly and steal it all away. It will be cold there in weather like this, the sea will be bitter, the wind blows along the coast because there’s nothing to stop it. The weather here is gentler as we are further inland. I think I’ve just heard something. This might be it. Mary and Jesus please take care of them.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Reverend Mother told Sister Margarita and me to make an extra big vat of soup today and to save some in a hidden place for tonight. We’ve been making soup every day. It has a lot of water as we have to eke things out because we don’t know how long our supplies will have to last. We put in some of the dried foods from under the altar and Reverend Mother has given me special permission to go out into the grounds to find herbs and things to make flavour. The weather has been bad so the wild garlic is still here, in a good summer it would be gone by now. I have found lots of mint and lemon balm growing wild and thyme and roquette and of course nettles, I know the idea of eating nettles sounds horrid but they are very nutritious and you can’t taste them too much in soup. Some days we stir eggs into the soup. We were really lucky that the soldiers let us keep our chickens. Some days we add ham or saucisson. I have to cut it up very small so it goes a long way. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">There’s not really been much sign of fighting or anything round here. The Germans play football on the bridge and stand around like they’re on holiday. Every day at 1 o’clock they have their lunch. They all go to a big barn just the other side of the Orne to eat together. They leave just two men in the box on the bridge in case it needs to be opened for a supply boat coming in for them from Ouisterham. Generally the two in the box play cards. Reverend Mother has changed the time of Mass. It used to be early in the morning but now it’s at 1.10 each day to make it easier for the villagers to attend. They each bring a cup or mug or bowl hidden in their clothing and on their way into mass Sister Margarita and I give everyone a ladle of soup. They take it into the chapel with them and drink it quickly whilst they pray. It’s a short service and once they are refreshed the villagers lick their vessels clean and hurry away before the Germans have finished their lunch. Reverend Mother says that if Germans come to visit us during the service I’m to waste all the rest of the soup and spill it on the steps by the chapel as if I’d tripped. That should cover the smell but it would be a sinful waste of soup. I told you she thinks of everything. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The people who come can’t really take soup home with them, because if they got caught it would give the game away. I was worried about Sébastien’s children so I carefully washed and dried one of my socks and filled it with rice, beans and lentils and squeezed it into his hand. He hid it inside his clothing. I know it was a dangerous thing to do but I was so worried. It wasn’t stealing as I fasted three days so I wasn’t eating and they could have my share. I got into trouble for losing my sock, I said it must have been when I was looking for herbs so I was sent to look for it, but of course it wasn’t there. As a penance I was made to get down on my knees and scrub the floor all the way from the kitchen to the chapel, it had got into a right state with peoples muddy feet and drips of soup. I felt very weak so I had to start eating again but I’d confided in Sister Thérèse and she fasted two days to get some more food for the children, Sébastien brought my sock back but I thought I might need it again so I hid it under my mattress. He brought me a stocking which used to belong to his wife. That was better for carrying food as it was thinner and easier to hide, His wife must have had very shapely legs. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Gliders have just landed in the field between the canal and the river. They came so quietly until the last minute when they made a bit of a racket as they landed. We’d told them that the Germans all went to their barn to sleep so there were only two of them on each bridge and they’d probably been drinking wine. The English took over both bridges just like that. It was amazing. There were more English than Germans and they’d had a lot to drink. The English set out over the Orne and the Germans all ran away. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The English must be hungry, so I got out the hidden pan of soup and Sister Margarita got out the bread she made this afternoon. I’ve just added some extra herbs and a bit more ham by way of a thankyou. The English soldiers are coming down here three at a time for soup and bread. They’ve got flying horses on their uniforms, like the Greek God Pegasus.. Just think Mamam, my soup fed the first British Soldiers to land on French soil. What an exciting night this is. Praise be Mary and Jesus. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(C) Jan Loxley Blount 19/06/2019 </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This piece of writing is entirely fiction and (whilst close to real events) IS NOT AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE historically or factually accurate. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">It began as a very short “Letter written on D Day” for an exercise during a session at Arts Depot Finchley on 17 June 2019. In the session we honoured the experiences of one of our members, who is a 94 year old D Day Veteran. The stimulus was a Son et Lumière at the Pegasus Bridge - with thanks also to two popular films and a much loved TV series.</span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-39947948896910045682018-09-11T04:21:00.003-07:002018-09-11T04:21:24.060-07:00Tonight at Westminster <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’m recovering from an infection and am due on a ferry to France tomorrow morning - so regretfully I probably won’t make this evenings meeting. I’m especially disappointed to miss the opportunity to catch up with the indomitable Jean Robinson.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">After a career in children’s services (including heading the nation’s response to what were then called ‘Latchkey Children’ for UK International Year of the Child), I belatedly married and gave birth to two extremely bright and talented, but medically and neurologically atypical children. One has Autism spectrum differences. Both have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and mast cell issues etc.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In 1999 a school reported us to social services because they feared that my son’s attendance figures would adversely affect their forthcoming OFSTED inspection. Despite my career history and the children’s medical conditions I was wrongly accused of MSbP and came close to losing both children. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We were saved by the late Dr Rudi Vis MP (Labour Finchley & Golders Green) and Cllr (now Lord) Monroe Palmer (Lib Dem Barnet) both of whom knew the family and took on Barnet Council and it’s social services department on our behalf.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">My husband and I were interviewed by Michael Rosen on John Peel’s ‘Home Truths’ and I sent the transcript to many parliamentarians, including Dr Liam Fox MP, then shadow health spokesperson. Dr Fox recognised the issue from his Scottish GP experience and asked Earl Freddie Howe to investigate. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In a speech in November 2002 Earl Howe said of my letter as forwarded to him by Liam Fox</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">“ .... two and a half years ago, as Opposition Health spokesman in the House of Lords, I received a letter out of the blue from a lady living in North London, and her letter told a disturbing story. Her son, who suffers from learning difficulties and various medical problems, had been taken a number of times to the family doctor without much positive result. All of a sudden, the family received a visit from the local social services department. Before they knew what was happening, social services were accusing the boy's mother of Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy and of perpetrating abuse on him by fabricating his illness. They threatened to put the boy on the child protection register. The boy's parents, who are highly educated professional people, got in touch with their local MP and with one of their local councillors. As a result of representations from those people, social services dropped their allegations against the mother. The boy has since been diagnosed as suffering from autism and assessed as being in need of special educational help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica-BoldOblique'; font-kerning: none; font-size: 12.00pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">That case opened up for me a parallel world of which I had previously no knowledge at all - namely the hundreds of people who are accused of child abuse in its many diverse forms and guises, and who are pursued and often hounded and persecuted by the authorities, but who steadfastly maintain their innocence.......”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Earl%20Howe%20to%20UCAFAA%209%2011%2002.doc">http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Earl%20Howe%20to%20UCAFAA%209%2011%2002.doc</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Between the Michael Rosen interview and the speech above, Earl Howe and Lord Tim Clement Jones had taken matters further and the issue was debated in the House of Lords on 17th October 2001. Key speakers included the Countess of Mar who as an ME sufferer is particularly concerned about false allegations relating to families with debilitating illness. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Lords%20Hansard%2017%2010%2001%20(Cut).doc">http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Lords%20Hansard%2017%2010%2001%20(Cut).doc</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">On January 25th 2004 the Sunday Times picked up my story and used it to illustrate the lack of care and concern by Margaret Hodge MP and Harriet Harman MP (I had known Harriet when I worked for UK IYC and previously through NCCL so she really should have listened to me). The story was taken up by the London Evening Standard the following day and was returned to by the Sunday Times the following week.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents.asp?action=expand&cat=16#16">http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents.asp?action=expand&cat=16#16<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">There was then a minor flurry of activity in Parliament with Tim Loughton MP using my name to berate Hodge and Harman. Earl Howe had informed many colleagues about the issue, amongst these were Dr Liam Fox, Caroline Spellman, Dominic Grieve, Tim Loughton. Until his untimely death we had the strong support of the former Attorney General Sir (later Lord) Nicholas Lyell with whom I’d worked in International Year of the Child. For the Lib Dems we had the support of Lord Tim Clement Jones, Baroness Shirley Williams and others. In Portcullis House, Baroness Williams made an impassioned speech to leaders of Social Services and major charities, but found them extremely defensive. The only Labour support was from Claire Curtis Thomas MP who was a friend and associate of Shirley Williams. The rest of the Labour Party were always too much on the defensive. This was a scandal which had been allowed to develop when they were in power and they therefore needed to defend their position. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The Tories promised action if they came to power but promptly forgot all about it. Earl Howe was given government responsibility and therefore claimed that he “couldn’t cross departmental boundaries”. In opposition he’d frequently referred to the Edmund Burke / John F Kennedy / John Stuart Mill quote </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing” </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">in power he broke all his promises and did nothing at all - neither did Liam Fox or Dominic Grieve. Tim Loughton changed his tune from acknowledging this to be a widespread problem to suggesting that it was a handful of isolated instances.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Tony Blair exacerbated the issue when he started the system of rewards for adoption but this has been massively escalated by the Tory Government.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The change from Statements of Special Educational Needs to EHCPs and associated directives on working together has massively increased the problem as many are working beyond their level of expertise, experience and training. I first wrote about this in February 2017 but am astounded by the rapid escalation since then. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://janloxley.blogspot.com/2017/02/for-conference-report.html">http://janloxley.blogspot.com/2017/02/for-conference-report.html<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black; font-size: 12pt;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I founded Parents Protecting Children UK in 2001 following the Lords Debate - initially as a website and now on Facebook with 2000 followers. Over the years I’ve written many articles, attended and spoken at many conferences, supported many families. I have much historical knowledge to share and vast amounts of case notes and information from families. I’m getting older and am delighted that Leigh Jackman and Fiightback are now allowing me to take more of a back seat in terms of family support, but I’m ready, willing and able to share my knowledge and to be involved in political and research initiatives. I hope all goes well tonight and that this is the beginning of the end. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I felt a sense of irony during the recent Irish visit of Pope Francis, when senior politicians and church people were falling over themselves to apologise for the past forced adoptions and transportations - whilst there is an ever growing sandal of today’s forced adoptions on false allegations of Fii and MSbP. Children are removed by the family courts, not because any actual or proven abuse has taken place, but because a group of over excited people got together in a secret meeting and fantasised that there may be a possibility of future emotional abuse. Whatever they were imagining would surely be far far far less than the actual abuse then inflicted on that child by being ripped from parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica-Oblique; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Our daughter, who was five at the time we were investigated, became fearful of being taken from me, and lost much of her independence; this has never been fully regained. I overheard two of her friends plotting how they would rescue her if she were taken into care. Jan Loxley Blount </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Jan's%20Church%20Times%20Article%2021%2002%2003%20(Cut).doc">http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Jan's%20Church%20Times%20Article%2021%2002%2003%20(Cut).doc</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley Blount </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">11 September 2018</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-82472974392016097662018-05-25T00:10:00.000-07:002018-05-25T00:10:34.307-07:00<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“Please don’t let me be misunderstood.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">A few nights ago my daughter & I attended a preview of “Return to the Forbidden Planet”. If you are in or near North London and looking for a good night out this comes with our recommendation! It’s on <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" style="-webkit-text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.258824); color: black;" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors="true">until 17 June</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/forbiddenplanet">http://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/forbiddenplanet</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Please don’t let me be misunderstood.” Sang Dr Prospero who was discovered with his daughter Miranda and their special friend Ariel, abandoned for 15 years on the planet D’Illyria. During this time Miranda had grown form a babe in arms to a feisty young women, ready for love. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Overseen by Angela Rippon, who appeared from time to time on the control screen of the spaceship Albatross, the talented young cast in John Plews exciting production for Ovation (Theatre Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate), romped their way through rhyming couplets from Shakespeare, strung together with two dozen, nostalgically popular rock standards of the 1950s and 60s.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">The plot was loosely based on the Tempest with additional material adapted from Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth (Is this a dragon which I see before me?), Hamlet, Richard the Third, Henry the Fifth, Twelfth Night and other well known plays. Amongst many other greats, the music included ‘Don’t let me be misunderstood’ (Animals), ‘It’s a Mans World’ (<a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://2" style="-webkit-text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.258824); color: black;" x-apple-data-detectors-result="2" x-apple-data-detectors-type="misc" x-apple-data-detectors="true">James Brown</a>), ‘Good Vibrations’ (Beach Boys), ‘Great Balls of Fire’ (<a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://3" style="-webkit-text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.258824); color: black;" x-apple-data-detectors-result="3" x-apple-data-detectors-type="misc" x-apple-data-detectors="true">Jerry Lee Lewis</a>), ‘Teenager in Love’ (Dion and the Belmont’s), ‘Shakin All Over’ (Johnny Kidd & the Pirates).</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">When the festivities were over, instead of the expected favourite which ends:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">“We are such stuff </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">As dreams are made on, and our little life </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Is rounded with a sleep.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">William Shakespeare The Tempest, Act 4</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Angela Rippon bade us farewell with Puck’s farewell </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">“If we shadows have offended, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Think but this, and all is mended,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">That you have but slumbered here</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">While these visions did appear.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">And this weak and idle theme,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">No more yielding but a dream,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Gentles, do not reprehend:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">If you pardon, we will mend:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">And, as I am an honest sort,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">If we have unearned luck</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">We will make amends ere long;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Else myself a liar call;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">So, good night unto you all.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/947.William_Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/894834"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;">A Midsummer Night's Dream</span></a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Act 5</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Then <a dir="ltr" href="x-apple-data-detectors://6" style="-webkit-text-decoration-color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.258824); color: #333333;" x-apple-data-detectors-result="6" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors="true">on Monday lunchtime</a> this week I caught the encore of “There’s Nothing Like a Dame” at the Phoenix in East Finchley. It was partly a BBC production so hopefully will reappear on TV. It has the feel good factor which would make it suitable to be scheduled as Christmas entertainment. If there’s an encore near you it’s well worth showing up in case it doesn’t make the small screen.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Four great theatrical Dames, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins on a rainy summer afternoon, at the house where Joan Plowright shared her married life with Laurence Oliver. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">They are all getting old and spoke of hearing aids and memory loss. They all spoke of being afraid of Sir Laurence! Judi Dench and Maggie Smith exchanged barbed comments and Judi spoke of being admitted to A&E where a young paramedic assumed that she should have a Carer until she told him somewhat crossly who she really was.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Their conversations were interrupted and illustrated by fascinating film clips from their lives. It was wonderful to see these great and aged ladies as feisty young things making their way into theatrical prominence. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">This filmed conversation ended with Dame Judi reciting the speech from the Tempest which I’d missed in the Gatehouse production - so I felt that in dramatic terms I’d got there in the end.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Our revels now are ended. These our actors,</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">As I foretold you, were all spirits and</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Are melted into air, into thin air: </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The solemn temples, the great globe itself, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">As dreams are made on, and our little life </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Is rounded with a sleep</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">How I wish this was true in my life. My intentions are good but I’m frequently misunderstood, misinterpreted and vilified. I’d love to round things off with peaceful sleep, but since my traumatic 2017, this usually eludes me. Chronic tiredness is leading to mistakes and accidents. </span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blount 25/05/2017</div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-80802232640032439732018-03-01T09:06:00.000-08:002018-03-01T09:06:28.262-08:00Two 2018 Suffrage Banners created in Finchley <div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Display"; font-size: 21.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why a banner for Henrietta Barnett? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Dame Henrietta Barnett wasn’t a suffragette or suffragist, so why did we choose her as the subject of our banner, in honour of 100 years of Women’s Suffrage?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">We are a group from ArtsDepot Finchley (<a href="https://www.artsdepot.co.uk/"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">https://www.artsdepot.co.uk/</span></a>) in the London Borough of Barnet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Many, but not all of us, belong to the Creative Circle for over 60s, based at ArtsDepot, but working inter-generationally with a teenage group at Chicken Shed, to devise a piece of theatre and art entitled “The Space Between Us” - inspired by a song on the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album (<a href="https://www.chickenshed.org.uk/news/the-space-between-us-project"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">https://www.chickenshed.org.uk/news/the-space-between-us-project</span></a>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">We talk and write together, but have never before created visual art or sewn together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Others, some younger, joined us for the banner making project, because they’d seen it advertised at ArtsDepot, locally or on the website of the 100 Banners Project. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Our banner making group was mostly women, but we also had two men, one in his 80s and one in his 90s. We divided into two groups, both men joined the same group of about six or seven, who decided to make a banner with a clear message - they chose “DEEDS NOT WORDS” - a slogan of the suffragette movement. They have cut and sewn letters, rosettes and other embellishments with historical origins. Keith Martin has written more about this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">The other seven or eight of us were asked to make something representing our area. As not all of us were from Finchley, our common area was the London Borough of Barnet. We considered the possibility of many different coloured or shaped silhouettes or emblems, to represent one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse areas of the U.K. We considered using the word BARNET in deep turquoise on white tiles as in Borough documents and signs. Then some of us got upset, because we have misgivings about our elected representatives who are known as ‘Easy Council’ (after the no frills airline). We felt that public libraries, which multiplied rapidly in the late 19th Century, (largely through philanthropic actions for mass education), would have been important to women who became suffragists and suffragettes. We therefore decided that we couldn’t promote a Borough who had recently downgraded or closed our libraries. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library</span></a>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">So we searched around for a local woman to depict on our banner. We tried to think of local suffragettes and suffragists. </span></div>
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<li style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Display"; font-size: 21.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Menlo-Regular; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">One suggestion was </span><span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Gladice Keevil Rickford </span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">1884 to 1959</span><span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">who lived with her family at Clitterhouse Farm in Cricklewood, until her marriage in Hendon in 1913. She was arrested with suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst for protesting outside the House of Commons in February 1908 and spent six weeks in Holloway Prison. In a speech in July 1908: "</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">Miss Gladys Keevil..... admitted that some of the doings of the Suffragettes had not been quite lady-like, but she pleaded that they had done nothing unwomanly.</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">"</span></li>
<li style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Display"; font-size: 21.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Menlo-Regular; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Another possibility might have been </span><span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Barbara Bodichon Ayrton-Gould</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;"> 1886 to 1950</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;"> who was a suffragist and later became Labour MP for Hendon. </span></li>
<li style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Display"; font-size: 21.5px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Menlo-Regular; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">If we’d had more time we might have found </span><span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Miss Muriel Matters</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">, who in 1909 "</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">sailed aloft from Hendon</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">” in the basket of a cigar-shaped balloon, dropping leaflets as she flew to Croydon via Westminster. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">But none of us knew much, if anything, about these women. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Then we alighted on </span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Dame Henrietta Barnett</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;"> who seemed perfect, as most of us knew at least a bit about her. Some had relatives or friends who’d attended the girls school named after her. Others had attended classes at her (sadly now defunct) Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, which had originally been for the education of working folk. I cannot find reference to her attitude to women’s suffrage, but in the early days she was probably too busy and by the time women got the vote she was possibly getting too old. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">, <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">DBE</span></a> (née </span><span style="font-family: '.SFUIDisplay-BoldItalic'; font-size: 21.50pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Rowland</span><span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Italic"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-style: italic;">; 4 May 1851 – 10 June 1936) was a notable English <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reformer"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">social reformer</span></a>, educationist, and author. She and her husband, <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Augustus_Barnett"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">Samuel Augustus Barnett</span></a>, founded the first "University Settlement" at <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_Hall"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">Toynbee Hall</span></a> (in the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_End_of_London"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">East End of London</span></a>) in 1884. They also worked to establish the model <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Garden_Suburb"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">Hampstead Garden Suburb</span></a> in the early 20th century. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Barnett"><span style="color: #e4af0a; font-size: 21.5pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Barnett</span></a>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Henrietta did much to support women and girls and to promote social equality and education. When living and working at Toynbee Hall, she and her husband worked tirelessly to support the poor mothers and families of the East End of London. Accounts of the Barnetts’ time there read like “Call the Midwife” before Jennifer Worth’s story began. She helped some of them to move to her dream of an integrated community in her Hampstead Garden Suburb. Some of the smaller flats and houses in her garden suburb were built for single women and widows, who would otherwise have been in difficult circumstances. She gave an apple or pear tree to all families taking up residence in Hampstead Garden Suburb, to promote gardening and self sufficiency. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">We knew enough about her to get started and planned to represent Henrietta as a tree, with its roots firmly placed in education (and libraries) for all. Initially we intended just five very uniform apples and pears. As we worked we got more ambitious and the numbers and diversity of apples, pears and leaves increased. They have beads, buttons, sequins, fabric scraps and stitching to make each one unique - like the residents of our multi faceted borough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">All manner of materials and reminiscences are included in our tree. On one occasion, someone who sewed professionally turned up and made us a beautiful golden pear, so we remembered (and some of us sang) the nursery rhyme which mentions this. One day I was alone, sewing leaves in the bar area at ArtsDepot and a young man on crutches was watching with interest. On the next occasion he brought me a shiny maple leaf sequin to attach and was keen to see where I put it. Another day, an artistic lady, with hands too old and arthritic to sew, really enjoyed arranging and rearranging the unattached apples and pears, she chose the position of the golden pear. Someone had suggested we bring fabric with significance, so I brought a tiny bit of my bedroom curtains (which have seen my children develop from babies to adults), it made a few leaves. Fabric from my daughter’s childhood made flowers below the tree.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">We made reference to the London Borough of Barnet by writing Henrietta’s name in the borough’s house style deep turquoise colour - so our banner does say BARNET, in capital letters, in the right colour - but it has an extra T for Henrietta BARNETT. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">It was a challenge to finish in time and on the final day some bits we’d have preferred to sew, had to be glued - but we did it and hope that others enjoy and draw some significance from it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Jan Loxley Blount 01 03 18</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">DEEDS NOT WORDS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">was a most appropriate slogan chosen by the Suffragette movement in and after 1918 to epitomise their campaign for women to get the vote in Great Britain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Their epic and heroic campaign, which included breaking unjust laws, was eventually successful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">The motto has resounded down the years and is and has been as relevant to subsequent activists as it was in 1918.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">In 1963 the annual CND Easter march from Aldermaston to London included members of the Committee of 100, among them Bertrand Russell who, unafraid and favouring direct action, inspired peace demonstrators by distributing a “Spies for Peace” leaflet and leaving the march to expose the secret details and whereabouts of Regional Seats of Government bunkers at a Berkshire RSG. Bertrand Russell was among those arrested by the police for his beliefs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">On Maunday Thursday 5 April 2012, coincidentally also at Easter, Barnet Council without notice closed Friern Barnet library, despite a vigorous local campaign to save it from closure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Five months later on 5 September 2012, a small group of squatters from Camden led by Peter Phoenix walked through an open window, reopened the library and invited the community to join them in restocking its shelves with donated books and reopening the library to the public.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">After a Crown Court case the squatters were evicted, but the magistrate allowed a stay of execution for Barnet Council to negotiate a lease with the local community to run the library.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">Six years later in 2018 they continue to perform this function.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay-Bold"; font-size: 21.5pt; font-weight: bold;">DEEDS NOT WORDS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIDisplay"; font-size: 21.5pt;">Keith Martin February 2018</span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-45836067542657353602018-02-28T14:32:00.003-08:002018-02-28T14:34:56.645-08:00RARE DISEASES DAY 28 February <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Today 28 February is RARE DISEASES DAY - in the couple of hours remaining and over the next few days - please spare a thought for the countless families who know that everything isn’t as it should be with the health or development of a child or siblings or a parent or parent and children - but they are fobbed off by supposed professionals with meaningless reassurances - and when they fight for proper diagnosis or services or SEN support in school they are accused of causing or imagining or fabricating the difficulties. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">This practice is becoming more and more common. Instead of getting vital referrals or support, vast numbers are dragged into erroneous and damaging child protection procedures and investigations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There was no money to sanction a referral for hospital investigations or for a laptop with special software or for a high tech wheelchair or for a part time classroom support worker or for a place in a specialist school or unit - but suddenly there’s endless money for solicitors and barristers and expert witnesses and court process and foster care placements. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Families are being temporarily or permanently separated on the flimsiest of untested evidence which wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny by a jury in a criminal court. Adoptive placements break down when the new parents realise that there’s something unusual and difficult to cope with about this child.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There’s increasing evidence that very many of these tragic stories begin with failed diagnosis of a rare illness or neurological condition in one or more generation of the family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When it’s parents as well as children who are affected - then it’s even more likely that social workers, teachers, ancillary workers, lawyers and judges will get it wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There’s a petition online to ask Jeremy Hunt to stop restricting referrals for hospital investigations - you might like to sign it but also you might like to write to him personally to explain how vital this is when a child or family may have an undiagnosed rare illness or neurological condition. </span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-2304286230168060592018-02-22T22:15:00.000-08:002018-02-22T22:15:12.888-08:00Learning Disability Parents - Mia (stage production) <div id="AppleMailSignature" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;">
<b>Mia </b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"when you are pregnant you want to do everything to be ready for your baby - but we were afraid to decorate the room because we didn't know if we'd be allowed to keep her"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I saw Mia - Daughters of Fortune - by Mind the Gap Theatre Company - last night at artsdepot Finchley - do try to see it in Waterloo or Deptford or somewhere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As Shakespeare said in Hamlet "The plays the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the king" - this should be on prime time TV and it should be compulsory viewing on every training course for government ministers, family court judges, barristers & solicitors and for every social worker in the land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the show the cast ask the audience - if a learning disabled person is having a baby who is the most important person?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">A GP receptionist</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">B social worker</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">C midwife</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">D mother to be</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The audience at artsdepot voted D but they were wrong - I'll bet readers of my Parents Protecting Children UK page could get the right answer! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There's a lot of use of film within the show - in one clip a very capable learning disabled mother said - "when you are pregnant you want to do everything to be ready for your baby - but we were afraid to decorate the room because we didn't know if we'd be allowed to keep her"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">They use the clever device of an onstage video camera, feeding back to the audience, to expose the gruelling agony of the 135 question parenting assessment - so many questions are irrelevant or class and income based and would never be asked of a 'nice middle class family' or to which a 'nice middle class family' would answer 'we have insurance or a policy with British Gas to cover that' - and yet not being able to do lots of difficult household things (which I'd personally never attempt) are recorded as failures for a poor or learning disabled family. By packing the assessment with ridiculous questions the social workers ensure that the percentage score for the poor or learning disabled family is kept low.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When asked if she knows how to sterilise bottles, the young pregnant woman says 'yes I remember from the last time' and you suddenly realise she already had a child, but it was taken away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One of the characters, in a very low key way, tells that one day she got a phone call - to tell her not to pick her child up from school -because social services had already collected the child and placed him with a foster family. She hadn't even been given the opportunity to say goodbye, she'd delivered her son to school and would never see him again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The free programme and accompanying written material - points out the extent to which advocacy groups believe that children being taken from learning disabled parents is under-reported.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mia is coming up again at Waterloo on 1&2 March and in Deptford on 14 March - I don't know about non london showings - they are from Bradford and already took it to the Edinburgh festival.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Daughters of Fortune - Mind the Gap</span></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 28px;">http://www.mind-the-gap.org.uk/projects/daughters-of-fortune/</span><br />
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-66850337081841368762018-02-03T17:01:00.001-08:002018-02-03T17:01:14.628-08:00To catch the conscience of the king. <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(66, 66, 66); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">There’s a massive recent increase in the number of families falsely accused of MSbP / FII - methinks “The devil hath power t’assume a pleasing shape.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica-BoldOblique'; font-kerning: none; font-size: 14.00pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2 William Shakespeare. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;">Having over the past four weeks been gripped by the Chanel 4 TV Series Kiri, starring Sarah Lancashire as Social Worker Miriam Grayson; I thought I’d explore some erroneous Child Protection stories from the angles of the various participants, hoping that seeing the ideas and actions of people portrayed here might catch the conscience of everyone involved in children’s work policy and practice today.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;">The adoptive mother in Kiri reminded me of someone who I wish I’d never known. I wanted to write this whilst I’d got the characterisation from the Kiri story in my head. The story is basically true, although in some instances time and events have been conflated. Additional characters, all conversations and thoughts are imagined.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">The Peripatetic Music Teacher’s Story.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I was hoping you’d be here, I need somebody to talk to. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Sorry I’m just going out again. I got off work early and just popped in to get my things to go to the gym.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Do you have to? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : I’m sure I’ve got time for a cuppa, shall I put the kettle on? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I was rather fancying sharing a nice soothing bottle of red wine. But if you’d rather not..</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Oh hang it, I’ll go to the gym in the morning, let’s open the vino and do a bit of catching up.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Are you sure that’s okay?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Yes, I wouldn’t have said so if it wasn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Thanks then.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : What’s spooked you? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : It was on the radio in the car. A new piece of organ music, surprisingly good. The organist knows what he’s doing, plays for some big occasions in the Abbey and St Paul’s, but it was who wrote the piece which gave me a shock.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Come on then spill the beans. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : His name won’t mean anything to you, it was before I knew you.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : OK you don’t have to keep reminding me that I’m not your first love, but I know I’m the best.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes of course you’re the best. The music was written by someone who I taught when he was a little boy. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : What’s so surprising about that? You’ve taught some very good young musicians and helped them on their way. Quite a few seem to have got into the Conservatoires or Oxbridge. You deserve recognition for all your work. Maybe he’ll put his thanks in a programme note when his music gets played in the Albert Hall or on the Southbank. Hey, we should be celebrating your success, not drowning our sorrows. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : That won’t happen. This one wasn’t any good at all and he had an idiotic mother who didn’t like me. I really don’t understand how he’s now writing music as good as that. Maybe someone is helping him. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Come off it, nobody would allow someone else to pass their work off as their own. If it’s got his name attached, you can bet your last dollar that he wrote it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : He must have been seven or eight, but very small and looked younger. Apparently he told the headteacher that he’d been listening to jazz on the seashore at a festival in France. It sounded as if his parents had let him stay up all hours. He wasn’t often enthusiastic about anything but came back dreaming of playing the saxophone. The headteacher didn’t want to be the one who discouraged him, so she said he could have a test to see if he could manage. We didn’t expect anything to come of it as he was asthmatic, the school had to look after his inhalers, he was unlikely to be able to blow hard enough. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : It sounds from what you said earlier, as if he passed the test after all. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes, it was strange really. He wouldn’t look directly at me and wasn’t very talkative, but to my amazement he could blow well and sustain it and even made quite a nice sound. To the headteacher’s regret I couldn’t refuse him a place. “You’re making trouble for yourself” she warned. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : So what was the problem? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Where do I start? The class teacher said “you’re going to have trouble teaching that one. He’s quite bright but he can’t read, so I’ve no idea how he’ll cope with music.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : That sounds difficult, what did you do? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Well the first few weeks he was just leaning the notes and got on quite well, if I said G he could play a G and if I asked for a B or a D he could play that too. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Promising.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : When I asked him how he’d got such big lungs to blow so hard, he told me that he could swim underwater, more than half way down the pool. That struck me as very dangerous for an asthmatic child, I wondered what his mother was thinking of? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Hang on a minute, you might be wrong there. In 2012 when we had the Olympics, I read about several of the British Olympic Swimmers having been asthmatic children. Apparently those were the ones who’d spent sufficient time in the water to develop the lungs you need for competitive sport. I thought that was fascinating. Some people think that swimming is the best way to overcome childhood asthma.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Are you questioning my teaching ability ? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : No I’m just wondering if that’s something you’d thought of? He’s probably about the same age as some of our medal winning swimmers and his mum might have heard it somewhere. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I don’t expect his mother would have known that. She was just interested in making a fuss, not in doing the right thing by her children.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : If you say so. This is getting interesting, what happened next.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I thought that despite everything, it was all going to be alright, so after a few weeks I found a book of easy tunes for saxophone and laboriously wrote out the letters, to make it easy for him.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : I don’t understand.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Pass me that bit of paper and I’ll show you. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">AABADCAABAEDAAAFDCBGGFDCD (she wrote)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : What’s on earth is that supposed to be? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Can’t you see? It’s something you know well, everybody knows it and I thought he’d soon pick it up.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Did he?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : No he didn’t. As I said, I’d taught him all the notes, well most of them, he wasn’t ready for the top A. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Top A, I can’t see a top A. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : It’s the third one, there where there are three As together. I thought it best for him to play it as another A natural. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : So what happened? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Nothing really, he stood there stupefied and then asked me if there was any music with lines? I told him he could progress to music when he’d leaned to read, but that for now I’d help him by writing the letters out. It was time to send him back to class, but I told him to practise at home. He looked really upset.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : More wine?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes thanks. The next week he’d got a piece of paper on which his mother had drawn a giant stave with a ruler and she’d marked all the notes I’d given him as crotchets with their tails going up, even if they were right at the top of the stave. There were no bar lines, so when he tried to play it there was no form or rhythm. It was ridiculous. I screwed the piece of paper into a ball and threw it in the direction of the bin. His face puckered as if he was going to cry, so I gave him another tune that I’d carefully written out in letters and sent him back to class. I told him to practice both tunes for next week. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : This is becoming a very long story.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Sorry, I’ll try to hurry up. He was off school the next week. The headteacher thought he was faking and showed me the note his mum had sent, saying he’d got cold on a school swimming trip and it had made him unwell. I told her that I thought he was supposed to be a good swimmer. When he came back she asked him about swimming and he said his mum takes him to a warm pool, but the school took him to a very cold pool and it upset his asthma and made him feel poorly. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : It was probably private. Some kids are just plain spoiled, when I was at Sherborne we had to play rugger in all weathers. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Anyway whilst he was off sick I got an envelope from his mother. It had a poorly printed booklet from the British Dyslexia Association about Music and Dyslexia and a letter from his mum, which she’d printed on her home computer in her attempt to look important.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : What did she have to say? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : She wanted us to read the booklet as it might help us understand why her son could read music when he couldn’t read words. I was furious and dashed off to the headteacher, she’d got the same booklet and a copy of the letter. We were both flabbergasted. Did this boy’s mum think she could teach us our jobs? The headteacher was a concert standard pianist and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. She could have had a glittering career as a musician, but had given it up because of her passion to teach children in school. I’d trained at the Royal College of Music and graduated with distinction. How dare this boy’s mother send us instructions on how to teach music.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : But it sounded like she was trying to tell you about her son’s Dyslexia.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : He had no formal diagnosis! He was just lazy and manipulative and had been over indulged by his mother, so he’d never learned to read. She got him books on tape to listen to, instead of making him get on with it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Well at least she got him to listen to stories, one of my dyslexic friends says she taught herself to read by playing the same taped story over and over again and following it on the page. Maybe that’s what this boy’s mum was hoping for? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I’m beginning to wonder who’s side you are on? Her letter was totally out of order. She said that although her son couldn’t read words on a page, he could read notes on a stave and had been able to do so for some considerable time. She said that when she transcribed my capital letters into a string of crotchets, he wasn’t happy because there were no time signatures or bar lines and because he thought that maybe some of the notes should be quavers or minims. She asked me to supply him with photocopies of the sheet music, or to tell her which book it was from so she could buy it.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : I’m on your side of course, but her request seems fairly reasonable to me, I couldn’t understand your AABADCA either. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : You haven’t even tried to figure the notes out.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Please put me out of my misery.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : DIY! And NO it wasn’t reasonable! It was an over fussy mother trying to interfere with her son’s education. The headteacher said she’d put her foot down and make sure nothing like this ever happened again. We put both of the leaflets about Dyslexia in the bin where they belonged. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Wasn’t his mother paying for your lessons? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes, but what’s that got to do with it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Well I just wondered if she thought she’d got a right to ask you to do it her way, if she was paying? You know the old English saying “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : I’m getting fed up of your siding with the mother. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Sorry I’ll try to keep quiet, here have a top up.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Thanks, it’s quite a nice wine. The headteacher wouldn’t have parents interfering in her school. Anyway we struggled on for another few weeks, getting nowhere. Then one day, before his lesson, I was in the cloakroom and through the window I overheard him in the playground. He was telling one of the lunchtime supervisors that someone had come to his house and taught him to play the “Pink Panther” on the saxophone. She said that she was a fan of Peter Sellers and asked if he’d play it for her. He asked her to hold the book for him and launched into it. I could hear other children singing along bedum, bedum, bedum bedum bedum...bedum..beduuuuum... they were probably dancing about, </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : (Laughing) That must have been quite a shock. What did you do?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Stop! It wasn’t funny at all! When he came in for his lesson I asked if he’d got a book of saxophone music? He said it was in the classroom, so I sent him to fetch it. I opened it at the “Pink Panther” and asked him to play. He looked a bit startled, but as soon as he started up his confidence came and he played it. I closed the book and put it in his bag and said there would be no more saxophone lessons in school. This was goodbye.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : How did he react? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : He just scurried away as quickly as he could. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : This is the last dregs of the wine.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : His mum wrote to the headteacher saying that learning the “Pink Panther” had been to boost his confidence and to show that, if he was given sheet music rather than a string of letters, he could actually play the saxophone. She asked if he could continue with school based lessons, so he could play in school concerts, as she was sure that he was now good enough and it would boost his confidence. (Getting cross) That was all she wanted, attention attention attention, “please let my son play in your school concert”. As if! The headteacher showed me the letter and then it followed the sheet of crotchets and the Dyslexia booklets into the bin. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : So that was the end of that?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Not really. A year or two later I heard he was in hospital with pneumonia. I ask you what mother doesn’t take her child to get antibiotics before an infection develops into pneumonia? She said she’d tried but the doctors wouldn’t listen to her, who’d believe that? After the pneumonia his school attendance was even poorer and his mother said he’d developed ME / CFS, but of course we didn’t believe her.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Poor kid. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : What for having such a ridiculous mother? Anyway, we were due an OFSTED inspection and the headteacher was concerned about his poor attendance. It might affect our statistics and our place in the league table. We were a small school, so it wasn’t possible to hide anyone in the returns. She was worried and sent the Education Welfare Officer to try to counsel him back to school, but his mum blocked that by insisting that he was ill. The EWO found that he’d got a little sister, hiding away in a different school. He contacted the other headteacher, the GP and Social Services and they had a full blown Child Protection Conference. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : That sounds like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : You are so predictable. I knew you’d say that. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : So I’ve obliged.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : In her evidence our headteacher said how difficult the boy’s mother was and how she’d upset me by questioning my professional judgement and sending me information about how to teach music to students with dyslexia. This had been insulting and attention seeking and there were big questions to be asked about the mother’s parenting style and ability. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : So what happened? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : They couidnt find any evidence of wrongdoing but they put both children on the Child Protection register. They thought that the mother was likely to inflict future emotional harm to them.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Wow! Did you ever see him and his mother again? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : As a matter of fact I did. One of my colleagues in the music service started up a small saxophone ensemble. They sometimes did a couple of numbers before a concert by our flagship Wind Orchestra. They actually got quite good and played some gigs at places like the Garden Museum during the London Jazz Festival. One day I realised, to my great amazement, that this same boy was one of their most important members. He could play not only the alto that I’d taught him, but also the soprano and the baritone. He ended up playing baritone sax in the Wind Orchestra. Quite amazing. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Was his mother at any of the concerts.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes, but she always pointedly avoided me.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : This boy sounds intriguing. Give me his name and let’s Google him. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : (Name given)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Oh my goodness, he’s got his own website. Not only has he had his stuff played on the radio, but also in lots of Cathedrals and important churches. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Really?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : Yes and I just looked at his CV. I thought you said he had learning difficulties?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : His mum said he was dyslexic, but some dyslexic people can be quite clever. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Man : He must be one of those. He got a First class degree and the Dean’s prize for an outstanding contribution to the performance arts. So I guess he must have learned to read and write words as well as music. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">Woman : Yes I guess so. Pass me the newspaper, lets see what’s on the television.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 14pt;">(C) Jan Loxley Blount 04/02/18</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-8855440476568679962018-02-03T15:45:00.003-08:002018-02-03T15:45:32.768-08:00Kiri Channel 4<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I’ve taken me some time to think about and digest the ending of the Channel 4 Drama KIRI, which finished on Wednesday. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I’m wondering if they are going to run it for a second series to include the trial, but doubt that as there wouldn’t be a sufficiently central role for Sarah Lancashire. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Interestingly my daughter hadn’t seen episodes 1,2 or 3 but sat with me to watch episode 4. Shortly after it began, she remarked that on the basis of what they’d have had to pay the actors (and as it clearly wasn’t Sarah Lancashire or Sue Johnston - Miriam or Celia Grayson), it must be either the adoptive dad or the natural grandad, Steve Mackintosh or Lucian Msamati - Jim Warner or Tobi Akindele. In her view they wouldn’t dare go for a ‘blame the blacks’ outcome, so it had to be the white adoptive father - she was of course correct. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I think the ending was quite clever. Society needs to realise that the rush to fostering and adoption isn’t always the best answer and is frequently the wrong answer. The reasons why people become foster or adoptive parents isn’t always altruism, it’s frequently financial because the remuneration can make a big difference to family income or even replace a salary. It’s also for other reasons, such as to fill an empty nest or as in this story to meet the need for a common love object (in order to cement cracked or broken family relationships) - maybe these people should be advised to get a pet, rather than jumped on to plug a gap created by the rush to remove vast numbers of children from their birth families. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">So the series ended with the finger of blame pointing to the black birth family, the innocent birth father about to go through a trial and probably a long jail sentence if not killed by other prisoners, prison guards or at his own hand. The white son of the adoptive family, having lost the sister he cared for, starting a sentence in a boarding school away from the mother he loves and bearing the secret knowledge that his father, semi accidentally, killed Kiri because she wanted to stop the adoption and return to her birth family - and he couldn’t face his wife’s reaction to that.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">The failure of Miriam, the caring but over stressed, drinking to cope, social worker with a dog to compensate for her dead son, played by Sarah Lancashire, maybe wasn’t in allowing a fateful unsupervised visit to Kiri's birth grandparents. Maybe her fault was in the very beginning, by not placing Kiri with her birth grandparents in a kinship care arrangement and instead creating the unrealistic dream of a black child playing permanent happy families with a nice middle class white family. </span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-74362150130596030822018-02-01T01:57:00.001-08:002018-02-01T01:57:08.452-08:00January 2018 films events etc <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">27/12/17</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">All 4 family </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">As usual John Plews Christmas production was fast, slick and exciting. Silly story of a tap dancing man from America who falls for the singer/dancer in the room below him in London - there’s a whole lot of stuff about mistaken identity and they all end up in Paris where it all comes right in the end. Wonderful songs. Top Hat, Puttin on the Ritz, Cheek to Cheek, Let’s face the Music & Dance. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">02/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Malcolm & me </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Phoenix Cinema</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 10.7px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Free screening </span></div>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #efefef; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 66.0px; padding: 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px; width: 60.0px;" valign="top">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">King Creole ***</span></div>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #efefef; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 66.0px; padding: 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px; width: 59.0px;" valign="top">
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Elvis Presley </span></div>
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<td colspan="8" style="background-color: #efefef; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 66.0px; padding: 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px; width: 267.0px;" valign="top">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Danny (Elvis) is trying to support his family by working before and after school - he discovers he has a real talent as a singer but gets dragged into criminality and falls for two women simultaneously- one innocent & one manipulative- it inevitably comes right in the end but there are some hairy moments - I hadn’t realised that Presley could act so well</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">16/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Alone</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Phoenix Cinema N2</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 10.7px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Free screening </span></div>
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<td colspan="2" style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 131.0px; padding: 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px; width: 60.0px;" valign="top">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">The Young Ones ***</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Sidney J Furie - shot at Elstree 1961</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Cliff Richard, Carol Grey, Robert Morley, the Shadows. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">I thought I must have seen this, but didn’t remember it at all. Cliff Richard plays Nicky Black who is a member of the youth club but also the son of a wealthy property tycoon. Not knowing that his son attends the youth club the father buys the site for redevelopment. The youth club mobilise to save their club by putting on a show to raise £1500 for a five year lease. Dad played by Robert Morley frustrates them at every point. Eventually of course father and son are reconciled, Nicky gets both the girl and a recording contract and the youth club is rebuilt. I remember huge rows with my parents when I wanted to listen to it’s music with my friend Joy Smith, but it really is surprisingly tame and I really can’t understand what all the fuss and anguish was about. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">17/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Malcolm & me</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Phoenix Cinema N2</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 10.7px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Paid senior prices </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Darkest Hour ****</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Joe Wright </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">2017</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Filmed at Wentworth Woodhouse, Manchester University Library, Westminster, Greenwich etc. </span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Gary Oldman Lily James Kristen Scott Thomas </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Churchill in WW2. Chamberlain has been hoping for a negotiated peace but Attlee has had enough and calls for a government of National Unity without Chamberlain. Some want Lord Halifax but there’s doubt that the people would accept a non elected leader, so it falls to Churchill supported by his wife and his secretary. There’s distrust of Churchill because of Gallipoli and King George is not pleased. However more by oratory than tactical ability, Churchill builds a movement in favour of fighting for our island. 4000 men are sacrificed at Calais, to create a diversion whilst the evacuation of Dunkirk takes place. Churchill wins over the king and parliament, Halifax comments that he’s taken the English language into battle. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">18/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Alone</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Southgate Beaumont </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Free</span></div>
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<td colspan="2" style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 494.0px; padding: 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px 4.0px; width: 60.0px;" valign="top">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Rambling with Rothenstein </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Dr Mark Banting</span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Georgian age stimulated a renaissance in British culture and creativity. Most of our art had been coming from Europe because those who could afford went on the Great European tour, bringing back art treasures. During the 1700s this changed. Fashion moved towards grand paintings on walls & ceilings - mimicking Italian baroque eg Greenwich eg Lanscroon in Southgate both Broomfield and Arnos.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">This time saw the rise of Thomas Hudson from Devon, William Hogarth, Joseph Wright of Derby and George Stubbs - leading to Gainsborough and Reynolds. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">There were moves by Thornhill and others towards an art academy in London, the first was Hogarth's enterprise - St Martins lane academy in a former chapel - sitting in the round painting nude models and retiring to old slaughters coffee house - social commentary in painting is new Rothenstein - picks out a painting of a polling station - </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Life was flourishing in Georgian England - 18th century mid 1750s - French and Germans looking to England as new enlightenment- coffee houses bohemian democracy- factories theatres showrooms - art and ideas </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Joseph Wright of Derby born to professional family - trained under Hudson in London and returned to Derby where he was painting the wealthy eg Joseph Arkwright factory owner - spinning frame in the portrait Other pictures showed the wealth and fabrics from industry rather than inheritance - moving into the gentry eg Joseph wright portrait of Joseph Arkwright jnr and family -Joseph wright also paints industrial scenes Iron forge in Derbyshire has references back to roman times there was money to be made in forging iron and a pride in making money to support the family </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">18th century culture- John Locke thinking of mind as dark space - eyes letting in information Science coming to the fore - age of discovery Masonic idea of divine architect Joseph wright becomes social historian of the time </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Sir George Stubbs was a self taught painter - he disappeared in 1750s to Lincolnshire village with Mary Spencer - over 18 months dissected a succession of horses painting in great detail - taught himself art of engraving in order to self publish the anatomy of the horse - practical book for artists After which he starts being commissioned to paint society figures with their horses and dogs. Charles 3rd duke of Richmond invited him to goodwood to paint horses - 1760 picture of Charlton Hunt - every dog is a portrait - also Gimcrack with John Pratt in Newmarket heath Whistlejacket for Wentworth Woodhouse. Stubbs dogs not human whereas Gainsborough dogs look lovingly at master Stubbs went on to paint zebras and rhinos </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">21/01/18 </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">With Helen </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Intimate Theatre Palmers Green </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Paid normal prices </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">The Little Mermaid </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">St Monica’s Players </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Helen & I met in horrid weather to see the annual Panto at the Intimate - we’ve gone there most years for the last 10 years or more, it’s part of our annual cycle. The Intimate has a fascinating history, it was used for early live theatre transmissions by the embryonic BBC, initially based at the nearby Alexandra Palace. The Latin sign above the stage charges us not to give way to evil. That’s a good motto for the BBC and any drama group. NE CEDE MALIS. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">St Monica’s Players always put on a good show and keep the tradition of pantomime alive. Dozens of corny fish jokes - mostly by an excellent crab who was last years snowman in Frozen / Frosted. I loved the Dame - they always do good dames - but I wasn’t thrilled with Mariel or her prince. They’d used the Disney story of the Little Mermaid rather than the one by Hans Christian Anderson and it’s all just a bit too easy. I got some lovely photos of Helen proving that our children never get too old for a good Panto. Next year they are going back to Panto roots with Snow White. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">23/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">With David </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Phoenix Cinema N2</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Reduced price as members.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">The Post *****</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Steven Spielberg </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Meryl Streep </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Tom Hanks et al </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">This is based on the true story of the publishing of the Pentagon Papers which demonstrated duplicity by the Washington administration about the Vietnam war, extending over several generations and presidents. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">It is a testament to press freedom and the role of a woman owner/editor, who was expected to do what the male financial protectors wanted, but stood up for what she believed in and was proved right. Brilliant film! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">This film relates closely to All the Presidents Men and Watergate. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">“I am honored beyond measure by this nomination for a film I love, a film that stands in defense of press freedom, and inclusion of women’s voices in the movement of history,” she said in a statement. “Proud of the film, and all her filmmakers. Thank you from a full heart.” Meryl Streep nominated for an Oscar. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">24/01/18</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Alone </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Atrium Royal Free Hospital Hampstead </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Free and with refreshments </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Symposium to recognise the career and achievements of Dr A David Webster immunologist who died last year.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Various immunologists from Royal Free Hospital, GOSH, Northwick Park etc and from Europe </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">I went to a symposium on immunology at the Royal Free Hospital last night - I’m not really sure how I got invited - it was a tribute to their wondrous Dr David Webster who died last year.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Dr Webster saw my son in about 1998/9, this appointment followed a series of investigations by Dr Webster’s colleagues and assistants. It was the most profound and useful appointment of my son’s entire life.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">What became apparent in last nights symposium was how far and how quickly immunology has moved on since its infancy in the 1940s & 1950s, through major developments in the 1970s and especially the links between immune dysfunction and genetic make up were first recognised in the 1990s. It’s a very different science today. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">One of the early slides in the symposium was of Dr Richard Asher in the early 1950s, ridiculing the idea of doctors sending patients for multiple tests (fishing exercises) when Asher appeared to be saying that he could work out what was wrong just by talking to the patient. The person showing the slide was demonstrating just how far science and the testing process has moved on.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">And yet - I thought - we are still stuck with overarching definitions and diagnoses by people such as Asher, which with the efflux of time and the advancement of science may just be plain wrong. They were based on ideas which are or maybe no longer recognised as true. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">U3A HGS at Alyth Synagogue </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">Alone </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">Free included in membership </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">The Failure of Modern Art </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">Colin Lomas </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">Colin wasn’t at his best - I’ve heard most of it before from him and heard him put it over better. Turner and the impressionists broke the long established rules - especially Van Gogh. He’s not a fan of Duchamp and Emin but suggests that some things intended as comments or jokes were taken too seriously and accorded a worth beyond their intention.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">He follows and relies heavily on the book by Will Gompertz : ‘what are You looking at’. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Vue Cinema North Finchley</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Alone using a free ticket voucher given to David. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">The Greatest Showman ***</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">(P.T. Barnum of Barnum & Bailey Circus)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Micheal Gracey, Laurence Mark et al</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Screenplay Jenny Biggs</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Filmed in studios in New York 2016</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams et al </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">A romanticised variation based on the story of the birth of the first circus - Barnum & Bailey in New York which closed whilst the film was being made.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 10pt;">Barnum was a poor tailor’s boy who fell in love with the daughter of one of the big houses which he served. He wooed and married her and spent his life driven to provide her with what she’d given up for him and more. He sets up a museum which becomes a popular theatre or circus. They gain respectability through an audience with Queen Victoria. Inevitably he goes too far and looses everything - his wife through jealousy of the manipulative singer Jenny Lind and his museum through a fire. He forms a partnership with Bailey and they set up a huge tent in the New York docklands, where all the artists with strange body aspects can be happy amidst trapeze artists and animals. I’d thought they shouldn’t go there on the ‘freak show’ aspect but they got away with it through sensitivity and spectacle. Not great but enjoyable and worth seeing. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Phoenix Cinema N2 </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Alone </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Free screening </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Brigadoon ***</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Filmed in New York by Vicente MineIli </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Screenplay & Music by </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Lerner & Lowe </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Gene Kelly et al</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 9pt;">Brigadoon. I remember my mum being very emotional about this story of a ‘risk all’, seemingly impossible love affair. I understood from her that it’s story related to her decision to marry my dad - so when The Phoenix offered it as part of their fortnightly programme of free films for vulnerable people, I was desperate to see it. It’s very dated, with lots of very obvious green screen usage. Some of the songs are beautiful. I was very surprised to see that the film was 1954, which is after my parents were married and I was born - I’d assumed, from her emotional response to an am dram production in my teenage years, that my mum had seen it before she married. However it was apparently only performed at that time on stage in New York and the London stage version was the month of her 1949 wedding. Maybe there was a book associated with the New York stage play? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgba(185, 185, 185, 0.0980392); font-size: 9pt;">Synopsis from IMDb:</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgba(185, 185, 185, 0.0980392); font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;"> Americans Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, on a hunting vacation in Scotland, discover a quaint and beautiful village, Brigadoon. Strangely, the village is not on any map, and soon Tommy and Jeff find out why: Brigadoon is an enchanted place. It appears once every hundred years for one day, then disappears back into the mists of time, to wake up to its next day a century hence. When Tommy falls in love with Fiona, a girl of the village, he realizes that she can never be part of his life back in America. Can he be part of hers in Brigadoon?</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-36303152254438354962018-01-01T02:14:00.003-08:002018-01-01T02:14:58.618-08:00New Year Greetings 2018<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">Peace and hope for 2018.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">I've not enjoyed 2017, we lost my mum, our house rabbit and two important friends. My family and I have struggled with our grief as well as a variety of medical and practical hassles. We lost a lot of garden produce, as we couldn't pick and process it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">The world and the country have been in turmoil. Trump is a danger to humanity and the planet. Brexit seems to be a disaster and because so much government time is taken up with it, nothing productive is happening in domestic legislation and scrutiny, things are falling apart and getting out of hand with nobody appearing to notice. Terrorism in London and Manchester and the Grenfell Tower fire really got to us. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">My Advent and Christmas letter is still unfinished so may follow as an Epiphany letter!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">The best bits were my daughter graduating with a first class BSc and joining the NHS, three premieres of my son's compositions, visiting Pozzuoli on the bay of Naples and especially the cave of the Cumaen Sybil, a few gentle autumnal days in Brittany and an unexpected Christmas Market in Worcester. Advent turned out to be a very rich and eventful journey. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">“It is an accepted custom to ring English Full Circle Bells over midnight, to ring out the old year and ring in the new. Sometimes the bells are rung half-muffled for the death of the old year, then the muffles are removed to ring without muffling to mark the birth of the new year.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring Out Wild Bells</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out the old, ring in the new,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring, happy bells, across the snow:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The year is going, let him go;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out the false, ring in the true.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out the grief that saps the mind,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">For those that here we see no more,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out the feud of rich and poor,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring in redress to all mankind.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out a slowly dying cause,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And ancient forms of party strife;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring in the nobler modes of life,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">With sweeter manners, purer laws.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out the want, the care, the sin,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The faithless coldness of the times;</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But ring the fuller minstrel in.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(Ring in the Christ that is to be)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-25235314670198788082017-11-22T00:39:00.003-08:002017-11-22T00:39:45.574-08:00Providing for an SEN Child or fixing a hole in the roof?? <br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Schools need children with complex needs like they need a hole in the roof, the consequences are potentially equally costly. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">In some instances there appears to be evidence that Child Protection procedures are used to avoid SEN expenditure. </span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">At the Westminster SEND Conference on 09 11 17, the OFSTED representative confirmed that they look at the issue of SEN Tribunal appeals and outcomes, including interviewing some parents about their experiences. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">However it doesn’t seem that they are able to access and interview those families who never get as far as Tribunal.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Some children are not assessed for SEND and fail to access resources and crucial support, either because they are not noticed (e.g. a painfully shy girl with unrecognised ADD or undiagnosed autism) or because their parents are regarded as “over anxious” and the system blames them for bad parenting, rather than investigating their children’s difficulties. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Unwarranted Child Protection Proceedings may be invoked as a means of stopping a special needs family requesting assessments, or going to Tribunal, on the basis that the family are exhibiting supposedly rare signs of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, (now known as Fictitious and Induced Illness) based on the outmoded Freudian assumption that children’s illnesses are family generated, especially as espoused by Bruno Bettelheim who spoke of ‘Refrigerator Mothers’. These discredited theories, which do not take into account recent increases in understanding of Autism Spectrum conditions and collagen deficiency, appear to be making a comeback as a means of combatting parental requests for SEN support. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Some Assessments or support ordered by Tribunals are not implemented, because the child protection system overrides SEN Proceedings, making it possible for others (who have investigated the child’s needs less thoroughly than the SEN Tribunal decision makers) to assert that such assessments or provision could be harmful to the child.</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Schools are wary of parents who are intent on insisting on assessments or additional resources for their children. At particular risk are families with tenacious undiagnosed autistic mothers, who are perceived as having poor social skills when dealing with education and health professionals.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Sources from which information about children with additional needs and their families is gleaned may well include those with no SEN knowledge, but who’ve seen adverts for children’s charities which regularly confuse symptoms of autism or illness with signs of abuse. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The EHCP process (and associated directives on working together) give exaggerated voice to people who’s training and experience lacks knowledge of disabling medical or neurological conditions. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Playground Supervisors may misreport autism spectrum children, who have short temper fuses or are painfully shy and those with collagen deficiencies who bruise easily, as abused children because that’s what the TV told them to think. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">When a headteacher hears of a child protection concern, a process is triggered without further common sense review. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Observations are not considered by anyone who actually knows the child or family, because safeguarding policy is not conducive to inquisitorial investigation. The report is escalated upwards to people with no knowledge of the child or family and immediately becomes adversarial with an untried assumption of parental guilt. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">These referrals prevent many proper applications for SEN support and instead plunge vulnerable families into damaging CP investigations reminiscent of the actions of the House Committee on un-American Activities, which in his 1954 play the Crucible, Arthur Miller described as being analogous to the 17th Century Salem Witch Hunts. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">I would encourage everyone who is concerned about this situation to read this excellent report by Special Needs Jungle.<a href="https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/does-child-protection-guidance-discriminate-against-disabled-children/?subscribe=success#543"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/does-child-protection-guidance-discriminate-against-disabled-children/?subscribe=success#543</span></a></span></li>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley Blount TCert., Diploma in Child Development. <a href="mailto:parentsprotectingchildren@live.co.uk"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 128); color: navy; font-size: 12pt;">parentsprotectingchildren@live.co.uk</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/PPPC.UK/">https://www.facebook.com/PPPC.UK/</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley advised Parliament on 'Latch Key Provision' during 'International Year of the Child'. Coming late to motherhood, she was wrongly accused of fabricating her children’s medical and neurological difficulties and formed Parents Protecting Children UK, which has over 1600 followers on Facebook and serves families with additional needs, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(8, 41, 56); color: #082938; font-size: 12pt;">caught up in the Child Protection system</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-60124978410360958212017-11-04T05:41:00.001-07:002017-11-04T05:41:15.281-07:00Witch hunting at Westminster <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I don’t like witchunts of whatever kind for whatever reason - they always bring out the worst in all concerned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There’s always been sleaze and sexual innuendo at Westminster and in politics more widely. I certainly encountered it in my campaigning days, when I was a lot younger and slimmer than I am now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">But because social mores have now moved on (improved) are we now in a historic withchunt intent on destroying the lives and reputations of people who in other ways have done good work? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There are undoubtedly people who have brought about social change for good who, in the 80s, when societal norms were very different, had difficulties keeping their hands and other bodily parts to themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I was interested in this article from today’s Times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">« Dustin Hoffman, now 80, reportedly made crude remarks to a teenage intern in 1985 and pinched Katharine Ross’s bottom filming The Graduate. Must we now shelve Midnight Cowboy and Marathon Man? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Maybe a truth and reconciliation committee is required where men can confess past misdemeanours and then be judged against the sexual mores of the time and their reformed behaviour. « </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Roundheads have routed the randy old fools | Comment | The Times & The Sunday Times</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/roundheads-have-routed-the-randy-old-fools-7q5dzfts6</span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-55988492861807575072017-11-04T03:30:00.002-07:002017-11-04T03:30:56.213-07:00Fireworks Night 2017 (Alexandra Palace)<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We’d planned to be in Normandy for this years Fête de l’assomption but it wasn’t to be, I missed the fireworks so was determined to see really good ones in London for Guy Fawkes night. My son therefore got tickets for us to go to Alexandra Palace on Friday 3rd November and we weren’t disappointed. We avoided food costs and queues and reminded ourselves of our French experiences by taking little bottles of matin légère milk and natural sausages wrapped in gluten free brioche.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">They had used pallets to carefully and professionally build two enormous bonfires, one for Friday, and a second for the repeat event on Saturday. The Friday one had what appeared to be a Roman temple surmounted by a spaceship on top, but I think it was probably meant to be an A for Alexandra on top of a Palace. Maybe they’d put another on the Saturday one next day? It was fascinating watching them light it. They poured flammable liquid around specific areas of the lower parts then four of them entered the fire area with long sticks lighted at one end - presumably the sticks were bound by fabric soaked in something which burned appropriately. They lit the pile in four places, then moved round and lit it again between the little blazes, then moved left again to make 12 and then 16. All perfectly balanced so it wouldn’t fall as it burned. They then lit along the top of some long timber beams and lined them up on opposite sides of the fire, pushing them into what must have been a tunnel underneath with unlit beams, they threw their lighting sticks onto the fire and retired to join the crowd at a safe distance. Soon the most amazing and dramatic swirl of smoke rose from the centre of the fire, completely hiding the top of the pile. Then, suddenly the flames broke through and rose into the enormous plume of smoke. The sky lit up and the heat poured out. We had to move back three or four meters away from our fence side places, as it was simply too hot to stay. It was a phenomenal fire, so carefully orchestrated and controlled, I've never seen one like it or realised there was such an art to fire building. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Next we watched a bevvy of young women who were inside a giant pumpkin or cauldron on wheels, surmounted by a circus style trapeze which emitted coloured smoke and occasional flames. In turn and in pairs, they stripped to scant costumes and performed on the trapeze. When a pair came off their sisters were ready with warm clothing to wrap around them. Some of the team pushed the structure around the field so others got a view. It must have been very heavy and difficult to move on such rough ground.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Every few minutes bright oval flames jumped into the air from a series of towers. They reminded me of flames from the furnaces of Sheffield steel works when I visited on youth club trips or worked there to earn money in college holidays. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Eventually the much awaited procession came past led by an enormous Japanese figure surrounded by maidens with parasols in a scene reminiscent of the Mikado. It was followed by several floats which I couldn’t quite see and a marching band of enthusiastic young drummers, who must have been exhausted as the procession had been going for at least an hour before it got to us. Then some more low floats and the biggest float which was a small lorry with a dragons head and tail, it’s belly filled with a rock band and dancers. Bringing up the rear and mounted on the roof of a dark vehicle was a giant metal bird with bright shining eyes and a head which moved from side to side, this animated structure reminded me of the annual procession of lighted boats on the Derwent at Matlock Bath.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Before the procession had passed, the laser show began. Lights of many colours skittering amongst the trees, into the sky and across the front of the parts of the palace building which we could see. From a better vantage point they must have been even more dramatic. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The young women with the mobile trapeze did another show, with occasional bursts from the lasers and bursts of flame from three nearby towers and the top of their trapeze. Meanwhile the flames of the bonfire continued to dance. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">All of this would have been a very good evenings entertainment , but the best was yet to come. Fireworks from three points shooting into the sky, accompanied by a prerecorded and very varied musical track and at times enhanced by a frenzy of dancing lasers. Twenty minutes of orgasmic indulgence. Colours, shapes, movement, shells shooting into shells, indescribable. It stopped and then began again from another single source further to the east which added another three or four minutes - less spectacular but very pretty. At the end my son came to find me and I found speech slow to come as I was still enrapt by the experience. Hitherto my best fireworks memory was in Bagnoles de l’ Orne but I think this surpassed it.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We returned to the fire which had continued to burn during the evenings festivities, it was now surrounded by a perfect ring of ash. The people who had lit it climbed up onto the top of Saturday’s pile to enjoy the scene. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">We walked slowly up the hill and sat to talk on a bench. It had been a magical evening. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley Blount 04/11/17</span></div>
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Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-88497802767855783362017-06-25T10:49:00.003-07:002017-06-25T10:49:40.106-07:00Always question WHY a young person is in the care system. For conference report :<br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13pt;">In the sessions on fostering, adoption and leaving care, chaired by the Earl of Listowel, the only speaker who even hinted that some of these children </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(8, 41, 56); color: #082938; font-size: 13pt;">and young people shouldn't</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13pt;"> be in the care system, was the solicitor Naomi Angell (Osborne's) who mentioned several contested cases including a Judicial Review. Solicitor William Bache (G T Stewart) has been involved in a number of family law cases involving misunderstanding and misinformation. It was recently reported by BBC, ITN and elsewhere that his client Carla Andrews was reunited with her daughter after 8 months, <a href="http://bbc.in/2s4H0FW"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 128); color: navy; font-size: 13pt;">http://bbc.in/2s4H0FW</span></a> Paul Storey QC has spoken of a final adoption hearing for children thought to be injured by their parents. Storey observed the birth father contorting his fingers in a manner impossible for someone with normal collagen and sought an adjournment for the family to be tested for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Tests proved positive and the children were returned to their birth family. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13pt;">Schools are under pressures to increase attendance and reduce spending. The replacement of Statements of Special Educational Need with Education Health & Care Plans and associated directives on "working together", mean that more professional and ancillary workers are operating beyond their sphere of training, knowledge and experience. They are therefore unprepared to identify or recognise such things as Autism Conditions, collagen deficiency problems (e.g. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) or childhood ME/CFS. When parents of a neurologically different or medically compromised child with poor attendance, demand additional resources to support their child in school, they are often viewed with suspicion and hostility. Other services are called in, but well-intended moves towards working together may be having unforeseen negative consequences. Risk assessments can be misinterpreted and lead to section 47 Child Protection proceedings, with nobody stopping to take stock and consider if this is an appropriate course of action. Once negative comments, views and reports are on file, it is difficult for parents to refute these documents which grow in volume and severity. The psychologist Lisa Blakemore-Brown referred to this as being unable to shake off 'the first gossamer breath of suspicion'. <a href="http://bit.ly/2rlNcGS"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">http://bit.ly/2rlNcGS</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13pt;">There may be many children in care homes, foster families or who have been adopted, who (with minimal support) could and should have remained with their birth families. I know a family in which the mother was ill when the child was nearing the end of primary school, they needed short term practical help. Instead the child was sent for a psychiatric assessment, which missed the (later diagnosed) Asperger's Syndrome and misinterpreted pocketing chocolate biscuits from the waiting room as a sign of emotional deprivation (rather than poverty and liking chocolate). The mother was assessed whilst recuperating from major surgery; her hormonal upheaval was mistaken for ongoing psychiatric illness. The child was ripped from home, local support and a safe community to be placed with a drug-using father on a rough estate. This was followed by a succession of unsatisfactory out of area foster placements and as a last resort a children's home in which the young person picked up a drug habit. It took the entire time from year 7 to GCSE failure to reunite this family. Care leaver support is ineffective or absent and the loving mother is left wondering where to turn.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 13pt;">I think this example and the ones cited above of young children with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome being removed from their families, demonstrate that any consideration of the care system needs to look in more detail as to why some children and young people enter the care system in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley Blount TCert., Diploma in Child Development. <a href="mailto:parentsprotectingchildren@live.co.uk"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 128); color: navy; font-size: 12pt;">parentsprotectingchildren@live.co.uk</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/PPPC.UK/">https://www.facebook.com/PPPC.UK/</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Jan Loxley had a pioneering career in children's play, including advising Parliament on 'Latch Key Provision' during 'International Year of the Child'. She came late to motherhood and in </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(8, 41, 56); color: #082938; font-size: 12pt;">1999</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> was wrongly accused of fabricating (now diagnosed) symptoms of neurological and physiological difficulties in her children. Their story led to the 17/10/01 House of Lords Debate on False and Misleading Accusations of Child Abuse. Parents Protecting Children UK was formed to serve families with additional educational, medical, physical, neurological, social and emotional needs </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(8, 41, 56); color: #082938; font-size: 12pt;">who, </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">because of professional failure to understand the complexities of their situation,</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(8, 41, 56); color: #082938; font-size: 12pt;"> have been caught up in the Child Protection system</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">. Our Facebook community has almost 1500 followers. We work with False Allegations Support Organisation, Parents Against Injustice Network, condition based organisations and family support groups.</span></div>
<br />Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4098894332305812345.post-77701966197368352422017-06-25T10:47:00.003-07:002017-06-25T10:47:18.654-07:00Bearing False Witness - personal perspectives. <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness - a personal observation. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">The church group who sent me into a destabilising wave of post traumatic shock, by raising 17 year old matters to deny me membership of a discussion group, are about to discuss the Ten Commandments. Here are the thoughts I would share if I was invited!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">"</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold;">Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">" is the ninth of the Ten Commandments which are widely understood as moral imperatives by legal, Jewish, Catholic and Post- Reformation scholars.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">" You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. " Exodus 23:1-2</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_bear_false_witness_against_thy_neighbour">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_bear_false_witness_against_thy_neighbour</a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Whatever the views which officials of St Mary's school and church expressed and reported about our family around the time of the Millennium - it is apparent that they were mistaken, misled or just plain wrong and that their witness against us was false witness. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 21pt;">Our family were wounded and (because of the rumours spread about us) our children were bullied - it is hardly surprising that we were angry and felt betrayed by many in the church community. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">The now retired Bishop of Edmonton, the Rt Rev Peter Wheatley, apologised to our family for believing the headteacher and the acting priest in charge without undertaking his own proper investigations. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Our children have both graduated with first class honours and are building interesting careers. It is now known that what appeared as symptoms of chronic fatigue in both children were the effects of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome - and that I too have the heritable condition of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. It is also known that our family is affected by Autism Spectrum Differences & Difficulties; our son has a confirmed diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 21pt;">Awareness is growing of the overlap between Autism Spectrum Conditions and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">It is apparent that families with members on the Autism Spectrum are frequently victims of misunderstanding and false accusations of child abuse. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/26/autism-hidden-pool-of-undiagnosed-mothers-with-condition-emerging"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 122, 255); color: #007aff; font-size: 20pt;">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/26/autism-hidden-pool-of-undiagnosed-mothers-with-condition-emerging</span></a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 122, 255); font-size: 20pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Our family story led directly to a House of Lords Debate : Lords Hansard 17 Oct 2001 Column 645 and following. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Earl Howe</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">rose to call attention to the damage caused to families by false accusations of child abuse; and to move for Papers.... I come now to the second major trigger for false accusations that particularly concerns me, and that is the condition known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy or MSBP.... The danger of such a broad spectrum of behaviour being packaged into a single portmanteau term, is that in the hands of those who are not sufficiently trained or experienced to know better, it is a label that is all too easily applied without due care. <a href="http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Lords%20Hansard%2017%2010%2001%20(Cut).doc"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff; font-size: 20pt;">http://www.parents-protecting-children.org.uk/documents/Lords%20Hansard%2017%2010%2001%20(Cut).doc</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">In the wake of the Lords debate and with support which included St Margaret's URC Church, I founded the organisation Parents Protecting Children UK which now has an active core community and a Facebook following of almost 1500. Parents Protecting Children UK has contributed to government and other enquiries, research and conferences. We have supported numerous families with disability and chronic illness who have been wrongfully drawn into child protection matters. Several families have written to thank me for helping them be reunited with their children who, because of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, were in danger of being forced into state care or taken for adoption. <a href="https://m.facebook.com/PPPC.UK"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #007aff; font-size: 20pt;">https://m.facebook.com/PPPC.UK</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">I hope that nobody in the community of St Mary's will ever again bear witness in a situation where they don't have sufficient information or knowledge to understand the situation they are speaking about. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">I hope for no further comments / actions / rumours about our family. Apologies would of course be appreciated. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 21pt;">" I think we should adopt a maxim in life that everyone we meet is unique, everyone we meet knows something we don't know, is slightly different to us in some ways. Don't see them as a threat, don't see them as the enemy, see them as a source of knowledge, a source of friendship, and a source of inspiration " Jeremy Corbyn Glastonbury 2017</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">"Nothing about us, without us, is for us." </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">("</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold;">Nihil de nobis, sine nobis</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">")</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 20pt;">Jan Loxley Blount, 25/06/2017</span></div>
Jan Loxley Blounthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16600000593433175184noreply@blogger.com0