A Lad from Featherstone

St Mary’s Church, Wyndham Place, York Street London W1. St Mary's, Bryanston Square was built as one of the Commissioners' churches in 1823–1824 and was designed by Robert Smirke to seal the vista from the lower end of Bryanston Square.[3] It is a brick building, with a rounded stone portico, round tower and small dome, topped by cross. It is listed in the top protective and recognition category, grade I. [Wikipedia] Tuesday 17th December 2017: 1400 hours . Colin is in St Mary’s Church basement, a large open space divided into six areas, each with two firm and upright sofas, more like a bench chair. wood parquet floor, white satinwood walls, all very clean and disinfected. Autumn 1985 . Colin had changed jobs two years earlier; he had been working for Donaldson’s Chartered Surveyors in their Jermyn Street offices, Fortnum & Masons for lunch, RAC (Royal Automobile Club) gym three lunchtimes per week and the late night snooker that followed. He specialised in managing retail

   Slam was just a younger version of Lambo, Colin's alter ego. Do you ever find yourself emotionally reacting to a song, or some music that doesn't connect to the present? It has just happened; Bonobo’s First Fires, from his North Borders album. I know it relates to a past event, but unable to locate it. It’s good to cry. This morning Sunday 13th December 2020, by chance my thirteenth post, Lonnie Donagon, ‘My old mans a dustman’ is playing. I chose an old playlist and imagine the dustbin man, the rag-and-bone man, climbing on a truck at 6am to pull peas and life in Featherstone 1970 style.  Live and Let Die, by Wings now distracting me from moving to the next paragraph and beyond. This is not easy, and the tears are flowing. The song changes … ‘Take a look in the mirror, and what do you see? Do you see it clearer, or are you deceived… Don't ask my opinion, don't ask me to lie, then beg for forgiveness for making you cry. I'm only human, I make mistakes, I'm on

  Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger than the person being mentored, but they must have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. Interaction with an expert may also be necessary to gain proficiency with cultural tools. Mentorship experience and relationship structure affect the "amount of psychosocial support, career guidance, role modeling and communication that occurs in the mentoring relationships in which the protégés and mentors engaged". [Wikipedia] From the moment we arrive on this planet, a mentor is needed. Our parents’ mentor us throughout our early years but ... Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that intelligence changes as children grow. A child's cognitive development is not just ab

  Jeremy Pfeffer  Consultant Psychiatrist [retired]  Specialised in; depression, stress anxiety … For two years, covering my 40th birthday, I would climb into my car 0730 every Wednesday and drive; home was 302 Liverpool road, Islington, London, reverse into the road, right turn, Offord Road, HMP Pentonville with high brick walls to my right, turn left into Caledonian road, a hump in the road as I cross the Regents canal, past the massage parlour (that's for later), swing right into the Kings Cross one way system and onto Euston road. Kings Cross, St Pancreas - in its Gothic revival splendour - stations to my right. On my left, many university and public buildings - the very exam rooms I inhabited five years earlier - as both sides of my gaze merge into the underpass by Euston Square tube station, I emerge to see Great Portland Street station on my left, Regents Park to my right, Regent Street on my left with its classical Regency façade leading south towards Oxford Street. I am on

  Normanton High School for Girls, now has boys. The shock came on Friday 30th December 1965. Colin took his grammar school entrance exam early December and nothing has been heard.  He has spent a very unhappy Christmas, feeling lost, no interest in rugby and just fed up as back to North Featherstone secondary modern next week.  He is talking to himself, I listen, ‘You are a total idiot, what made you write some fantasy bollocks about a boat trip to London, anyone with half a brain, which clearly you don’t have, will see you made the whole lot up'. The horror, of throwing away his golden chance hit’s Colin as the clunk sound of brass on brass rattles the letter box; end of hallway bottom of stairs to right, babysitter room to left,  a letter lands on the floor, mum and I stare at it, Mr C W Lambert, 17 Alexander Road, Featherstone, is typed on the front,  my heart is racing,  preparing myself for the, ‘sorry young man but you didn’t get selected’ letter and then … Woolworths, Ponte

  The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000 square feet (92,000 m2) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m). It was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral. [Wikipedia] It burnt down, and was replaced with … “Emotional Intelligence (EI), emotional leadership (EL), emotional quotient (EQ) and emotional intelligence quotient (EIQ), is the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to a