The young lady in question has limited literacy skills, and is quite desperate to understand more about the disease and, above all, to be able to have some support from others who have been through what she is presently enduring.

 Leigh’s Disease, otherwise known as Leigh’s Syndrome, is an incurable disease affecting the central nervous system and causing progressive degeneration of motor function, leading to certain death. Fortunately, Leigh’s Disease is rare, affecting just a very small section of the population.

 The saddest thing about Leigh’s Disease, is that its victims are nearly always infants aged between three months and two years. Once a child is diagnosed, life expectancy can vary between about two and seven years, with a very few infants surviving until their mid-teenage years. Although special diet can prolong life expectancy, there is to date no cure.

 The disease is genetic in nature and can be passed by both male and female parents, who may carry the rogue DNA without any prior knowledge or incidence of the disease within their immediate families. Should both parents be carriers of the disease, there is a 25 percent chance of offspring being affected by the disease.

 If you or anyone you know is affected by Leigh’s Syndrome, or can assist in identifying a support network or information source, please contact me and I will pass the relevant information to the baby’s mother. If you are well-connected, please take just a few minutes to relay this request to anyone you know who may be able to help.

 To endure the pain of having a child diagnosed with such a disease is dreadful in itself. To be in the dual position of being unable to communicate easily with others is unimaginable.

 Please help in any way you can. Thank You.

 Seven, however, seems a little early.  It got me thinking about what career advice and work-based training may lead to in our schools of the future.  Come with me, if you will, on a little journey to a school (Let’s call it Paddington Road Junior).  The year is 2019 and the head is entertaining the new Education/Business Secretary and his entourage on a tour of various classes…..

 “Yes, Lord Milliband.  This is our biggest class, though we do try hard to keep the numbers of pupils down to double figures as best we can.”    

 “What class is it?  This is train driving stage one.”

 “Mind your footing here in the dark sir.”

  “Why is it dark?  Today’s lesson is about driving underground trains – we find that very popular at present.”

 “Yes it’s partly the excitement of the unknown, but possibly more to do with the RMT now that Bob Crow has been made life president – two extra weeks’ holiday each year is a big incentive.”

 “Yes sir, I do understand that industrial action is not part of the curriculum, but your department’s guidelines insist that we expose the children to all aspects of media coverage of their chosen careers..”

 “Next door.  Yes of course Minister….”

 “The poor child who has just vomited was unable to cope with the gravity force of the rotation unit.  We find this happens rather a lot I’m afraid, but if they will insist on enrolling for astronaut training…well we just have to respect their wishes – Your Equality of Opportunity and Human Rights legislation has ensured that, sir.”

 “No sir, it’s true we don’t have too many girls in either the engine drivers or astronaut’s classes.  It’s not that they are not given every opportunity and encouragement…”

 “At this age, sir, we find our girls are often more interested in the pop idol or fashion model career courses, and I have to say we have the same difficulty in reverse.  We recruit very few of the boys to these classes.”

 “Yes, your lordship.  These girls are on the course.  They are taking their lunch break.”

 “You’re absolutely right, sir, they aren’t eating.  We do of course encourage good nutrition, but these girls have their hearts set on their career path and we have to put the children’s wishes first.  We do insist they drink plenty of water, though.

 “The itinerary for this-afternoon is to visit the Formula One racing driver’s track, weather permitting and then a quick tour round the flight simulator followed by a visit to the TV Studio, where Carol Vorderman is giving a talk about how to make money out of just about everything you do.”

 “Maths and English departments?  Why no, sir.  We simply can’t provide the funding any more.”

 Does she back this statement up with any evidence?  No.  She makes play of the fact that Gately and his partner, Andrew Coles, had invited a Bulgarian student back to their hotel and infers, without saying so directly, that the purpose of this invitation was sexual in nature, Cowles and the Bulgarian sharing a bedroom while Gately retired to a sofa in another room.

 Whether there is truth in this allegation or not is irrelevant, for whatever activity may or may not have taken place it would seem that Gately was not a part of it.  As a writer I have a fairly broad knowledge base and a pretty vivid imagination, but try as I may I cannot find any correlation between the death of a man alone on a sofa and the activities (of whatever nature) of two men in another room.

 It seems to me that Jan Moir has exploited the tragic death of a young man to vent her own poisonous prejudices.  It is quite possible that the full detail of Gately’s untimely death were, as Moir says, “sugar coated” – do we really want or need to know the nature of any private activity in the hours leading up to the death?  Unless she can come up with a well-argued and substantial case that some specific activity or other was or could have been directly responsible for the pulmonary oedema which killed Gately, she should keep her nose out of other people’s private lives, and particularly their bedrooms.

 But then again, Moir has antecedents for prevaricating on the sex lives of others.  She ranted against Manchester Council for publishing a guide about sex for the over 50s – or - (Daily Torygraph 2008) on Lord Snowdon’s past sexual activity  claiming, “Lord Snowdon is a thoroughly unpleasant little man.”  She even seemed to criticise Joan Bakewell over her past affair with playwright Harold Pinter in a past interview for the Mail.

 Maybe it’s jealousy.  Maybe Moir doesn’t have a sex life of her own.  I could speculate – but no, that would be cruel!

Melanie and her family emigrated from the affluent Virginia Water, Surrey, to Tarn et Garonne in the Midi Pyrenees, South West France  five years ago.  In her article, Melanie bleats endlessly about the language, the culture, the boredom and the bureaucracy she encountered during that time and why she is so happy to be back in England.  As she now claims the family has “hardly a penny to our name”, I doubt she has been able to return to Virginia Water, more likely a sink estate somewhere in Manchester or Glasgow – but I have no doubt the dangerous dogs, crowds of youths on the streets and bins collected once a fortnight are preferable to the incessant noise of grazing sheep and chirruping songbirds and the annoyingly tidy roads of rural France.

Melanie takes exception to the fact that the French seem to insist on doing things the French way.  She can’t find the things she wants to buy in the shops.  Her daughter uses French vernacular which she finds vulgar (close your ears, Melanie when those young men on the street corner start talking!).  Children are allowed to behave like children.  In a nutshell, France is so annoyingly – well – French!

Not content with slating the French, the English who have settled come in for a roasting, too.  They are, apparently, of only three types.  Type one Melanie describes as the BATs (British and Twisted).  Melanie does not elaborate on the meaning of this phrase, but counts herself proudly among their number.  The other groups apparently are the BACs (British and Clueless) and the BBs (Bubble Brits who live in isolation and make no effort to learn French or integrate with French society)

Maybe ‘twisted’ means believing that everything that has gone wrong with your experience is somebody else’s fault.  That description would fit Melanie, whose house needed more work that she thought (having evidently failed to employ a surveyor or anyone with knowledge of building), whose (presumably) rural post office was at fault for not having the 32 postage stamps she wanted to send Christmas Cards to Great Britain (it’s not a French custom to send Christmas cards, far less to send them abroad), whose removal van was too small (Melanie proudly tells us that she speaks French – did she not think to ask?) and to whom it did not apparently occur that living in the Pyrenees mountains may mean cold winters.  As to all her local restaurants serving nothing but duck, I find this very hard to believe in a land where food is so important.  I venture to suggest that among the many French delights on the menu, there was nothing to suit Melanie’s delicate English palate.  Why is it that French restaurants insist on serving French food?

I have to put my hand on my heart now and admit that I have encountered the BAC category of expat more often than I would wish, and that sadly Melanie’s description has something of the ring of truth about it here.  I can’t personally see much difference between the BACs and the BBs because in my view isolating oneself from the community of the country in which one has chosen to live is boorish, arrogant and ultimately destructive.

My experience of life in South West France could not be more different than Melanie’s.  I work with British, French and Dutch co-workers, all of whom get along very well.  I probably spend more time negotiating in French than I do in English and although there are still some French dishes which my English palate does not appreciate I have tried most of them.  I love the richness and expressiveness of the French language and I enjoy the French way of life - but I remain proud of my own nationality, language and birth culture.  I didn’t come to France to escape immigration in Great Britain – the thing I miss most here in rural France is the mix of ethnic cultures I enjoyed so much in North West London.

 So maybe according to Melanie I am in a new category of BAF (British admirer of France)

 I genuinely wish you every success and happiness in your life back in Britain, Melanie – but if things should go a little bit wrong from time to time, I implore you to use your experiences, look inwardly and ask yourself if you could have done anything differently.

We brought Stuart home from a dog rescue centre last May.  He was a slightly scrawny little chap who had only recently recovered from a broken front leg.  He’d been apparently abandoned by a previous owner, and was rummaging around in bins for food.  An animal charity in Dordogne had taken him in and had his broken leg fixed.  He was given a temporary home, food and shelter and when we visited the shelter we fell for him and decided to give him a more permanent base.

 In a very short time, Stuart put on a little weight, learned how to bark at the “right” things and keep quiet when it was appropriate.  He learned what it was like to be loved and cared for and in return he guarded our house and garden (all half a metre of him!) and cried if we left him for more than about half an hour at a time.

 We’ve been through some tough times recently, and having Stuart around has given us a focus and reminded us that sometimes it is good to be able to provide for a loveable little fellow who had come to rely on us for his daily needs, and was far more vulnerable than either of us in so many ways.

 Stuart certainly had his idiosyncrasies.  He wouldn’t touch tinned dog food and didn’t much care for dog biscuits but would sit around the kitchen stove waiting for freshly cooked chicken, rabbit or whatever.  He loved being in the car, and would stand awkwardly with his front paws resting on the central console in order to be able to supervise my driving (and bark at any cat or dog seen on the pavement).  He liked his own bed, bought especially for him and chosen for size, and gladly and obediently settled down into it each night, never once awakening us but greeting us with tail wagging madly when we arose in the morning.

 Tomorrow morning, for the first time, Stuart will not be there to greet us and there will be an unbearable emptiness in our house.  We won’t know the cause of Stuart’s untimely death until the veterinary surgeon, who tried so valiantly but in vain to save his life has been able to perform a post-mortem.  In many ways it is irrelevant, but somehow we need some kind of answer to such a tragic event.

Our crumb of consolation in all this is that while he was with us, Stuart had the kind of life some dogs can only dream of.  He was well-nourished, well-groomed, given all the affection he needed and was able to exercise and interact with lots of doggy friends.  Today he greeted us in the morning with his usual affection, came for a ride in the car and was cosseted all afternoon.  He had his favourite chicken for tea.  That was to be his last meal.  About a quarter of an hour after his meal we went to take him for a walk.  We found him under our bed, gasping for breath, his tongue blue and his little body shaking.

 The vet, thinking perhaps he had choked, tried performing the Heimlich manoeuvre and when that failed immediately performed an emergency tracheotomy and breathed into his little lungs.

 For a moment he seemed to respond, coughing slightly and taking a couple of shallow breaths on his own, before his little heart could take no more of this trauma, and stopped beating.  Stuart died about 7.10 this-evening, leaving an aching hole in our lives, which will take some time to mend.

 Animal charities all over the world do their best to help abandoned and mistreated dogs and help pay (as in Stuart’s case) to mend broken limbs and give dogs and cats a better deal in life.  If you can afford to do so, please think of them and donate a little something to an animal charity near you.

Stuart Little – Died 2^nd September 2009 - RIP

 I mention Susan Boyle last not because I do not believe she has talent.  Her initial performance brought the whole country to its knees and elicited more comment than probably any other “reality” TV show for some time.  Like everyone else, I am awaiting the results.  For Susan’s sake I hope she wins tonight.  But I can truly say the same of every other act.  They would not be in the final if they did not stand a chance of winning.

 I heard a comment from a psychologist earlier today that if Susan Boyle does not win tonight’s show it will ruin the rest of her life.  I beg to disagree.  The obvious talent she possesses has been spotted by others throughout the world, and win or lose she will go on to make money and to live a changed life.  Susan Boyle, said the psychologist, has been in the headlines for so long now that her name has become synonymous with winning the title.  If she doesn’t win, her name will be forgotten.

 And if she does win?....

 You have thirty seconds to tell me the names of the acts who came first, second and third last year – all together now!

 Do I make my point?

By now you will have recognised the airline of which I speak.  Offers of discounted flights arrive in the inbox with monotonous regularity, but rarely fall within the areas to or from which we wish to travel.

A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Old Hack and I arrived at our local airport to take a pre-booked flight to Liverpool.  It hadn't been a particularly cheap flight, but it was convenient to our needs and because I had booked it some weeks in advance I had probably saved a little on the deal. 

A new innovation offered by the airline is the facility to book baggage in online.  Previously, of course, one bag per ticket holder was allowed within the price, but now each bag checked in must be paid for.  I decided to take advantage of the facility to check in on line.  the cost was thus 10 euros per bag as opposed to the 20 euros per bag which would have been charged had I opted for the "check in at airport" option.  Not a huge saving, admittedly, but as another retailer keeps reminding us: "Every Little Helps."

Arriving at the airport in plenty of time to check in for our flight, we produced our bags and e-ticket reference, had our bags weighed and expected to be handed our boarding tickets. No such luck.  "You will need to pay 40 euros at the desk before I can give you your boarding passes."  "And why is this?", I enquired, "as I have already paid 20 euros for each bag to check in online?"  Because, I was politely told, only certain airports offer the check in online facility, and apparently our local airport is not one of them.  Could I reclaim the 20 euros I had already paid?  No.  Could I have a discount on the 40 euros required of me at the airport desk?  No. 

So by trying to save myself 20euros I ended up spending 30 euros per bag.  This is the same airline who refused to refund me a flight last year which I could not take because of one of its planes from another destination being stuck on a runway so that I could not take off.

Will I be using this airline again?  Yes.  Simply because I often do not have a choice.  Will I take advantage of their online check in "saving" again?  Not likely.  My advice - check with the airport before trusting this bunch of charletons.  What looks too good to be true usually IS too good to be true.

 I should say straight away that my mother was not so cruel as to read me “Jealousy” in my formative years – I was not aware that she knew this by heart until the very year of her death, when she was rehearsing a poetry reading and was unsure of a line, asking me to check it out on the internet for her.

My mother, unlike my father, was not one to show her emotions.  Although she was known to succumb to an occasional belly laugh and taught me more vulgar jokes than I care to remember, she remained a private and undemonstrative person, sometimes quite cold.  Now that I reflect on her life and death I can see that the range of poetry she so keenly devoured was perhaps, in some way a substitute for her own anger, grief, sorrow and even happiness. 

Mother died nearly a year ago at the age of 88.  At her request, her ashes were scattered last week at Newby Bridge, Cumbria – a spot very dear to both her and my late father and which he had immortalised in a painting which once hung on the family wall in Portsmouth and now graces my office here in France.

The event was attended by her grandchildren, her three great grandsons and her favourite nephew.  We enjoyed a family lunch in beautiful Spring sunshine, having said our private goodbyes in our own ways and according to our various beliefs (on reflection, probably as eclectic as her collection of remembered poetry)

As my mother’s ashes floated down into the river, I would like to have had the composure to recite an appropriate poem.  I could neither bring one to mind nor remain calm enough to have done such a poem any justice.  Today, thinking of my mother and father in some spiritual way reunited after nearly a decade, I dedicate this poem by one of my own favourite writers to both of them: 

if there are any heavens my mother

if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have

one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

(suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow) 

ee cummings 

 (Martha) Marion Morley  b. 28.05.1920  d. 04.06.2008

 Today would have been my father’s 90th birthday.  The fact that he is not here to enjoy it detracts from celebration; the fact that his legacy of kindness, good humour, encouragement and forgiveness lives on in those he knew and loved makes celebration very appropriate. 

Ernest William Morley (Bill)  b. 10/01/1919  d. 06/03/2000

 I shall be raising a glass of local Pineau to you today, dad, from our lovely little house in rural France.  I know you would have adored this place.  You would have savoured the beauty of the landscape, enjoyed the richness of the local dialect and delighted in sampling the regional wines and cuisine.  You gave me my love of France from your own rich experience, and I know that under different circumstances you would have loved to be living here yourself. 

 Your paintings, both of French and of English Lake District landscapes take pride of place on family walls.  I only wish I had inherited your artistic talent to capture some of our local views, but I have to make do with my digital camera.  I wonder what you would have made of that technical innovation.  I suspect you would have embraced it enthusiastically as you did most things in life.

 What of the rest of today’s changed world?  I think you would continue to curse politicians for their inability to turn rhetoric into reality.  I remember how you re-joined the Labour Party after Tony Blair took the leadership – and how quickly you were disappointed by the whole sham and tore up your membership.  I remember how you despaired at George Bush senior’s aggression in the Middle East.  You didn’t live to see his moronic son mount an invasion of Iraq and put the world deeper at risk of war than ever.  Maybe that is some kind of a blessing.  It would have made you deeply sad and angry.  I think you would have laughed and cheered with me when the shoes flew at his last Iraq press conference – but the laughter sadly would have been short lived.

 In politics as in life, Dad, you always stood up straight and proud for what you believed to be right.  Most of the time we agreed, but even when we didn’t I never failed to admire you for your courage and your determination to do whatever little you could to make life better for those around you.  You’re a very hard act to follow, Dad, but a tremendous influence.  If I can manage to leave just a half of your legacy when my time comes I’ll be very satisfied.