Eulogy for Anna

Below is the eulogy I delivered at Anna's Celebration of Life Service on July 28th 2025

Anna – A life of faith and prayer

Anna: 1977-2025

Pretty much all of you here will have known Anna. As a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend. She was, of course all of these things and she had a fervent desire to be the best she could in all of these things.

Anna developed a faith in God at an early age after her dad took her to church (St Giles) and explained how God loved her. Through God’s grace, she was able to have an understanding of this and felt compelled to give her life to Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. It was this faith that shaped her life into the wonderful woman we all knew and loved.

I got to know her when I was 19 and she was 18 but our story didn’t quite begin there..

I was a first year university student aged 18 in my home town, still living at home and was kind of ‘playing the field’ a bit. I do have a vivid memory though of around November / December telling my mum that I wanted to settle down and find a wife. My mum asked me where I was looking for this wife and I told her that it was in pubs and clubs (I was 18…) She looked at me with that eye-roll that women just seem to know how to do and said “you’d be better off getting back to church and looking for a wife there!” I procrastinated for a few weeks – nothing new there.. And finally plucked up the courage to get it over with and go back to church for the Christmas service at WBBC.

I remember I was sitting in the right hand side of the middle block and I glanced to my right and saw, standing somewhere near the front, a woman. It was like the old national lottery advert where the hand comes down and a ‘voice from upon high’ says “It’s you!” I *knew* in that moment that this was the woman I was going to marry. I spent the rest of that service with my stomach doing somersaults and when she turned round, the first thing I thought was “thank you God!” She was unbelievably pretty and had an amazingly kind face. I had prayed that God would give me a wife and there she was. Now all I had to do was pluck up the courage to talk to her…

That took a few months and it was our youth leader, Courtney, who introduced us with, “Mat, this is Anna. Anna this is Mat” and just walked off and left us.

Over the coming months we got to know each other and found out that we did have some things in common and we struck up a friendship. Anna was a very easy friend to have. She had my back and bailed me out of a few things on occasion. She just exuded pure faithfulness and encouragement. I know a lot of people here will have been on the receiving end of Anna’s encouragement: From sending cards, small gifts, a text at just the right time. She was so discerning and could clearly hear God’s voice.

We remained good friends for a good few months and it looked like that is where it would stay. I was pretty shy believe it or not and it took my mother, at a prayer meeting, to say to Anna “my son loves you by the way!” – She came back and told me she had done this and I was a combination of mortified, thankful and relieved. So, on February 14th 1996, I, having figured out that her family were going to IKEA, showed up at her house with a single rose. The rest is a bit of a blur, but what I do remember is that I didn’t actually ask her out. She worked out what I was there for and just said “yes” and hugged me.

The next year involved us spending a lot of time with each other and driving out to The Star, a pub in West Leake. I remember, before driving home, we’d just sit in the car talking about life and looking at the night sky.

A year later, we went on a walk in Lathkill Dale in Derbyshire. I had bought a ring, having asked Bill and Linda for their blessing to ask Anna to be my wife and sneakily getting her ring size from Linda. We had lunch by the stream and I was planning on proposing just after that, but a Muller Corner decided, upon opening, to shower me with vanilla yoghurt. I managed to scrape most off and Anna, being Anna had a load of tissues to help. So while she was still holding yoghurt covered tissues, I sank to one knee, got the ring out of my pocket and asked her if she would do me the honour of being my wife. She accepted and we finished the walk with a different status than with which we started it.

We got married 2 years later in 1999 and at this point, Anna was doing Dental Nursing for what would become Bupa in West Bridgford. Her path to this job was not without both problems and God’s miraculous hand. She had been studying to be a dental nurse while we were engaged and had then got a job at a dental practice in the meadows which, if memory serves me correctly, was gained through a placement during her college course. This practice was taken over by what can only be described as a crook (He was later convicted of defrauding the NHS). Anna was pretty much the only member of staff left as he had replaced everyone else with his own people and Anna very much was made to feel like the outsider. I remember her being in tears, praying that God would take her out of this and God, being faithful, answered in the form of the lady for whom Anna used to nanny, who was a dentist, asking if Anna wanted to be a nurse for her! Anna worked there until she got pregnant and went on maternity leave

We had our first child in April 2004 and ever since Anna was a young girl she had dreamed of having a pretty daughter that she was going to call Holly. She had prayed for this to happen for a good while and I remember one home-group (I think it was) we were at someone’s house in East Leake and Dave Smith said to Anna “God’s told me you are having a baby”. At this point, Anna didn’t know she was pregnant, for God to tell Dave this really meant so much to Anna. She knew that God had got His hand on her life. 

Holly, didn’t seem to want to sleep for the first three years of her life which left Anna pretty run down and already tired at the point at which she got pregnant with Reuben. The experts had said  - 2nd delivery is a doddle compared to the first but we wish these experts had had a word with Reuben who was a pretty large baby at 9lb 8oz and was facing up instead of down. Anna was absolutely shattered after all this and this, combined with already tired, left her pretty ill to the point that she was being physically sick. This led to a bout of health anxiety. Even in this, Anna’s default position was to give thanks and praise to God for blessing us with 2 beautiful, healthy children.

It was during this time that Hazel, incredibly kindly, offered to take Holly to her house to bake while I was at work. This allowed Anna to rest and bond with Reuben without a beautifully precocious toddler competing for her time and energy. We were both so incredibly grateful for Hazel doing this. 

When Reuben started school, Anna volunteered to read to the kids and this led to her being offered a job as a lunchtime assistant AKA dinner lady. She was incredibly good at this as she knew pretty much all of the kids from her reading to them. After a good while doing this she was asked by the school to support a child with disabilities in the classroom. Anna didn’t have to think too hard about this as she had wanted to be a children’s nurse when she was younger but alas her maths skills were not quite up to the level necessary to pursue a career in this. 

Anna always used to say to anyone that God had been so good to her to the point that He knew that her having low confidence would severely disadvantage her in an interview situation. So he just gave her jobs for which she never sought or had to interview for. The only interview she ever did was for a new Boots dental practice in Nottingham and she didn’t get it and said the interview process was horrible (This was just before Karen called her asking for Anna to nurse for her)

Anna worked at Milford as a care assistant up until her illness meant that she got to the end of herself, went to A&E and was signed off work. Even after this, she still tried to go back for four days before half term but was so tired from the anaemia that even walking to the leisure centre with the class left her feeling weak and drained. Anna loved working at Milford and was so proud of the work that the school was doing with SEN pupils, giving them dignity and helping them access a good education. For her to not be doing that was so hard for her and she spoke often about how much she missed the staff and pupils.

Many of you here will know the faith and the courage that Anna showed following her diagnosis. You will also know some of the incredibly special bible verses that kept showing up for us: Great is thy faithfulness, Your mercies are new every morning, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. We clung to these despite knowing that unless a miracle was to happen, then Anna would be going home much sooner than we thought she would. Every day we saw those mercies of God. Every day He brought something to us that strengthened us and gave us hope. It was never an earthly hope of ‘I hope she’ll be OK’; it was that heavenly focused hope, given to her by Jesus that if or when the end came, she was going to be safe. 

She knew where she was going and who she was going to be with. Death never scared her. She knew that where she was going there would be no more pain, no more tiredness, no more health anxiety, no more false sense of responsibility. Just pure joy, pure peace and pure communion with a heavenly father whom she had met when she was young. 

I consider my 30 year relationship with Anna to be an absolute gift from God. Yes, we had niggly arguments as all couples do but we strongly agreed on the major things like faith and family.

I miss her terribly - finding a new normal is hard. Small things hurt and sting, but above it all, I know she is safe, secure and I will see her again.

I’d like to finish by reading some lyrics of a song that has really helped me through this dark period of my life:

It is called – This is not the end

Verse 1

Each step I take I know You’re with me
Through the highs and lows
I’ll never be alone
You see the end from the beginning
I’ll never be afraid
You put fear in the grave

Chorus

This is not the end
My God will finish what He started
He is able to do what He said
His word it fulfils every promise
He is faithful

Verse 2

When it felt like it was over
You carved a way for me
You worked behind the scenes
No matter what
The world throws at me
Even through the fire
My God won’t leave my side

At the moment, I have no answers but I know that one day I will.

There is a phrase that is often used – ‘Life’s rich Tapestry’ I think this is a fantastic metaphor but I think we only see the back of it in this life.

All we see are the knots, the mess and the different colour strands going off in weird directions. Some light, some dark, some bright, some dull. We can’t conceive that this mess can be part of something good - but when we get to heaven and see Jesus, He turns the tapestry over and we see the masterpiece that He has woven through our lives.

Anna can see the other side of the tapestry now - the beautiful side. 

I know that the way Anna confronted her illness has been an inspiration to so many people. These were the dark strands going off in weird directions in her life. She now sees how it all fits together and can see the good that has come from this. 

Rottweiler Bee Eye Tea Sea Haitch!

 I wrestled with the title for this post for a while and came up with - well, what it is called. It is going to be a pretty short one today as this topic sits nicely on its own and sets the scene for future posts.

Growing up, we had two Border Collies. One of them, Ben, came from a farm in North Wales (much more on that in later posts) and the other, Jess - Who we bought from someone more local to Nottingham.

Me with Ben

Ben was a handsome dog, mainly black with a white underbelly and neck. He had massive paws and a short muzzle.

I used to walk Ben along the perimeter of the playing fields for about 15-20 minutes per day. He loved it and I enjoyed walking with him, despite his stubbornness to return to you when you called him.

On the estate, there lived a family that had kids a bit older than me - maybe four to five years older and this family owned a Rottweiler bitch. For some reason, this Rottweiler took a fervent dislike to Ben and would try and attack him. Ben, being a Border Collie, was no match for this Rottweiler and would routinely move into a submissive pose - lying on his back.

I think it may have been a Sunday morning, before church - I was walking Ben along the route I usually took when, from behind, came a black and tan blur. This blur rocketed past me and barrelled into Ben, knocking him over instantly. Ben assumed the submission pose and I noticed that it was the Rottweiler bitch again - This time it wasn't letting Ben go. She had him by the throat and I saw red, literally and metaphorically. The part of Ben's neck you can see in the picture above was bleeding...

The thing about boys aged 12 or 13 is that they often have a lot of testosterone coursing through their veins and this, coupled with seeing your dog being attacked was more than enough to suspend any sense of danger I felt for myself.

I just dived in, fists flying, raining blow upon blow to the head of the Rottweiler. This didn't have much of an effect as the dog clearly had a thick skull that seemed to render it impervious to harm - it just seemed to make it cross. It briefly let go of Ben's neck and took a bite at me, giving me a small cut on the back of my right hand, which left a scar that is still visible today.

At this point, I grabbed the Rottweiler's collar and began to twist. This, seemingly confused the Rottweiler and it stopped trying to kill Ben. I was in such a rage at this point. I kept the collar tightly twisted until I caught sight of the owner... With the Rottweiler's tongue going a slight shade of blue, I yelled at the owner to "get control of your bloody* dog or I'm gonna keep twisting!" I think the shock of the scene, my dog with blood on his neck, my hand bleeding and his dog with a tongue turning blue, may have saved me from any potential retribution as he grabbed his dog and dragged it off back home. I remember shouting after them "that bloody* thing needs a muzzle!"

After making sure Ben was alright - he was whimpering a bit, and cleaning as much blood off him as I could, I took him back home. My dad saw the state of us and, credit to him, didn't go ballistic! He, simply asked what had happened and asked if he need to go and see the owners of the Rottweiler. I said that he didn't and I'd told them to get a muzzle (See? No profanity) for it and hopefully all would be OK. 

I don't have any recollection seeing the Rottweiler after this so I assume that, in fear of having the police called for a dangerous dog, they exercised their dog somewhere else.

*My parents brought me up better than to swear but fearing for your dog's life tends to make you forget all that good training...

Product of the Estate Part 3

Whilst writing the last entry an unbidden memory came to me - Jason...

Jason was a couple of years older than me and my memories of him are pretty hazy. He looked a bit like Plug from the Bash Street Kids (of Beano fame). To 8-9-year-old Mat, he always seemed to be a bit childish and looking back I guess you'd class him as a bit educationally challenged.

The older kids tolerated Jason, and looking back, it’s clear he was trying hard to be liked by 'buying favour' with sweets etc. As a child, I was naive and it is only now, reflecting on this, that I can see it for what it is... a 'dumb kid' being taken advantage of by older kids and sometimes bullied.

The story that comes to mind about Jason was the time he brought a golf club and some golf balls to the park. We had no idea where he got these from and we didn't ask. The club looked like a low number iron of some kind and he certainly seemed to know how to use it. All was going well until one of the older kids had a go and Jason managed to not get out of the way after the older kid had raised the club on its backswing. The club was duly brought down with force right into Jason's head. There was a sickening thud and then loads of blood.

My memory is a little hazy at this point but I do remember someone running to the nearest person's home and calling an ambulance. We saw Jason after this so I guess there was no lasting damage done.

It was around this time that for some reason unknown to me, my dad decided that my brother and I should learn to fish, so he bought two fishing rods, all the equipment - lines, reels, floats, weights and hooks and we set off to a shop on the next estate to buy some bait... Maggots. I had no idea what maggots were and I was a mixture of fascinated and repulsed by them. It turns out that the shop from which we bought them, before it went out of business, was just around the corner from my current abode!

The first place we went fishing was in the brook that ran along the estate. In this brook there were a few species of fish that we hoped were desperate to be caught:

• Rainbow trout
• Chub
• Dace
• Perch
• Minnow
• Bullhead (an incredibly ugly fish that was small and you didn't want to catch it)

Alas, the only fish that was desperate to be caught was the damn Bullheads! These pesky fish were small, wriggly and a nightmare to unhook. 

I only ever caught one trout and I have a vague recollection that my dad was slightly perturbed that I threw it back. (I'm sure he was joking) The main fish we caught were chub, a lovely silver fish that looked almost iridescent if the sun caught them at the right angle.

Not me fishing in the brook

There were a few areas of the brook that we used to fish in:

Sandy Bay - This area had a deep, slow flowing section with trees that grew over the brook over the far bank, providing shade so you really couldn't see what was down there! This section opened up into a  very fast-flowing, shallow section that dog-legged round with an undercut. This section was perfect for kids with nets to catch minnows.

Stony Bay - This area had a steep, stony bank overlooking a pretty deep, straight section of the brook that was relatively fast-flowing. We used to free-line here which meant just a hook and bait on the line and you'd cast upstream and watch the bait slowly fall into the depths, upon which it would be taken and you'd reel in a pretty big chub!

Eventually, my brother and I graduated from needing to go fishing with my dad and went off on our own with very strict instructions to only fish in the brook! Do not go to the Trent! Of course we followed this instruction to the letter. Hey Dad — if you're reading this, Mum wants you to get some more milk out of the garage!

(Now he's gone - we used to occasionally break this rule. Fortunately nothing untoward happened - We did, however manage to catch other fish like barbel, gudgeon, perch and pike)

Speaking of things my parents probably shouldn’t know — confession time

I had a silver Raleigh Grifter which my parents bought me for either a birthday or Christmas present and being a young lad and, having watched BMX Bandits (1983 - so I would have been seven or eight years-old); I had always wanted a BMX - or Raleigh Burner. The Grifter was about as heavy as a planet and took considerable effort to pedal it. It had 3 gears, selected by twisting one of the handlebar grips and engaged by a Sturmey-Archer rear hub. I'm kind of hoping that all these links and technical details will somewhat soften the blow to my parents of what I'm about to reveal...

For a dare - I rode that bike down the length of the brook - all the way to the Trent... There, I said it! I'm not proud - although with the weight of the bike and the lack of gear-flexibility, it was a pretty impressive achievement.

Anyway - There will likely be a future post about cycling and those escapades so I'll leave it there!

Perspective Shift

 Whilst walking at about 0530 hrs every morning, I have been listening to a worship playlist that Anna and I compiled while she was battling cancer. There are some amazing truths in these songs and listening to them whilst walking in the dark is really helping to cement some of these truths into my head and heart.

I've noticed a perspective shift whilst walking - early on, my thinking was always focused on why has this happened to me? and this is so unfair! If God loves me he would not have put me through this hell! Now, through listening to some of these songs and reading God's word, I think I have got more of a perspective on God's heart.

I have always tended to see life as the be all and end all of existence. Sure, I know there is heaven and eternal glory with God but this has always been an abstract, esoteric understanding. Something, however, switched very recently. I was walking, crying and asking God "how come, if I'm an evil parent and You are not, You have taken my wife away from me and left me alone? If I could, I would take away all pain that my children feel..." 

Thinking this instantly brought to mind one of the more painful experiences my daughter suffered. Whilst growing up in our church - her best friend's family moved church, taking her best friend with them. This left my daughter bereft.

I was struck by the question, 'if I could have intervened, would I have done?' I pondered this for a while and thought "no - I wouldn't!" Her parents knew what they were doing and had plans for their family that I was not aware of. In the grand scheme of life, my daughter losing her best friend would not be the end of the world.

God's word says, in Proverbs 3:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Also in Isaiah 55:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

 I do not know the beginning from the end. My wisdom is foolishness to God. Eternity is, well, eternal. Life on earth is short.

None of this takes away the pain in my heart, nor should it. If you love greatly - you feel greatly. Nor does it remove the tripwires that you can't see - the small things that leave you flat on your face with tears blinding you and stinging your eyes. 

Shifting perspectives

But God...

Changing your perspective from the earthly to the heavenly does give comfort. Hebrews 12 says:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

I often forget that we will be with Jesus and He is at the right hand of the throne of God!

Anna is already there and that, when viewed with an eternal perspective, gives me such joy. Deep joy that comes right from the depths of the soul and allows you, compels you even, to say that "God is good! He is in control! His ways are not my ways! His thoughts are not my thoughts! He knows what is best for me!"

Product of the Estate Part 2

It’s amazing—you start writing about your life growing up on an estate, thinking it’ll be a pretty quick endeavour. You jot down a load of headings to expand on, and suddenly you find you’ve written 1,000 (ish) words and have only got halfway through the list…

So without further ado—here’s part two of Product of the Estate.

I mentioned in a previous post two friends I had, both called Gary. Well… the three of us used to go round to another “friend’s” house called Richard. I use the quotes around Richard because he was a couple of years older than us and lived next door to the Gary my parents didn’t like—we’ll call him Gary B for clarity!

Richard, like Gary B, had parents who both worked full-time and was left to fend for himself during the school holidays. This meant we could play with no adult supervision, no parents telling us “don’t do that—it’s not safe.”

This led to us doing some pretty stupid stuff, like setting things on fire in his garden. 

In fairness, Richard had a really cool garden with a tree in it that had a tree-house. This tree had a plethora of really good branches to climb onto and jump out of. 

Instead of referring to branches as “that one there” or “this one here,” we actually named the various branches from which you could jump.. I can vividly remember two of the names. 

The first, and lowest, was called the Gary Daren't Jump Branch. This was cunningly named as Gary B wouldn't jump from it. Now some of you would think that this was sensible of Gary, but this branch was only about six feet from the ground and there was an old mattress that we would land on. The mattress was still in pretty good condition, with very few springs poking through, so we thought Gary was just being a wimp...

The second branch was called the 'Bumhold'

Copilot's interpretation of the Bumhold

The Bumhold was about 12 feet above the aforementioned mattress and there was no way Gary would climb up to this branch, let alone jump off it. 

One of the jumps we did was a Jedi Jump, in which you stand on the branch, step forward off it, spin 180°, and grab hold of the branch.. A bit like Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.

We spent many a happy day doing this.

In between all of this frivolity we found time to hang out on the park on the estate. This park contained a 'big slide' - This was actually a big slide... it had a wooden frame and must have been about 30 feet high, a small slide - about 10 feet high, a set of swings and a roundabout that could only be described as a vomit-inducing steel ball of hell. 

The roundabout's design was a steel sphere mounted on a pole that ran through the middle of it with a fixed circular wheel at the top which one gripped and pulled. This force rotated the sphere that had a horizontal ring attached to it with four seats. 

Fantastic speeds could be achieved with four people all pulling on the fixed ring in unison and I lost count of the number of times, after the roundabout had finally stopped, I alighted and then staggered away at a tangent to an imaginary circular plane before collapsing onto the grass groaning, feeling intense nausea and wishing for the release of death. #TrueStory

Other fun on the park was gained in summer - mainly the act of attempting to burn down the slide using a magnifying glass to focus the sun's rays to a small point. We did manage to get a bit of smoke but the slide remained resolutely upright and flambé-free!

Stingies... (wistful, nostalgic chuckle). 

Stingies was a game played with a football and five or more players. One player was in goal and the rest were outfielders whose job was to score a goal. A goal could only be scored if it was by a header or a volley. If a goal was scored without it being a header or a volley - that player took the place of the goalie. There was many an occasion in which the goalie would shield the ball - ensuring it crossed the line to force a goalie / outfielder swap. Likewise, if it was a header or a volley, and the goalie caught the ball - the goalie and outfielder swapped places. 

“Big deal,” you may say - "It's only being in goal"… Nope—you did not want to be in goal. 

At the beginning of the game everyone started on five points, and if a goal was scored with a header or a volley - this went down to four. When the last goal was scored, the poor sucker in goal had to endure 'stingies'... He had to bend over on the goal line while all the outfielders took a turn in taking a penalty kick, aiming to hit his butt. If you, as an outfielder, hit the goalies's butt - you moved forward one step and took another shot. Hence the name stingies - the poor sucker in goal could end up with a very stingy ringy*

I'll leave it there for this episode - I still have six more topics that would take up too much time to read for one post. It looks like there will be at least another 'Product of the estate' entry!

*Ringy = Ringpiece = Anus

Product of the Estate Part 1

I mentioned in the first post in this series that growing up on the estate I did was idyllic. This post will expand on that somewhat and tell of some of the exploits in which a 7-11-year-old managed to engage.

As a recap, the estate was a 'one road in, one road out' affair which meant that there was very little traffic. Very little traffic meant safety, safety meant happy mothers and happy mothers meant more freedom. Freedom to explore...

The playing field ran the entire length of the estate (about 1 KM) north to south and parallel to the brook that ran along the west length of the field, there was a shallow ditch about 6 feet wide that had hawthorn trees that had been planted on each side. These hawthorns totally encased the ditch and left a tunnel between them and this served as the perfect place in which to assume the role of a Star Wars character and run up and down with a 'clumsy and random' pretend blaster or a willow 'elegant weapon for a more civilised age' (Lightsaber). Quite what it must have looked like to 'normal people walking their dogs', I'll never know. I hope they looked at it the same way as I look at kids today running around pretending to shoot each other: With a sense of wonder at an active imagination and innocence.

Along the brook, there were a few areas in which willow trees were planted, usually in groups of three. The estate was built in the late 1950s so by 1983, these willow trees were very well established and thus provided the perfect places to build 'bases' and tree-houses. I should probably try and explain what I mean by 'bases'. A base was a secluded area to which a path had been beaten flat through the nettles and cow parsley We used to hang out in these bases, sitting on branches of the willow trees, just talking and planning our next escapade, which was usually something as innocuous as beating a path to the next base...

There were, if memory serves me correctly, three of these bases along the length of the brook:

1. Tramp's Den - Named thus because, upon beating the path to it, we found an old pair of damaged shoes. Our young minds put two and two together and concluded that a tramp must have slept there! There was no other evidence to support this claim, but the name stuck, and Tramp's Den it was. It was located on the other side of the brook from the estate, and you had to cross a bridge to get to it. A pipe ran along the underside of the bridge, and not long after establishing Tramp's Den as a base, we graduated from walking over the bridge to climbing down and hanging from the pipe with our feet about three feet from the water, shimmying to the other side. Doing this allowed the flora to grow over and hide the path, affording us a place that looked inaccessible to the outside world.
   
   
2. Tree Base - Looking back, this sounds like it should have been the first base that we named, but it wasn't - it was the 2nd... Clearly primary school English and creative writing was wasted on us 7-8-year-old boys as this has to be the most unoriginal yet perfectly descriptive name we could have come up with. Tree Base consisted of quite a few really tall willow trees that had no low branches so climbing was out of the question. This base was mainly used for hiding behind trees and shooting each other with home-made bows and arrows*
   
   
3. Sandy Bay - This was pretty much opposite Tree Base and sat right on the bank of the brook. We used to go fishing (another post) here mainly.

At a couple of points along the brook, there were pipes that crossed it. These pipes were about 18 inches in diameter and had a 45° slope leading up to a horizontal section roughly 12 feet above the surface of the brook, followed by another 45° slope down the other side.

As this was the 1980s, there were no spiky barriers to keep kids from crossing, so my friends and I used to climb up and shimmy across the pipe on our bottoms, then down the other side. One of the tests of how good your trainers were back then was the classic: “Can you walk up the 45° slope without using your hands or falling off?” Needless to say, a good number of us did, indeed, slip off the pipe.

After a few attempts, we soon graduated to walking—or even running—across the pipes and timing ourselves to see who could get across the brook the fastest. I never fell off, but a few of us had some explaining to do when we got home soaking wet and nursing a sprained ankle.

Not the pipe we walked across, but a close approximation.

Away from the brook, one of my earliest memories of growing up on the estate was playing out on the road on which our house was located. 

The house was a three-bedroom semi-detached property with an incredibly long garden and three enormous forest poplars that my granddad had planted - apparently not knowing what they were. These poplars dominated the skyline of the estate and were quite possibly the tallest trees there. 

Anyway, back to the memory of playing out on the road. My brother and I were typical young boys - noisy, boisterous and favouring games that involved a fair bit of talking loudly - OK shouting. We had two sit-on toys that we used to race up and down the road on. One of these was a tricycle and the other a plastic racing car with pedals that drove the front wheels. These vehicles could make a fair racket and I remember one day a gentleman who lived on the tiny close, situated off our road, coming round to our house to complain about the noise. 

Bear in mind this was during the day, probably just before or just after lunch. The gentleman's main gripe was that he worked nights and thus slept during the day. My brother and I were clearly disrupting his sleep.

You may remember from a previous post—about the smacked derriere I received at Play School—that my mother was fair but fiercely defensive of her family. She politely pointed out to the gentleman that it was not our fault he worked nights, and there was no way she was going to keep her boys indoors during the day.

Maybe he could invest in a pair of earplugs... Proper earplugs... Not bread.

Whether or not he did, I have no idea. My brother and I continued to play on the street with our cars.

Happy days!

Precocious at Playschool

Please forgive me, but my memories of being about 3-4 years old are a bit on the hazy side owing to the fact that it is 46 years since. Some of them have, however, coalesced into something coherent - namely that of being at playschool.

Playschool, or 'break for mothers' as it should properly be called, was held in the community centre within the estate on which I lived. I think I can still recall the layout of this (though I may have mixed up two locations). There was an entrance hall, from which you could turn left and go into a kind of lounge area that was furnished with a carpet, tables and chairs with a low ceiling. The ideal place to hold a wedding reception or something similar. Straight on from this was a sports hall with a high ceiling, in which you could (and I did) play badminton. At one end of this hall, the end near the reception area, was a kitchen, and adjacent to this was a small storage area.

The playschool was held in the sports hall area as it had a hard floor, from which glue, glitter, paper, and the inevitable vomit could easily be mopped up. I'm pretty sure that my mother used to drop me off there and then walk the 3 minutes back to our house where she could look after my 1 year-old brother or have a cup of tea and relax.

There were a number of tables that ran down one side of the hall and these tables contained a few craft things that the volunteers deemed appropriate for 3-4-year-olds.. My overarching memory of this setup was stickies...

Stickies: 
Noun:
The riveting exercise of sticking bits of coloured paper cut out into fun shapes and the 'herpes of the craft world' (glitter) onto a sheet of garishly coloured cardboard; like appliqué for idiots.. 

Image of the most dull and pointless craft exercise known to man...

As you may be able to glean from this definition, I was not overly enamoured with 'doing stickies'

WHACK! - Yes...I got a smack at playschool... No names will be mentioned because a) I have no idea who gave me the smack (My mother would know - fortunately she has no idea how to comment on a blog), and b) in this ridiculous age, I would not want to get the lovely volunteer into any trouble (she's probably dead now though but I wouldn't want to get her family into trouble...)

Apparently, I got the smack for standing up, folding my arms, pouting and saying "Stickies, stickies, stickies! I hate doing stickies! It's all we ever do!" When my mother picked me up from playschool that day I was a little upset / subdued and my mother asked me what was wrong. This set 3-4 year-old Mat blubbing again whereupon I told her that I had received a smack! "Where did you get the smack Matthew?" asked my mother. Picture the scene: 3-4-year-old crying in greater and greater intensity expecting to get into more trouble for getting into trouble (another blog post perhaps..) to the point of wailing now... "In the kitchen!" came my wailed, yet innocent reply. I'm not sure if my mother laughed at this - she certainly laughs when she retells this story though, so I imagine she did. Apparently the answer she was looking for related to a location on my body rather than a location in space.

My derriere was the bodily location, and I genuinely cannot remember how hard it was - Enough to make me cry though.

My mother can be quite a fierce defender of the weak and powerless; it is one of her amazing strengths. I think I have this right that she gave the smacker a piece of her mind and my derriere was safe from playschool smackage for the time being.

After this, my mother likely debating whether or not to send me back, was taken to one side by a lovely lady. I believe her name was Joan. She told my mother that I was bored as I had quite an active mind and was just not being stimulated enough by doing the stickies. Her suggestion, which she enacted, was to bring some screwdrivers (probably not allowed now) and some old mechanical clocks to playschool for me to take to pieces. I remember loving this and really getting quite into taking them to bits even if, when putting them back together, I had a few spare screws left over.. I don't think I was cut out to be an engineer but finding out how things like clocks worked was incredibly interesting to me. I think I still have some of that inquisitiveness today although I rein it in somewhat as I have very strong recollection of the leftover screws...

My life!

 I've been thinking about doing this for a while now.. Writing a blog series about my life, a kind of memoir if you will. Putting it like that sounds really pretentious and I don't think I am.

I'll start with some facts: I was born in April 1976 just before the 'hot one' which possibly explains why I hate the cold and feel like i was born on the wrong continent. I lived and grew up on a small estate to the south of Nottingham. This estate had playing fields that ran the length if it and a brook bordered the playing fields on the other side. Growing up here was idyllic, summer holidays playing on the fields, pretending we were Star Wars characters (i was clearly Luke) I remember we used to whack paths through bracken and dog weed with willow branches that we snapped of trees that were growing by the brook. I'm pretty sure that we did more for weed control than Nottingham City Council did.

I had two main friends on the estate, both were called Gary. One had a sister called Vicky and the other a sister called Lindsey. My parent's liked one of them and not the other as they believed the other to be a potential bad influence citing a seeming lack of parental responsibility. Both of his parents worked full-time and he was effectively a latchkey kid with maturity beyond his years forced upon him. At age 8 it was like having a friend that was 16.. He had access to his parent's video collection and it was this video collection that made me realise that I did not like horror movies.

The nearest school to me was the primary school in a neighbouring estate that was about a 5 minute walk from my house across the brook. I did not go to this school.... I went to a Church of England school just to the south of Nottingham city; a 10 minute walk to the bus stop and a 5-10 minute bus journey away. No one else from my estate went to this school but as the other school was burnt down twice; I believe my Christian parents made the right choice. 

I'm still thinking how to write this - I don't think I'll go chronological (too hard and requires more planning) I think I'll go 'Theme-Centred' and cover topics like school, church, childhood teens, moving house, girlfriends, partying, driving etc in later posts. I'm also unsure what frequency to do this.

Later posts will be about my life with Anna who died this year on June 12th after a battle with cervical cancer. It was one hell of a fight and she fought like a true warrior of God. People asked 'why you'; she answered 'why not me'

Anna on Oct 27th Just before her diagnosis

I miss her terribly but know with certainty that because of both of our faith in Jesus, we will see each other again!

This blog is going to be mainly written for our kids so they can have a memory of who we were before they blew onto the scene like a hurricane that shook our world and knocked a lot of the rough edges off us both.

More to follow.............