As I write this on deadline weekend (18th December,) after trying to ignore all the doom and gloom around, with everyone and his Nan going on strike, infla on at a forty year high, global warming/freezing/flooding with every gust of wind, Covid and flu threatening all and sundry, the A & E departments seeing their busiest days since the war and the NHS underfunded by the equivalent of the GDP of a developed country, my chosen title here may well raise the eyebrows of many of our readers. But hear me out…
What a Wonderful World was the title of Louis Armstrong’s number one hit from 1967/68; he growled out the beautiful words of the song, proving that Beatlemania was curable. It was the biggest selling single in 1968 and left an indelible earworm in everyone alive near a radio back then.
I was fifteen at the time, and about to go to college to take my O’ Levels, but even then I got the message that the World really can be wonderful, amazing and purposeful, and that life depends upon the way each one of us sees it; it depends upon your stand point and your perspective, and what you make of it; glass half full rather than half empty.
Around about that time I’d had my first camera as a Christmas present, and I was really seeing that trees were green, and roses were red, skies were blue and clouds were white. My Dad had bought a slide projector and I used colour slide film and I was amazed at my blurry colourful images when enlarged on the screen.
In Autumn 2022, I contacted a number of my relatives to see if they would like to come along to a Christmas lunch at a restaurant near here. On every Christmas card I have written to each of them over the last decade I have written the words “We must get together next year”, and we never do! Anyway, this time they all said yes and I had the job of organising it all. The room I had chosen could only manage 26 of us, and within a few days the list was at 28, then 30 and eventually 32. I visited the place on several occasions with updates and each time the manageress winced and grimaced saying it is too many, and I held out my hands saying “What can we
do?”
So, last Saturday we all met for the Christmas lunch and it was the biggest gathering of the Johns Clan for more than 12 years. There were 4 generations present: the youngest a little fellow named Ralph Thomas Peter was 5 months old and the oldest, now a spritely octogenarian, my Aunty June
I’d organised the seating according to age and we were split into 3 tables. I just squeezed in to the ‘oldest’ table which sat me next to my Aunty June on my left and my cousin Andy on my right. June told me some things I never knew: When she was growing up at Gotham her Dad, my Grandad, kept a pig that produced a litter every year or so. Apparently, a mother pig abandons the youngest of the litter so her Dad raised it in the house and fed it at meal times under the table.
We reminisced about the wonderful times we had at Gotham, in our Grandparents’ small holding, and the rustic life we lived when we stayed there. My brother told of the times, at Christmas dinner, when Grandad put money in our puddings. I always had a silver threepenny bit. Brother Paul always had half a crown! He was his favourite. And so on and on went the stories. The bungalow at Gotham, had no running water, electricity, gas or mains sewage until the early 1960s, but it didn’t matter to us. The water was from a well, we had fresh eggs every morning, plenty of bacon and sausage, chicken dinners and all manner of good farm fresh vegetables.
We heard babies cry, watched them grow,
They learned much more, Than we’ll ever know,
And I think to myself, What a wonderful world,
Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world…
(and I’m having a new camera for Christmas!)
Steve
