John Douglas Eccles

23/04/201623/04/2016

At the end of the world all we need is a cup of tea

You can imagine the conversation in our house on Thursday evening whilst Ann was watching Emmerdale (without the farm apparently). I inadvertently discovered whilst making a brew we have run out of teabags.

I can tell you that I was dispatched pretty quickly to replenish supplies because as I have discovered life in Eccles towers would not continue to exist without the afore mentioned items.

To compensate for missing this “snippet of life in the country” I decided to go shopping in my sports car which I have to say is getting a great deal more use than any sensible owner would own up to. In my mind my car is female, mainly because she has a mind of her own and the running costs are astronomical. In Ann’s mind it is Mr Grey, mainly because she says she feels as though she has been beaten when she has travelled any distance in it.

Now you can imagine my surprise when I came out of go our local supermarket and looked over at our glowering hills (a term I borrowed from another very northern bloke Woolly Wolstenholme) to see the moors on fire, a vision that looked more than a little like Mordor on a good day.

Now not being the type of person who would take advantage of the situation, after all I am a media person. I chose to travel hastily but in a safe manner (my last insurance quote would have made your eyes bleed) up the hill on the romantically names Isle of Skye Road to take a photograph of the armageddon that was taking place in front of my eyes. I jumped out of the car took a few snaps on my iPhone and left for home.

When I arrived home I thought it was my duty to share my adventures of witnessing the unfolding drama on twitter.

I was amazed at the response the post got. I had local and national papers asking if they could use my images, people asking me if the fire was put out and the most shocking of all someone asking me how much wildlife had perished.

All these questions perplexed me no end. How was I going to answer these obviously concerned genteel folk? I thought I would have to be subtle and not state the obvious outcome, which in my twisted mind sounded like “they all died”.

I could not reconcile being responsible for these concerned folks becoming manic depressives, so I did what any rational person would do, I ignored them. Now I know it sounds callous I know but think about it, it would be like telling them that all the puppies in the world had died.

Now I am not proud of what I did but just think of how many people went to bed not worrying about dead puppies or celebrities (this year the grim reaper has been working overtime).

So after my news of becoming a fire storm paparazzi (which has been far less profitable than taking a photograph of Kim Kardashians large arse) I will leave you to enjoy the rest of your weekend doing things you like to do and not dwelling on things you don’t.

So may your god go with you and remember live in the moment, because apparently they can never ever be repeated.

02/04/201602/04/2016

Do you think your life is in control!

Santorini in the Caldera Watching the sun go down

Here we go in full grumpy northern bloke mode. If you are faint of heart or of a nervous disposition then leave now.

The photo of this sunset above is one I took at sea in the centre of the volcano in Santorini, Greece which I was fortunate enough to witness with Ann my wife whilst it was happening.

Afterwards when we were having a drink and talking about the events of the day we both discovered that in all our years on this planet that was the first time either of us had ever watched the sun set mainly because we never found the time.

So that got me to thinking. I have come to the conclussion that life is for living, every hour, minute and second. You should never ever, ever stop living in the moment and thinking that you are in control of your life. You aren’t it’s an illusion.

We are insignificant at the hands of chance and sometimes life can be cruel. I can assure you that life can take a random turn at any moment without notice and sometimes the consequences can be horrific. The good news is that if you survive you learn a valuable lesson, in that it’s not how we react to these events but how we recover from them and what we learn.

Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine which by some miracle I recovered, not without certain lifestyle changes. Now if you want to lose weight then this is the way to go but I can assure you that you don’t want to even think of what you have to go through to get a diagnosis let alone a cure!

After eleven weeks in hospital and an operation or two later I discovered that life is indeed precious. I now savour very minute, which includes taking time to watch the sunset (I am to lazy to watch the sunrise).

So to this day every morning I wake up and count my blessings, if all my vital bits are working then I am quids in already. But that is was makes life so exciting and now and again I think about what I could have missed.

I would have missed my grand children growing up which believe it or not is enjoyable beyond belief and they keep me young (mainly because I can teach them very bad habits) and I would also have missed a couple of really good holidays but that’s for another day.

So I have this advice to give to you modern parents who are struggling with life at the moment.

I know you are busy paying a mortgage, worrying about career progression, paying for technology and various school trips for the kids but please take this advice before you miss the best things in life.

Live in the moment. Moments are what makes life worth living. A simple look from your partner that makes you feel loved is all it takes to make the world a better place even in your darkest days. So spend more time together!

Never miss the opportunity to watch your kids do stuff no matter what it is, it is magical and once you miss it, it has gone. You have no rewind and at the very least it will make you feel proud.

The most important lesson of all is that when you are on your deathbed in hospital you will never wish you had spent more time in the office. (the voice of a man who has been there)!

The real secret to life is very simple, you should love yourself, be kind to others less fortunate than yourself and never pass up the opportunity to carry out an act of random kindness. Which unfortunately means that you need to give strangers the benefit of the doubt but it does make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I am very lucky, I am still here and being grumpy however my only hope is that my children and their children get to live the life I have had, have the same opportunities and have a happy and healthy life.

As an afterthought you should also take every opportunity to spend time with the old crumblies because it makes them feel as though they have achieved something in their lifetime (that is purely selfish on my part).

09/03/201609/06/2016

Sir George Martin RIP

: Picture Courtesy of rockcellarmagazine.com

This is a rather spooky coincidence. Last night I sat down after a particularly busy day with a cup of tea (I know but I am English) in my armchair and put my favourite playlist on Spotify and sat and listened to some of my favourite songs.

One of the songs that I was listening to was She’s Leaving Home by the Beatles and it prompted me to write my last post about just how good that song is.

When I woke this morning I learned that Sir George Martin, the producer of that particular song had died aged 90. Now I know it’s always tragic when someone dies particularly for the family and my thoughts are with them today. But as we English say he had a great innings (Cricket analogies always work with my generation).

Now George was known to many in the music industry as Gentleman George for the obvious reason he was a gentle decent human being who just happened to be an immensely talented individual.

His legacy will be celebrated for years to come. His work with the Beatles is an inspiration for anyone who aspires to be a producer. How he managed to create some of the worlds most beautiful music with four of the world’s greatest anarchist’s, The Beatles is the stuff of legend.

He did it by listening rather than talking, suggesting rather than ordering and the results are laid out for all the world to enjoy. What better way to leave this world, leaving a legacy of beauty rather than a trail of death and destruction.

So thank you Sir George Martin for leaving the world a more beautiful place and rest in peace, I will raise a glass to you tonight whilst listening to some of your magical work.

08/03/201608/03/2016

She’s Leaving Home

She breaks down and cries to her husbandDaddy our baby's gone.-2

I am sat listening to She’s Leaving Home by the Beatles off the 1967 Sgt. Peppers album and I am sat here I am thinking this is one of the most perfect songs ever written.

The lyrics are phenomenal, they paint extraordinary pictures with every word and the orchestral accompaniment wrap around the words to make it complete, and just when you think it cant get any better they add the touch of genius at the end with a nod to amen.

Next year the song will be 50 years old and it sounds as fresh as when I heard it all those years ago first time around. This was Lennon and McCartney at the top of their game, a perfect combination of two extremely talented individuals who kept pushing each other to make the ever elusive perfect song and if you add the genius of George Martin into the mix then it was a created in what was a perfect collaboration of very talented writers and a commensurate producer.

Once the Beatles split neither of them ever came close to creating anything as good individually but of all of the Beatles my personal favourite was George Harrison, his Here Comes the Sun is what I think of as the anthem to the arrival of spring and is joyous. But it does not have the same quality lyrically or musically as She’s Leaving home.

Many people will disagree with me I am sure but I will bet that it is in your top five Beatles songs. Just in case you need a reminder of how good it is here is the link on Spotify.

17/02/201617/02/2016

A Perfect Valentines Day Northern Style

This just popped up on my timeline today. I wrote this three years ago and it seems like yesterday, its a pity it didn’t arrive in time for this years Valentines Day.

Valentine's Day

A friend of mine decided to make valentines day something special this year. After years of a house full of Kids, dogs, assorted friends and acquaintances he decided that this year was going to be different.

With the kids away at university he had decided it was time for some well deserved time together with his wife to try and capture some of the magic of when they first met, he decided to arrange as the americans call it a date night.

So he arrived home from work, armed with a bunch of roses and a reservation for a very nice restaurant. Now like most women married to Northern blokes this came as quite a shock, but took it in her stride and spent the next two hours getting ready for a romantic evening which she had thought was beyond her husbands limited romantic experience.

What she didn’t know was that he had enlisted the help of her sister and his daughters to find out what would be the ideal evening out and duly carried out to the letter the list which had been carefully constructed for him.

He had a limo booked for seven to take them to the restaurant were upon arrival they had champagne cocktails waiting before being taken to the table in the corner were thirty years earlier he had asked her to marry him.

The meal was incredible, the wine flowed and all was going great. At the end of the meal the limo picked them up and took them to the Cinema were he had booked a private box for a showing of Les Misérables. Throughout the film they made use of the waiter service extensively.

All was going really well and after the film the limo came to pick them home which up to this point had been the perfect evening. He had carried out the list to the letter and his wife told him this was the best valentines day she had ever had.

By now it was well passed midnight and he decided that he would try to finish the night off with a suggestion of reliving another romantic episode from their past. He suggested that they could take advantage of the fact that they had the house to themselves so what about making love in front of the fire like they used to in the years before the kids arrived and made it difficult to be so adventurous.

So with a glint in his wife’s eye he was amazed that she actually thought it was a great idea. He could not believe his luck and whilst she was getting the cushions ready he had a thought that after all the beer and wine he needed the bathroom.

He made his excuses and said he wouldn’t be long and his wife proceeded to make herself more comfortable making herself naked in front of the fire!

What happened next he cannot understand but after his visit to the bathroom he then inexplicably got in bed and went to sleep, only to be woken twenty minutes later by a naked furious wife throwing her clothes at him, before she left to sleep in the back bedroom.

Its now been a week since that night out and they are still not speaking, which goes to show men are rubbish at romance when left to there own devices!

16/02/201617/02/2016

Hey I was an Artist and Forgot!

Its strange how the older I get the less time I have to do things I want to do. Many of my friends have now retired and the first thing they tell me is that they don’t know how they found time to work.

Thats very reassuring to know, I will be sure to remember that the next time I am steaming towards another almost impossible deadline at work.

I am on holiday this week for four days and we decided to have a bit of a de-clutter, Now if your home is anything like ours it is normally Ann who does the de-cluttering which means I normally lose about fifty percent of my treasured items.

This time though we are looking at emptying cupboards and drawers of all the things we think will come in handy one day but in reality we will never need or use. It was while I was looking in the back of my wardrobe (I call it my wardrobe but in reality Ann’s stuff takes up at least half of it) I found a box of old family photographs which stopped me dead in my tracks and we lost a couple of hours looking back at what is essentially my family history.

Its quite emotional and uplifting at the same time. I was reminded that my parents were young once, what my grandparents looked like and I never looked as cool as I thought I was. It is always a good idea to do this even if it’s only to remind you of long lost times and to see were you came from and were your roots lie.

I am at that age were once I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw my father looking back at me, after looking at these photographs I realise I need to rethink that proposition and realise it is now my grandfather. I also forgot what I looked like with a full head of brown hair rather than the grey remnants of my hairline that exist today.

In the bottom of the box I found a Pen and Ink drawing that I did when we first moved into the village, a pastime I used to enjoy and would spend hours doing. Its strange I forgot how much I used to enjoy doing this because in the interceding thirty years it slipped out of my memory totally.

So now our house is a little less cluttered, but I cant tell because I couldn’t see any of it in the first place but more importantly I found evidence of all the important things that my parents thought were milestones in their children’s lives, because I found most of mine.

My first birthday, my pram, my first school uniform, my first bicycle, the arrival of my brother and so it goes. Most in black and white and some in colour all found in a brown cardboard box taken from my parents home after they died over thirty years ago.

Today I got up and thought to myself how families have changed over the years. We are no longer the tight knit groups of people who lived around the corner from each other. and often we only meet up at weddings and funerals. It’s not that we are any less close but time flies by and before you know it you haven’t seen each other for more years that you care to remember and in some cases its too late.

So my mission this year is to catch up with some of the people on the photographs and make a point of meeting up with them (obviously the living ones, I can catch up with the rest later on) . Its given me something to think about other than work and according to Ann thats got to be a good thing.

You never know I may start drawing again that is if Ann doesn’t find me another load of jobs for the rest of the holiday.

06/02/201606/02/2016

My New Year Rebooted

snow

Its Friday night, 11.20 to be precise. I have good news folks the maudlin posts from the past couple of weeks have passed. We are now in the world of the rebooted 2016 and my New Year’s Eve from now on will be the 1st of February (only because this January was so lousy).

Living in the United Kingdom we are used to change on an epic scale, take the weather for example. Saturday last week I left Towcester in the midlands and the sun was cracking the pavements, blue skies and short sleeves were the order of the day.

One and a half hours up the motorway it was like being at the North-pole and snowing.

But that didn’t dampen my spirits and it didn’t take long to look a lot rosier either, Donald Trump managed to come third in a two horse race in the lead up to the American elections which made my day.

Now Donald and myself are about seven of years apart on the age scale (he is obviously older) and I have no doubt that he is far better at business than I am but when it comes to being president of one of the world most powerful countries in the world I have to admit he scares the living daylights out of me.

I was brought up by my parents to believe that you should treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself unfortunately Donald didn’t listen to his parents at all.

How politicians treat people is despicable and the old adage that people who yearn for power are the people who shouldn’t be given any holds very true even in this day and age.

I live in Oldham as you are aware which has had is fair share of bad press, the posh folk who live in our village prefer to say they live in Saddleworth and there are even some when on holiday say they come from Manchester and that really makes my blood boil.

You should be proud of were you come from, that is part of who you are.

There are a lot of great people in Oldham who don’t make a fuss or shout from the rooftops about what they do and they really need to start otherwise we will be forgotten.

Our latest MP Jim McMahon I hope is going to restore my faith in the political classes. He is a local bloke and as council leader achieved great things for everyone in the town. He even managed to restore some of our civic pride in recent times which after the riots was non existent.

I only hope he is not seduced by the Westminster machine that is hell bent on maintaining the status quo in the southeast of England.

I am sure he won’t but you never can tell.

So one month into the New Year and I have lost three heroes from my youth and one very close friend and although I am feeling quite vulnerable I am still trying to look forward with my cup half full outlook intact.

So after my usual Friday night which culminates in my semi drunken blogging I wish you all well, have a good nights sleep and may your God go with you.

23/01/201608/02/2016

Made in Oldham

It has been a rotten start to the new year. Loosing lifelong friends is never easy, and add to that loosing the hero’s from your youth its enough to make a person give up but I am from Oldham and that is not an option.

Now according to the rest of the British Isles I come from an insignificant windswept town in the northwest of England but to me it is the best place on the planet.

Many people in the town and central government think that Oldham is a town that has had its day and that hope has all but gone. I have news for you, as a town we may be down but are definitely not out.

People from Oldham are a rare bread, it matters not a jot what colour, religion or belief system you belong to you kick one of us you kick us all.

Winston Churchill started his political career in the town, Anne Kenny the linch pin of the suffrage movement was born here, we are strong and in spite of the current government we will survive.

On this small blue planet that we are a part off we all like to think that our own little part of the world will never ever change, that we are all part of some great master plan which someone has carefully thought out. I have no interest in that belief.

I meet people everyday that make things happen and often not because of financial gain but because they can and have belief that people no matter how insignificant they think they are make a difference.

So even though I have been stopped in my tracks by loosing people who I really cared about I will pick myself up and dust myself off and try to make a difference in the town I call home.

Oldham is a town that over the years has kept me and my family safe,. Its allowed me to raise my family in a place which I think is beautiful, not because of architecture or environment but because the people in this town care, they are passionate about were we live and look out for each other no matter what the world throws at us.

So after this patriotic venting I will leave you with the thought. I live in the town who invented the chip so it can’t be all that bad can it, there are far worse things to be remembered for.

09/01/201628/12/2020

I am Heartbroken

8301_956458834425216_825640257582213809_n — Sheila and Ollie

Another year has arrived and for the first time ever in my existence I am heartbroken, only five days in and I am hoping that this isn’t the start of what is to come.

I have been brave over the past couple of months because a close friend of mine has been fighting a battle which is very hard to win.

You may remember that my close friend Sheila, who had been fighting Leukaemia for the past year unfortunately lost her battle the other day and all that I can say is that I am devastated.

My wife Ann has taken this particularly hard because they were so close and that is even harder to bear because there is nothing I can say or do that makes it any easier.

Sheila was one of those people who you meet in life who is unique, she was a one off, calm, never judged and never complained about anything.

She was brilliant and like many people on this planet who are often overlooked was unassuming, funny and above all kind.

All the qualities I love and respect and in this world we live in I find that this it is quite unique.

I am dreading the funeral because I know I will not be looking a what she achieved but what I have lost. I know that her family will be hurting far more than I but that does not make it any easier to bear.

Tonight I looked at a message on my phone and what I saw was probably the most uplifting heartbreaking image I will ever see.

I think that getting old is a challenge and bits stop working and we get a little set in our ways but the bit I can’t quite get my head around is that you loose the people who are closest to you and you are left with a huge hole in your life and that is almost an unbearable emptiness that almost overwhelms you.

So all that remains to be said that is I hope that Sheila has eventually found peace after a hard struggle and I wish that her family find comfort in the fact she has gone to a better place.

I only hope that whatever god they follow offers them some comfort in the coming weeks and months that are to come and they can look back with warm affection with the time they spent with Sheila.

I know Ann and I after the initial shock and sadness eventually will.