woodn't you know

Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsessed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".

I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE

Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to lay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.

????????????????

My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.

Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.

Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that mine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.

?????

BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you look at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..


THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................

April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a




















Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".

I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE

Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.

????????????????

My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.

Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.

Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.

?????

BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.

...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else

THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................

April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a



































Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".

I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE

Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.

????????????????

My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.

Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.

Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.

?????

BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.

...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else

THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................

April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a