After the age of 80, you seem to be having breakfast every five minutes
(Chrisopher Fry 1907-2005)
I'm thinking of old Dan Cavin at the moment. The still autumnal weather turns the mind to what it feels like as one grows older.
Only seven weeks ago my first grandchild was born, Hannah Rachel Harris - HRH. Her lovely, chubby little face looks out of a photo frame at me beside my desk. Yet it seems like only the other day she came into the world.
So my son has a daughter and my own daughter is expecting my second grandchild in about seven weeks. Today, she, along with her two pregnant friends, are having a baby shower, an American idea I guess, where the ladies give presents to the expectant mums.
And back to Dan whom I've known for the past twenty-three years. In fact, he was a year younger than me when I first knew him and he was collecting his old age pension. Then, he was strong and able to lift and carry a wooden bench with a saw attachment on the top. Now, slowly going blind, he has trouble walking the few yards to the gate at the front of his house.
Dan is self-educated, having left school at fourteen to work with his father on a farm in Dumfriesshire I think it was. Thereafter, he was an amature actor, a painter, poet and sculptor. I have several of his oils hanging on my walls, mainly of Ardnamurchan on the west coast of Scotland. On his enormous bookshelf, he has first editions of rare books on history and art. Amongst them are programmes for all the Edinburgh Festivals he attended from the first one in in 1947 right up until he could no longer attend in 2004 I think it was.
He loved classical music and had a collection of several thousand 78s. Featured in his room were several wind-up gramophones, the most impressive being one with a massive papier-mache horn, no electrical amplifier for the sound and no volume control. The 'needle' was a thin stick of bamboo which he cut at a slant with a cigar cutter. The sound from the speakers was pure and original, the older ones emitting a reassuring crackle.
His memory for poetry has not declined and he can still recite for hours on end. In fact, he has recently finished writing a poem a copy of which I recorded. A transcription is pending
And so, at either end of the scale, there are the newly-born and the souls coming to the end of their lives. On a recent visit, he said to me, "I feel as if I haven't achieved anything in my life!" I tried to reassure him that he was successful in so many ways. There's no point in regretting the things you've done in your life, is there? I thought.
(Chrisopher Fry 1907-2005)
I'm thinking of old Dan Cavin at the moment. The still autumnal weather turns the mind to what it feels like as one grows older.
Only seven weeks ago my first grandchild was born, Hannah Rachel Harris - HRH. Her lovely, chubby little face looks out of a photo frame at me beside my desk. Yet it seems like only the other day she came into the world.
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| THREE FAT LADIES AT THE BABY SHOWER |
And back to Dan whom I've known for the past twenty-three years. In fact, he was a year younger than me when I first knew him and he was collecting his old age pension. Then, he was strong and able to lift and carry a wooden bench with a saw attachment on the top. Now, slowly going blind, he has trouble walking the few yards to the gate at the front of his house.
Dan is self-educated, having left school at fourteen to work with his father on a farm in Dumfriesshire I think it was. Thereafter, he was an amature actor, a painter, poet and sculptor. I have several of his oils hanging on my walls, mainly of Ardnamurchan on the west coast of Scotland. On his enormous bookshelf, he has first editions of rare books on history and art. Amongst them are programmes for all the Edinburgh Festivals he attended from the first one in in 1947 right up until he could no longer attend in 2004 I think it was.
He loved classical music and had a collection of several thousand 78s. Featured in his room were several wind-up gramophones, the most impressive being one with a massive papier-mache horn, no electrical amplifier for the sound and no volume control. The 'needle' was a thin stick of bamboo which he cut at a slant with a cigar cutter. The sound from the speakers was pure and original, the older ones emitting a reassuring crackle.
His memory for poetry has not declined and he can still recite for hours on end. In fact, he has recently finished writing a poem a copy of which I recorded. A transcription is pending
And so, at either end of the scale, there are the newly-born and the souls coming to the end of their lives. On a recent visit, he said to me, "I feel as if I haven't achieved anything in my life!" I tried to reassure him that he was successful in so many ways. There's no point in regretting the things you've done in your life, is there? I thought.
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| DAN CAVIN ON YOU TUBE |
