IN MEMORIAM - PETE RICHARDS (1960-2022) AND DAVID SIGGERS (1960-2022)

Our spiritual journey - Louise's and mine - has taken us this year into the creative silences of the Quaker church - see my forthcoming series of six blogposts about life seen through the eyes of a new Quaker attender. Quakers have a handbook called Advices & Queries that has stood them in good stead for over 350 years. It was last revised in 1994 and below is No.30 of the forty-two insights of the Society of Friends, the formal name for the Quaker church. I begin my post with this Advice and Query because it is concerned with death and mourning and their meaning - and I have been moved by the death of two of my friends this year.

30. Are you able to contemplate your death and the death of those closest to you? Accepting the fact of death, we are freed to live more fully. In bereavement, give yourself time to grieve. When others mourn, let your love embrace them. 

RIP - Pete Richards and David Siggers

In this blogpost I pay my respects to two men, Pete Richards and David Siggers, who have died this year. They were aged 62 years. It seems a telling coincidence that they were both born in 1960, the year I started my secondary school education aged 11 years. Their importance for me can best be understood once you know that they were both in their lifetime the subject of my laudatory blogposts. If this blogpost were to carry a subtitle, it would be the title of my schooldays' award-winning essay: 'Courage in adversity'. A little old-fashioned, but still apposite.   

For the record, Pete died on 14 April this year; David died last week. 

Here is the link to press for my tribute to Pete in his lifetime. It was published on 11 March 2019.

And here is the link to press for my tribute to David in his lifetime. It was published on 17 November 2017.

Pete, you will understand if you read the post, was a retired award-winning publican living in London who had a passion for progressive rock music and related genres. He was already well into that musical

UPDATES ON THE NATIONAL HEALTH - LATE JULY 2022

 Those of you who follow my blogposts will know that there have been two categories into which many of my blogposts can be placed: the threat posed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the threat posed by Boris Johnson. There has been some overlap, of course. I have noticed that the viewing figures for my blogposts about the dangers of the coronavirus have been declining since January of this year. That was when the man who is still PM decided that we would all learn to live with COVID. I referenced such sad evidence of people turning a blind eye to the danger that has cost almost 200,000 British lives in the title for the last but one blogpost I published on 26 June: 

THIS IS A BLOGPOST THAT WILL ATTRACT ONLY A SCORE OF READERS - IT'S ABOUT THE SARS-COV-2 VIRUS - (here's the link, if you want to risk the read)

I was more or less right. Almost a month later, it has picked up only 27 views.

The link with National Health is a little indirect - but a dog is good for you well-being - and it will be the presenting picture on the blog and on Facebook - so an image of Ella, our dog, who is now a healthy 25 kilograms having lost 6 kilograms in six months and has a certificate from the vets to prove it, does seem justified

The last blogpost I published, only a fortnight ago, has, however, already had 51 views. The upbeat title: 'THE POWER OF HOPE' may have helped. It is the illustrated version of my talk at the Penzance Literary Festival about my latest book, Dying to Know - Running through a Pandemic. (Here's the link to a risk-free read, although of course I would love to see my sales figures rise as more people buy

THE POWER OF HOPE - MY TALK AT THE PENZANCE LITERARY FESTIVAL - 7 JULY 2022

                                     Here is the text of my talk at the Penzance Literary Festival.

                                                                      My gift to you.

Delivered in the Penlee Coach House in the Morrab Gardens - image courtesy of the Festival team of photographers

                                       I hope you find the read worthwhile and stimulating.

Rob Donovan’s talk at The Coach House, Morrab Gardens, Penzance on Thursday 7 July 2022, 3-4.30 pm

Good afternoon.

The theme of this talk is ‘The Power of Hope’ – what better day to deliver this talk than the very day that the man in No.10 resigns. I checked this morning on my website. I have written and published 171 political blogposts, nearly all of them critical of this very man. They start on the 14 December 2019, the day after the Tory triumph in the General Election. My blogpost then carries the title: ‘The resistance begins – still nailing Johnson.’. At the end of the blogpost, I provide a link to my previous blogpost, published on 11 December just before the election. That blog post carries