Diary 1 4 11

Friday April 1st

This morning there was a board meeting and of the Airedale Neighbourhood Management Board. We had a look round Chrysalis, a Methodist church inspired project that has a computer refurbishment shop, a bricklaying tuition set up and car repair teaching centre. There is also a garge that teaches students. This is a greatly successful project and needs all our support. The most upsetting thing about the meeting was that George Rutten told us he had been made redundant by the PCT. This is criminal as he is one of the best workers with creative ideas I have ever met. I told him this, offered a reference and will write a strong letter to the PCT.
The Airedale Neighbourhood Management Pilot was set up in 2006 and was managed by Wakefield and district Housing (WDH). Last year The Airedale Neighbourhood Management pilot ended and it became self-governing board.
Board members include 8 residents all of whom applied in writing and were selected by interview. The residents are volunteers. On the board are our three local councilors of Wakefield District Metropolitan Council (WMDC) as well as a senior police officer, the principal of Airedale high School and senior employee of the Primary Care trust (PCT) and Wakefield District Housing.
WMDC, WDH, the PCT, education and police are known as “partners”.
What is the function of the board?
Broadly we are trying to:

• coordinate the monies coming into our area to get the best value from these funding schemes
• improve our living conditions by reducing crime, fear of crime and anti-social behavior. We want to improve the quality of the physical environment, housing management and leisure provision for young people.
• tackle poor public services by reducing educational underachievement, worklessness, poor health, teenage conceptions and offending.
• transform our neighbourhood by connecting communities with major regeneration in the district including housing and job markets where this is possible.
• enable local people to get involved and have a say in local decisions, foster a community spirit
I find this the most interesting group I have ever been in.

In the afternoon three of us continued inserting both a menu from the new social enterprise café based in the library and a leaflet about young people drinking alcohol into a significant number of the 7000 newsletters that I had produced and which will be posted into houses in the patch. It is a daunting task but worthwhile. After that I went for a walk in Fryston by the river and then came home.
A day of the Airedale Neighbourhood Management Board.

Diary 31 3 11

Thursday 31st March.
I’m often asked what I’m doing in my retirement. At the moment, I am reading Chris Mullin’s book “Decline and Fall” which is of the second book of his diary. I like the style of his diary in that he does not simply write what he has done but explains and expands on issues and people.
I thought I would write a diary for about a month. Today is my friend George Goodenough’s 65th birthday. I am just over four months old and George and have known him since his birth. We do not usually exchange birthday cards but I sent him one on this occasion. I wrote a quote of Doris Lessing on it. “The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in 70 or 80 years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.”
I run a group called the educational support group for GPS without a base and I sent a letter to the PCT about the next meeting to the members. I also emailed the pharmaceutical company who are sponsoring our meeting.
I am doing some research on body temperatures of and spent a little time analysing the results of a questionnaire I sent out to 41 GPs.
After going to Castleford for some shopping I went for my almost daily swim at the pool were in Wakefield. In the Jacuzzi I had a conversation with someone I have got to know about the flatulence she was getting on simvastatin tablets.
After lunch with Kath, I met Alison Evans in her house for coffee and a general discussion about her work running the appraisal scheme for the PCT. She’s doing really well and told me all sorts of gossip about what was happening in general practice with the onset of the reorganisation of the NHS. It was nice to meet her family and catch up.
I had written a newsletter of the Airedale Neighbourhood Management Board and we had 7000 copies printed by some students at the school. I joined two of my colleagues who are on the board to help additional leaflets into the newsletter. Unless we get a load of volunteers who will be a nightmare delivering these. I must say I am proud of the newsletter and one of the inserts was a menu from Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Ltd., A social enterprise venture which has opened the café in our local library. I hope they do really well. We will continue with this work tomorrow afternoon.
Kath and I usually spend the evening watching TV after a nice meal.

VAT rise and diesel

Nine Hours after the VAT rise I drove past the British Petroleum garage I regularly use to fill up my car with diesel. I noticed that the price of diesel had risen to just over 131p per litre. Two hours later I returned to the garage and proceeded to fill my tank. I noticed that the indicator on the pump was showing I was spending at a rate faster than £1.00 per second. I then noticed that the price of diesel had increased to just over 132p per litre sometime in the previous two hours. The garage manager confirmed to me that the fuel supplier had just instructed him to increase the pump prices. I doubt if many people will notice this tactless additional burden on drivers.

Bryce Taylor

Last week I went to the funeral of Bryce. He died suddenly at a young age of 63.
The crematorium at York was packed. I was introduced to him as a colleague by Liz Moulton, a close GP colleague of mine. We all worked together on a Summer School for GP registrars. Liz became a friend of his and sorely misses him. Indeed i have been more bereaved at the loss of a close friend than of a relation.
I collect signed books and Bryce signed two of his for me.
He wrote in his book Forging the future together, "To a great colleague and friend to doctors"

In his book Working with Others he wrote "To Richard, having enjoyed working together as well as working with others. Best wishes."

These wrords mean a lot to me.
He will live on in his writing

Cruising to Cuba

In 1934 my mother and her mother went on a cruise to Cuba. My grandfather often did not holiday with them preferring sometimes the roulette tables in Monte Carlo.
This is the menu from the last night, I think.

Reunion

On the weekend of 2/3/4 October we had our annual reunion of 10 couples, the husbands of which were all at medical school together. The London Hospital Medical College. It was the 40th year since we all qualified. This year Steve came and brought his new wife, Barbara. I sat next to her at dinner on the Friday. She is a poet. As the wine flowed (in me!) I eventually asked her if she would write a poem for me to read out on the Saturday evening after dinner. When Kath and I got back from a day out on Saturday there was an envelope that had been delivered to our room. It had Barbara's poem in it. I read it out to Kath and had a few tears reading the last verse. However, I practiced it and though I may not make a fool of myself. I decided to tell the gang that there was a possibility of my cracking up reading it. The last time I read a poem was at my lovely Goddaughter's wedding. Samantha. She is Robin and Chris's daughter and they were both at the reunion as they a medical and dental students in our year. I read out the poem and messed a few words (booze!) but it was listened to in absolute silence. Here it is.

Reflections by Barbara Shalet, 2009.

Forty years have passed on by-
How they have so swiftly gone
Leaving a host of memories
For each of us to look upon.

In an instant I am able
To upon those years reflect
And recall the times we all shared
The I never shall forget.

Ambitious, young and eager -
A band of hopeful men
With the whole wide world at our feet -
That's how we thought - back then.

As we gained our right of passage
Different thresholds we walked though -
Stepping along our various paths
Yet, our friendships still stayed true.

The sense of group identity,
The laughter and the fun,
The stars within our grasps we thought -
Now a new time has begun.

And still the camaraderie
From all those years ago
Is as vibrant as it ever was
And it always shall be so.

My life has been so richly blessed
In knowing each of you
And I know the bond we share tonight
Will last a lifetime through.

London September 2009

Last week we we went to London for one night and took a friend, Molly. This is the envelope of the thank you card she gave us. we went by taxi to Westgate Station, Wakefield and then by train. I carried all our luggage. Kath and Molly went to the National Gallery and I to the Royal Society of medicine Library. We went to the plat Pitmen Painters at the National Theatre. The next morning they went to a beading sop in Covent Garden. The envelope is unique. Click on it to get a larger picture.