Nostalgia

It’s an interesting word isn’t it? Nostalgia, the sense of looking back fondly. Then we have the word reminiscence, from an entirely different root, which means virtually the same thing. And very few other languages have words at all to compare with these unless they rob from English. We have an infinitely wonderful language that draws from Latin, Greek, Arabic, German/Dutch, Scandinavian, ancient sub-continental, modern American and so on. Anyway the point is I had a feeling of wistfulness (another lovely synonym) today when I listened to Beautiful South singer Jacqui Abbott on Radio 2 talking abut the Tracks of her Years. She recalled happily (I’ll stop doing similar phrases now) a song which her mum loved and played a lot – And I Love You So – sung originally by Don McLean. It is a haunting little tune for sure

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He liked his cars…

So I’ve written about my youngest brother Mark before. Two years ago he went for a check up having some stomach issues and was found to have bowel cancer like I had. However he’d left it a bit too late to get the diagnosis and was told it was too advanced and inoperable. Shortly afterwards he was admitted to hospital and died. All this happened whilst we were away on a trip to Italy. He’d gone before we’d got home. He was just 57 and we’d been robbed of a lovely gentle guy who was a good brother, proud dad and doting grandad. This horrible disease has a thing for my family.