Beaky's Blather
Just Beaky's ramblings
Category: Uncategorised
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You were tousled, bubbly lass, when you and I first came to pass, two folk who rubbed along together, love crept up…light as a feather. I found it started in our work, a spark, a seed, a sort of quirk, no more at first, just friends who jelled, didn’t think that my heart would…
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One is fortunate indeed in life when good things continue and you happily enjoy your life, believing thoroughly in the value and rightness of what you do. It is understandable therefore that I might have anticipated that I would continue along this wonderful path through my life indefinitely, letting it roll forward in front of…
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Having surprisingly negotiated my way past the MoD policeman manning the gate at 3am in my unprepossessing vehicle and now parked on the Station’s only carpark, the engine silent, I sat behind the wheel in the dark and gazed across the carpark towards the gym where I had my office and reflected quietly. What now?…
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Beaky’ Bus. The backstory continued What could go wrong? The Military ‘Travel moratorium’ of 1980. That’s what went wrong. No sooner had I been recruited into the RAF – to become an Officer in the Physical Education Branch, trained and qualified as an Adventurous Training specialist tasked with and expected to introduce and develop Servicemen and…
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After University in 1976, my first post as a teacher was in a small public school in Whittingame, East Lothian, twelve miles from Edinburgh. Approaching the summer holidays, in 1977 I pinned up on a notice board one morning an offer to the boys of a three-week summer camping trip – itinerary – Paris, the…
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Friends Without you, life would be like a pod with no pea. I’d lose all I have left, everything that’s still me. In my head and my heart, you’re the… Friends Without you, life …
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Friends Without you, life would be like a pod with no pea. I’d lose all I have left, everything that’s still me. In my head and my heart, you’re the source of my joy. I’d be a shade of a shadow, not a man just a boy. You reach a part of my brain that provides…
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‘ As father to a son, I thought that I understoodhow to raise a child well- prepared for their adulthood.But I found that I knew little about some things that I oughter,when along came our second – not a boy, but a daughter.She’s was gift in my life, she brought things unexpected,I got a child…
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There’s no more I would seek from the place up above,Than the land that I come from, in the country I loveNo green and pleasant land… in the Blake traditionit offers softness and granite, a contrasting condition It’s always beneath me, my foundation, my floorThe place that I came from and the key to my…
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The best advice I ever received came from a dog. This surprised me as up until that moment, I had assumed that he was non verbal. however, it transpires he’d not spoken previously because everything he thought, was ok; he’d simply had nothing to say. This reminded me so much of an experience of my…
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Back in America, without a fixed home other than the compressed space provided on board Wahine docked in a marina, Dad had for the first time, no challenging goal in life. Aged around sixty, he faced a blank-page future. No obstacle to a life of quiet contentment now confronted him. He had reached a hiatus…
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Freed from the daily rigor of running a medium sized consultancy, firm Dad and his wife re-directed their energies into completing and making use of their yacht, Wahine. Above the deck line it was incomplete. They decided to motor the yacht to Viginia, avoiding the deep sea by following the American inland waterway from Lake Ontario,…
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Graduating from RAF Officer Training didn’t move my dad any closer to the field of heroism in the way that it had offered Uncle Daniel the opportunity to make his extraordinary contribution. (Check out Wikipedia under Daniel Marcus Beak VC for the full extraordinary story) Graduation as an officer who had been a child prodigy…
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The Victoria Cross is given to few and awarded exclusively for: quote – “the most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy” – it is awarded only for the most extreme examples of heroism. My father, born in 1916 grew up aware that…
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During my career, I’ve served as facilitator or coach to many boards and teams. I have been asked, occasionally – ‘who were the better leaders that I had encountered and why? What in their demeanour or behaviour made them seem better than most?’ I risked seeming to pay a compliment to one client at the…
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He eventually fell off the end of life, my father; aged 99 years, eleven months and 16 days. It would have really annoyed him. For many decades, he had appeared fairly certain, and a little optimistically I always thought,, that he might not die at all. But he did however, like everyone else. Although, now, as…
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I attended a formal RAF dinner in the Officers’ Mess; a function familiar to us and known then as a ‘dining-in night’. Dinner was for around 100 officers drawn largely from my Unit. There was a level of formality that as officers, we understood but I recognise now, would have seemed peculiarly arcane to an observer not drawn from the military; a social function and duty of formality and a quality that few will ever experience today. In a uniform designed for the type of function, mess…
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As years go by…. the mirror must show What we’ve had to endure to know what we know It’s brought us wisdom, taught caution, all our years are shown there. They’re our badges in life, every small sign of wear You’re saddened, feel anxious, wish that we could have seen, all that we have to…
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Tick tock Drip . . . . Drop The clock’s a thief….that will strip your world bare …. You see…. It’s the meter for time, it is always up there,on the wall…. its arms moving, in slow semaphore.You say – “give me a minute” – but you never get more.tick …and each second the clock…
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WelI, I landed near Nairobi in Kenya at 4.30 am and entered a terminal very much with a difference. Almost no signs guided travellers to immigration or bag-hall, so l. resorted to asking directions from a couple of the many soldiers, ironically made startlingly conspicuous by their camouflage uniforms. Whilst in all probability concealing them…
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Hold my hand as we walk, …. like you used to. Make me seem smart as we talk, …. like you used to. When my successes seem slight, Make my day feel alright, lift my spirits, my heart, …. like you used to. Make me feel I have guile, …. like you used to. When…
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This one’s a writer; though he’s only a bit He dreams of a book launch for a book not yet writ He’s completed his book, well… only its cover He’s really nothing to say, except -‘pour me another’. This one thinks he’s a comic though he’s barely a wit He imagines folk love him, but…
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Meeting One Stepping from his cabin into the gale, the Captain paused, expressionless. The ship shivered beneath him as a green sea shunted the blunt bow and collapsed on board. It swept the wooden deck, folding over itself as it rose up the few shallow steps onto the quarterdeck where it swirled around his stocking’d…
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Self portrait Paul Beak – known since he was very young as Beaky is, and has been a remarkable variety of things. As a young man he was a PE student at the world renowned Loughborough College in England. Alma mata – Seb Coe, Dave Moorcroft and Fran Cotton and his own Loughborough rugby…
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Sugar arrived on the streets in Britain in the early 18th century. It found a market in exactly the same way as, almost simultaneously, did tea, coffee and tobacco. The oldest sweet shop in the UK has traded continuously since 1827. We think of its stock in trade – sugar in its various forms, as a…
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In a hotel bedroom, he pulled on his faded dinner suit. Now an old man, bent, and aching – decades ago he’d climbed the north face of life. They’d last met when proud and straight. He now wore his mortality plainly. He knew his mind, but listened to his wife. The patient wife who’d years…
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He sat on a sand bag with his back against the earth trench wall and looked up at the sky above. Below a backwash of thin clouds, he saw a black fleck, a bird glide. It swooped over the armies below. He watched and wondered that it could move so careless of their desperation. Where…
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Night seeps from corners and the cracks. Machines and engines slow… and cease their action. Night follows day as early drinkers sup, and sigh… with first-pint satisfaction. The night folk stir from day-sleep‘s pale distraction. They wake late, eat, and start to act their action. Bars open and the caterers wait to ‘cate’. While kitchen…
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McLeod walked into my office one Tuesday morning in late 1986. “I’m posted in,” he announced quietly. I was to discover that this would be one of the longer sentences that he ever spoke to me. ‘Posted in,’ in RAF terms meant that he had newly arrived on the Base and he would be on…
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She will sit for a century, beside the River Thames at Greenwich, glorious testimony to an ended era of sailing grace. Only a captain with a lifetime of sailing experience could master her. Conceived to contest the Tea Clipper Race, of 1870, she was launched in Scotland in 1869. The Cutty Sark – named after the…
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In 1952, the East End of London’s ‘fit -for-heroes,’ Britain, seethed with strong opinions and embedded ignorance. Young Ronnie and Reggie Kray fermented in the junior years of school. “Niven Craig”, intoned the Judge, “you are found guilty of aggravated burglary. I sentence you to 12 years imprisonment”. Niven’s Younger brother, Christopher, seated in the Public…
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350 million years ago –where I grew up – the Earth heaved up a spear of basalt, reshaping the land forever. Simultaneously, in geological time – give or take the moments that man has existed – joggled by this disturbance perhaps – the buttocks of Arthur’s Seat and the bared grin of Salisbury Crags surfaced.…
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Last evening on the hill, a pushing wind nipping at my back, hands deep thrust inside my coat, feet following a thin path, I dipped downwards into an evening valley’s puddled shade. Thankful to be nearing an end to my labours, I saw, approaching from below, a shepherd, rising swiftly on his stride. We surged…
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It had begun with a single step, as everything does. In a column, they shuffled towards the camp painfully on frozen feet. He had moved to the right a little and watched the guard. Later he’d stepped a fraction to the left. No response. Each day, in rags they assembled and trudged wearily along the frozen…
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Bag for Life ‘Oh it was beautiful; expensive of course, but you get what you pay for, don’t you think?’ The stout woman glanced at her stylist in the mirror. The younger woman lifted a scoop of hair, tipping her head gently to one side as she acknowledged her client through the mirror. ‘Yes, expensive…
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Once we’re old, life moves on, at a quickening pace.As we age time speeds up, like we’re ending a race.Breakfast comes around more quickly, it seems, that my life may be programmed…. by a clock in my genes When young, each day seemed, an incredible span,every minute passed slowly, as only time can.back then, as…
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“For 5 days each week, January, February and March 1986 my men and I have been in Scotland: in the Cairngorms. Each day, in the snow and the wind, on the ice, we have trudged the mountains…. that has been our life, our winter in Scotland…. and a hard time we have had of it, in…
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‘Of Course it was obvious,’ she said, forking some food into her mouth, ‘you can always tell. People like that always give themselves away’. The woman seemed certain in her opinions, allowing little space for an alternative view. I let my mind drift to other evenings, other dinner discussions. ‘You see’, she continued, raising her fork to…
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Parachuting it seemed was part of the deal in the bit of the RAF I wanted to join. ‘In the Services…. explained the recruiting sergeant, in the warmth and safety of the recruiting office in Hanover Street in Edinburgh, ‘Physical Education officers an’ PTIs teach parachutin’ to everyone in all Services, ….including special forces…. what ‘as…
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Short story of a first caving experience. We assembled in Mold, North Wales, near the Cave. I was approaching the mid point of my RAF Outdoor Instructors’ Course. I loved the outdoors and all types of adventure – it was the reason that I had joined the Military – I wanted the ability, resources and…
Beaky's Blather 