Learn to swim

'Its all right, he can swim!'

Those were the last words that I heard my wife shout before I blacked out.

Many years ago, the 14-year-old son of a friend of mine drowned in Llangollen canal. I mantained that if his son was able to swim, even just a few strokes, he would have been able to save himself as the canal is only about 14 feet wide. I was determined that our five children must learn to swim, and they became quite good swimmers.

But I still cannot swim myself.

This is of course infuriating when our children say to me 'Look Dad, it's easy'. I can swim, and I can breathe, but am unable to do both. So I go into the shallow end, jump in, and get halfway across and then stand up like a demented whale for air, then swim to the other side.

On this particular occasion, we were all on holiday in Tunisia. Our hotel had a swimming pool, but out of habit Dad (me) has to jump into the pool first, which I did after checking the depth. A sign it read '3'. I assumed this meant '3 feet', which would be a piece of cake.

So my wheelchair was pushed to side of this pool, and I dived in, hoping of course that I would be able to stand up and breathe. But there was no bottom to stand on! The dratted sign meant '3 metres' It was as I was trying to swim nearer the edge that I heard my wife say those dreadful words 'he can swim' and I then blacked out.

But as I did so, I could feel another body next to mine, and my first instinct was to grab it. But as I went to do so, I remembered that a drowning person must never grab hold of their would-be rescurer, so I just let my body go limp, thinking my rescuer could more easily get me to the side of the pool. It was then I blacked out.

The next thing I remember, I was on my tummy and someone was giving me some sharp smacks on my back, which enabled me to spew out what seemed like a few gallons of swimming pool water.

Needless to say I am still not an enthusiastic swimmer. But in these days of more leisure time I still think it's essential for folk to learn to swim at an early age.

Chocaholic

One sunny day, I went shopping with my family in Llandudno.

I was on my electric scooter.

As soon as I was able, I 'escaped' from my family and rode off to the nearest chocolate shop! I treated myself to £15 of their delicious chocolates!

Unknown to me, my loving, caring wife had asked my eldest daughter to 'keep any eye on me', knowing that I am both a chocoholic as well as a diabetic.

Later on that afternoon, I met up with my family once more. My wife asked me what I had been doing. I replied innocently, 'Not much'.

To my embarrassment, my wife then produced from her pocket a very incriminating photograph!! 'Then what is THIS?!!', she asked. My daughter had photographed me 'red-handed' in the chocolate shop, just as I was paying for my chocs!

My wife took all the chocolates away from me! But she has promised to give them back to me, sparingly.

Drunk drivers

In the days before I had to rely on my scooter to get around, I was staggering my way back to our Land Rover after calling at a shop at our local town.

I was sitting in the driving seat about to set off, when a policeman tapped on my window. I rolled down the window to see what he wanted. Before he said anything he leaned right over to me, just as if he was going to give me a kiss! His face was close to mine for a few seconds. Then he said to me, "I was just checking to see if you were alright sir".

It was obvious that he was checking to see if I had been drinking!

I wasn't annoyed by the policeman's mistake though, because some years ago I lost a friend through the actions of a drunk driver. My friend, a fellow motorcyclist, was quietly riding his motorbike through a village, when a car coming out of a pub drove over to the wrong side of the road. This caused my friend to swerve to avoid him, and his motorbike clipped the pavement. My friend to fell off his motorbike and was killed instantly. He was 19-years-old.

Crash helmets were not compulsory in those days. The drunken thug who killed him had 5 years prison for manslaughter, but was released after serving just 3 years.

So it's no wonder that I detest drunken drivers.

Parachute

I'm always interested in news about parachute jumpers, because when I was the secretary of our local MS Branch (Delyn & District) I did a couple of jumps myself!

I would always happily organise our 'flag day' and 'house-to-house' collections, but there was no way would I just sit somewhere taking collections - I like to be active!

I was determined to do something to raise money for our MS Branch as there is always someone more ill than oneself.

One night on Channel 4 TV I heard a lady suggesting money-raising ideas. She suggested several physical activities (like swimming and running), none of which I was able to do. I felt very frustrated! But then she mentioned parachute jumps as being excellent money-raisers!

So I made some enquires... I did two sponsored parachute jumps, one near Witchurch at 10,000 feet and the second from an airfield not far from Nottingham at 16,000 feet. I didn't particularly enjoy doing them, but they were excellent for raising money!

Meeting royalty

In the 80s I had the privilege of being an unopposed District & Community councillor.

It so happened that Prince Charles and Princess Di were visiting our Deeside Leisure Centre. We councillors and our wives were invited to attend.

Although my wife and I had a 'car pass' the heavy traffic and police meant we were a bit late getting there. We were unloading my wheelchair from the boot of our car. John Collins (our District Treasurer) and his wife came to assist us. I kept telling John to go or they would be locking the door before he got there as security was very heavy. But John refused to leave me, saying "I'm not going without you Glyn".

When we eventually arrived at the door it was locked, but we showed our passes to the security blokes and they allowed us to go into the foyer. The door to the main hall was also locked, so we sat on a sofa in the foyer and waited to be let in.

After sitting there chatting to each other for about 15 minutes, Charles & Di came out of the main hall. They stopped by us for a chat and Charles asked us if were councillors.

Charles appeared quite interested that I was a councillor, albeit in a wheelchair. "And what do you do in addition to being a councillor?" he asked. When I told him that I was a very busy farmer he appeared to be genuinely interested. He asked me what type of farming I did. When I told him that we had a herd of pure bred Guernsey cows he mentioned that they had a Jersey herd.

We chatted together for about 15 minutes. Di looked very demure (and also very slim) as she chatted to our wives.

Eventually, the other councillors came out of the main hall. Some of them were furious as the hall had been so crowded they had barely seen Di and Charles. "Trust Glyn, the jammy beggar, catching those two royals like that!". We tried telling them that it had not been deliberate, it just happened because we had arrived late!

Melbourne

My previous Diary was about our stopover at Singapore en route to visit our son and his wife. They live near Melbourne, Australia where our son is a vet.

When we arrived at Melbourne we were looking through some farming magazines of our son's. I noticed an advert about an agricultural show 'near Melbourne'. We phoned the show secretary for more information. She told us that it wasn't far from Melbourne, just about 100 miles (such distances mean nothing to the 'Ausies' as it such a large country - in fact, we have a map of Australia, and interposed on Europe it stretches from the east coast of Ireland to the south border of Scotland, over to Moscow, then down as far south as Egypt!).

The friendly secretary insisted that we really should go as it was their centenary show, and we would be treated "like royalty". So off we all went, our son and his wife and my wife Margaret and myself. I had asked our son if he could borrow a quad motorbike for me, which he did.

We booked into a motel for the night and then had a most enjoyable day at the agricultural show. The Australians that we met were so 'laid back' and friendly. Our time at the show was most enjoyable, me hurtling about on the quad bike.

When it was time to leave the show, I passed a police sergeant sitting on his BMW motorbike. The police guy called after me "Hey! Come back, cobber!". I reversed my quad back to him, wondering if I was going to be told off for using an unlicensed quad! But all he said to me was, "I could do with one of them on my small farm!". I replied, "I'll do you a straight swap for your lovely motorbike!". He said, "I would Taffy, but it isn't mine, it belongs to the police department". I then said, "I know that the police have a way of detecting folk, but why did you call me 'Taffy', as I had only said a few words to you??". (Taffy is another word for 'a Welsh person'). He replied, "As soon as you started talking I knew that you were a Taffy because my brother is in the Police in Cardiff, Wales"!

He then kindly asked me if I wanted help loading my quad onto our trailer. I asked him as everyone is so friendly, why did he have a revolver in its holder? He told me that his gun was basically to deter drug smugglers!

Singapore

My wife and I 'stopped over' at Singapore whilst we were en route to visit our eldest son and his wife in Melbourne, Australia.

We waited for our luggage, which included my wheelchair, to appear on the airport's conveyor belt. Some time passed with no sign of my wheelchair. The aircraft was prevented from taking off until the airline staff found my elusive wheelchair. After all, we could not allow another aircraft to take my precious wheelchair to some other destination! They eventually found it and we then spent a few very pleasant days in Singapore.

We stayed at the Weston Stamford Hotel, a beautiful circular building with 72 floors. It was the highest building in Asia at that time. We had arrived at 2am and were very tired after our 20 hour, 6,807 mile flight. We went straight to bed, desperately wanting a good night's sleep (I can never sleep in an aircraft).

But at 6am we were woken by a lady enquiring if we would like to go on a free bus ride to a shopping centre followed by a visit to the infamous Chang Hei prison. We decided to accept the invitation, although an extra couple of hours sleep would have been apprecaited!

Singapore is a very interesting place. At the time of our visit they had some very strict laws. For example, chewing gum was not allowed. They had corporal and capital punishment, in particular for drug smuggling.

It was a beautiful island, spotlessly clean and very pro-British. English was the dominant language, and all the road signs were in English. The people were very polite and friendly, and nothing was too much trouble for them including assisting disabled folk.