Singapore

The armed security guard's hand dropped down to his revolver and his left hand lifted up for me to stop, which of course I did, in my wheelchair.

My wife and I were passing through customs in Singapore where everyone was very friendly and pro-British. I asked someone why the armed security guard had appeared so very aggressive. I was told that they are very aggressive against the import of any drugs - drug smuggling can even lead to execution in some cases.

I had heard a little 'ting' sound as I passed through customs, but that was caused by a tin of tobacco and a steel stemmed pipe that were in my pocket (I gave that obnoxious habit up many years ago). Nothing prohibited on me!

Memories

I was reflecting the other day on the happiest and also the saddest days of my life.

The happiest was of course June 4th 1955, when I married - who I thought then, and still think of as now - the loveliest and most sensible girl in the world.

The saddest without doubt was in 1941, when I was 11.

I had a little brother called Idwal. He was 3 years old. I can see him now, sitting on the fifth stair up, reading my comic 'The Hotspur' upside down with a mischievous grin on his face! He used to say you can't have it, coz I haven't finished reading it yet! Then a few seconds later he would give it to me!

A few months later my Mother was holding Idwal on her knee when she noticed his breathing was husky. She said to my Father we'd better take him to hospital, which they did. We left him there for treatment.

The following day Mr Williams from the power station came to our house (because we didn't have a phone) to say the hospital had rung to say that they should go there as soon as possible. They went.

They came back a couple of hours later. My Father was very quiet and my Mother was crying. I asked what was wrong and she said that Idwal had died of pneumonia.

I prayed every night for weeks that there had been a silly mistake, to no avail!

Scores of years later we had five lovely children and lots of equally superb grandchildren. Not a day goes by that I fail to realise that we cannot take anything for granted.

Brucellosis

I could never have achieved anything without my wife's constant support. As it said in our marriage vows in on 4 June 1955, 'In sickness and in health'. And thank GOD Margaret has always enjoyed relatively good health, albeit with rheumatic knees now.

In the past, I had a bad bout of Brucellosis (Brucella melitensis or 'Malta fever'), a dreadful condition which I contracted when I was working as a tractor driver at Saighton in Cheshire. My employer had it and I saw how he suffered. You catch it from infected cows.

When Margaret and I were establishing our Guernsey herd I took every precaution to ensure that our herd remained Brucella-free, getting rid of any cows which had aborted straight away and immunising all our calves with S19 vaccine (which protects them from getting the Brucella bug). When the anti-Brucella law came into force in the 50s ours was the first herd in North Wales to become Brucella-free.

Then, when that dreadful Foot and Mouth disease broke out in the 60s, thousands of cows, sheep and pigs (any animal with cloven feet) had to be shot and burnt. Obviously, I was worried sick. Every night, when I was milking our beautiful herd of about 65 Guernsey cows, my daughter or someone in our household would come out to our shippon to tell me how many F&M outbreaks had happened that day.

The strain on me was tremendous and the Brucella - which had been lying dormant in my body - flared up again. Margaret said that some nights the bedclothes would be very wet with my perspiration and I would shiver with cold.

My Doctor had to notify the Health Authority as to how I had got the Brucella bug, particularly as our herd had been declared Brucella-free. The Health Authority checked back in their records and confirmed that I had had the bug in my body for 20 years, but that it had lain dormant until this dreadful strain on my body caused it to flare up.

Nowadays, with all UK herds now Brucella-free, the public (and I) are quite safe. But that condition was the most dreadful of all.

Foot and mouth

There is much in the news about that horrific Foot and Mouth Disease that has struck the UK again.

I remember with dread when FMD struck us in the 1960s.

I was milking our lovely pure bred Guernsey herd of 70 cows plus their followers (calf heifers, heifers and calves). All of our cows were home-reared by myself, something that I and my family loved doing very much. FMD was coming rather too close to our farm. Every night when I was milking, one of my two daughters or my wife would come to tell me after the evening news that the outbreaks were down to 40. I would breathe a sigh of relief, only to be told the following night that there were up to 70 new outbreaks. The tension was horrific. I swore that if our herd got FMD the first to be shot had to be me. And I meant it!

The stress was so dreadful. The 'brucella bug', which I had contracted whilst working on a large Cheshire farm many years earlier and which had been lying dormant, flared up again.

Thank God, our Guernsey herd did not get FMD disease. But I was very ill for quite a long time.

Helicopter

When I wrote about the different aircraft which I had enjoyed flying in, I failed to mention the most 'orrible one, and that was a flight in a helicopter.

I got in it sitting next to two ladies. The door closed behind me, but didn't appear to have been closed properly. I tried to tell the attendant this, but we were already many feet in the air!

The noise was horrendous. The two ladies pressed against me. We all had earphones which were supposed to be giving us a commentary as we flew over Chester. But because the engine was so very noisy we couldn't hear any commentary at all.

The helicopter banked over so much that I was worried in case the darn door should fly open!

I was very glad when we landed and I could get out of it.

Helicopters do - of course - do excellent work, but for me this was no 'joyride'.

p.s. I am going into a respite home next Monday for two weeks, as it will give my wife Margaret a break.

Trigger

One of our sons, Russ, still lives with Margaret and I here at Caerwys.

Russ always excellent and gentle with our Guernsey herd when we were farming, far better in fact than I ever was. But now, as we are no longer farming and living at a private house, Russ now has some lovely, gentle and large American Bull dogs that he looks after. He has trained his dogs expertly.

Russ, who is a retired undisputed World Champion kickboxer, has started up a security business. Four people work for Russ.

Russ has a fully-equipped gym on the ground floor at our house, while Margaret and I live on the first floor - I have a special type of electric lift which takes me in my wheelchair up to our floor. Russ lives in the fully self-contained flat on the top floor.

Russ, at their request, visits local schools, where there he teaches self-defence (very popular with ladies and girls in particular), temper control and generally helps people to become model citizens. In fact, one headmistress has said that one her pupils was so naughty that she was on the verge of expelling him. However, since attending Russ's classes, he is now a model pupil.

Recently, Russ travelled to the Ukraine where he has set up a number of kickboxing clubs. His dogs love him very much and miss him when he goes away on these trips. On one such occasion, I was sitting on my recliner in our lounge, when Trigger - one of Russ's dogs - came to me whining. He appeared distressed and obviously wanted me to follow him.

I struggled into my electric wheelchair and obediently followed Trigger to the bottom of our stairs. It became clear that Trigger wanted me to go up the stairs to fetch Russ for him! With Russ being abroad I couldn't grant Trigger's wish, so I gave him a big hug. This seemed to pacify him.

I told Russ about this when he returned. Now when Russ goes away, he makes sure that Trigger sees him leave so that the dog understands that Russ is not hiding upstairs and knows that I cannot call him down! Russ has been away since, but Trigger has never asked for my help again.

Delightful

I had a request from the chairman of a gliding club.

He'd read an article that I'd written about the fauna and flora on Halkyn mountain. I'd written it in my pre-MS days. I was a District and Community councillor back then and was disgusted at some folk who were dumping rubbish on our 2000 acre Halkyn mountain. I hope that my article would help more people appreciate some of the interesting beauty there.

Anyway, the gliding club chairman, Ken Payne, wrote to me because he wanted help getting publicity for the club. He said that I could have a free flight in one of their gliders if I would write an article about it.

I was happy to oblige.

Here's what I wrote in the article...

There is an old saying 'That if God had meant folk to fly, He would have provided us with wings'. Well, He didn't so folk get up in the sky in all types of aircraft.

The gigantic intercontinental airliners make for very boring long flights, I think. The longest that I have ever done was to Melbourne, Australia.

Then there are the monoplanes, from which I did my two sponsored charity jumps.

The double wings, Tiger Moths, on which I flew whilst on holiday in the Isle of White. We flew over The Needles.

The remote-controlled tiny unmanned aircraft for photographing fields.

But the ones I enjoy most are gliders.

The first glider I flew in was winch-controlled. This meant there was a winch about 100 yards away from the plane. A car parked near the glider would flash its lights, the signal at which the winch would begin to tow the glider along the ground. The glider moved very quickly and then bump-bump on the ground. Suddenly, we were up in the air and climbed very quickly up to 1000 feet. It made Concord's take-off seem sluggish.

The glider pilot would seek a thermal to fly on which would keep us in the air much longer. The deafening silence was truly lovely. I was so busy taking photographs that the time went by very quickly.

The next time that I went up in a glider it was towed up by another plane. The plane towed us up to 10,000 feet at which point the glider pilot released the towing cable. This would cause the glider to come to a complete stop. I thought we would plunge down to our certain deaths. But no, we would glide happily about.

Compared to my other favourite outdoor pursuits of sailing, golfing and motorcycling, gliding is without doubt also most delightful.