Skiing with Paddy Ashdown: fond, if sometimes exhausting, memories

SKI HOLIDAY TOUR OPERATORS


                                                 

















These pictures of Paddy and me were taken ten years ago on the last of many ski-holidays we'd spent together since 1988, when he'd become leader of the LibDems. 

It was also by far the most exhausting few days I ever spent on a ski holiday - on which more after the history of the Ashdown-Atkinson ski-tours below.

Ashdown-Atkinson ski-tours (pre-internet)
Very early in our friendship, we'd discovered that we both had children of a similar age, that all of us liked skiing and that our families tried to go skiing every every year. For them, the Ashdowns, weekend family skiing had been a pleasant perk of life in Geneva (between his lives in the Royal Marines marines and in politics).

After Paddy became party leader, I'd book apartments for the Ashdown and Atkinson families and he'd tell friends and colleagues (including MPs, party members, officials, activists, etc.) where and when we were going that year. Some would make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, others would phone me to ask about this year's available options.
Flaine: one of the first
Ashdown-Atkinson resorts

During the eleven years of his leadership, many people came on these haphazardly packaged holidays. Usually there'd be 15-20 skiers (+ partners and younger children who might or might not be old enough/good enough skiers to follow the leader).

"Follow me to the first lift - no matter how cold it is!"
Those wanting to ski with the group in the morning knew that they'd have to be at the first lift as soon as it opened at 9.00 am.

Anyone in or near the Ashdown apartment also knew that they'd have been woken up at 'sparrows' fart' (Ashdown family jargon for 'crack of dawn') by the sound of our leader's loud imitation of the military reveille WAKE UP! bugle call - after which there'd be no chance of ever missing the first lift.

Once on the slopes, there was no need to think any more, as it was a matter of 'follow my leader' -  who allowed for the fact that it was often a mixed ability group that he was leading. So the route he selected would be reasonably gentle and reasonably free from other skiers. After a few hundred yards, he'd stop and wait for everyone to catch up in as safe a place as possible.


More follow my leader down the slope and however many more catch up/rest/gossip interludes were deemed necessary before reaching the next lift queue, followed by a longer and more relaxing rest on a chair-lift.  



During the days, there'd be occasional breaks for coffee or beer at mountain restaurants but we were then left to fend for ourselves from about 12.30 hrs to 14.00 hrs.
Paddy, Kate and Simon went back to their flat, where Jane would have cooked them a wholesome lunch.

In his skiing Paddy managed, as in all other aspects of his life, to be thoroughly focused, thoroughly considerate and thoroughly pleasant.


OUR LAST SKI HOLIDAY


Q:  Why was this the most exhausting few days skiing I have ever done?
A:  Because Paddy and I were the only two skiers in a house-party of four: Jane and Joey had long since given up skiing and were quite happy relaxing in the chalet and wandering around the village.

My need for a very cunning plan 
Having skied many times with my son and family, mainly in Les Arcs, I'd discovered that there was much to be said for NOT getting to the first lift as soon as it opened at 9 o'clock.
Later on in the day, snow gets softer and less icy - and, if the sun comes out, it gets even easier to ski as the day wears on.  

In blizzard conditions and/or if it's too cold and icy, you can just mooch around bars and restaurants.

On this particular holiday, I obviously couldn't avoid Paddy's early morning bugle call and the first challenge of the day (for a leisure skier like me) was to delay our departure for as long as possible after breakfast - which I succeeded in doing on most days.

Help from the dreaded G word
Fit and healthy though he always looked, Paddy had suffered for many years from a painful condition he never talked about in public (gout in one of his legs), a condition that made the laborious business of getting a heavy ski-boot on even more laborious (and painful) than usual. So it was a real help having someone there who was willing and able to help.

Having spent a few minutes helping him with his wooly socks and cramming his foot into the boot,  I'd an excuse to take many more minutes pretending that there was something wrong with my own boots - which bought me enough time to delay our departure until 10 o'clock).

A heavy price to pay: hours of non-stop skiing
Once on the slopes, there was little chance to stop for a rest and I had to spend the whole day trying to keep up up with him with few chances to  stop for breaks. What made it worse was that the resort seemed to have more drag-lifts than chair-lifts, so I couldn't even sit down, have a chat and rest between the different pistes.


The pictures of us at the top of the blog were taken on one such day when (after much nagging from me) he agreed to stop for a coffee - not in a restaurant or bar with seats, but standing in the fresh air at a table poking out of the snow on a stick. A quick coffee each and we were off again. 

As on Ashdown Tours, he always selected the routes and led the way. But with only two to think about, he stopped far less frequently and for much shorter periods than when there was a big gang skiing behind him. Reaching him wasn't a cue for a short rest, but more like firing the starting gun for Mr Boundless-Energy to be off again.

Exhaustion, enjoyment and fitness
That's why these were the most exhausting few days I ever spent on a ski holiday. Though two years younger than Paddy, I knew him to be much fitter, stronger and a better skier than I was. Managing to keep up with him on these exhausting days therefore gave me a real sense of achievement. 

And, needless to say, après ski in the chalet with Paddy and Jane was, as always,  a pleasure...


Paddy Ashdown: personal & public reflections on a friend

1. PERSONAL
The death of a spouse, father, mother, close relation or close friend is always an awful experience for those who survive them. And, having lost every one in this list, I think I may be a bit more expert on experiencing grief than a lot of people. 

My first wife died from sudden heart attack after supper one night in April 1992 when we were both quite young (48). But I was lucky that someone who came to her funeral in Oxford was also one of her best friends, whom we'd known in Lancaster 20 years earlier - when we'd all had small children. She and my wife had stayed in close touch and I knew that she was about to be divorced.

By the end of 1993, we had started living together and were married four years later. Since then, the number of deaths among our relations and friends (young and old, sudden and expected) grew dramatically. Now in our seventies, we find ourselves going to more and more funerals of close friends and neighbours.

2. PERSONAL and PUBLIC
Among the many other friends who came to my first wife's funeral were Paddy and Jane Ashdown, who (typically) had a practical and generous plan to  help me and my younger son in the immediate aftermath of his mother's death. Thrusting keys into my hand they said "These are keys to our house in Burgundy. We're going there at Easter. But you know where it is so you and Joe can go there whenever you like and we'll join you later." So that's exactly what we did.

I had written and organised every last detail of Moira's farewell at the Oxford crematorium.  And, although I'd worked with Paddy on loads of speeches, I was very flattered when he said (at the wake in our local pub) "I want a funeral like that" to which I replied that it was the first one I'd ever written and I hoped I wouldn't have to write his.

But, as you'll see in the ITN report below, it turned out that he did plan every last detail of his own funeral, which concluded with the blessing, read by his younger brother - and with which he'd ended his last speech as leader of the Liberal Democrats at the party conference in 1999:


May the road rise with you. 
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face. 
And the rain fall soft upon your fields. 
And until we meet again, 
may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

3. TOWARDS THE HOLLOW OF GOD'S HAND
We'd known that Paddy had bladder cancer since October last year and that he was being seen by specialists Southmead Hospital in Bristol. 

When he was eventually admitted there, he was his usual cheerful, bouncy, Tiggerish and optimistic self. A senior nurse who was going to be looking after him (and also happens to be the daughter of neighbours of ours) told us that, before actually meeting him, she was a bit nervous about meeting him - and what she should call such a famous peer of the realm. She needn't have worried. Before she'd time to tell him her name, he was on his feet holding out his hand to shake hers with the words: "I'm Paddy!" which immediately put her at her ease.

The operation was a success. But afterwards, he contracted 
pneumonia. He'd never looked like an elderly man, nor would he  have considered 77 to be on the outer fringes of fogeydom. 

But my medical relations (two GPs and two nurses) tell me that the older we get, the more vulnerable we become to illnesses from which younger people would recover more easily.



Saved from BeMcGrail ITV's post 

Using props as visual aids

Some of hose who attended the European Speechwriters and Business Communicators Conference in Helsinki last week had to put up with watching me giving a short presentation using my iPhone to show short DVD clips to illustrate the main points I was making on a screen 

The reason for risking the use of technology in this way was that I had left the original DVD in a restaurant at Heathrow airport en route to Helsinki - or so I thought last week.

But today, I found the said DVD, neatly deposited in its container on my desk! I hadn't taken it with me at all, so it was just as well that I had a copy on my phone.

The following has a few more examples of speakers using props as visual aids than the DVD used at the conference where time was very limited.

Below the picture, I've attached a copy of the handout used with my talk.



Autumn conference, House of the Estates, Helsinki,
11 & 12 October 2018 #esnfinland18
Max Atkinson’s talk: ‘USING PROPS AS VISUAL AIDS' (handout)

British political party conference
Ann Brennan: “Imagine knocking on people’s doors in King’s Cross (holds up papers) and preaching the word with this.”

Audience: laughter and applause.

Apple product launch

Steve Jobs (walking slowly on stage): “And so let me go ahead and show it to you now…” (holds up office envelope)
Audience: clapping and cheering
Jobs: “let me take it out and show it to you now” (unwraps envelope)
Audience: more clapping, cheering, whistling.
Jobs: “This is it (takes Macbook Air from envelope)
Audience: more clapping, cheering, whistling.
Jobs: “This is the new Macbook Air (holds it up in the air) and you can get a feel for how thin it is”
Audience: Even more clapping and cheering…
Jobs: Yeah there it is
Audience: continuous clapping…

Ted Talk on malaria

Bill Gates: “…course transmitted by mosquitoes and I’ve brought some here (unscrews jar on table in front of him – slight laughter from audience) so you could experience this and we’ll let them roam around the er (louder and more extended audience laughter) auditorium a little bit there – There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience (laughter).

BBC TV Andrew Marr interview with the Archbishop of York

John Sentamu (having removed his clerical collar): “As an Anglican, this is what I wear to identify myself – that I’m a clergyman (holds collar in front of him)
“Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity (produces scissors) And literally, if you don’t mind, (starts cutting collar to pieces) cut it to pieces.
This is what he’s actually done so that it the end there’s nothing. so as far as I’m concerned I’m not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe’s gone” (puts down scissors and remaining pieces of collar).

BBC TV Robin Day with retiring defence minister John Nott

Day: “But why should the public on this issue with regards the future of the Royal Navy believe you a transient here today and if I may say so gone tomorrow politician rather than a senior officer of many years experience?”
Nott: “I’m sorry, I’m fed up with this interview (stands up, unclips microphone and throws it down on table between them) ridiculous (inaudible)”
Day: “Thank you Mr Nott.”

Royal Society: Christmas lectures for children

Professor of Physics (holding red ball: “I have here a solid steel ball – it weighs fourteen kilograms – it’s incredibly heavy – and it’s suspended from the roof of the Faraday lecture theatre by this steel cable.
“Now what I’m going to do is to take this steel ball over here and I’m going to stand with my back against this head-rest and in a moment, I’m going to place it against my face and then I’m going to let go (exhales audibly – audience laughs – professor laughs).
“It’s going to swing out across the lecture theatre and then it’s going to swing back towards my face. Now, according to the laws of physics, it should stop just before it touches me. OK, that’s the theory, now see what happens. I think this is probably worth a countdown – are you ready? Three (audience joins in with him) two, one, go.
(Prof lets ball go)
Audience: “Oooooh” louder and upwards as the ball swings towards this face. Loud applause as it just misses him.

Did Tories pay royalties for playing ABBA's 'Dancing Queen'?

Media image for still pictures of theresa may 2018 conference speech from Mirror.co.uk
Video and text courtesy of the Guardian

CLICK ON PICTURE TO WATCH
Theresa May took the opportunity at the start of her keynote Tory conference speech to make light of some of her previous gaffes. She walked on stage to Dancing Queen by Abba, a self-deprecating reference to her dancing antics during her Africa visit in August. 

She then made jokes about her speech from last year's Tory conference, when she was plagued by a cough and the backdrop behind her fell apart.....























Chuck Chequers and hog the headlines with alliteration

Readers of my books will know that the sound of words, like simple alliteration, can often play an important part in the the effectiveness of rhetoric - as when the then new prime minister Tony Blair spoke of "the people's princess" a few hours after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Compared with Blair and David Cameron, Mr Johnson is far from being the great speaker he is thought to be by his brexit fans, who seem to have conveniently forgotten what a late convert he was to that particular cause.

But expect to see "chuck Chequers" quoted on all tonights new programmes and tomorrow's newspapers and/or see what the Belfast Telegraph an ITN have already made of it.

Image result for still picture boris johnson speech 20018 tory conference

CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH EXTRACT:


ITV Report 2 October 2018 at 1:01pm:

Boris Johnson calls for Government to 'chuck Chequers' in speech to Conservative Party Conference

Leaving the EU on the terms of the Chequers plan would be a "mistake" and would be the "perfect" way for the UK to return to the EU, Boris Johnson has said in an eagerly-anticipated speech at the Tory conference in which he told the audience to "chuck Chequers".......

Oil-painting lottery

Ignoring any misleading dates & signatures there may be on these four paintings, your challenge is to work out the order in which they were painted.

Prize: a free copy of Max Atkinson's Speech-making and Presentation made Easy.


1                                              2
3                                              4 





Can mental patients ever expect justice from psychiatrists?

Type of Dementia

_______________________________________________

Blogging on 20th August, I raised some questions about psychiatry and psychiatrists without saying much about my reasons for doing so - apart from noting that, in the face of growing problems of mental health, it's a 'science' that's regarded with much less scepticism these days than was the case in the 1960s.

 This is a true story about someone who was treated by 9 different psychiatrists in 4 years, only three of whom were native-speakers of English. 

Having recently had some blood tests, he went to see his new GP for the results.

As he was worried, after 4 years under so many different psychiatrists, if his official medical records said that he was suffering, as he suspected, from 'vascular dementia'. And, if so, which of the many psychiatrists had mistakenly diagnosed him as suffering from this incurable illness.

Psychiatric provision in a small town and a recovery plan that failed

In charge at the first hospital to which he was admitted, were two ethnic African psychiatrists, neither of whom were fluent speakers of English. After a few months they discharged him and he was treated in accordance with the recovery plan that they'd devised. 

This involved being 'treated in the community' by a locus-psychiatrist whose native language was Serbian. His English was very poor, added to which he had a serious hearing (and listening) problem. 

At the first meeting, he told the patient and the other family members accompanying him that he'd left his hearing aid in his car. 

But when one of them offered to go to the car park to get it for him, he said he didn't need it because he could lip-read English perfectly well - even though he couldn't actually speak English perfectly well.

The Serbian then sat down facing the family, with his back to the patient. In so far any of them could understand anything he said, he strongly implied that not all the drugs that had been prescribed by the Africans were necessary.

The patient therefore stopped stopped taking some of them and his condition gradually deteriorated.

After seeing the same consultant a few more times, he was sent (against his will) to another mental hospital 25 miles away from home - which was a blessing in disguise.

Psychiatric provision at a hospital in a bigger town and a recovery plan that worked

A notice board in his room at the second mental hospital informed him that his psychiatrist was no longer the Serbian, but a Dr W, whom he had yet to meet and who didn't come to see him for several weeks after he arrived.

Finding out where Dr W was quite a challenge. Some of the nurses said that he was on sabbatical leave somewhere in North America, some that he was on holiday in the USA and others that, as he'd taken early retirement, he could now afford  to  work when he felt like it.

The most promising news was that he was a native-speaker of English, who everyone agreed,  got on well with his patients, was a good chap and a 'good psychiatrist'.

It didn't take Dr W and the nurses long to devise a recovery plan and discharge their patient fairly quickly.

Postcode lottery:

His experience in these two mental hospitals demonstrated that there's a postcode lottery in the treatment of mental illness, just as there's a postcode lottery in the treatment of physical illnesses.

Compared with what happened at the local small town hospital, the effectiveness of the treatment (and aftercare) at the more distant hospital in the bigger town was far superior.

Drugs are much more effective than they were in the 1960s and 1970s:

Although it's not at all clear how they all work, the drugs now available for treating depression, anxiety and other mental disorders seem to do more good and less harm to patients than they did in the 1960s and 1970s - when chemicals like lithium were dished out with little or no regard for their damaging side effects like Parkinson's disease.

Here, the Serbian psychiatrist's advice on medication was clearly wrong (as was that of his predecessors), whereas the medication prescribed by all their successors worked much more effectively.

This raises a number of rather important questions.

If a psychiatrist gets a diagnosis wrong, what chance does a patient have of winning a case against him/her when it's on the official medical record that he/she was mad?


Would this patient have a viable legal case against the African and Serbian psychiatrists were he to make a formal complaint against them?

And what about Dr W?

On asking his new GP whether it was on his official medical record that he suffers from vascular dementia, she confirmed that it was.

She also confirmed that the psychiatrist who put it there was none other than Dr W.

But Dr W had never bothered to tell his patient this.
Last year, the DVLA medical group issued the patient with a new driving licence for a year - after
He did, however, tell the patient's wife that (a) he was suffering from vascular dementia (b) it's incurable and (c) as he'd steadily get worse, she'd better prepare herself for a progressively more dismal future for both of them (on the seriousness of vascular  dementia, see below the line at the bottom of this page).

All he told his patient was that he would never be able to drive again and that he should dispose of his car as soon as possible - which he did.

Three years later, thanks his GPs and two more psychiatrists, Dr W's confident diagnosis turned out to have been utterly wrong.

With their encouragement, he wrote to the DVLA medical group, who issued him with a driving licence for one year n the first instance. They then extended it for another three years.

Meanwhile, consultants in psychiatry like Dr W continue to behave as if their specialism is based on as sound a knowledge base as treatments for eye, heart or brain surgery.

The big questions are how much damage are they doing and how many mental health patients are suffering as a result???

___________________________________________

Types of Dementia

Dementia is a broad umbrella term used to describe a range of progressive neurological disorders. There are many different types of dementia and some people may present with a combination of types. Regardless of which type is diagnosed, each person will experience their dementia in their own unique way.

Vascular dementia is also known as “multi-infarct dementia” or “post-stroke dementia” and is the second most common cause of dementia.

Main symptoms:

  • Memory loss
  • Impaired judgment
  • Decrease ability to plan
  • Loss of motivation
Cause: Bleeding within the brain from a stroke causes brain damage.

Treatments or therapies: Vascular dementia cannot be cured, but people who have the ailment are treated to prevent further brain injury from the underlying cause of the ailment. Like Alzheimer’s disease, numerous medication and therapies may be used to help manage the symptoms.

Weston-super-Mare, Clacton-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea

Related image
Weston-super-Mare

It rained heavily yesterday, but it didn't stop six of us from having a family lunch of fish and chips at the end the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare (left).

Known colloquially as Weston-super-Mud, it was very muddy indeed in the rain. It got me thinking about the apparent pretentiousness of adding a Latin suffix to the name 'Weston'.

Southend-on-Sea


As an inhabitant of Westbury-sub-Mendip I understand that, in the early 20th century, such suffixes were added to make life easier for postal workers in sorting and deliverin
g mail, long before the invention of post-codes. So is it the same with places like Weston-suoer-Mare, Clacton-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea?

I used to think this a not very cunning plan for estuary based resorts like Weston, Southend and Burnham-on-Sea to pretend they were proper seaside resorts. But my research has made me think otherwise.

Getting there

Clacton-on-Sea
Unlike Weston and Southend, Clacton really is on the Essex coast and has really sandy beaches. The 'on-Sea' was origina
lly added because there was a time (before the railways) when the only easy way to get there was via the sea.

The arrival of the railways also meant made Southend accessible to trippers from the East end of London. And, in case anyone pointed out that it was on the Thames estuary and not the proper sea, they built the longest pier in the world out into the 'sea'.

Weston

As for Weston-super-Mare and the apparent pretentiousness of adding a Latin suffix part of the problem was that Weston is a very common place-name, with about 60 in the UK, 30 in the USA and, in the diocese of Bath and Wells there are at least five.

Fans of an early Blackadder series may be as intrigued as I was to discover that the most plausible explanation for the Latin is that it came from an early bishop of Bath and Wells.

The earliest known reference to Weston-super-Mare is in the register of Ralph of Shrewsbury, bishop of Bath and Wells, dated 1348. And in the pre-reformation church, of course, Latin was the common language of priests and bishops.....