Summer Night City

Sitting outside a bar, drinking a refreshing glass of Öl at around midnight in the sultry warmth of  a still-light Stockholm night, I tried briefly to step out of the moment and reflect on where I was, what I was doing and why I was there.

I was sitting there in the Summer Night City talking, laughing and drinking with a group of  young women: a Canadian scientist who lives in Paris, an Italian electrical engineer who lives and works in London, a Welsh student dietician who is an accomplished and successful athlete, a medical secretary from Birmingham and a first year university student from Doncaster. Of the group, I had only ever met the latter two briefly before; the others were, until 24 hours previously, strangers. At other tables in the same bar were about twenty other people, all unknown to me previously, but now new friends: Germans, Dutch, French, Swedish, Irish and British.

As I paused for thought (not easy in a noisy and lively bar), I just had to smile. Why was I, by some years the oldest in the group, enjoying such a fun night out? The answer, dear reader,  you will probably already know. It's because I, and all the others there, suffer from an incurable and life-threatening condition about which I have chosen, only in the past couple of years, to talk online.

Yes, I was at #DXStockholm, a weekend conference for diabetic bloggers organised and paid for by Abbott Healthcare, a global giant of a medical equipment company, makers of the FreeStyle Libre monitoring device of which I am so fond that I call it "Libs" (not original - copyright Amber Rose)

Such are the rewards for responding to the rubbish hand that fate has dealt us in a positive and constructive manner.

Two days earlier, as I boarded a Stockholm-bound plane on a sunny Manchester morning with my good friend and fellow sufferer Lydia, we reflected on the chain of events that had brought us to that in many ways surreal situation. Which twists of fate, which decisions made by each of us in our hitherto unconnected lives had brought us to those aircraft steps? You really couldn't make it up.

Much else over the weekend was gloriously surreal, and enormous fun, and merits some thanks. How about the logistics for a start: flying somewhere, and checking in to a top-of-the-range hotel, with the bookings and payments done by a company account just doesn't happen to schoolteachers like me: at best, we book our tickets and our budget hotel rooms and claim it back, and at worst, we just pay ourselves. Thank you, Abbott! Or how about bopping  to Mamma Mia in an Abba-themed disco pod on a Sunday lunchtime with two of the big cheeses from Abbott and a friend with his 6 month old baby daughter in her baby sling?  Tack, Benny, Bjorn, Anna-Frid and Agnethe! Or how about bantering on Twitter with a new German friend when she and I had badly failed to respond with an appropriate level of seriousness to the calming voice of a Mindfulness coach? Yes folks, I can exclusively reveal that Germans do indeed have a sense of humour every bit as subversive and cynical as ours! Vielen Dank, Steffi! Or how about hearing the story of the 1973 bank robbery which gave rise to the so-called Stockholm Syndrome, from a cool Australian tour guide and local resident called Ryan, standing outside the building where it all happened, now a high fashion store. Cheers mate! Oh, and while he was telling the story, an even cooler old gentleman dresssed in an immaculate bright blue suit came out of the store and calmly confirmed that the tale being told by our guide was 100% true, "because I was there". Tack, Mr Random Swede! Somehow, we believed him. We were in such a good mood already, so why would we doubt him?

So was this just a corporate "jolly"? Just a p***-up funded by the profiteering of a giant corporation? An easy accusation to make, but one which I, and all my diabetic friends, would strongly refute.

For a start, we actually deserve a bit of fun. Life with Type One Diabetes is a 24-7 battle, a 365-days-a-year balancing act from which there is not a moment's respite. We don't look ill, we don't look like we're just one small error of judgement from a hospital admission or worse, but that's the way it is. And people forget or don't realise, because we're so damn good at it. Occasionally, it goes wrong, and one of our number keeled over at breakfast on the last day. Needless to say, she was helped and nursed back to health by the rest of us. But it was a sharp reminder for us all of what can go wrong.

But Abbott wouldn't put this on just because they feel sorry for us. We were invited because, in a variety of ways, we have all helped to build the wonderful trans-national support network that has helped to transform the lives of people with (mainly Type One) diabetes since the advent of the internet and social media. We have helped to develop, share and promote new diabetes technology in a way that, of course, helps Abbott, but also helps each other.

To be told, as I was, by senior managers in Abbott that my FreeStyleLibre film is valued and used all around the world to help people understand the importance of the gadget was humbling. And to meet in the flesh a veritable Euro-Army of well-informed, canny diabetics was inspirational....and fun. The event was called #DXStockholm because it's an exchange. An exchange of ideas and expertise between the people from Abbott who develop the stuff we need to stay alive and healthy and the users of that stuff. And as far as I can see, it's a valuable and valued meeting of minds....and hearts. I've already waxed lyrical about the value I place on the #gbdoc and the friends I have made from that, but now that same feeling of camaraderie was replicated at a European level.

I'm going to leave it there, because there's another post to be done about what we did over the weekend. That needs photos and video, which I can't do on a plane or a train. But I'm not home yet, so I'll just post this straight away as a massive THANK YOU to all who helped organise the event, and those who came and made it what it was. I'll say that thank you in Swedish, because it's such a cool word:

TACK !

Much love to all my diabetic friends - you are, collectively and individually, simply awesome - and lovely!

Watch out for my #DXStockholm diary when I get time. For now, I'm nearly back home to see the lovely and long-suffering Mrs L, @RosanaghL and Godiva the cat.

However sad I am about the end of the weekend, it's nice to be back home too...

I've had the Time of my Life

This is an edited version of my address to the Class of 2016 at Kirkham Grammar School Sixth Form, delivered at their Leavers' Assembly on May 25th 2016. Some students asked if they could see it, so I am happy to oblige. If you're not from KGS, it's probably not very interesting, but if you want to read on, it's basically some reflections on leaving school at 18. And because I try to give all my blog posts a song title for their name, it has to be I've had the time of my Life because that's what I hope people feel as they leave school. I have removed names of pupils on this version for public reading.

So here we go..

If today has a hashtag, then surely it has to be #endofanera. I find hashtags strangely attractive, especially when small words stuck together look as if they might be another real word, looking like something from another another language: #endofanera.  If you’re a Twitter user, do a search and you’ll find that particular hashtag is very popular: I looked it up this week and saw tweets about schools’ leavers’ days, university graduations, retirements, old buildings closing down and much more besides. We are all over-fond of that cliché, probably because we like to impose patterns on time and events, retrospectively more often than not, to make more sense of our lives as they unfold. Nobody ever talks of the start of an era, because we don’t know it’s an era until it has ended, normally after a long time. I certainly didn’t know, when I walked into Kirkham Grammar School in May 1981 that it was the start of an era. I am managing to blur the end of my era by stepping down gradually, but as this is my 25^th and final Leavers’ Assembly, this is for me an era coming to an end.

But the real end of an era today is yours: you don’t realise what the era known as schooldays means to you until you are about to leave, and then suddenly you’re standing there facing the rest of your life, finding that seven years or more (or perhaps fewer if you have moved school along the way) have flown by without your ever realising that what you are watching is your youth flying by. Today really is all about the end of an era for you.

You are the 35^th generation of 6^th Formers to whom I have said farewell and the 25^th as Head of Sixth Form. Every year I stand up and talk about another era in the life of the school, or rather in the lives of a group of students within it, coming to an end. But this year is a bit special, and a bit different. You are leaving school at the end of two, four, five, six, seven, maybe up to fourteen years at KGS, but among the teachers gathered here today are some long-serving teachers all of whom leave with you. More will be said and written about them in due course, but please take a moment to join with me in wishing those stalwarts of KGS all the best in their future lives -  and for most of them, that is a life of retirement after long and dedicated service to KGS.

But the real end of an era is, indeed, yours. Some of you are the last child of a family whose association with the school goes a long way back: a quick glance down the list reminds me that nine of you are the younger or youngest of families who have associations with KGS dating back many years, and so for these and their families, the sense of end of an era is even more tangible. And of course there are four in your number whose parents I, and other teachers, taught here at KGS.

It all starts to make me feel old. But when you leave school, when your era ends, you are immediately condemned to reminisce in future years about “good old days” at school. You’ll get misty eyed about the smelly changing rooms from your 1^st year, cross country runs, CCF overnights hockey tours and lessons. Sadly, when people reminisce, they tend to remember the awful lessons and the awful teachers – there’s more potential for laughs there. Maybe you’ll even talk about the good old days of AS modules. Maybe you’ll all meet in forty years’ time and try to remember the name of that Headmaster who disappeared halfway through your Sixth Form. But whatever it’s about, you’ll be reminiscing like old age pensioners before you know it. You’ll probably be doing it this afternoon.

But reminiscing is rightly what today is all about, and it’s why we as a school like to make a bit of a fuss of our Sixth Form Leavers as we send them on their way into the world. As I stand up every year to speak to the Leavers, there is always something different, unique, and worthy of celebration about those sitting in front of me. I have never made any secret of the fact that you as a year group mean a lot to me. I have already shared this with some of you, but I can honestly say that when you were in the Second Year, and I was teaching a good many of you for either French or German, I did a quick mental calculation and worked out that I would be reaching my planned retirement age at around the time that you reached the Upper Sixth. I wanted to step down as the first and so far only Head of Sixth Form after a nice round number of years – 25 –  with the Sixth Form as good and as big as it’s ever been, and that is what I am doing this year. And it’s not just me who rates you as a very special year group.

I was chatting to Mrs Parkinson recently, and she told me that she had to do her trial lesson when applying for the Deputy Head job back in 2010 with a group of you, as First Years. She much enjoyed the lesson, got the job, and has always had a soft spot for you since then. And I have always rated you highly as a year group: not just because you were a more than decent set of students when I taught you for French or German, but because you collectively have always seemed to me to “get” what is good about a school like this. Basically, you look as if you enjoy it. Probably my favourite memory of your year will be when Ben hid in a cupboard, inspired by a funny story I had told about my own schooldays, and unfortunately I was delayed on the way to the lesson and in came a rather angry Mr Watson. You can imagine what happened next. Ben, I’ve felt guilty ever since and I’d like to make a public apology….

I bet right now you are all thinking about funny things that have happened, and how much has changed in your lives, and in this school, in your few years here. But more important than what has changed is what has stayed the same. And that, as we are so fond of saying, is far less tangible. It’s about values, an atmosphere, which can be greatly enhanced by buildings and facilities, but in the end rely on the accumulated wisdom of 460 odd years.

And you embody those values as well as any group has done. What defines the quality of you as a year group, like so many before you at KGS, is the way in which, probably without even knowing it, you have absorbed and exemplified the values of the school, whether you have been here for one year, two years, four years, seven years or, in the case of quite a few of you, fourteen years.

For a start you have welcomed and integrated newcomers into your friendship groups, at every stage of your seven years here. That’s the so-called one family ethos in action. It is easy to forget when I pass through the Common Room that people who joined just for Sixth Form have only been here two years – they always seem so much at the heart of things. And then I remember that about 25 individuals who have not been here since the First Year – that’s not far off a quarter of the Year group!

So whether you’ve been here for fourteen years, seven two, or even just one, you are to KGS the Class of 2016, and it is always a pleasure today to see this group of people sitting here for one last time as a group, on the verge of success at A-Level and beyond. To use a somewhat psychobabble term, there’s a real sense that you have been on a “journey” through school, and it is often the most difficult journeys that give greatest satisfaction on their completion.

But if you were in the First Year back in ’09 -’10, do stop for a minute and think about how much the school has changed in that time. You are one of the last groups to still remember the old gym and the smelly changing rooms. It is so appropriate that your year group has seen the opening of the new music facilities during your time in school, given that among your number are so many talented and dedicated musicians. And in saying that, I cannot avoid lapsing into what sounds like a string of clichés from a school press release when I refer to the incredible diversity of talent in this year group. There is something very right about a leaving cohort which contains not only all that star quality musicianship, but also NODA winning actors, award-winning CCF NCO’s, DoE medallists, a hockey team who were a match for anyone including Millfield and of course an unbeaten First Fifteen. That owes much, of course, to the talent of those of you involved in those activities, but a good deal also to the school which fosters, promotes and encourages that talent. I would contend that if you are involved in any one of those successful activities it will, over a lifetime, benefit you as much and arguably more than the A-Level results that you will achieve over the coming few weeks. That, dare I say, is what your families pay for.

So today - or the day when you finally complete your A2 exams - really is the end of an era. School, especially a traditional 11-18 school like this one, stretches quite literally from childhood to adulthood, and it is the pleasure and privilege of those of us who work in schools like this to accompany you on all or part of that journey. When you leave, many of you will leave behind a real hole in a subject, an activity or a team: the Music Department will greatly miss about a dozen of you of you, as will the Drama. As always, there will be some very difficult boots to fill on the sports field. You are certainly a year group who have done the school motto proud in its truest and fullest interpretation: you have entered, you have profited - but so have we. Remember this as you go through university and life beyond: If you set out to put in more than you get out, you will end up taking out far more than you put in. Through my work with the Old Kirkhamians, I often meet with people of all ages who have been educated here, and it is humbling how often they attribute their success to values, knowledge and skills learned in their teens at KGS. Most recently, I talking to Ranvir Singh, arguably our most recognisable former pupil, who willingly and publically assigns much of what she has achieved in TV journalism to her time at KGS. Ranvir was sitting in those same seats as you are in this very Hall 21 years ago with an ambition to be a TV newsreader. She, like many, is a “true Kirkhamian”, and this Hall is full of such people. You are a Kirkhamian for life, and as a reminder of this, on your way out today you will all receive an OKA pin badge. Please wear it with pride – why not start by wearing it for your A-Levels as a good luck charm?

You have been lucky enough, thanks mainly to the generosity of your families and others, to attend a very special school. I do hope that you have enjoyed it as much as we have, and that you will look back fondly on this day and all your school days, and realise that they really are some of the best days of your life.

Hi-Ho Silver Lining

Like an essay handed in at the last minute, here is my offering for #DBlogWeek.

It's been a busy week for me at work and at home, so not much time for blogging, but having been invited to a conference in Stockholm for diabetic bloggers, I would feel bad if I let the week designated for DBloggers pass by unmarked by me.

So here are a few, not very original, thoughts arising from my unexpected invitation from Abbott to a be part of a gathering of bloggers from across Europe in Sweden's Summer Night City at the start of June.

I put out a tweet this past week saying that the #GBDOC was "the silver lining of the cloud of diabetes". Unsurprisingly it got some likes and approving comments, which is hardly remarkable - flattery will get you anywhere!

But I do mean it. For about 16 of my 18 years with diabetes, my attitude to the condition was one of "just get on with it". I couldn't be bothered with it, to be honest, and so just did what was necessary to stay well and enable me to live my life much as I always had done. I was pretty successful in so doing, and therefore had no want or need for much support from others. I certainly wasn't very interested in talking about it and had no particular interest in meeting others with the condition.

Nobody, therefore, is more surprised than me to find myself now so involved in the wonderful online-based but very real world of the #GBDOC. Like most of its users, I am unclear how or even when I started to get involved, but I know that I am now a fairly prominent presence in a community of people united by their affliction with an ever-present, incurable, but ultimately manageable condition.

Through this community, I know that at almost any time of day or night, I can say something on Twitter and someone, somewhere will respond in a friendly and positive manner. And if I, or anybody else, tweets anything that remotely suggests unhappiness, discomfort or difficulty, it is certain that others will be quick to offer help, support, advice and good humour - and in saying that, I hope that I am as much a provider of that support as a recipient of it.

This, then, is indeed the silver lining to the cloud that threatens to block out the sun from our lives. I cannot now imagine life without such easy access to friendship and support, and I regard the #GBDOC as a great vindication of the often-maligned online world, in that those I have got to know through the filter of social media have invariably turned out to be just the same in real life as they are online. Many of us have met up in real life, notably at two successful national meet-ups of the #GBDOC, and of course in a couple of weeks' time I will be joining some whom I already know and others whom I don't at a European bloggers' event.

It is truly remarkable where diabetes and Twitter have taken me, and I cannot help but smile when I think that just because I chose to associate with a few fellow sufferers from diabetes, and to sing the praises of a new glucose monitoring device - the FreeStyleLibre - I am about to be flown to a country I have never visited before to meet with people I don't know, or I haven't known for long, to spend a couple of days talking about a condition that I spent sixteen years trying to ignore. 

Such are the serendipitous, and sometimes welcome, twists and turns of life, even at the age of nearly 60. Thanks to diabetes and the #GBDOC, my horizons have broadened, and I have new friends of all ages at a time in life when often the number of friends and contacts tends if anything to decrease. And all because I suffer from an annoying, very dangerous, ever-present and incurable medical condition. For me at least, the cloud of diabetes does indeed have a silver lining for which I am humbly grateful. Hi-ho, Silver Lining !

Thank You for the Music - and the lyrics

With a surprise visit to Sweden coming up at the start of June, thanks to my well-documented affinity with the FreestyleLibre and those good people at Abbott, I have suddenly found myself wanting to be immersed once again in the wonderful music of Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anna-Frid, collectively known to the world as Abba. I know that there's much more to Sweden than Abba, but let's face it, for most of us, Sweden is about Abba, Volvo, Ikea and, erm....

So as soon as I heard I was going to Stockholm, their Summer Night City, those songs flooded my brain as they do every so often and out came my Abba Gold and More Abba Gold CDs.

I have watched with amusement over the past twenty years or so as the rest of the world has decided that Abba are indeed very talented and cool. I always thought they were, unlike the Johnny-come-Latelies who have reassessed their work and its enduring appeal and influence. I was an Abba fan right from the start, and especially all the way through university in the late 70's, while my friends were more into punk, new wave, and disco. I loved all that stuff too, but I always said that Abba would survive and prosper long after their extravagant clothing had faded into the realms of  ridicule or ironic nostalgia. I well remember telling a group of friends at university that Thank You for the Music was what our generation would be singing along to in an old folks' home when we had all gone ga-ga. How right I was. And how pleasing it is for people of my generation to see my own children and the young people I teach discover Abba's wonderful musical legacy. It's very hard nowadays to find anyone who doesn't like Abba.

Now of course it's about the music in most respects. Benny and Bjorn are peerless tunesmiths, be it in the exuberance of Dancing Queen, Gimme Gimme Gimme, and Mamma Mia or the melancholy of The Winner Takes it all, Knowing Me Knowing You and One of Us. Moreover the arrangements, instrumentation and production are also touched by genius. Just imagine Dancing Queen without those descending piano chords, or Chiquitita without the guitar introduction. Imagine Voulez-Vous without the chords that lead into the verse, or Super Trouper without that piano-backed middle eight. Imagine The Day Before you came without those synthesised little twirls or Mamma Mia without the crash crash of cymbals that accompanies the "Just one look" line. I could go on. Those guys certainly know how to write, harmonise and arrange a good melody, and their ability to create a whole song from one simple melody is at times awesome. The Winner Takes it All is not only a lyrically devastating song, but musically it is so very simple: it's actually just two melodic phrases, repeated.

However, I think we can all too easily overlook the words. Considering they were penned by two men for whom English is not even their mother tongue, the lyrics of Benny and Bjorn demonstrate a mastery of our language which puts the rest of us to shame. The searingly honest account of a broken relationship as told in Knowing Me, Knowing You, or The Winner Takes it All is genuinely heartbreaking, while if anyone ever lays bare the pains of parenthood better than is done in Slipping Through My Fingers, I wouldn't want to hear it. I defy any parent of older children to listen to that and not shed a tear.

So how come a couple of Swedish folk singers (for that is what they were long before the platform heels and outrageous flares took over) became such masters of our subtle and nuanced language? Well they don't always get it quite right: there's a clear error, for example, in Fernando, where "since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand" should surely be "for many years..." not "since many years..". And in I have a Dream, their Germanic languistic roots are showing in "And my destination makes it worth THE while/pushing through the darkness STILL another mile". But almost everywhere else, they nail it as well as, if not better than, most English-speaking lyricists, and I have only recently started fully to appreciate why this is.

Basically, it's because they are uninhibited by the clichés and conventions of English, and therefore dare to do things that a native speaker would find too embarrassing or too banal. Wherever you look in the lyrics of Abba, you'll find turns of phrase which a native speaker just wouldn't dream of using as a lyric. And because we are not used to that kind of language in a song, the banal suddenly becomes unusual and therefore powerful. Try this for an example, from Waterloo:

"...and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way.."

I very much doubt that the phrase "in quite a similar way" has ever been used in lyric poetry before or since. Abba's songs are full of phrases which, when detached from the context in which they have become so familiar, sound like they have no right being in a song. Try this from the wonderful narrative that is The Day before you Came:

" and having gotten through the editorial no doubt I must have frowned"

or this from that same song:

"And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then
I must have read a while
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style"

That song is actually full of the most outrageously prosaic lyrics - but isn't that the whole point of that sadly under-rated song? And while you're at it watch the video - how dark and Scandinavian is that?

Or how about this for an opening line of Super Trouper:

"I was sick and tired of everything
When I called you last night from Glasgow"

What a line, but who else would have dared write it? Very few English songwriters produce stuff like that, preferring to express emotions with clichés and words from the stock lexicon of love. Of course a few do: The Beatles did on occasions, with the sometimes derided Paul McCartney in particular responsible for touching sublime heights with the most banal of language. Think "Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear" in Eleanor Rigby, or the whole of She's Leaving Home. Some of McCartney's solo stuff has also hit the same spot, but he's often been ridiculed for it. Another Day is a good example. Another band who had the knack of making silk purse lyrics out of sow's ear words was that popular 70s art-rock band 10cc: think anything on The Original Soundtrack or How Dare you?

However, in the case of Abba, it's not just about daring to use banal language; sometimes it's quite the opposite. Interestingly, I've heard it suggested that Abba's unfamiliarity with English led them to come up with turns of phrase that an anglophone writer would be scared to use. What English writer would dare, even in the 1970s, to come up with the lines:

"See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen"

"Digging"???  An expression that was perhaps cool and trendy for a few weeks in 1967, but does anyone use that word without irony? It obviously stuck in the minds of two young Swedes...and where would Dancing Queen be without those lines? It's all part of its enduringly camp, "so bad its good" appeal.

Elsewhere, just by using "Eurotrash" words and names they developed a pan-European appeal with titles like Mamma Mia, Voulez-Vous, Chiquitita, Hasta Manana and Fernando. All instantly memorable hooks which are foreign intruders in English lyrics. The Euro-connection leads me to another thought. I'm pretty sure that in other languages, notably French, some of the features I have identified in Abba lyrics are also there. I would quote as evidence the incomparable Armenian-French nonegenarian Charles Aznavour, writer and performer of some memorable chansons in which the banal and the sublime pop up to devastating effect. His work must wait for another blog post, but if you're curious, try this wonderful tale of an old flame rekindled. Sorry if you don't know French:-

"Non, je n'ai rien oublié"

Or try this tale of a romantic evening gone wrong..

"Bon Anniversaire"

But back to Abba. We must also not overlook the many times when there are no linguistic oddities, no banalities, but just astonishingly powerful lyrical expressiveness. Take this from The Winner Takes it All:

"The Gods may throw a dice

Their minds as cold as ice

And someone way down here

Loses someone dear"

Those lines are conceptually straight out of classical tragedy, but then in the next verse the same idea comes crashing into the modern world of the divorce court:

"The judges will decide

The likes of me abide"

And don't forget that those extraordinarily personal and poignant lyrics were written by two men to be sung by the two women from whom they were going through a messy divorce. The most public group therapy ever?

So there you have it. Musical and lyrical genius in my humble opinion. A band who could have drifted into a category marked 70's nostalgia, but have become an enduring global brand. I'm pretty sure people will still be listening to Abba years from now, long after they, and I, have gone. What intrigues me about Abba is that the more times I listen to their songs, the more I like and appreciate them. There are not many artists of whom I can say that: possibly just David Bowie and the Beatles. I rest my case.

PS Take time to watch some of the Abba videos. They, too are iconically wonderful. Click the link on any of the songs mentioned.

It's Four in the Morning

It's Four in the Morning, A guilty pleasure song if ever there was one. I've no idea why I like it, but I've loved it since it was a minor hit for Faron Young back in 1972. It comes into my head whenever I'm awake at four in the morning. And I'm awake at that time more often than I would ideally like to be.

If like me you have the dubious pleasure of living with Type One diabetes, it is likely that "a good night's sleep" is either a distant memory or something you've never properly experienced.  I don't think I have slept more than 3 or 4 hours non-stop since diagnosis at the age of 40, and in particular a "lie-in" just never happens.

Most nights, I fall asleep very readily (because I've been awake for so long), but I have to wake with an alarm at 1:30 am to check my blood glucose level, for fear of a night-time hypo. I then sleep until my in-built alarm tells me it's time to wake up. And that's normally between 4 am and 5 am. 

Now I know we are constantly told not to take our smartphones to bed, but I'm afraid I always sneak a look at my phone and if I glance at my Twitter timeline it is highly likely that I will see signs that my fellow diabetics are also awake. Sleep and diabetes don't mix well.

Early waking is indeed one of the many curses of Type One diabetes, and I often find myself awake at that infuriating moment when it's too late to go back to sleep but far too early to be awake. Welcome to our world. 

OK, so it's not the worst thing that could happen, but I think it's a complication often overlooked by those without diabetes, and one which causes difficulties and discomfort that we perhaps just "grin and bear" rather than telling our families, friends and colleagues what a burden it can be. Not to put too fine a point on it, we are more likely to be knackered during the working day, or too tired to enjoy our leisure hours in the evenings and at weekends. Early waking is not a medical "complication" but it's a significant and, I believe, widespread and very real issue for many Type Ones. Perhaps I'll find out just how widespread it is and how big an issue it is when I publish this post. Let me know, #gbdoc friends!

Early waking is no mystery. It's a well-known aspect of insulin dependent diabetes known as the Dawn Phenomenon and is caused when hormones cause the liver to release glucose towards the end of the night. More accurately, towards the end of sleep: a #gbdoc friend, a nurse who works nights, recently posted a picture of her FreestyleLibre trace showing a rise at the end of the afternoon. Dusk Phenomenon. It is notoriously difficult to control, and I personally find that most mornings I am awake by around 5. Not an ideal preparation for a busy working day, and especially annoying when it happens at weekends or when on holiday, when a sleep-in might be welcome.

We Type Ones have a complicated relationship with sleep. Come to think of it, we have a complicated relationship with lots of things, notably food, drink and exercise. But for me, sleep is the most difficult one: I am prone to low blood sugar, even hypos, at night if I don't snack at bedtime, but then I'm also very prone to the dawn phenomenon.  You literally can't win, in that low blood sugar wakes you up, high blood sugar wakes you up, and sudden changes in blood sugar wake you up. So the chances are that one or more of these wakes me in a typical night, but most commonly, it's a sudden rise, after an otherwise steady night, that wakes me. Here's a typical Libre trace showing what I mean:

Look how a pretty steady night ends so abruptly at around 6. This one wasn't too bad or too early, but you get the idea.

However, being me, I'll find a silver lining to this cloud. For a start, I rather enjoy early mornings, especially in summer. Sunrise, the dawn chorus, a silent house, the uniquely intimate companionship of early morning radio are all something of a consolation,  and I also enjoy the chance to catch up on the reading that I don't get done at bedtime because I've fallen asleep. And Godiva the cat is always more than happy to see me for an early breakfast and a cuddle.

But there's another consolation. Once again, the #gbdoc comes to the rescue. As I said at the start of this post, I very much get the impression from Twitter that I am not alone. When I started using the hashtag #GBDocBreakfastClub I found plenty of response, and any tweet at the crack of dawn is almost certain to be seen and responded to by my fellow diabetics. In fact, I'm going to publish this post at dawn, to see if I can prove my point. I'm willing to bet that I'll see a few #MugsofGBDoc as we share our early solitude.

#MugsofGBDoc

And here's a nice selection of morning songs to listen to. Click on the words "Good Morning":-

                                                           Good Morning

Right now, I'm off to bed. Got an early start tomorrow....

Let's Taste the Spice of Life

As I approach the landmark age of sixty, I very much hope that I am NOT becoming a grumpy old man. Old, yes, but not grumpy. I happen to believe that for those of us fortunate enough to live in a liberal Western democracy, the world is a better place than it was when I was born. Indeed I believe our society is, by and large, a more tolerant, fairer, kinder one than it was, say, 50 or 100 years ago. Music was great in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, but there's still some great stuff being written and performed. The worlds of theatre, cinema, sport, culture and business are more vibrant and innovative than at any time in my life and well before. And mainstream television, whose demise is often predicted, seems to me to be in rude health, not least in the area of drama, in which we have been treated in recent years to a string of productions of the highest quality in both lightweight escapism such as Downton Abbey, hard-hitting hyper-reality like Happy Valley, or Call the Midwife, which manages to be both escapist and hard-hitting at the same time.

So I don't believe in the "good old days", nor do I think that we are in an inexorable slide towards a new dark age. Of course the world can still be a frighteningly nasty place, and mankind's capacity for evil remains depressingly apparent. But that should not blind us to what virtue there is, nor to the fact that the younger generation gives me every reason to believe that the future is in safe hands. I don't think young people are feckless, lazy and degenerate; I find them to be engaging, hard-working, good-humoured and respectful of their elders. Yes, I know I am lucky enough to teach in a very good independent school, but I also know many wonderful young people from all sorts of schools and backgrounds (it would be remiss of me not to mention here my many young friends from the online diabetic community) So you won't, I hope, find me ranting and raving about falling standards, bad manners, popular culture and whatever else some older people seem to almost delight in moaning about as they grow older.

I do, however, have one overall regret about the world in which I must grow old: it's the way in which we seem to be losing variety and contrast from so many areas of life. So perhaps readers will permit me to be, well, just a little grumpy, about what can be termed the homogenisation of modern life.

"What on earth do you mean?", I hear you ask. "I thought homogenisation was a chemical process, most commonly applied to milk". Well yes, it is, but if homogenising means making everything more consistent, removing contrast, eliminating light and shade both literally and metaphorically, then our world is a lot more homogenous than it was even twenty or thirty years ago. And I feel it is somewhat diminished as a result.

I started thinking about this post earlier today - Sunday - when I was walking to church. I am lucky to live in a small market town with a flourishing Parish church, whose peel of bells can be heard throughout the town on a Sunday morning as it has been for generations. I posted a short clip of the peeling bells on Twitter which quickly attracted a few likes, some of which were from people whom I know to be atheists, which intrigued and heartened me. Perhaps I was on to something. At least until mid-morning here in Kirkham, it sounds and therefore feels like Sunday, and perhaps more people appreciate this than I had thought.

In many ways it is perhaps the seven days of our week which give the best example of what I mean by homogenisation. I am not a big fan of 24/7 and 7/7 living, in that I like day and night to feel different, Saturday to feel like Saturday and Sunday to feel like Sunday. Go into any town centre on a Sunday these days, and it looks and feels no different from any other day. I prefer my Sunday to feel like the proverbial day of rest. For me personally that means church, Sunday roast and a general chill-out. I know that not many people these days want to go to church, but even a secular Sunday should feel different - maybe a walk, some quality time with family or friends, catching up on reading or even TV. But not just another hectic day. Sunday needs church bells ringing out across an otherwise quiet town or it doesn't sound right. And for me it also needs the Songs of Praise or Antiques Roadshow theme music and the smell of a roast dinner. I dislike Sunday opening of shops, not for religious reasons, but because I belive we all deserve and indeed need a "day of rest", or in modern parlance, a chill-out day.

I feel the same about Saturdays. They too should feel like Saturday: leisure activities, hobbies, shopping, DIY, sports - watching or playing - with "Out of the Blue", the theme to Sports Report at the end of the afternoon and Match of the Day in the evening. I'd rather not have a hospital appointment on a Saturday, so I don't see why doctors should be bullied into doing non-emergency work at weekends in the name of a "Seven day NHS"

Days are like seasons. We appreciate them more if they feel different. We need the cold and darkness of winter to help us appreciate the warmth and light of summer. I would hate to live in a climate where there were no clearly defined seasons. I love contrast.

I suspect that many readers will agree with me so far, but I actually feel that homogenisation has pervaded all areas of how we live our lives in a rather more insidious way. I am saddened, for example, by the way we are forgetting that different activities and occasions require different styles of dressing, behaving and speaking. Taking dress as an example, I very much prefer to dress, and see others dressed, in a style which reflects who we are and what we are doing. I want politicians, doctors, solicitors, teachers and the like to be dressed formally so that they look professional and important, and I don't particularly want them to be informal, crack jokes and I certainly don't want them to feel the need to sound "down with the kids". It's perfectly possible to be approachable, sensitive and empathetic whilst smartly dressed and well spoken.

Likewise, I cringe when I go to a church that feels and sounds like a shopping centre and vicars feel compelled to be jokey and informal, beginning the service with "Good Morning Everyone" rather than "The Lord be with You", using dumbed down, modernised wording in hymns and prayers in an attempt to make them more relevant, and generally making the language and practice of religion indistinguishable from that of the secular world. For me, religion is a serious and solomn, but joyful, business which should feel different from the rest of our lives, albeit in a manner which makes us want to live it out in our everyday lives. That's why I love Choral Evensong. It's about contrast again: I want church to be different from day-to-day life, not just an extension of it.

Another example of homogenisation is in our use of language. As I said earlier, I don't agree with those who moan about "falling standards" of English, and who can't distinguish between change and decline, but I do think we are in danger of losing the ability to disntinguish between different registers of language. We write (or rather type) so much more than we used to, by texting, tweeting, facebooking, blogging and emailing, that we now write in the same way that we speak. I'm doing so right now in this blog post. Again, nothing wrong with that, but we still need to retain and cultivate a more formal, precise and correct form of spoken and written language in many situations. I worry when people think it's alright to start formal emails with "Hello" or even "Hi", where clearly a more formal "Dear...." is required. And again, I see nothing wrong with more sophisticated, even intimidating language in areas such as the law, medicine and business. Serious things need serious language.

So there it is. My fit of grumpiness, or as I prefer to call it, regret. I'd actually prefer to conclude on a more positive note. Rather than moaning about homogenisation, let's say that I appreciate contrast and variety. It's central to my view of life, my personality and tastes. I love punk rock as much as gregorian chant. I love rain lashing on my window as much as warm summer sunshine. I love serious conversation as well as slapstick comedy. I love baked beans on toast as well as fine cuisine. I am as much uplifted and exhilarated by being in a gothic cathedral as I am by being in a football crowd. I love being in crowded city streets as much as country lanes. You can't appreciate light without darkness, peace without noise, summer without winter. Let's cherish and celebrate difference and variety. Variety is the spice of life, so as Manhatten Transfer once said, Let's Taste the Spice of Life

Lord for the Years

If you've has ever wondered where my Twitter profile description of what I do comes from, you're about to find out.

"Teaches and trains, rebukes and inspires" seems to me like a pretty good summary of what a teacher should do, and it is lifted from the second verse of one of my favourite hymns, Lord for the Years.

I am an unapologetic hymn geek. I believe that the (largely) British tradition of hymn singing is one of our finest contributions to world culture, and is often overlooked and even derided because of its association with organised religion, a practice seen by many as stuffy, outdated and irrelevant to the real world. Yet in my view, English hymns have given us some of the finest melodic and lyrical works ever written. It doesn't get much better than Charles Wesley, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Hubert Parry, to name but three.

It is easy to think of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as some kind of golden age of hymn writing, and indeed many of our finest hymns date from that time. However, some very fine hymns have been written in more recent years, and no, I'm not talking about some of the embarrassing happy-clappy pseudo-rock stuff that some strands of the Christian Church have embraced in a desperate attempt to appeal to a younger generation. That's a big mistake in my view. The Devil, they say, has all the best tunes and when it comes to rock and roll, he sure does - quite rightly and triumphantly so. Let's leave religion out of rock music, and just enjoy the music for what it is. Attempts to sing about God, Jesus, Heaven and all that stuff using the rock idiom are doomed to failure in my view. There are one or two honourable exceptions, but they just prove the rule.

English hymns in the traditional style, with their sturdy, dignified melodies and their often archaic, at times wonderfully incomprehensible words, are I believe  the perfect medium for taking our thoughts to a higher plane. Try hearing, say, Love Divine, all loves excelling sung by a large congregation to the tune Blaenwern and I defy anyone not to be moved. Try quietly listening to the "still small voice of God" as a good choir sings Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and you'll feel that voice talking to you. Or try singing Jerusalem in a crowd if you're English and you'll almost certainly feel good about yourself and your country.

Lord for the Years belongs in the same league: a dignified melody, memorable and singable yet containing some interesting chord progressions, combined with unapologetically orthodox Christian theology expressed in a concise and eloquent manner. It was only written 40 years ago, but sounds like it's been around for a hundred years or more.

It's a hymn I believe I would love anyway, but for me it has a particular appeal because it is the adopted school hymn of the wonderful Kirkham Grammar School, to which I have devoted an entire teaching career.

More than that, I can claim personal responsibility for the fact that it is the School Hymn. I have achieved a lot in my 35 years at the school, but as I approach the end of my career there, I can honestly say that my proudest, and I hope most lasting, legacy to the School is that we have Lord for the Years as our school hymn.

This is how it happened: Back in 1998, I was part of a committee making plans to celebrate the School's 450th anniversary in 1999. Among the ideas being kicked about, the then Headmaster,  very much a traditionalist, suggested that as there was no school hymn, we should perhaps have one. It was suggested that perhaps someone could write one, but for whatever reason, nothing ever came of the idea, and so we were spared the sort of embarrassing doggerel that some schools have been landed with. Now at around the same time, the Director of Music had started using Lord for the Years at our Founders' Day service, having heard it used at a diocesan education service. I was immediately attracted to this hymn, and suggested to the Headmaster and Director of Music that it would fit the bill perfectly as "the school hymn". Nobody had come up with a better idea, and so it came to pass, with no official announcement, that Lord for the Years became the the KGS hymn. Our school year starts and ends with it. It is sung at Speech Day and Founders' Day and other formal events, and has been used at weddings of former pupils. Every year in May, our Sixth Form leavers at their leavers' assembly sing it with gusto in a manner that brings a lump to the throat of even the most hardened, non-believing cynic.

What is it about Lord for the Years? Well, most unusually, both the the melody and the lyrics were written by Bishops, so its Church of England pedigree is impeccable. The melody, composed by former Bishop of Chester Michael Baughen, is quite literally uplifting, ending an octave above where it started, and reaching that conclusion in an interesting and original, yet reassuringly traditional-sounding manner. And the words, by former Bishop of Thetford Timothy Dudley-Smith, says all there is to say about compassionate, caring and grateful Christianity in five four-line verses. Lines like "Spirits oppressed by pleasure wealth and care" and "Loveless in strength and comfortless in pain" speak of the spiritual poverty which afflicts the rich and blinds us to the sufferings of those less fortunate than ourselves, yet in the first verse we are reminded of  the enduring and unconditional power of God's love for us: "Sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided". 

And the last verse contains as good a summary of Christianity as it is possible to give in just nine words: "Self on the cross and Christ upon the Throne".

So there it is. A wonderful piece of writing which has the power to "teach and train, rebuke and inspire" It's what I have tried to do over my teaching career, and what I hope and believe our unpretentious, almost 500-year-old school has done exceptionally well throughout all those years, and will continue to do. We do indeed "bring our thanks today"

Here are the words in full, and if you click on the title, you can hear is sung:-

Lord for the Years.

Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided,
urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way,
sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided:
Lord for the years, we bring our thanks today.

Lord, for that word, the word of life which fires us,
speaks to our hearts and sets our souls ablaze,
teaches and trains, rebukes us and inspires us:
Lord of the word, receive your people's praise.

Lord, for our land in this our generation,
spirits oppressed by pleasure, wealth and care:
for young and old, for commonwealth and nation,
Lord of our land, be pleased to hear our prayer.

Lord, for our world where we disown and doubt him,
loveless in strength, and comfortless in pain,
hungry and helpless, lost indeed without him:
Lord of the world, we pray that Christ may reign.

 Lord for ourselves; in living power remake us-
self on the cross, and Christ upon the throne,
past put behind us, for the future take us:
Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone