The Saturday List #502 - Thirteen ways I've been blessed with good luck!

 When it comes down to it, I am a lucky sod. In my life I've been blessed wth the most amazing luck. It seems to me that even when things have been bad, they've always worked out well. So I think it justifies a list

1. I was meant to be born on the 5th October 1962. My mum became very unwell and I was induced and born in August instead. I was very ill, I had three blood transfusions.You may think that such a start to life would be a bad thing? For me, it was a massive stroke of luck. It meant that I was in the year before I should have been. I was, for most of my schooling, the smallest, weakest, thickest child in the class. Given that some of my classmates were actually over a year older than me biologically, it was difficult. But it had several bonuses. I didn't start school (which I hated) until the April, rather than in September. It also meant that I had some key friends in my year, who have played a massive part in my musical career. Had I been born when I should of been, I probably wouldn't have been friends with them.

2. I was the youngest of six children. This meant that I had two elder brothers and three elder sisters on my side in life. They influenced my musical career and have always supported me throughout my life. I'd be lying if I said I never argue with them, but I love them all to death.

3. My father was an Australian RAF war veteran. By any measure, my Dad was an absolute hero. He was a role model and instilled in me an unshakeable self belief. Dad always taught me to be self sufficient and trust my instincts. He taught me to never show fear, even when I was terrified. He taught me that in life we always have choices, but a bad choice today means a more difficult choice tomorrow. He always supported me and in our last conversation, he told me that he had thought me to be a useless waster when I was a teenager, but he realised he was wrong. He had mistalen my stubborness and self belief for just being a difficult contrary person, but he'd realised I was just living life to my own rules, which he approved of. 

4.  My Mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant. She was fiercely intelligent. She was in many ways very difficult, especially towards the end of her life. However she had the right values in life and great self belief. She reinvented herself and did very well in business. She was unafraid of taking risks. Like my father she was a great role model. I genuinely believe that good parents are the most lucky thing you can have. Bad parents are the opposite.

5. Clare. Without my wife, I have no idea how my life would have panned out, but I know it would have been worse. She has always supported me, done the heavy lifting and the boring stuff and given me three great kids. I've never actually been sure whether she likes me, but I know she loves me. 

6. My kids. Having great kids is the best blessing God can bestow on anyone. I never wanted kids, but was given no choice in the matter. Now I wish I'd had ten of the buggers. They are a joy I am a lousy father in many ways, but the all seem to love me. 

7. My faith. I don't tak about it much, but I have a deep, personal relationship with God. I daresay a few of you reading this will think "Oh no, he's a nutcase". I get that but I find that when I do the right things, good things happen. I don't pray for money, cars or even football results. I just pray for the wisdom to make the right decision. It is strange how often when I do I get a moment of clarity and I see the right path. When I hear things like US Presidents saying God told them to bomb Iraq, I despair. I genuinely believe that is not how it works. Sadly, I think most promenant, vocal Christians are the worst advert for faith imaginable. For me, God isn't a bloke with a white beard. God is someone who, in quiet, reflectful moments, you may get a better insight into life from, usually in a way you least expect. Often, this comes at the most difficult and challenging moments. But I get it that not everyone sees it and if you think its all mumbo jumbo that's fine. So long as we all keep our minds open and we appreciate what we've got in life that is enough!

8. The False Dots. I genuinely cannot imagine life without my band. In some ways it has given me everything. I met the person I love at one of our gigs. I started my business so I could have somewhere to rehearse with the band. I persuaded my Mother not to sell the site where our studios are for a pittance in 1989, after my father died, so I could have somewhere to rehearse. Myself and my siblings now manage the site and it has proven to be an amazing investment. But most of all, it is such a blast. I am proud of the music we make and I love my bandmates..

9. SPL International. In 1983, I did a TOPS course in Computer Operations. I wanted to get a job with a stable income, so I could move in with my then girlfriend. At the end of the course, they set me up with interviews at various companies. The first two places I went were horrible. The third interview was with a software company called SPL International. I had no expectations of getting the job, but my then boss, Peter Sutherby liked me. The job was brilliant. I worked there for two and a half years. Another software company called Systems Designers took them over and sadly the vibe was gone, but by then I had a proper career. 

10. Hadley FC. About eight years ago, my nephew suggested that I go with him to watch Hadley FC, a local Non League football team. I'd never heard of them. I thought it may be fun. When I got there I loved it.  My main football team is Manchester City FC, who I've supported through thick and thin since 1968, but Hadley is something very different. I am a season ticket holder and a shareholder. I met Tom Hammond, our trumpet player there. Whilst I am a City fan, I am part of Hadley FC.

11. Cancer. How can it be lucky to have cancer? I got very lucky. When I was 49, Dr Cuttell at Millway surgery suggested I had "a well mans MOT".  I was diagnosed with a non aggressive prostate cancer, following a high PSA test. I was put on active surveillance In 2015, it became aggressive and I had HIFU treatment. That addressed the issue until 2023, when it became aggressive again. I had a radical prostatectomy. Had I not had that PSA test, by now I'd probably have symptoms and be faced with very different choices. The year after I was diagnosed, the NHS stopped doing routine PSA tests. 

12. My friends. How lucky am I to have the great friends I have? Some of them date from the day I walked into St Vincents School. Some I've got to know in the last couple of years (such as Tom our trumpet player). All have brought blessings to me.

13. This blog. I never set out to be a blogger, it happened by accident. Being dyslexic. I didn't think anyone would be interested in my blatherings. But it seems they are. I get a lot out of writing the blog. I've met great people and learned so much researching it. It is a form of therapy for me. 

As I am sure you know, The False Dots releaased a new album last Saturday called "We don't live in America". Please have a listen

The Sunday Reflection #36 - Superstition or common sense?

Are you superstitious? It had never really occurred to me before, but whilst I think we all know what superstition is, I didn't know what the actual dictionary definition of it was. So I did what we all do these days and googled it 

"a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially as leading to good or bad luck, or a practice based on such a belief."

When I saw this, I felt that it was a rather poor definition. I have many superstitions, but I would contend that they are anything but irrational. In our house, many of these superstitions are based on football. We have a code of conduct when we are watching Manchester City play. We are only allowed to go to the toilet when the CIty Goalkeeper has the ball, or immediately after a goal. Anyone watching who breaks these rules will get a huge volley of abuse from both myself and my son

Bruno relaxes after a mammoth
doggy power session yesterday

We also are firm believers in "Doggy power". This is the belief that if the dogs, especially our old boy Bruno is watching, City will play better. We believe that this power especially transmits to certain players, such as Kevin De Bruno, Kyle Walker and GunDOGan. If Bruno cannot be persuauded to watch, City invariably play much worse. This may sound like nonsense, But Bruno wll be fourteen years old this year and his arrival coincided with the period of domination of football by City. Oddly, there worst period in recent years, coiincided with when we had a cat - 1990-2004. When our lovely British blue passed away, we got a dog and City got better, but it was the arrival of Bruno in 2011 which really saw the rise of City. Now you are probably thinking  "what a complete load of old cobblers", but stop and think about it for a second. The reason we've got the toilet protocol is because it works. The number of occasions when we've broken it and the opposition score is quite freaky. Statistically it is quite rare for a goal to occur directly from a kick off or when the keeper has the ball in their hands. Does the behaviour of someone or a dog watching the telly in Mill Hill have any effect on a football match a couple of hundred miles away? Of course there is absolutely no logical reason why it should, if it did, then every such superstition everywhere in the world would cancel it all out as Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal fans presumably have their own superstitions. But......

Every time we don't follow our superstitions and things go wrong, we feel a totally irrational level of guilt and shame. Why would you want that burden, so why not follow the superstitions? Can sheer thought power affect things in remote locations? It would seem completely ridiculous to suggest such things, but even the CIA has experimented with the concept of using the power of the mind for espionage and other intelligence related work. They were more than interested in the concept of using 'remote viewing' to nick secrets from the USSR. The Americans spent over £20 million on the project. Ultimately the official conclusion was that 'no useable intelligence was ever obtained', but many conspiracy theorists do not believe that conclusion. If you have a look at twitter, there is some very interesting stuff. 

The CIA publishes the craziest stuff on their website.

"Oh yeah we had professional remote viewers, yeah, we asked them to go visit Mars one million years ago. What did they see? Pyramids, obelisks, a dying elder race looking for a new home. Anyway its declassified now." pic.twitter.com/Jpts5bbpsu

— Andrew Côté (@Andercot) November 17, 2024

I find it fascinating, not perhaps for the same reason as the conspiracy theorists, but the concept that our brains can do more than we realise truly fascinates me. My Dad was a WWII bomber pilot. He was the most superstitious person I've ever met. He once told me that all of the pilots he knew who dismissed superstitions got killed or taken POW. I once asked him how he could possibly square his superstitions with his highly logical mind as an engineer. His reply was interesting. He said "95% of people who drive cars, get on airplanes and put sausages in the fridge have no idea how these things work or are even possible". He pointed out that 1,000 years ago the idea that people could fly around the world would be dismessed as complete nonsense. His view was that if superstitions work, then you use them, even if you don't know how, why or even if they actually work. He said to me "Suppose I told you that if you walk to the park, you will find a bag under the bench with a million pounds in it, would you go and see, even if you thought I was joking?". It was an interesting point and I said "If I thought there was any chance that I'd find the bag, I'd go". He said "That is why I follow my superstitions. I don't need proof they work, I am prepared to take a chance". He then said "Of course, if you found a bag with a million pounds there, you'd have a completely new set of problems, you may end up regretting it".

He then told me a strange tale. My Dad was raised in the remote outback of Australia. He told me that when he was a kid he was friendly with an old Aboriginal witch doctor, or medicine man as he was sometimes referred to. The guy had told him that your mind had the power to do anything. You could make rain, make rain go away, you could even kill people simply by thought power. Dad had been fascinated and asked how you do this. The old man had then explained "All you have to do is understand that the whole world is in balance. If you make rain, then at some point you will need water and won't have it. If you kill someone, they will drag your soul to hell with them when you die, in effect when you change things, you become a prisoner of what you have changed. So if you killed Adolf Hitler by power of thought, you'd end up as his prisoner in Hell forever. I asked Dad if he believed the bloke. He said that when he was born, there had been a massive drought in Australia and he'd not seen rain until he was five. The old guy had turned up when a local farmer had paid him to make rain. The next day, there was a deluge. There was a dried out river bed, known as Cooper Creek that ran nearby and this became a huge river, all manner of strange fish appeared from nowhere and the land turned from sandy brown to a lush vista of green. I was fascinated. I said to Dad that the bloke who paid the witch doctor must've been delighted. Dad laughed and said "quite the opposite, the deluge washed away his house and all of his belongings, that was the price that you pay for using a witch doctor to make rain". Dad told me that he knew how to make rain or make it go away, but if you made the sun shine when rain was forecast, invariably a week later, you'd get caught in an unexpected cloudburst and get soaked to the skin. You didn't make sunshine, you just moved when it rained. 

I realised later in life that what Dad was trying to teach me was not that you could make rain or kill people. He was teaching me something far more important. He was teaching me that everything has a price and when you mess with things, there are always consequences. He was making me think about how our actions always have consequences. Ultimately the logical conclusion of what he was telling me was don't mess about with things you don't understand. I have often thought about the farmer who had his house washed away in the medicin man's deluge. He hadn't been doing anything bad, he simply wanted some rain as the drought was destroying his business. It seemed to me to be a bit unfair that the consquences are so devastating, but when you mess around with things that you have no understanding of, you can come very unstuck.

This month, on the 20th, we will see Donald Trump's inauguration as 47th President of the USA. I don't know why, but whenever I think of that farmer and his tragic fate, I think of Donald Trump. When I look at his forthcoming administration and the people he is appointing, he reminds me of that farmer, who thinks that the rain will come and he'll be rich, only to see everything washed away in the deluge. I see Trump rushing to open Pandora's box. My only hope is that we are not all washed away in the tidal wave that he unleashes. When Trump takes the helm, I will cross my fingers for good luck. Sadly that is all any of us can do. Whether it is superstition or common sense, I honestly believe that the citizens of this planet will need a lot of good luck in the coming months.

Am I the luckiest man alive?

Regular readers of this blog might think 'Oi Oi, he's been on the sherry a bit to much over Christmas' reading this. Those familiar with my blogs on my issues with dyslexia and cancer, those who have shared my despair at the lack of justice I see in society, those who see some of the rather nasty and at times deranged posts of people I've upset over the years, who still regularly snipe away. Having read these you may think 'what's he got to be happy about?'. But friends who know me know that I am an unrelenting optimist and if I count my blessings they outweigh the negatives, by a magnitude of a million. I have come to see dyslexia as a gift. Had I had a normal brain, I would probably, like my siblings, excelled at school, not felt the sense of alienation when I was 14 that made me embrace punk rock music. I would probably be a self satisfied, successful middle aged man, in a boring job, smugly counting the days down until I got my pension. I wouldn't be running a music studio and playing music in a rock and roll band. I may have had another 0 on the end of my bank balance, but I have no doubt I'd be less happy.

Then there is living with cancer. This was a massive change in my life and hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles. I have come to accept it as a massive wake up call. I am lucky in that I have few symptoms, apart from a need to use the toilet rather regularly. You may think this is simply superstitious claptrap, but I have come to view it as a gift from God, the lifestyle changes I've made have undoubtedly improved my general health and happiness. I was supremely lucky to have been diagnosed during a 'well man checkup'. Dr Cuttell at Mill Hill Surgery suggested an MOT when I went to get a football injury checked out. He said "we recommend that as you are around 50 years old we give you a once over'. That gave me the chance to keep an eye on the situation and take action when there were problems. If that is not lucky, I don't know what is. If I'd not twisted my knee and seen Dr Cuttell, who knows where I'd be now.

As for the dark moments, when I feel down over the lack of justice in our society. I often wish I didn't care, but I would never want to be someone who draws the curtains and forgets those on the margins. I try and do what I can, I could certainly do far more. But my volunteering with HCPT and The Passage has brought me into contact with some truly wonderful people. I have written before that real Superheroes don't wear capes and have special powers. They are simply ordinary people who do extraordinary things. The honour I have to have met so many, some through this blog is immense. My despair is always about the fact that I feel I constantly let them down, by not trying a little harder. It is another great gift to have been privileged to have met so many great people. Back in 2012, when we put 'A Tale of Two Barnets' together, the people we met and the stories we heard made me realise just how vital it is to get the messages across. This little interview, which we used an extract of in the film, with local activist Stan Davison was one such moment. Had we not made the film, this would be lost forever. Please watch this.



And then there are the detractors. A wise man once told me that if you've never made enemies and upset people, you have never done anything of note. He also said that if your detractors are people you'd cross the road to avoid, then you are doing something right. Napoleon once said “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” This is why I ignore them and simply let them get on with it. I have learned that nothing annoys them like being totally ignored. When I realised that simply blocking and ignoring social media detractors is far more pleasant than reading the codswallop they write, it was a moment of great liberation.

When I was a child, our teacher asked us to say what we wanted to be when we grew up. I was a rather useless student and didn't really understand the question. As my classmates said 'Doctor', 'Teacher', 'Soldier', 'Builder', etc, there was much hilarity when I said 'I want to have a dog and a pond'. The teacher said 'That's not a job! What job do you want to do?'. To much hilarity I then replied 'I don't want a job'. The teacher replied 'Well you are certainly going the right way about it'. Everyone laughed. These days, I have two dogs and two ponds. Sadly I have worked very hard throughout my life, but I am extremely lucky that in all of the jobs, I've made great friends. We go away every year with a group of them I met at SPL International (a large UK software company) 35 years ago. I only took the job to repay debts incurred by my Rock and Roll lifestyle, but I found that I was in a band of very special and lovely people. I also found the work really interesting. To my amazement, I had an aptitude for it. I only took the job as I had a crush on the girl on the training desk at Golders Green job centre and she fixed me up on an IT course and told me to come back when I was earning decent money.  If that wasn't lucky I don't know what is. I never took her up on the offer!

The band has been the thing that has driven me. I formed it in 1979 with a school friend. The need for rehearsal space was what made me start Mill Hill Music Complex studios. I was lucky to have a Father who owned a garage and had spare space that we turned into a rehearsal space. Also through the band I met my amazing wife. She turned up at a gig at The Three Hammers in 1985 and the rest is history. That was lucky beyond belief. In fact I've been blessed with amazing friends all through my life. Sadly many are not around anymore, but without their support and help, the band wouldn't have been able to function. Emil Bryden, a friend I made as he used railway land adjacent to my Fathers garage to repair coaches, would lend us his VW camper van. Dermot Fanning passed his driving test at 18 and would drive Emils van all over London, packed with gear and people.

Then there are the amazing people who played in the band. There are too many to list, but without Paul Hircombe I have no doubt that the band couldn't have existed. Paul passed away in 2012 but his support got me through some really dark times. With the studios, Ernie Ferebee, a coach driver for Emil Bryden became my studio partner in 1994. His support and help was invaluable. Sadly he died of Pancreatic cancer aged 52 in 2001. I still miss Ernie, but feel he's still there routing for us. Fil Ross, Tony Cavaye and Darren O'Reilly stepped up and filled the breach. Having such great people is luck beyond comprehension.

They say you make your own luck. I don't believe this. How can work deliver you amazing friends? How can work make you see why catastrophic setbacks are actually huge blessings in disguise? Perhaps the luckiest break of all was being born of my Father Lawrence Tichborne. Sadly I didn't really appreciate this until long after he had passed away. He was an Aussie from the outback of Australia. He taught me to always make the best of everything and always take opportunities. He was a man of deep faith. He told me that when he was in his Wellington, being shot down over Ploesti in Rumania, he had a moment of absolute clarity. Although it seemed like death was seconds away, he said that he felt close to God, but knew that it would all be alright. He prayed that he would see his three score and ten years out and committed that if he survived he would make the best of his life. I didn't realise, when he told me the full story, that he was in his 70th year and I'd never see him again. It took me years to come to terms with what I saw as his very cruel and early death. But eventually I realised that his time had come and he'd lived a full and happy life. If I dropped dead as I completed the final letter of this blog, I wouldn't complain. My 57 years have been amazing. Back in 1979, I wrote a song with Pete Conway called "Live fast, die young". The song started as a celebration of nihilist, drug addled, youthful stupidity. By the time we finished it, the song was a celebration of how much fun you could have if you knew where to draw the line. We couldn't write a song we felt was dishonest, so it ended up being a critique on the stupidity of those such as Sid Vicious, who really threw it all away for a quick fix. Writing the song made me realise that life is to be enjoyed but not abused.

I will leave. you with a little ditty from the band. One I rather like. This is dedicated to all of my friends. It contains a few images I rather like of Mill Hill. Special thanks to Allen, Graham and Fil, The False Dots.

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