Mawddach Dreams

Mom died at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham at lunchtime on 15 April 2009.




Her funeral will take place at Lodge Hill Crematorium at 2.30 on Monday 27th April 2009. Family flowers only.

Donations to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute in Moms name will be welcomed.

All about Lodge Hill Crematorium
All about the RNLI

ITV has recently been spending lots of money on securing the rights to broadcast live football to Digital Terrestrial TV viewers in the UK.

But the sad fact is that Digital TV was the worse invention ever for satisfactory viewing of football matches. Digital allows the broadcaster to have lots of cameras, covering every imaginable angle, many remotely controlled but ITV could have a million cameras covereing a game and its coverage would still be crap!

People sitting on their sofas who for whatever reason are unable to get to see the game live really want to watch the FOOTBALL not the crowd, managers, ball boys, security men or close ups of players nostrils!

People sitting at home need to see where the BALL is, who has kicked it and to who it has been passed or to where it was kicked.

I get the impression, having paid multi-millions for the rights to broadcast, the actual filming and broadcasting of games is being done on the cheap - mainly by people who know nothing of the game and more disappointingly, don't care one jot what the people sitting on their sofas want.

Come on Michael Grade - get your finger out and give some of your broadcasting staff what they really want - their cards, they certainly deserve them!!

Anybody who does not yet understand that the UK Government has little control over anything that affects the majority in the UK needs to read this.

OfCom - the UK regulator of broadcasting and telecommunications has bowed to pressure from Brussels and decided to give the frequencies used by Digital Terrestrial TV & Radio Microphones (as used at Glastonbury etc) to 3G mobile coms companies because "it will make the equipment cheaper".

As someone who sees 3G as nothing more than an expensive toy, certainly not offering anything that people cannot live without I personally do not care what the price of the equipment is likely to be.

But I am pretty sure that every Digital Terrestrial TV user is going to be concerned because this move means ALL such equipment has to be reprogrammed and in some cases will mean it is totally useless and will have to be replaced.

And you can be damn sure the user will have to foot that bill. But then again, this (Gordon Brown's) Government would prefer everybody was on either Sky or Virgin cable so that their (the Labour Party) supporters Murdoch & Branson get lots of money.

Today I went into Waitrose, one of our local supermarkets to buy some groceries.

As usual at the checkout I was given a green token. These are handed to all customers who buy from the main store and represent a donation Waitrose make to the charity of your choice. You deposit the token in one of three slots in a big see through collection box near the entrance/exit.

Out of the three choices available, one was proving to be twice as popular as the others and I am happy to say I added to that ever growing pile of green tokens.

The charity of choice for Waitrose shoppers in Harborne is SSAFA and it makes me very proud to see that most people recognise that this charity really should get support because it provides comfort and support for the members of our Armed Forces.....so many of who are getting hurt and killed in the battlefields of Afghanistan.

For those who cannot get to Harborne or Waitrose - an online donation can be made HERE.

I don't buy much wet fish but today I decided to have some.

So I wandered up the High St and round into St Johns Road to the Richard Jennings wet fish counter. I like him, he knows the trade and always provides good advice, But the flippin counter and the trailer it was in are all gone!

So no wet fish.....I went to M&S and bought a lasagne and cauiflower cheese.

Monday 5th January 2009 was a momentous day for many - first day back at work and school after the Christmas break and what did we all wake up to see? Snow is what and to prove it I took some piccies.....

View out of the rear bedroom>



View from the back door>



View from the front door looking down the road

2009 is here....lets hope that its better than 2008 was.....

I obtained 3 pots and a hanging basket this year - to brighten up my small yard. Each has a variety of shrubs and flowers and all of them also have bulbs in the bottom - meaning I should have bright displays throughout the winter months.

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George Harry Hyde was my grandfather (Ephraim's) youngest brother. George was born in 1894 and died aged 21 on the 8th May 1915 along with most of the rest of his regiment, the Monmouthshire Regiment 1st Battelion just outside Ypres in Belgium. The official Commonweath Graves Commission casultty details are reproduced below:



The most curious thing is that although my distant cousins in South Wales have found George Harry in their research for their family tree, I am in possession of a letter written from the front by a mutual friend of my grandfather, Ephraim, informing him of the circumstances of George's death.

The letter is reproduced here and I also have a small photograph, which is contemporary of the time that I think could be George Harry.

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Gilbert Wilfred Hyde (my Dad) voluntarily joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 (before war was declared) and eventually left in 1946 at the cessation of hostilities.

In commom with all others who served from 1939 to 1946 he was awarded the Defense Medal but being a modest man, never applied for the actual medal just retained the ribbon.

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