Biography

Now, here’s a thing – Gerry Marsden died last week aged 78. Never heard of him? Well, he was the ‘Gerry’ of ‘Gerry and the Pacemakers’ part of the 60’s ‘Merseybeat’ boom that culminated in the Beatles. Anyhow, Gerry Marsden was best known for singing ‘You’ll Never...

Now, here’s a thing – Cricket can be quite a brutal game. We tend to think that is most true when fast bowlers are hurling the ball down at 90 mph+ and batsmen are jumping out of the way or getting hit hard.  As a boy living in Nottingham I grew up with tails of...

Now, here’s a thing. In the ‘60’s Andy Warhol famously said that ‘Everyone would be famous for 15 minutes’. A comment upon the rise of celebrity and the modern speed at which communications operate. Also, the limited attention span that people now have (much truer now...

Now, here’s a thing.  In 2004 Oprah Winfrey, the chat show host signed a personal cheque of $450,000 and gave it to a guest on her show.  That guest was Dr Catherine Hamlin, who by then had been working for 46 years as an obstetrician in Ethiopia and ran a...

Now, here’s a thing. Stonewall Jackson (1824-1863) was an American civil war general, fighting on the Confederate side. Jackson spent his whole adult life involved with the military in some form or another.  Before the start of the civil war he was a lecturer at...

Now, here’s a thing – God brings all sorts of people into his service. When I was a small child we had a pub near us called ‘The Bendigo’. It had a life-size statue of a Victorian pugilist on top of it. He, I was told, was ‘Bendigo’, and had been born nearby. I...