Fred Unwin

Doug told me some rather depressing news about the infamous Fred Unwin, , something of a local hero and a friend of Doug's who has been ravaged by age and forced to move into a nursing home, helpless and dependent upon super-efficient but emotionless carers, plumping up his pillows and wiping his brow.

These are all assumptions, of course based on my own experiences of seeing my grandparents in the same position. I saw my maternal great grandmother just before her death when I was nine and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, it put the fear of the grim reaper into me for years. That pale, skeletal figure on the bed that barely appeared human. They shouldn't have let me see her. But then there are others - those oh so wise child-psychologists who seem to have assumed the right to dictate the way in which every child in the Western world is raised regardless of individual needs - say you should force children to confront the realities of death. It worked for me - too well. I spent years contemplating the ageing process. But then I spent years contemplating the aftermath of what I as a child thought was an inevitability - a nuclear war. Cheerful little brat, wasn't I? It has occurred to me that I might derive a subconscious thrill from fear, rather like people who are addicted to horror movies and claim they hate them. Efexor, however, has removed my worries which, in itself, is worrying.

Hold your breath for the Life and Times of the Great Fred Unwin...