Ambition and Spiritual Life

Dr Eve Poole

Jeremy Sinclair

Eve Poole was one of a panel of speakers addressing this question at Just this Day in London in November.  Click on her name or her picture to hear what she had to say.  She also has a live journal, a blog, Eve's Commonplace which is a marvellous window onto a well used life. The other speakers, Jeremy Sinclair and Rosalind Wyatt are also available to listen to via You Tube, just click on their names and hey presto you may learn more about where ambition fits into spiritual life or you may, like me, end up questioning your own life, its spiritual aspect and where ambition sits within that reality.  I have come to think that ambition is just a name for the creative driving force

Rosalind Wyatt with someone who recognises creativity!

which is part of every being and part of what makes them particular.  Eve is a wonder, a young woman with charm and intelligence and with many interests and talents.  The world has been charmed by her and no wonder.  She uses that special charm to connect with people in an easy way and then to simplify what they need to hear, what they need to be able to understand and helps them to realise their own ambitions in an ethical manner.  That to me is what she must have been made for by the Creator who is the One and only one who knows what and who the world is going to need.  Listen to her and you will smile and come away a bit clearer about what ambition might be. Jeremy Sinclair is interesting too.  Admitting to knowing that he wanted to be successful, he explained that success is perhaps just wanting to do things well, to do a thing as well as you are able to.  You can find out whether he has done that by finding out who he is!  That is your Christmas test!
Rosalind Wyatt is an artist and when she talks, you are right with her at the end of her pen or her brush or then her needle and you feel the way that ambition has taken her to create works which are beautiful, careful and which reveal the fulness of human nature.  You can find out about her and what she does by listening to her recent interview 

I have just listened to these three again and what I hear is an expression of each speaker,  an expression of spirit, an expression of the ambition of the One we call God.  He or She didn't put us here to do nothing, he made human beings in his own image to do the best they could for one another and to use every inch of their creative talent to do it with.  Besides for which he made us able to smile and to make others smile too so even if you aren't a chief executive or a brilliant artist or musician, you have the ability to smile and to make others smile too.  Go on, you know you can and you probably know you should.

Being happy just by yourself

Do you think you could be happy without your own place to live?  Do you think you could be happy without a family?  Do you think you could be happy without what you think your life is?
Here is Isabelle, a modern day renunciate with the Brahma Kumaris.  She looks happy and she is happy and when you meet her you are happy too.  Hear why she is happy and why giving up the things of the world doesn't matter to her by clicking on this link.  She is leading a meditation and reflection on the meaning of being a soul right in the centre of London at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Junior Doctors Beware, there is a Jeremy Hunt er outside your door

You know we're on your side

come to negotiate my dears

I am sure you know the story of the 7 little kids and the big bad wolf who dressed up in a grandmother's clothes and put white flour on her wolf like mits in order to trick the innocent kids to open the door and let her in. This blogging Granny is on the inside of the door and with Grandpa is standing by you oh you kid doctors saying beware oh little kids BEWARE of the Hunt-er outside.  He is dressed up in his negotiating clothes and has floured his hands but I feel in my Granny bones that he is playing you into a corner.  This is what I think he may be after and it won't be good for you if I'm right.  He wants to get you into a position where he appears to be the innocent negotiator and you are the wicked ones who don't care about your patients.  We all think that he probably wants to privatise that national treasure, the National Health Service rather than face up to the fact that it must go through a very intelligent process to get it working for everyone even if we all have to pay a little more for it.  He wants to appear to negotiate with you which will be reported in the Press as a kind and open minded way of going forward when he really wants to squeeze you into a place where you still strike and then he will be able to paint you as Voldemort with an inky black heart, uncaring, idle, self-seeking shirkers upon whom he as saviour of the NHS will be bound to impose a contract.  You will be sad and cross and out of pocket in the long run and off you will have to go to New Zealand and Dubai and other parts of the world with your good training and your high set of values and then doctors trained in other places with other values will come in and take your place.  Believe me, and believe Grandpa, we don't want you to go.  We want the National Health Service to be funded properly and if Jeremy Hunt would like to call Grandpa he has a few good ideas for how he could do it.

It isn't too late but it maybe too late if you don't see who is really outside the door little kids.

From one world to another

From this one 

to this one

I have taken a both physical and spiritual journey from my cosy Aga in the kitchen to the top of Mount Abu in India with my friends the Brahma Kumaris.  Here is a picture of their kitchen store. This week they are feeding at least 400 people each day out of that store!  In my kitchen I feed Grandpa and a few other souls who happen to be passing by.  I have gone from one world to another in more ways than one!

The Brahma Kumaris are a modern miracle and here is why.  Started in the 1930s, a small group with a visionary leader arrived in Mount Abu with nothing but faith and love of God and one another.  And their faith translated into a spiritual discipline of love which they still maintain and which is probably why they are so successful.  So successful that they are in over 100 countries, so successful that here in India at the centre nearby they provide 75000 meals a day!  That is 25000 people 3 times a day and that is with solar powered cooking not an aga.  I am not here though for the cooking, I am here to learn a little more about their meditation and way of life.  I came thinking I knew a thing or two about it but will be leaving in a couple of days time realising that I have a long way to go.  However they are the nicest company to be in for those miles .  If you want to hear a Brahma Kumaris leading a meditation, come to St Martin-in-the-Fields on Wednesday next week in the morning or listen by live stream.  Follow this link for the morning event  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ0gjnYGBIg   And in the evening come to St James's Piccadilly to hear some other marvellous people or follow this link to watch it by live stream  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mVq8NUZZyc

Dadi Janki giving out the gift of toli (sweeties)

Buffeted by the news. Meditate

Battle between the Gods and the Giants.

We are shocked by the terrible outrage in Paris unless we are amongst the fanatics.  We are delighted at the results of the election in Burma if we are fans of Aung San Suu Kyi.  We love one thing and deplore another according to our own sense of self.  The battle between the good and bad goes on interminably, one day a good thing, another day a bad but somehow inside us we believe in the Good, we know when a thing is good or bad unless our judgment has been warped by some propaganda.  We have the power to judge these things and we also have the power to judge the good and bad things inside ourselves.  The reason is that we can see the way the good ideas and bad ideas crowd into our minds firing up a response, sometimes good and hopefully not too often bad.  Keeping your eye on the good things helps especially when there are events which we can't understand.  We have to cling together with family, look after our neighbours and praise good works that good people are doing all over the world.  The other thing is to find a space beyond the good and bad, to aim for the space beyond the words and actions and let that space help you make any changes that are needed.
Use your mind and heart and all your strength to go forward towards the source of goodness.  If you want to hear some remarkable people speaking about how to do this, check this newsletter out and on November 25th follow the links to hear them wherever you are.
Laura Hyde, David Horan, Valery Rees, Morning Event Live Stream:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ0gjnYGBIg  St Martin in the Fields
Eve Poole, Jeremy Sinclair, Rosalind Wyatt, Emily Johnston. Evening Event Live Stream:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mVq8NUZZyc  St James's Piccadilly

Hunting down the doctors Jeremy Hunt

maybe we aren't the only ones after you

You are hunting down the junior doctors Jeremy and I don't think that you have really thought it through.  Grandpa and I have sat down with our doctor daughter and her doctor husband to work out how this is going to affect them and although we understand the NHS is unwieldy and costs too much we think you don't realise that you are going about your cuts in the wrong way.  You are heading for a fight when they really don't want it.  They want to be able to look after their patients but they realise that the N.H.S will lose doctors who can't afford to work for you and won't attract young people to train.  I am sure that you think that you aren't disadvantaging them but you are and remember  a Junior Doctor will probably have incurred a large debt whilst qualifying, will have paid tuition fees, accommodation and food over their long training period.  They will be in their mid twenties to early thirties and will have no chance of paying the debt off for years.  Being that age, they will hope to have some personal life, to find a partner and may hope to have a home and start a family.  They will already have less time to spend doing this than their friends who are in different professions.

We notice that MP's have changed their own hours to make the job sociable and family friendly so you must understand that sociable hours mean functioning families, unsociable hours might create dysfunctional ones.  We hope you have read this article about picking the wrong fight.   You probably won't read this meditating Granny blog!  We think that we will have to meditate our way to healthy old age because there may not be enough doctors to help us when we need them.

You say that their basic pay won't go down but think of this.  Their basic pay will now cover what has already been thought of as working unsocial hours.    Their hours will mean that they will be working later and on the weekends for no extra pay.  You are riding on the back of the feeling that the National Health Service is failing and doctors are part of the problem but if you think about it, when you lose doctors and can't attract people into the profession, the National Health Service will be worse.  The trouble with the hospitals isn't the junior doctors, it maybe that there aren't enough of them.  You seem to have spoken to the press a lot and given them a story which puts these doctors in a bad light.  They don't want to strike, of course they don't but they don't see how you will ever listen to the reality of the impact of your contract on them. Grandpa and I are having to jump up and down and write about this because our two doctors are working their socks off already as well as having long journeys, large mortgages and little expectation of being able to start a family.  Don't Hunt them to death Mr Hunt.

Can you be ambitious and spiritual at the same time? Find out!

Olivia Emden

Emily Johnston

Last year, Olivia from the Footfall Theatre, asked two women in a discussion at St James's Church Piccadilly if it was possible to be ambitious in the world and retain a spiritual life.  I am interested in the question because to succeed as an actress and for her company to succeed meant that she understood the nature of ambition.  When you read the Footfall mission statement, you will see that they are an all-female theatre company with a passion for Shakespeare's texts and collaborative theatre.  They know that a lot of theatre makers tackle Shakespeare but what makes them different is their emphasis on illuminating the female voice and gender within his plays.

Jeremy Sinclair

Rosalind Wyatt

Dr Eve Poole

 Olivia's question remained with me and it will be up to you and your questions to help
find out if the apparent two paths, the ambitious and the spiritual end up in the same place.  To help, on November 25th at St James's Piccadilly, Emily Johnston, life and well being coach will chair the three remarkable people who you can see pictured.  All of them have outer lives that are quite different from one another except that all three are creative.  They have been asked to speak because their inner lives are all motivated by and centred on a spiritual curiousity.  They will be facing YOU alongside an audience with their own questions.  You can be there if you are in London but even if you live at the other end of the world you can join in.  Go to www.justthisday.org at 7.00 pm GMT on November 25th and starting with Don Kipper, two musicians who are ambitious to succeed will play you into the mood to listen. Then our speakers are guaranteed to give us a really interesting evening.  Jeremy Sinclair, Chairman of M&C Saatchi, Rosalind Wyatt, artist and calligrapher and Dr Eve Poole, writer and lecturer, all three are deeply impressive people.  I really want to know where ambition fits in to spiritual life because I recognise that I am ambitious in many ways, ambitious for Just this Day, ambitious for my children and Grandchildren to succeed and at best, ambitious for society in general to be happy.  Come along and help me to find out more.

Andrew Gorman and Don Kipper

Meditating Grandpa takes on Times Journalist

Good old Grandpa

Grandpa, who meditates faithfully is a force to be reckoned with when he gets the wind behind him! You will remember that he and I went marching for the doctors not long ago with our banner flying. Never mind that he looked rather as if he should be on the countryside march! and our pink banner might have indicated we were supporting something pink, we really meant to give our support to those doctors before there aren't any left and all the good ones have gone to Bondi Beach.  Perhaps you may have heard about the not real doctors who get to work here by registering with suspicious agencies who supply what are meant to be bona fide doctors to the hospitals at huge public expense. Today, rising from his meditation seat and having walked the dogs, Grandpa reads his newspaper and finds that one of his favoured journalists, one Daniel Finkelstein, now Lord Finkelstein has written in today's Times http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4610596.ece which means he clearly doesn't have any doctors in his family.  So, Grandpa, now all fired up, picks up his i pad and fires off a response to Danny.  Danny replies which shows he is on the case but says he doesn't agree.  So, in order to get the message round, I am copying you what he wrote.  This is a good way into a great Grandpa's meditating mind.  It is a tour de force when it is fired up. I am going to teach him to tweet now so that more journalists and politicians get a bit of his wisdom. I am tweeting so can you, direct to him https://twitter.com/Dannythefink  This is what he said:
To Daniel Finkelstein at the Times

see Grandpa under the banner

stirring up trouble for Jeremy Hunt

The Department of Health has reserved the right to impose a contract if the Junior Doctors enter a negotiation but fail to agree. The first effort ended with the Junior Doctor thinking that some progress had been made, but soon found out that The Department just went back to square one. This is demoralising and sows the sort of mistrust that ruins any good will. This good will extends to working for the patients whether paid or not , because they are not clock watchers. Mr Hunt announced an 11% pay rise , a headline designed to mislead as it left out the reduction in what had been termed as unsocial hours .Junior Doctors like everybody else take on financial commitments finally tuned to the need for somewhere to live and transport to 

get to work at any hour and during training any where in a region. Also 5 years at medical school can leave substantial debt.

Your article will I'm sure generate a  violent response as indeed it should because of the lack of any study of the facts. No doubt your cronies in government prompted you to pick up the pen and one can see that it was easy copy created without much thought .

My wife and I went with 20000 other people mainly medics. We are both about 70 and have never demonstrated before. We were proud to be there.

Unfortunately Mr Hunt has been shown up as a foxy little twister with a towering ambition being built at the expense of a section of the NHS, least capable, because of their training schedule, to defend themselves . This is meat and drink for a trades Union like the BMA. A pity that Mr Hunt was not keel hauled by his father many years ago!

Good on you Grandpa and down with Danny boy today

Warning, we still have the banner Danny

These shoes were made for meditating

New white shoes 

See my new white plimsolls?  They come from Amazon and they will be first in my suitcase for India.  Why? Well I am invited along with many others to go to the headquarters of the Brahma Kumaris who have had many mentions in this blog.  Their leader, Dadi Janki is in her 100th year and this is a retreat to celebrate that fact.  It is called the Call of Time Retreat and I feel very lucky to be going because the Brahma Kumaris are the most pure hearted of truth seekers that I have found.  You might wonder if I am going to become one and of course it might be tempting to become something so obviously pure hearted and live a life in a community.  Human beings thrive in communities especially if they are well run, they feel part of something bigger than themselves.  You can be a Christian or a Buddhist or a Bahia or a Muslim or an Englishman or Frenchman or an Indian.  You can be a fully signed up member of any of these groups and many others that will all have a goodness to them..  But you are also free to be yourself and enjoy all the different expressions that God has made us into.  It is that freedom which is needed  to be able to encompass all those groups and to respect them and love them.  They are the beacons of light in the world and the world needs them.  I love the Brahma Kumaris and will enjoy myself as close as I can be to them for a week and my respect for them will be shining out of my new white shoes. You can join some of them with your own shoes of any colour and with many others of different groupings on November 25th.  To find out more go to www.justthisday.org and you will find that the key to freedom lies in the stillness.

Blogging dog flags up JUST THIS DAY

my computer skill

my son with his owner

It is rather a long time since I took over this blog but she, the granny I live with has been rather occupied with things other than blogging so I gathered up my courage and my thoughts and took my chance while her mind was elsewhere to tell you a bit about what she is planning at the moment. My owner is organising a day called Just this Day.  Well to me, all days are just this day but she has made a special day for people everywhere  to remember that  they share a single existence with everything in the world. She says you share your beingness with absolutely every other person, animal (especially dogs), plant and even things which don't move.  She says that meditation and being very very still is the way to find this out and has invited lots and lots of people to come and join her in London.  No dogs allowed I'm afraid but they have made provision for me and my family to be looked after on that day.  JUST THIS DAY is on Wednesday November 25th and there are two big events in London.  One is at St Martin-in-the-Fields in the morning and she says that there are two very important people talking there and the other is at St James's Church Piccadilly in the evening with more wonderful speakers.  YOU can register for those events by clicking on the names of the Churches.  But if you don't live nearby you can join in just like me in the picture on the left.  Just turn on your computer and go to www.justthisday.org and there is a live film which means that you will be able to join in wherever you are.  If she leaves her computer behind, I may join in too.    Would you like to find out more? Well follow the link to this newsletter

My son Pip, I definitely share my beingness with him!

Meditation is not just for Grannies! but it helps them too

odd socks

lego all over the place

Meditation is not just for Grannies.  But of course Grannies have more time or so you might think.  I started meditating when I had a whole heap of children, scattered lego not in sets, socks not in pairs, rugby matches to watch and kit to wash, then with the girls, my little pony, hair clips and Flossie Teacake books to endure.  The thing is/was that I thought this was going to go on forever even though the evidence of feet growing out of first baby gros, then trainers, trousers and shirts seemed to indicate that the bodies of my babies were their own self growing things and when they developed their own good and bad habits, that their minds and desires were also their own.  Of course, I thought that the foreverness would endure and they would always be coming home to us and over the intervening years Grandpa and I have made a million pots of marmalade, filled our larders and deep freezes, made the beds up, got the logs in and waited for "the family" to arrive.  Of course they do, but now they have their own lives, their own wives and their own families, their own houses and their own socks to put in pairs and we are learning to shop with a basket over our arms not with a socking great trolley.

A good demonstration of We and Tea!

There are of course advantages!  We can sit in bed with a cup of tea and read, sometimes to ourselves and sometimes to each other.  We are much more sleepy now we are older, we go to bed earlier and sleep like logs.

We were surprised about the change from the central parenting, working identities we had enjoyed for so long but that change surprised us into realising the fragility and impermanence of those identitities.  So, the meditation we had practised over the years which had acted as a calming influence in the search for socks has become essential to the next transition.  And it works.  Not always of course, sometimes meditation is a struggle to sit and dodge the thoughts which try to bludger their way through the quidditch park of the mind.  Sometimes the golden snitch is elusive but oh when you get it, a great peace and confidence seeps through your whole mind and body and the real Self you are comes and softens the edges of inner conflict, the pains and pleasures of life and the next transition doesn't seem to be a big deal.  It also gives understanding of where other people are in their own conflicts and perhaps Grandpa and I and others like us who believe in the something otherness of existence and who aim for the golden snitch make a difference.  If you want to make a difference too, why not follow the signs in this newsletter for Just this Day and join us by coming to London or by switching on your computer, going to www.justthisday.org at 10..0 am GMT and following Brahma Kumari Isabelle Gauthier as she leads us into a meditation.  Then stay on line and listen to Valery Rees introduce Dr David Horan, a meditating translator of the dialogues of Plato who with Mrs Laura Hyde, a director of Education for St James Schools, London, education consultant and former Headmistress will show how the silence and stillness behind words can transform our words and actions.  It will be well worthwhile hearing them.

Life might improve for these two if they read to each other and meditated!

preparing Grandpa for marching

Well, here we are in London, banner at the ready and out of our country characters and into march mode.  Grandpa would love to watch the rugby really but he is sufficiently fired up to come and march for his doctor daughter, his doctor son-in-law, their doctor friends and even more for his own
well-being because who else is going to look after him when he falls sick.  You can hear the case laid out by Peter Stefanovic, a lawyer by listening to this little film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXeZkU2EZoA&sns=em
So, how do we prepare ourselves this morning!
First, a cup of tea and then he reads aloud a chapter from Saviour of the Nation, the poem about Churchill which tells us about the darkest hours and the spirit of fight which Churchill infused the nation with. We rise and dress with some care!  I put on warm clothes, fluff my grey hair into it's biggest and best shape and spray it with march resistant lacquer!  I put on very very bright lipstick. I want to put on the march from Les Miserables! but instead we meditate, trying our best to keep our minds steady.
We raid Rachel's fridge for fighting fare....a couple of bagels and marmite, we share a cup of coffee, I find the march from Les Mis
on YouTube and pocketing our freedom passes we head off for the bus, the tube and the march humming it. You can too

unfurling the Granny banner

Find us out of the garden in Waterloo Place tomorrow

Here we are practising unfurling the banner, maybe it should be called the Granner!  It is stapled on to two walking sticks and you will be able to see it from far away!  Does anyone out there know Jeremy Hunt or David Cameron?  Please pass on our intentions to march to them and our fondest hope that they will be putting on their sound economic thinking caps and realising that the only person who can really deal with the sick persons is the doctor, he/she is quite one of the most important people in the health service.  We need to keep the  ones who have been beautifully trained within the N.H.S to look after it and us.  This is long-term forecast not a short term project.

Rise from your Granny seat and see what you can do!

This is our banner

Grandpa preparing to go

 Come on all you friends and blog readers, this is the time to get into action not just to sit about meditating!  Think about the times you go to hospital when you really need help.  When your child or grandchild swallows a grape and chokes, when Grandpa manages to stick his fingers together with superglue, when you are suddenly doubled up with stomach pain, or can't breathe or worse, you have a stroke or you find yourself facing a life threatening diagnosis.  You really know then who you value, you really know which is the doctor who gives time, which is the doctor who isn't frightened to speak to you, who isn't frightened to make sure you get the best treatment, who will stick it out with you until you are treated. Now what are you going to do when that doctor has gone to Australia or has decided that in order to pay their mortgage they will change career.
So, what are you going to do about it?  You can get up to speed by reading the sent letter from the BMA Junior Doctors (click to download it) representative to Jeremy Hunt to see why they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  You can sign the petition.  You can talk to your friends about it, they probably don't realise how close we are to losing doctors and our precious National Health.  And you can come and find Grandpa and I on Saturday at Waterloo Place just before 2.00 pm with our banner (6ft wide), our sandwiches and a few old friends and march with us and the good doctors to make the point that this is just not on.  You might even be on the telly!

Every age and family member needs doctors too!

Grannies marching and meditating

With all the blogging about junior doctors you may have thought that Grandpa and I have become activists and left our meditation seats behind.  Not a bit of it! we come out of meditation even more determined and Jeremy Hunt, we are going to be marching on Saturday hopefully with a lot of other determined Grannies and this is why!
Jeremy, when you talk about junior doctors you make them sound as if they are newly hatched pip squeaks not grown up practicing doctors who have studied for 5 years and many of whom have been working for up to and over 10 years after that.  Some of them are over 30 years old and their next stop is being a consultant.  You won't need reminding that the years between qualifying and becoming a consultant are mostly between the ages of 24 and 34 and during that time, many people are looking for a mate, finding a home, thinking about children and generally becoming useful citizens.  If you get your way, they can't guarantee being able to pay a mortgage, they can't easily take maternity leave so must leave having babies until they are about to become consultants.  Surely you want your consultants to be well on their way to having a house and a family and ready to really assist in running your health service not starting that household business then.
Now Grannies and others, get behind these doctors and show them that we really value the doctors and need them to stay in our NHS, come and join the BMA Junior Doctor march on Saturday at Waterloo Place near Westminster and then you'll see that those juniors aren't pipsqueak juniors, they are big hardworking, self-sacrificing people and they deserve to be negotiated with not shoved into a contract which doesn't benefit them or us.  Come ON, https://www.facebook.com/events/1695649857321169/ Grandpa and I we will be there with our banner, see above, bright pink and we'll look forward to seeing you.  I will have Lion Bars in my pocket to give you if you come. Let me know if you are coming by Facebook or by commenting on this blog.

Grannies need doctors, doctors need you to sign a petition

Following on from my letter to Dave which I don't think he has read yet (although I am always hopeful) I am going to suggest that we all take action.  Sign the petition (click on the word petition) and if there is a march to Downing Street on October 17th, you will find a large placard saying Grannies for Doctors and Doctors for Grannies and you can join us there.  Bring your own placard and your own zimmer frame. I will post the details on the blog

Moving fast for junior doctors!

Dear Dave, I hope you really are listening!

Dear Dave,

I hear that you and Jeremy Hunt have cancelled the meetings with junior doctors round the country and I saw a film of you looking most surprised when one of them told you what a hash you had made of the contracts.  I am hopeful that you are in a quiet session with Jeremy and George and working out how you can undo this awful mistake.  You see I just don't believe that you don't care and I don't believe that you want the doctors I know going off to Australia or not being able to have babies while they are under punitive contracts with the National Health Service.

Grandpa and I are on holiday with our family who have decided we need looking after!  They do the driving and the cooking and the planning of our days and we have been rather surprised and delighted to find that they are a wonderful new generation, one is a teacher, two are doctors and one is a civil servant.  They are all wanting to make a difference to their fellow beings and have reasonable lives themselves.  I am sure that YOU like us want this to be the case but for sure it isn't if you drive through these terrible terribly unfair contracts

Love to you and Jeremy and George and all your cabinet colleagues who I am sure are doing your best to sort this out.

10 people's Granny

See below Nick Aresti in the Huffington Post

British healthcare workers discovered DNA. They designed the first antibiotic. They invented the ophthalmoscope, the thermometer, the CT scanner and the MRI machine. They were the first to stop and start a beating heart and the first to conceive a baby in a test tube. They operated on me within weeks of being born, and recently gave my elderly relative first class health care when she broke her hip.

I am proud to work for the NHS. It's a wonderful institution that we should all be proud of. I remember I once asked a consultant why he went over and above what was expected of him, in effect doing the job of two consultants. Without a moment's hesitation, he replied; "the NHS took care of me so well in my training, that I owe it to the NHS". Echoing his sentiment, other than the well being of my patients, what underpins my dedication to the NHS is that the NHS has looked after me, and so I must look after it. Many of my colleagues have resisted offers to double their salaries in consultancy firms and plenty have refused offers of working abroad, for better working conditions, hours and pay.

I will attempt to explain the injustice surrounding the proposed contracts. You have heard the rhetoric. You have seen the petitions across social media. You have seen the facts and figures demonstrating a 30% cut in the salaries and changes in the working patterns of junior doctors, most of whom in my experience work tirelessly for their patients. If you were faced with a cut in your salary by a third, when you had only ever exceeded your targets, you would probably be left with a distinct feeling of injustice. You would probably consider seeking alternative employment.

What you may not realise, is that the contract changes go further than a simple pay cut. Female doctors will struggle to take maternity leave due to the contract structure, and even the choice of when to take annual leave will become more rigid than optional. The next Francis Crick (co-discovered the structure of DNA) or even Bruce Keogh (National Medical Director) will be denied the necessary support to pursue research degrees and perhaps the expertise it takes to run the only health service in the world that is free at the point of service.

What I find particularly insulting regarding the proposed new contracts is not the pay cut and changes in working patterns, but the government's smoke screen of patient safety as an excuse to push through the changes. In my opinion, the disharmony amongst the medical profession caused by the threat of the new contracts has caused a far greater risk to patient care than the current working patterns. We all know what the new contracts are about. Money.

For now, our rotas will remain covered. Our patients will still be seen, and the most vulnerable given first class medical treatment. But how long will this last? Junior doctors will begin to leave in droves. Already 40-60% of foundation doctors are choosing not to apply for specialist training. A third of GP training posts are unfilled. So are half of A&E training jobs. We have seen a dramatic rise in the number of applications for 'certificates of good standing' - the paperwork required to work abroad. Those who have gone to Australia, New Zealand and North America, are deciding not to come back. We are already facing a recruitment crisis that could alarmingly escalate. The future gaps in workforce will be the greatest risk to patient safety, not the current contracts, as the government is suggesting.

Overwhelming evidence shows that a valued, supported and motivated workforce leads to better health care and productivity (Sears Employee-Customer-Profit chain). Demoralising the junior doctor workforce will be the next great risk to patient safety.

This contract change is not only unjustified, but also plain and simply wrong. Goodwill is the oil that lubricates the NHS machine, and junior doctors its fuel. Both are at risk of quickly becoming in short supply.

Nick Aresti is a junior doctor working in London.

David Cameron, I am going to need all the help I can get!

That's YOU Dave, you have the power to change things!

Dear Dave,

You may think that because I wrote about Jeremy Corbyn suspecting he wouldn't really do the business as a leader of the country because of his record as a promise breaker that I was definitely going to be voting for you!  Now, I look and feel  like a natural conservative, being old and plus you look a bit like Grandpa.  But, if you don't take a bit more care with the people who are the National Health I might be off elsewhere.  You see, when you get old, even if you take care, your body becomes tiresome, it aches a bit, it hatches unexpected illnesses, it needs help and it will need and does need good medical help.  I am dead against (excuse the pun) early exiting just because the body is tiresome and maybe that I am tiresome to my relatives so I am going to need doctors.  In my family there is one and that one is married to another one and I can see how hard they work.  I know how long and costly their training was, how stressful their exams and more what an extraordinary service they render to people like me and to people who are really suffering.  You and Jeremy Hunt have really messed up with the new contracts you are offering them, those contracts mean that they are stuffed financially unless they leave and go to Australia or leave and take a job as a physician's assistant (which takes only two years to train for and can command a starting salary for a first job of more than those doctors).

So, what I and Grandpa are saying is that we thought that you KNEW about this, we thought that you had a real understanding of how important this is, we thought you could imagine yourself as that old person or that sick person and that you would know that we needed good doctors who not only could administer drugs and treatment but were able to exercise the loving kindness so important to those of us making our way towards a good end.

Two good old Grandpas deserving care

So, think again Dave, I don't mind about the Bullingdon stuff or anything else you may have ever done but oh yes, I do mind that my doctor daughter will have to put off having children, will have trouble paying a mortgage and will be so hacked off with doctoring that the natural loving kindness she brings to her job will be brought to a halt.

I am however optimistic that you and Jeremy have just made a silly mistake and you will be putting it right soon.  How about next week?

Love from someone else's Granny

Assisted Dying, a Grandmother's view

Shane Mulhall, a man worth listening to

Assisted dying is on everyone's lips and everyone has a view about it.  When you are over a certain age, dying is definitely something that begins to be on the menu, starters are over, the main course is finished and the waitress is approaching with the final dessert menu!  So, yes, I think about it and we, Grandpa and I think about it.  This is what we think!  The real assistance with dying comes from true compassion and not from sentimentality.  True compassion takes account of every aspect of a person's being, it looks to the welfare of the body and the mind but it's main focus is the real person, the soul.  So, wisdom let's you see that the body and mind might just not be the same as the soul.  Bodies and minds are going to undergo death but the soul maybe doesn't.  Wise people say for sure that the soul absolutely doesn't die and having watched people do the dying, I am sure that it is true.  One moment the soul is there in the body and the next moment it has gone.  It is a good thing if it can go easily and naturally and without any grief or anger or resentment.  If the body and mind are looked after properly, the soul is assisted in it's leaving.  The whole composition of a human being allows some of that parturition to take place anyway.  Things have less hold as you get older, especially the  body which gets less comfortable and moves rather creakily.  Now the mind is where you need the assistance to see that you will be alright, you will be looked after and that if you have fortitude and courage and cheerfulness and especially if you have family around you and good nursing, you can make it to the end with real assistance and there doesn't need to be a law to make it happen well.
There is a man from Ireland coming to give a talk first in Cambridge, then in Wessex on the State of the World.  This man hasn't been well and it isn't likely that he is going to get better.  He absolutely knows that he isn't the body and so with every breath and every moment, he responds to people's questions and invitations to come and speak to them.  His name is Shane Mulhall and he is a Grandpa with wisdom.  You can come and hear him speak too if you are near either Cambridge or Wessex.  If you click on this link, you can register your attendance.  I can tell you it will be worth it no matter what age you are nor what part of the menu of life is the part you are looking at.

(https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-state-of-the-world-tickets-17845816317)

If you believe in God, you can afford to be optimistic like the Queen

Hey you Grannies and Grandpas,

To give the best in all that the day brings

I like the article by Libby Purves in today's Times where she writes about faith and our own longest reigning monarch, H M The Queen's strong, steady and spoken commitment to God.  She highlights the Queen's annual Christmas message which is always underpinned by the fact of her faith.  The Queen's message almost always contains reference to faith and Libby Purves has picked out this gem from these messages which is worth passing on "the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework.....I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of the best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God".
That this is what underpins her life is a quiet truth, she only says it once a year and then she gets on the living the life and doing her best.
I like the way that the Queen encourages us to take the Long View.  If we took a short view, then when bad things happen we could be tempted to think that God wasn't looking.  But if we take the long view which is rather more daring, we would see that everything tends back to the good, that out of bad the good still comes.  God comes stealthily into our midst and sometimes makes good when we are fast asleep.
It's worth passing on this belief to the young in whatever way you can.  She does and you can too.

Letter to Sebastian, Space is the thing you miss

What's in your heart and in everyone else's is Space

Dear Sebastian, 
You asked me a few days before you went home to Dubai if I believed in God. This was shortly before you asked me about believing in Santa Claus! I have a real discipline of trying to tell the truth so with Santa Claus this is what I said. Santa Claus exists as long as you believe in him!! We agreed that your belief in Santa was getting a bit shaky so bad luck Santa! 
But God, now there is the big question because you see I do believe in God but I think God is a really diminutive little name for something which is so huge. I think whoever said God first just couldn't think of anything shorter don't you? 
So I am going to ask you to think about space in order to help God out of the small hole we have him/her/it in and to think how little we ever consider space. God is like space or space is like God, whichever way round you think best. We think space is outside our world, part of the sky or outside our house or else space is like a parking space, empty if there isn't a car. We don't realise that nothing could exist separately if there wasn't space. We would all be stuck together like toffee without shape of any kind, we wouldn't be anything particular at all. And these words I am sending you wouldn't be readable if there wasn't space between them and cars would crash and pedestrians couldn't keep apart if space wasn't there. We think we should have OUR SPACE, but what does that mean? something where nothing else is apart from us? We claim our house, our family, our children, our school, our Church or Temple or Mosque, Chapel, Pub, Hotel, our borders, our country. We think we begin in one place and that the next person begins elsewhere. But, think about it, think how important the space is for our well-being and ask who it really belongs to. That space is the most important thing there is and it is in your heart and in mine. 
So, God or whoever it is, was once just One thing and made himself huge huge huge and made himself into all the different things within himself, into earth, air, water, fire and space which in turn makes all the solid and not so solid things. So wherever we are, he is too and we mostly just don't notice. 
Sebastian you have a space in your heart as do all the people in the whole world and in that little space is the whole universe so take care of it and of everyone in it. Love from Granny

Are you here or there?

Grannies delight in final wedding with real pics

from this

to this

Whoever would have thought that this small fairy with specs would turn into the bride on the right!  Well of course her mother and father always thought that she would but I'm not sure that being brought up with 4 older brothers teasing her passions for my little pony and small fluffy animals was a real confidence boost!
See the photograph below of the whole family with grandchildren dripping from a swim and click on this link to see Marianne Chua's brilliant record of the day. Link taken down but you can e mail me for the postcard at info@justthisday.org

The whole lot, some a bit wet!