Old times

A break from writing about Madeira - though I'm pleased so many people have taken the trouble to tell me how much they've enjoyed the recent posts. I suddenly remembered today that I had a dental appointment - a wee filling to deal with a chipped front tooth. (I'll be interested to see how long the filling lasts - the first test was my sourdough bread, the crust of which is of adamantine hardness)

Anyway, I was hailed in the dentist's waiting room by a former Chief Inspector of police, with whom I used to have dealings when I was involved in arranging CND demos in the Holy Loch area. He had been listening to a news item about the possible removal from the Clyde of the Trident missile base because of changed political circumstances, and had thought ... of me. Really. The picture that had come to mind was of himself supervising a march when he was seized by me and a fellow-demonstrator (now high in the reaches of school management) and had to walk the route of the march with his arms linked in ours. I recall this incident - we always tried to remain on the very best of terms with our local police - but had never known that his superiors, monitoring events in an unmarked car, had passed and noted it. Later, they had remonstrated with him that he wasn't supposed to join the demo.

And now Site One is no more, we have a Scottish government who want rid of nuclear weapons, and we were free to reminisce and reveal how close our politics had always been. An antidote, somehow, to current news stories.