The End

Can you enjoy driving on the M25?

I did last Sunday early in the morning. It was cold but sunny and the significant but below average traffic moved fast and skilfully in a sort of anarchic dance between the lanes. I don't know if the other drivers were enjoying themselves but I  thought it was fun interacting with them at high speed (and in full compliance with the law and the Highway Code).

The experience was all the better for listening to the morning service on Radio 4 live from Albany Road Baptist Church, Cardiff.

I dare say the religious content of the service was uplifting for Baptists and probably for other believers too but I was really only tuning in for the music.

The highlight was Cwm Rhondda with those most familiar English words -  "Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah" - but what made it memorable was that for once they sang it right, that is with just two notes not three on the word "heaven" as in in "bread of heaven".

It may not seem a big thing but for years I have been enraged by this careless weakening of a great hymn (I bet your church gets it wrong or you would find it did if you ever went to it).

Did it start because people couldn't handle the elision required in the second verse ("strong deliverer" needs to be sung "strong deliv'rer")? But then in the third verse the congregation reaps the ungainly reward for their mistake as they mumble "songs of praises" as "songs of pray-ayses" and look at each other thinking the writer of the words must have had an off day and possibly the composer too.

William Williams Pantycelyn - or perhaps the translator Peter Williams - and John Hughes must be spinning in their graves.

Musing on this it came to me (at about the point I passed the exit for the M1 in my anti-clockwise orbit) that perhaps I should say something about this on my Blog, an idea which had not occurred to me for some weeks as you can see from the record below.

And then I thought "why?".

The truth is, and I didn't realise this at first, that the purpose of this Blog ended when I vacated my office at Hafal.

Most Blogs are written for the benefit of the writer and I was honest enough to say so. The Blog was a way for me to sound off while letting those better qualified than me - users of mental health services - do most of the talking on official Hafal channels.

Of course the M25 has no end but I do not propose to drive around in circles and so I made the decision (as I took the exit onto the M4 and towards home) that the Blog should end...here.

More Important Things

Getting to grips with R S Thomas...

THE SMALL WINDOW

In Wales there are jewels

To gather, but with the eye

Only, a hill lights up

Suddenly, a field trembles

With colour and goes out

In its turn, in one day

You can witness the extent

Of the spectrum and grow rich

With looking. Have care

The wealth is for the few

And chosen. Those who crowd

A small window dirty it

With their breathing, though sublime

And inexhaustible the view.

This is one of his simplest poems superficially  but so deep and politically incorrect by modern standards – but too interesting just to see in those terms. Good to share with some friends because the first five lines so much describe our times camping at Caerfai with the violent changes of light and weather.

I like how he deals in a few words with the modern preoccupation with cosmology (“the extent of the spectrum” – yes, quite, so what, Dawkins. Elsewhere RST shows how the universe is actually terrifying not reassuring).

And after that it could be described  (not casually but accurately) as a bit fascist (RS wouldn’t have cared of course, and nor should we too much) because, I am fairly sure, he meant that only a special kind of person could understand – and that wasn’t just to exclude non-Welsh people but people “without soul”.

It is especially exclusive that the reference to crowdedness is quite obviously not about volume but the attitude of the observers  - and a rather nasty transference about the dirty window.

No getting away from it – some kind of celebration of the Nietzschean Superman.

A big theme is also going on about wealth – a gentle ridicule I suppose and again a bit fascistic.

Then you go back to the beginning – he started by saying “In Wales” for a reason. I could go on for hours about what he meant line by line but he certainly didn’t obscure it – Larkin gave him credit for lucidity (which doesn't preclude layers of meaning) in spite of calling him “Arsewipe Thomas”.

Source Of Pride

Well, what do you know? I have been awarded an M.B.E. in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to mental health service users and their carers and families.

I am absolutely delighted and very proud to receive this honour. Beyond doubt this is a tribute to the success of Hafal which has achieved so much since its creation 12 years ago.

The great thing about Hafal is that its achievements depend on the hard work and dedication of its active and well-informed members – people with a mental illness and their carers – supported by a fantastic team of staff and volunteers and a dedicated Board of Trustees; and my own work has also always depended on the patient support of my dear wife Sheila. This honour must therefore belong to all of them as much as to me.

Hafal's Chair Elin Jones has kindly said: "This is great news: a fitting tribute to Bill’s hard work and a source of pride for everybody in our wonderful organisation. Bill inspired us to make Hafal a great charity which makes a real difference to the lives of vulnerable people."

And Hafal's first class new Chief Executive Alun Thomas adds: "Members and staff alike are delighted at this news both in appreciation of Bill’s professional success and also out of affection for an excellent friend and colleague."

Diolch yn fawr i bawb! And what a pleasure it is to see Hafal continuing to thrive today - a fantastic summer campaign promoting social life alongside great developments in services including a growing criminal justice role across Wales which is very exciting - follow the links to the right of this post to find out more...

Eeyore

I never believed those people who said that when you give up full-time work you find you don't have time to do anything; further, I resolved not to be one of those people who fills their time with unimportant chores (possibly protracted deliberately to fill time) so that they are eternally busy.

And yet I do not seem to have time even to write this Blog. Why would that be?

The reason I write now after many weeks of silence is that I have finally been brought to a complete standstill by...pain. I had a tooth pulled a week ago and it didn't heal properly. I won't assault you with too much information but anybody who has experienced "dry socket" will know what I am talking about (a recent chatroom conversation on Mumsnet compared the pain with childbirth - I won't go there but you get the idea). I am sitting here marginally sedated by Cocodamol and numbed by Ibuprofen, surrounded by the apparatus of dental cleansing - and so, finally, I have time for you, loyal readers.

The filling of my time could be due to unhealthy things: perhaps sheer inefficiency arising from not having the same need to value my time and plan it economically - I dare say there might be some of that; more sinisterly there might be a fear of purposelessness and redundancy - I'm sure some people do fear that but I'm fairly confident that I'm secure on this one; or it might be that I fear that empty time might lead to dark thoughts better avoided or denied - ooh, well, nobody would dare be sure that wasn't the case but I don't sense any ghastly neurosis waiting to break out into my consciousness.

No, I think rather that I have just saved up over most of a life-time a massive list of things I fancy doing, many of them trivial, and the consequence is a disorderly NHS-style waiting list of things to do which never seems to get shorter. What I do need to do is prioritise sensibly, not necessarily do things as they turn up - and that I have not yet done.

But time enough and, if it is true that time goes faster when you are enjoying yourself, then it must mean something that the last five months (five months!) have seemed like as many weeks only. And there is a worry - Time's winged chariot hurrying near - I had better get on and do the really important things.

Although it is important not to get obsessed by mortality...

One of the things on my list which I have now completed was to read (or reread) Philip Larkin's poetry and discover more about him. I had previously read Andrew Motion's rather prissy biography Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life and have just read James Booth's Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love which is less well written but an important corrective confirming Larkin's warmer side.

It is well known that Larkin never settled down with a partner but rather kept two, sometimes three girlfriends at a firm geographical and personal distance over many years. Both biographers put this mainly down to a fear of intimacy and defensiveness about his creative space but I think it is simpler than that. Larkin had an acute consciousness - and fear - about death from an early age and made it clear that this did not just dominate his thinking and feeling but also made everything else pretty much not worth anything. This is what stopped Larkin living with anybody in spite of his passionate nature.

Compare the equally Eeyoreish Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard who broke off his engagement to the lovely Regine Olsen, arguably shattering both their hearts and compromising their whole lives (they were passionately in love), because he saw that their relationship had to end in tragedy (one of them had to die first). But they were only young, too young you would think to worry about that.


Danish Eeyore Soren Kierkegaard

Crikey! This might seem extreme to us but it would only have made sense to Larkin...

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear — no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.


English Eeyore Larkin with long-term but but not live-in girlfriend Monica Jones

Of course we can all see what he means - he couldn't be deceived by religion and he couldn't buy into what he saw as Epicurean philosophers' sophistry ("specious stuff") about how you "can't fear nothingness".

To me the ability of thoughtful people to enjoy life and thrive in it in spite of Larkin's inexorable logic is a profound mystery, more interesting than questions about the veracity of religion (which most people know the answer to if they are honest with themselves).

Even conventionally religious people may have to address Larkin's oblivion problem because their common sense tells them the truth. Michel de Montaigne feared death - and it stalked him through his daily life - until he had an epiphany. This was precipitated by what is now called a near-death experience when he collided with another horseman when out riding: after that he never feared death again and had a rare old time in spite of some painful kidney stones (now, a chap ejecting one of those through his urethra is probably competition with childbirth).


French Eeyore Montaigne - until age 36 after which he had fun

It would be great to be able to tell you what Montaigne worked out at his moment of truth but, although I am a fan and although he wrote much about the incident and its effect on his thinking, it isn't actually that clear what he means. What he does say, and this is important, is that plenty of sensible people don't fear death overmuch: this is a mystery but it isn't as though some philosophers had found the secret to contentment in life - on the contrary the explanation of the mystery must lie in observing - and engaging in - life, not just in detached theory.

Much depressive illness self-evidently must also have its source in Larkin's problem so there are reasons beyond the philosophical to enquire into this. Personally I feel I mainly inhabit the mysterious rather than the Larkin side of the matter - but I can't say exactly why.


Postscript:

Like Eeyore Larkin had a sense of humour underneath all the grumpiness, perhaps an indication that he could have found his way out of the hole he found himself in. The other of the two greatest poets of the twentieth century, R S Thomas, was even more austere and his sense of humour was well-hidden if just about discernible. They did meet at least once: Larkin described him to his friend Kingsley Amis as "Arsewipe Thomas" - and, in another example of the casual racism which upset Motion so much, said that his one redeeming feature was that at least he didn't seem particularly Welsh!

Welsh Eeyore R S Thomas - really the quintessential Eeyore

In A Pickle

Many years ago I attended Welsh language evening classes for two hours one evening a week (in winter) at the former Whitland Grammar School.

On the first day two out of a dozen students were late so we started 10 minutes late; the next week four were up to 15 minutes late and we started 15 minutes late; on the third week six were late and we started 20 minutes late (two anyway arrived later than that); on the fourth week there was a similar level of difficulty and the teacher proposed that in future we all agree to start half an hour later but everybody would "undertake to arrive on time".

This attracted much support but I became the most unpopular member of the group by pointing out that I didn't want to stay half an hour later into the evening which this would inevitably involve. The teacher said we wouldn't do that but just do a "reliable" 1.5 hours - this was popular because of course learning a language in a two hour session is hard work. I pointed out that we had paid for 2 hours.

The truth was that this was only in part an example of that very human conspiracy which often occurs between teachers and students to alleviate their shared hardship in the painful process of education. It was actually much more to do with that universal challenge about timekeeping which blights our lives and costs time, money, and peace of mind.

Now as a manager I was never a martinet about timekeeping in the sense of penalising people for being late - and of course I too was occasionally late for work, about twice a year on average I think. But I believe that 90% of lateness is the responsibility of the person who is late, variously a result of their poor planning, but also sometimes rudeness, selfishness, or (and this is the tricky bit) a subconscious desire to sabotage themselves and their own interests or else (I'm afraid) to anger, humiliate, or patronise the other person or people whom they are meeting.

Habitual lateness is not endearing and should not prompt indulgence but some honest observation and offers to help.

These thoughts are prompted by the extraordinary announcement by English local government minister Eric Pickles that motorists will be given 10 minutes "grace" when their car parking ticket or meter expires. He says this will ease the problem of petty officials fining people a minute or two after expiry.

Now I have some time for Pickles as he has a good instinct in wanting to remind local authorities in England that they are there to serve their community not to run them around and get in their way (and who will advocate that LAs in Wales too need reminding of this? Step forward Leighton Andrews AM, our local government minister, who like Pickles is making the right noises about not taking any nonsense from the local bureaucrats).

But this parking thing is just nonsense. A moment's thought will tell you that everybody will just add the 10 minutes to the time they have officially to park and they are just as likely to get back late as they were before - perhaps more so as they have to make the extra effort of adding the 10 minutes to the figure on the ticket or meter with the potential for miscalculation.

And, of course, the citizen will react exactly the same to the wretched warden who slaps a ticket on them - most with resignation and some with verbal abuse or worse.

And what was the upshot in Whitland? My "Twelve Angry Men" protest won the day - it was agreed that the teacher would start the lesson exactly at the original advertised time so long as at least one person was present. The result was that there was little lateness, we got the 2 hours we paid for, and we went home on time.

But the seething resentment towards me remained...

World Of Seeming

Parmenides as imagined by Raphael

Having slagged off the Imitation Game in my last post I was expecting to do the same with my latest cinema excursion to the Theory of Everything (about Stephen Hawking's first marriage) which my Mum took me to, this time at the excellent Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan.

I assumed this too would be a politically-correct homily to British ingenuity with predictable stereotypes constructed by a committee of right-on producers pressing the buttons of a soft, middle-class audience looking for a benefit-of-hindsight, self-righteous confirmation of their liberal viewpoint: that was certainly what the Imitation Game was about and it increasingly irritates me as I recollect it.

I had a potential further problem of distraction which was that the film was largely shot in St John's College, Cambridge where I went. I was astonished to find that they didn't just use the exterior views but went inside too - so I recognised my own rooms and the choreography of parties between staircases which were no doubt similar in those few years before my own time (the bunk bed didn't ring true - there was squalor enough having to walk across a mediaeval court to get a bath but never bunks).

I should also confess to some prejudice towards Prof Hawking based (unfairly I now feel) on the assumption that he is taken more seriously by reason of his disability.

And yet...

This was a charming and subtle love story, amazingly well-acted, which was hugely uplifting. Talking to my Mum afterwards I realised that oddly the film had no anti-heroes: many including the main characters showed weakness but everybody tried to be decent. That could sound boring but actually it seemed realistic, and why shouldn't it? It was especially surprising that the obvious cheap shot of of having somebody prejudicial towards Hawking's disability was not exploited - amazing. It was also so clever to portray Hawking's development of a sexual relationship with his nurse in a way which was understandable and sympathetic.

See it - it's good for you.


Postscript:

The one weakness in the film was that it tried to make something out of his scientific theories being an antidote to religion. This worked to an extent at a human level, including an understated contrast with his wife - and her lover - having a Christian background. Rather like Darwin's personal and marital dilemma.

But it was a clumsy distraction and, besides, the real Hawking has rightly eschewed that interpretation of his work.

I haven't read Hawking's book any more than the 10 million people who bought it did. But I suspect that he isn't very interested in the implications of his theories for religion, perhaps realising (unlike the messiah of the blindingly obvious Prof Richard Dawkins) that such matters were wholly resolved anyway in the 1780s in Britain - and actually worked through before that by Montaigne and before that by Lucretius, based on what Epicurus said, and first articulated by Parmenides before that (well, on my interpretation). Indeed Parmenides' challenge against the inexorability of time in cosmology is - unsurprisingly for thoughtful philosophers - rather akin to Hawking's theory, surely.

Those people who have been able to complete a career in the world of seeming (as Parmenides described the timeline of history) with time to spare can then look at the world of truth - a sensible way to divide a lifetime, I think and have chosen. This is not the business of Stephen Hawking but perhaps he assists by breaking down the assumptions of the seeming world?

Zulu!

Towy Valley apocalypse - note the sheep trapped on an island - they were rescued later

The apocalyptic weather at the beginning of January - the Towy took over the valley fields - was a reminder of our frail footing in a potentially violent physical world. This has some resonance as I have been reading Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve - How the Renaissance Began, the true story of how in 1417 papal bureaucrat Poggio Bracciolini rediscovered a manuscript of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (written around 55 BC) in a remote German monastery.

Republication of this humanist epic poem, claims Greenblatt, kick-started the Renaissance, challenged the stale Catholic orthodoxy of those times, and changed the course of history.

This is, frankly, a massive exaggeration but it fits well with an unintentional theme in my own reading and discovery over the last two years and further back...

I have previously commented on schoolboy classicists' highly partial opinions about ancient authors. Hence we all hated Caesar (self-important boaster), Cicero (ditto and self-righteous with it), and Virgil (fawning patriotic propagandist with prissy hero Aeneas).

By contrast we all loved Lucretius whose poem is a great hoot full of greater truths. The Latin title means "On the Nature of Things" and it's a long, scientific analysis of reality covering everything from atomic theory and astronomy to sociology and biology. Underlying it are the twin concepts that the universe doesn't require divine intervention to make sense and, in contrast, life and all matter lead a sort of erotic dance through time which makes up the nature of existence. Madonna put it rather well:

You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl
Some boys romance, some boys slow dance
That's alright with me

Lucretius based his ideas on those of Epicurus - famous for his Carpe Diem philosophy but less so for a fully-fledged cosmological explanation which L was the first to set out. Epicurus lived in Samos which I visited a couple of years back (here I am in his bath...)



And my hero Montaigne followed Epicurus by renouncing public life - as did Horace, another follower who put his political life behind him to retire to his Sabine farm.

And Shakespeare, allegedly a follower of Montaigne (but I doubt it: see this post) - also retired to Stratford relatively young - it is often said because he was "played out" (forgive the Shakespearean pun) but I also doubt that (see this post).


Postscript:

You don't get change from £5 if you have a cup of coffee and a sticky bun in Starbucks but for that price at the cinema in Fishguard on selected mornings you get coffee, sticky buns (or indeed bara brith), and a ticket for the latest film releases - as I found last week.

I last visited this venue (now known as Theatr Gwaun) in 1968 to see Zulu (not a latest release - it came out in 1964 - and no coffee and bun then). I enjoyed it, I recollect, especially as I didn't know who was going to win. I have seen it since more than once and it has slowly evolved from the predictable through self-parody and finally into disinterest although I have found some amusement in singing improbable words along to the Zulus' war chant.

This time the film was less satisfactory - the Imitation Game, all about Bletchley code-cracker and computer whizz Alan Turing.

Now I can see why film-makers have to simplify and manipulate a plot to make it fit the genre etc but this was just risibly unlikely and contrived.  At one point after years of unproductive work the fictional Bletchley team has the brainwave of trying to identify frequently used words in the Germans' messages, a consideration which (duh!) would have been identified on day one obviously.

The last straw was having the fictional Turing blackmailed by reason of his homosexuality into conniving at betrayal of secrets to the Soviets during the war, so reinforcing the stereotype of gay people pre-legalisation being bound to betray their country. Ouch!

This film has received rave reviews.

Inexorable Peasant Logic

What to do with this Blog?

It previously served as therapy for me in my role as Chief Executive of Hafal. The idea was that it would be a place where I could sound off from the sidelines while letting users and carers provide the voice of Hafal through mainstream and formal channels. It did work well for that purpose.

I think I had another motivation which was to demonstrate some hinterland aside from my professional role, hence the almost equal number of posts about stuff I did in my own time. This might have suggested either that I was a frivolous person insufficiently dedicated to my professional duties or else that I was setting a good example of what is mischievously called "work life balance".

Some of the fun stuff was also simply an attempt to cheer up or amuse friends and supporters - and possibly to annoy those few bitter and twisted people who are ill-disposed towards Hafal or me.

The risk of continuing the Blog might be that it creates pity and contempt or alternatively envy and resentment at whatever I do next with my new-found freedom. This doesn't feel an easy balance to strike so I hope rather that, if I do continue, the content will reassure and delight readers who are big enough just to wish me well. I'm confident that there won't be anything much here for the bitter and twisted besides that envy and resentment (although if they persevere they will no doubt get the occasional opportunity to sneer and cheer at my mistakes and failures).

So I will see how it goes?

On the very first Monday when I didn't have to go to work (1 December 2014) I thought I should try out some of the routines which might feature in my new life. I imagined this might mean popping down to Tesco to buy some Dublin Bay prawns (what telly chefs call langoustines) which they have recently begun to stock at a good price - and perhaps a bottle of Muscadet - all with a view to filling the evening satisfactorily.

Mrs Blog had other ideas. If I was not paying for my dinner indirectly through earning a salary then I should earn it directly by catching it myself. So it was a 9 a.m., low-tide visit to the beach where I gathered a large bag of mussels. Of course I have done this before but there is a certain frisson, urgency even, in responding to Mrs B's inexorable peasant logic.

Mussels are good the Welsh way - just steamed open and eaten with brown bread and butter and accompanied by a big pot of tea - but it was the Breton way on this occasion (white wine, butter, parsley and garlic - no cream: that's a greedy Norman excess).

Now I am not doing, or even planning, anything serious, strategic or job-wise until the New Year at the earliest. I have however learnt already how easy it would be to fill my life with chores around the house and garden, visits to banks, brokers, and accountants, swanning around shops and so on. But I am resolved not to spend any more time on this stuff than previously or than absolutely necessary.

I have however begun consolidating or forming habits as a platform for a new life - early rising, swimming 40 lengths at least 3 times a week, walking 10,000 steps at least four times a week, regular meals. I've lost nearly a stone doing this and no silly diet in sight. The messages of Hafal's Let's Get Physical! campaign echo still around the staterooms of Blog Towers.


Postscript:

Horace, the eminent Roman writer of achingly beautiful and uplifting lyric poetry, has featured more than once in this Blog. I have been reading oenophile and journalist Harry Eyres' Horace and Me - Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet about his rediscovery of the poet after giving up classics at university (shame on him).

It's a casual, under-researched sort of book but it makes an interesting personal essay. I do agree with him that young classicists all love rude, crude and satirical Catullus and Juvenal but come back to Horace in later life to find the wisdom and comfort.

Worth a look but you need a good translation to hand: Harry's own does that thing of using modern references (like the Taliban) which makes a kind of sense because Horace did put contemporary news in among the timeless lyricism - but he got away with it whereas in modern translation I'm afraid it just grates like a guitar at Evensong. James Michie's respectful, conservative translation of the Odes alongside the Latin is best - various editions (including cheap second-hand) from Amazon. Read that first before looking at Eyres' book.

Cur valle permutem Sabina
Divitias operosiores?

Thank You!

Well, this is my last week and I would like to extend my thanks to Members, volunteers, staff and Trustees for their terrific commitment and hard work in making Hafal such a dynamic and positive charity. We have seen so many clients transform their lives and make huge strides towards recovery during the lifetime of the charity, and it has been thrilling to be a part of Hafal's client-led recovery movement.

However, after 10 years (nearly 20 if you include the time when we were part of Rethink) I am keen to do new things. I'm delighted to be leaving the charity in safe hands with the appointment of Alun Thomas as our new CEO. I wish him - and everyone else who supports our important work - every success. I am very optimistic for Hafal’s future under Alun’s tried and tested leadership.

I will remain in touch and you won’t find a stronger supporter of this great charity!

And Alun has said: "It’s a privilege to follow Bill into this exciting role and I will work hard to ensure the continuing success of the organisation. I look forward to delivering on our mission to provide hope and practical support to people with a serious mental illness and their carers in Wales - and to achieve a better deal for the users of mental health services."


Postscript:

I enjoyed this insight into the challenges of being a Chief Executive!

Bernese Oberland?

This afternoon I made my first visit to Craig-y-Rhaiadr - not the famous one in Snowdonia swarmed over by mountaineers but the best kept secret one in Carmarthenshire, a couple of miles north of Cil-y-cwm.

The waterfall and its surroundings are just like the famous Reichenbach Falls over which Sherlock Holmes tumbled with Moriarty - or rather he didn't and played a cruel trick on Dr Watson by pretending he had, complete with a highly improbable note left on the cliff edge.

You can get a better idea of the falls and their setting from my video here...

You can't get to the falls without a significant walk of about 8,000 paces (round trip) recorded on the Hafal Let's Get Physical! pedometer - nearer 10,000 paces if you are vertically challenged - and it's a hard uphill slog.

But all the more rewarding for that.

The real Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland


Holmes and Moriarty on the edge...

Great Welsh Bake-Off

Product of our Matisse-inspired art workshop

I enjoyed our excellent Autumn Conference last Thursday in Builth Wells which had me making a pizza...



Showing it off...



Interviewing our bake-off judge Dawn...



And thanking everybody for their kind words and for a delicious cake: this was my last event as Chief Exec of Hafal (note the flour from the pizza-making all over my trousers)...



Back home Huw and Rhys admire the drift-wood Christmas tree I made under the supervision of the team at Hafal Cardiff's stand...

Mission Impossible

I will miss many things of course about my time at Hafal, not least the regular trips to N Wales including the valuable meetings of local managers and Trustees designed to ensure that this end of Wales doesn't get neglected in Hafal's thinking about policy and services.

This was my last such meeting and it met or exceeded the usual high standard. It was rewarding to reflect on the success and continuing legacy of Let's Get Physical! and also to discuss early ideas on our plans for the next three years, especially our ambition to reach out to many more people with a serious mental illness and to address the problems of loneliness and isolation - huge needs which can and will be addressed decisively because our members and staff will work together to succeed.

I reflect that as I alight from the Hafal campervan it moves forward with assurance on its mission...

Unsexy And Politically Incorrect

Hafal bows to nobody on our record of promoting an holistic approach to recovery from mental illness. Witness the success of Let's Get Physical! this year and a dozen previous initiatives, not least our successful campaign to ensure that Care and Treatment Plans prescribed under the Mental Health Measure require attention to eight "life areas". Plenty of people talk holistic but we walk the walk.

Plenty of people also bang on rightly about psychological therapies but not many have anything to say about the unsexy and borderline politically incorrect topic of medication, other than to try to push it out of sight as part of a "medical model" of mental health, a stale old argument which never took account of patients and families who are keen to consider all forms of treatment and don't for the most part bring ideology to the doctor's surgery - they just want what works and for serious mental illnesses that may well be a mix of both psychological and medical treatments.

One of the consequences of the hostility to medication (from busybodies not patients) was an argument that medication should not be a distinct category - alongside psychological therapies - in Care and Treatment Plans because (the politically correct people said) that would dignify medication too much.

The result was that the two types of treatment were lumped together and consequently (surprise surprise) psychological therapies were marginalised because it is easy to fill in the treatments "box" with details of medication only, as we warned all along.

Incidentally the Welsh Code of Practice under the Mental Health Act does distinguish the two types of treatment - because back then the hand-wringers didn't notice Hafal's influence on the Code until after it was settled. It's now being revised and may therefore change to reflect the Measure - which would be consistent but unfortunate.

Now, as part of our campaigning to promote choice and quality in treatments for mental illness, we have launched a new guide to treatments designed to give service users and carers key information on both psychological therapies and medication. See the guide on this link.

Hafal's 2014 treatments campaign is supported by Bipolar UK, Diverse Cymru and the Mental Health Foundation and aims to empower people with a serious mental illness in Wales and their carers to have their say on the services they receive – and to make an informed choice about their care and treatment.

The new guide includes an overview of the full range of treatments for serious mental illness including:

• In-depth psychotherapy
• Counselling
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)
• Hypnotherapy
• Antipsychotics
• Mood Stabilizers
• Antidepressants
• "Complementary" Medicines.

Postscript:

For the record everybody agrees that in fact Hafal is very sexy (camper van and all) and always politically correct (in the literal sense).

And check out Hafal's sexy new website here: it not only looks good but tells it how it is and is never politically correct (in the pejorative sense).

Ultra Trendy

Back from an interesting break in London, taking in an expensive show ("Shakespeare in Love" - see above) and some modest-priced attractions which were arguably more memorable.

I enjoyed Dr Johnson's House in Gough Square. He might not have approved of the dressing-up box in what was his parlour but I wasn't going to let that go...



You may think the white daps are a bit out of place but I'm sure Dr J would have worn them to alleviate his gout just as I do. Incidentally wearing a hat indoors was correct then and only discarded in informal or intimate company. I am a bit of an expert on such things having recently read Liza Picard's Dr Johnson's London: Everyday Life in London in the Mid 18th Century which is full of interesting facts if oddly written (why tell us she doesn't like James Boswell? I don't care whether she does or not).

It was touching to see the statue of Johnson's cat Hodge out in the square. Apparently Hodge will also talk to you if you fiddle about with your fancy phone but we preferred to recollect how Johnson bought him oysters - a modest foodstuff in those days - I wouldn't give oysters to my cats now they £1 each on Swansea market - but I'm sure Hodge enjoyed them.

Johnson sensitively bought the oysters himself because he didn't want his servants to hate the cat as a result of doing that chore. Voltaire would never have thought of that.

A little further East there is St Martin's Ludgate, a Wren church which survived the Luftwaffe along with St Paul's 200 yards further on. It has special a holder to leave your sword in when attending a service which seems sensible.



Much further East up the Docklands Light Railway, and better even than the London Eye, is the new Emirates Airline cable car over the river. Apparently, I was told later, it had something to do with the dreaded Olympics so it's good to see there was some worthwhile legacy from the multi-billion pound fleecing of taxpayers, the Lottery etc for that infamous one week event for overpaid professional athletes whenever that was...



More James Bond-style travel by catamaran to the South Bank where we take in the work of ultra-trendy artist Richard Tuttle in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern...



He has titled his piece "I don't know" which is disarming, brave, or unwise depending on your viewpoint. I looked at it from various angles...



..and indeed I concluded that "I don't know" although I do know that I was glad I didn't pay to see it (Mrs Blog even grudged walking 100 yards from the river-bank to take a look).

Faintly more interesting is this...



...the anti-submarine warship HMS President (1918) painted up in "Dazzle" camouflage by German artist Tobias Rehberger as part of the commemoration of the First World War.

Is camouflage art? "I don't know".

Kwang Do Attitude

And I thought salsa was a piquant sauce to dip prawns in...

Our Let's Get Physical! 2014 national campaign reached its climax last Friday at an event held in St Fagans, Cardiff to mark World Mental Health Day. The event was attended by Health Minister Mark Drakeford AM and Kevin Brennan MP as well as service users and carers from across Wales, and saw the launch of:-

• A new Let's Get Physical! guide for mental health services on how to promote physical health, based on the experiences and insights of hundreds of service users and carers across Wales

• A new Let's Get Physical! website for mental health services providing tools and information on promoting physical health

• A Let's Get Physical! Report giving an overview of the campaign's many achievements.

Visitors at the event had the opportunity to watch live demonstrations on how to prepare hearty and nutritious meals on a budget; get a physical health check from a qualified healthcare professional in the Mobile Health Centre; have a go at spinning, Choi Kwang Do, salsa dancing and table tennis, and meet mental health service users, carers and professionals from across Wales.

The 2014 campaign was led by people with a serious mental illness and carers, and supported by mental health charities Hafal, Bipolar UK and the Mental Health Foundation; Diverse Cymru helped to ensure the campaign reached out to minority and disadvantaged communities.

During Summer 2014 the campaign engaged thousands of people across the 22 counties of Wales in 2014 including:

• Over 3000 service users and carers using Hafal and Bipolar UK services who took part in local Let's Get Physical! activities run through our projects across Wales

• Many thousands of people who attended the 22 local events covering all the counties of Wales, the launch of the campaign by Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford at the Assembly, and the Royal Welsh Show event

• Tens of thousands of people who followed and interacted with the campaign via the online social media channels of Hafal, the Mental Health Foundation, Bipolar UK and Diverse Cymru

• The 65,000 unique visitors who visited Hafal’s websites - including the dedicated 'Let's Get Physical!' website - and saw coverage of the campaign in the local and national media.

As a result, service users and carers across Wales are now much better equipped to improve their physical health - and mental health services are better equipped to support service users and carers to achieve their physical health goals.

Participants scored the effectiveness of the campaign (out of 10) as follows:

• In supporting them be more physically active – average score 9.4

• In supporting them improve their diet – average score 8.9

• In supporting them to get the right support from their GP to stay physically well – average score 8.5

Junaid Iqbal, a member of the campaign's Service User and Carer Panel, tells us: "What we’ve been doing, and what we will continue to do in the coming years, is to take the side of the users of mental health services and empower them to engage fully with those services.

"We're promoting co-production - where services and service users work together in partnership in an equal relationship to achieve the very best outcome."



Postscript:

But while we are about it - try this Welsh salsa recipe...

Mix together:-

4 large tomatoes, diced quite carefully into quarter inch cubes

½ medium red onion, ditto

½ leek, ditto (this is the Welsh bit)

1 fresh green chilli, deseeded, very finely chopped

1 handful fresh coriander, evenly but not finely chopped

juice of 1 lime

salt and black pepper to taste

Note: careful chopping matters in this otherwise easy dish - you want a nice, even and differentiated look, not a sludge. This is more like a salad or relish than a sauce - fantastic with anything from steaks to fish to cold meat. Best served after leaving one hour.

Huge

Today Let's Get Physical! reached Neath Port Talbot at an event which included a healthy eating buffet, a zumba exercise class - and a Wii Fit competition.

I had a go on on a Wii boxing game in the office a year or two back - good fun but it strained my arms somewhat as I punched into thin air - instead of connecting satisfactorily with somebody's face I suppose?

Visitors at today's event also had the opportunity to get key health checks in the Mobile Health Centre which has journeyed to all 22 counties of Wales during the summer.

Alison Guyatt, Hafal's Recovery Centre Manager and a registered nurse, said: "We developed the Mobile Health Centre to raise awareness of the range of physical health checks that people recovering from serious mental illness - and their carers - can access through their GP and Primary Care Team.

"Our Let's Get Physical! nurses have been travelling across Wales and providing visitors at our 22 county events with the opportunity to have their blood pressure checked, their weight and height recorded and have a basic blood glucose check carried out.

"The message is simple: people with a mental illness and their carers should receive the right support from health professionals to stay physically healthy as well as mentally healthy - and it's something that we all have to work together to achieve."

Over 300 people have received a physical health check from the Mobile Health Centre during the campaign. While the results of these health checks remain private to individuals, overall findings indicate that:

• 18% of people were found to have above threshold blood pressure

• 47% of people were found to have above threshold blood glucose levels

• 10% of people were found to have both above threshold blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

People who were found to have above threshold blood pressure or blood glucose levels were strongly advised to make an early appointment with their GP, and further support is being offered to service users or carers through each of Hafal’s local projects.

Morgan Williams, a service user from Neath Port Talbot, said: "I think the Mobile Health Centre was a great way of getting people to know about the key checks they should be getting from their local surgery. The campaign has shown that people with a mental illness and their carers have physical health concerns which need to be addressed on a regular basis. The Mobile Health Centre delivered a really friendly service and it gave us a record which we can take with us to our GP."

Let's Get Physical! sets a challenge – both to service users and carers, and to service providers and policy makers – to radically improve the physical health of people with a mental illness and their carers. The campaign is supported by mental health charities Hafal, Bipolar UK and the Mental Health Foundation; Diverse Cymru helps us to ensure that the campaign reaches out to minority and disadvantaged communities. The campaign was launched by Health Minister Mark Drakeford AM in May and includes 22 events covering all the counties of Wales.



Postscript:

Meanwhile on the window sills of the Blog household there is increasing divergence between those who take the Let's Get Physical! message on board...

Rhys about to leap 12 feet onto the pavement


and those who do not...

Huw (aka "Huge" by virtue of his indolence and consequent great weight) not going anywhere

Total Body Workout

I am catching up with Let's Get Physical! after a week off...

When it comes to rock climbing, you can't beat Pembrokeshire - so the county's Let's Get Physical! activities have included plenty of opportunities for scaling and descending the heights. Earlier in the year Steve and Toby from Hafal's Tenby Resource Initiative did a sponsored abseil down Pembroke Castle (watch the video here). And at last week's event visitors had the opportunity to tackle a climbing wall.

Lee Toby Credland, a service user from Tenby Resource Initiative, said: "Climbing is huge in this part of the world because of the fantastic cliffs we have. It's a great exercise because it provides a total body workout and it strengthens core muscles as well as working your heart.

"It's also a really positive exercise because it's about goal-setting. You have a task to reach the top and you are determined to get there. The sense of achievement is great: anything seems possible after a climb. It really boosts your confidence."

Visitors at the event also had the opportunity to take part in a zumba dance class, a walk with 'Step2 Health', a kettle bells exercise session with a personal trainer, netball, an exercise bike competition and a reflexology session run by the AmberDen Foundation. Healthy food was on the menu throughout the day with fat/calorie contents detailed on menu cards.

Abby Roberts, Practice Leader at Hafal Pembrokeshire, said: "Members of Hafal's Tenby Resource Initiative have been inspired by the campaign to set up a healthy living club. They meet to discuss diet, plan meals and to cook for other members. They are also organising different types of physical activity and providing weekly weigh-in sessions for those wanting to slim down."

Let's Get Physical! sets a challenge – both to service users and carers, and to service providers and policy makers – to radically improve the physical health of people with a mental illness and their carers. The campaign is supported by mental health charities Hafal, Bipolar UK and the Mental Health Foundation; Diverse Cymru helps us to ensure the campaign reaches out to minority and disadvantaged communities. The campaign was launched by Health Minister Mark Drakeford AM in May and includes 22 events covering all the counties of Wales.

By chance I was actually doing some low-risk mountaineering in Pembrokeshire last week...


And some swimming - not bad for late September and look at the crowded beach...

The Battle Of Ammanford

After my anticipatory visit on Sunday (see my last post) the Let's Get Physical! campaign officially reached Carmarthenshire today at an event supported by Swansea City FC Ambassador Lee Trundle and players from the first team. Visitors had the opportunity to take part in "Go Sport" activities, get tips from a healthy eating demonstration and receive key health checks in the mobile health centre.

Warren Williams, a service user from Llanelli, said: "One of our ongoing projects is the Activity Programme in Llanelli. Ten service users from our Llanelli projects formed the Activity Programme group and they attend a local gym once a fortnight to use the gym equipment and take part in activities such as badminton, table tennis and squash.

"It’s become a great way to socialise as well as a great way to exercise. We really feel valued as part of a team. We even have group competitions!

"Hopefully other groups will be set up across Wales as part of the Let’s Get Physical! campaign. Setting up a group is a great way to get people enthused about physical exercise – we encourage each other and we make exercising fun."

Practice Leader Jonathan Lewis said: "There are loads of ongoing Let’s Get Physical! activities in Carmarthenshire: we’ve developed new walking and biking groups and we’ve set up a healthy cooking/eating club.

The point of the Let’s Get Physical! campaign is to make permanent changes to the way we live and it’s been great to see clients and carers really embrace that message and make long-term plans for improving their health."

I look forward to bumping into the biking group next time I cycle up to Brynamman (which took me 40 minutes up, 20 minutes back - guess which way the Amman river flows!).


Postscript:

Ammanford is an admirably friendly and peaceful town but you should not mistake this for any acquiescence in injustice. In 1925 striking anthracite colliers objecting to persecution of union activists virtually took over the town and ambushed a large party of police marching in to suppress them. This action, known as the Battle of Ammanford, took place mainly at Pontamman up the road.

As the name implies this showed good tactics because the police had to cross the bridge there having arrived presumably at the railhead in Brynamman. The police expected no resistance and got a nasty shock - and it took some time for the insurrection to be put down.

Like many such incidents it is little talked about because there was a certain feeling of guilt in the community whose instinct, though they knew their cause was just, like today was for peace and not violence.

Medal struck for miners imprisoned after the Battle of Ammanford...

Derailleur

Looking south over the river in Glanamman

Unfortunately I can't make it tomorrow to the Carmarthenshire Let's Get Physical! event in Ammanford - but I will cover it of course.

Meanwhile on Sunday I anticipated the event by cycling from Ammanford to Brynamman and back (about 15 miles) on the new off-road track which has recently been developed. At the moment there are no guides to it as far as I can see but there is some signage on the ground and it is marked on the Sustrans web-site here. Otherwise you can find the substantive start of the route 100 yards short of where Ammanford High Street hits the A474 east of the centre.

But come on, Carmarthenshire County Council, where is the leaflet and on-line guide we need to promote this?

Brynamman RFC: these playing fields are iconic landmarks in our industrial villages. The cycle path passes directly in front of the stand but you might not want to do that during a match unless you were prepared for a barrage of satire


It's a great route through fantastic countryside weaving back and forth across the Amman which is a delight - all natural, not one of the canalised drainage systems full of shopping trolleys which too many of industrial South Wales' rivers became, though they are getting cleaned up slowly.

Pausing to contemplate the river at one of several crossings - I spotted a huge, venerable heron but it flew off languidly before I got my camera out


And yet you are unmistakably in industrial - or formerly industrial - Wales as witnessed by the remains of heavy industry and the familiar housing stock from the late 19c to the late 20c. Also unmistakable because it is a safe bet to greet people in Welsh around here, unlike (oddly enough) much of rural West Wales, because there are precious few newcomers and even fewer tourists (and there won't be any in future if there is no publicity about the cycle route).

And if like me your Welsh is limited then cycling is a safe place to practice because if your interlocutor responds with something you don't understand it doesn't matter because you have already disappeared 200 yards down the road in a whirr of spinning wheels and the crunch of derailleur gears.

I wonder if my grandfather, then vicar of Ammanford, would have raced his motorbike up the Amman Valley on sunny September mornings 100 years ago? How could he have resisted, though he would have needed goggles and a scarf over his mouth to screen the smoke and dust which in those days invested this outpost of thriving Welsh heavy industry?

A welcome sight: passing Lidl (another iconic landmark of post-industrial communities) means you are nearly back in Ammanford centre...

Devo-Lite

Mark Williams MP has lost two stone recently and his tip is to "cut the carbs"! Mark followed his own "Let's Get Physical!" plan which included giving up cake and reducing his sugar intake. Great example for the campaign!

Amazing sunshine and warm air (even though we were right by the sea) at today's Let's Get Physical! event in Aberystwyth. We took the opportunity to take a shot at goal in a penalty shoot-out before refuelling with a nutritious lunch and healthy smoothies.

Service user Joanna Regan tells us: "It was a World Cup year this year so football is even more in the public eye than usual. Football is a fun game and it's a team game. We wanted to show that exercise can be about getting together and taking part in a sport, not just going to the gym.

"People have really enjoyed the football - even if they haven't played since school! Let's hope the campaign inspires more people to join a local club or even for mental health projects to set up their own teams."

Today's event was attended by MP for Ceredigion Mark Williams, Mayor of Aberystwyth Cllr Brenda Haines, and Leader of the Ceredigion County Council, Cllr. Ellen ap Gwynn.

Hafal Aberystwyth Housing Support Worker Evan Elias says: "We’ve already begun a training regime which will continue into the winter. A weekly walking group has been organised for Thursday evenings and we're running a healthy eating group in the local project. We want to keep the momentum going so that the campaign has a lasting effect. It's about making permanent, positive changes to the way we live."

Let's Get Physical! sets a challenge – both to service users and carers, and to service providers and policy makers – to radically improve the physical health of people with a mental illness and their carers. The campaign is supported by mental health charities Hafal, Bipolar UK and the Mental Health Foundation; Diverse Cymru helps to ensure the campaign reaches out to minority and disadvantaged communities. The campaign was launched by Health Minister Mark Drakeford AM in May and includes 22 events covering all the counties of Wales.

Incidentally I asked Mark Williams whether he had been ordered up to Scotland to shore up the "No" vote (he's a Lib Dem): apparently there was a call to arms but he's not going. It is indeed moot whether it is a good idea to send in outsiders to advise the Scots.

We should watch the referendum with interest because it is going to affect Wales either way. A "Yes" will place us and Northern Ireland in the curious position of tiny partners in a smaller union even more dominated by England. If it's a "No", and if the "devo-max"/home rule promise scrambled together at the eleventh hour by the unionists is delivered, then questions will be asked about Wales' contrasting "devo-lite" position.

Actually the big, bread-and-butter issue short-to-medium term for Wales remains the Barnett Formula - put another way the £500 less each Welsh person gets in public services under the unreformed, out-of-date calculation. Let us hope that Welsh politicians of all parties use the aftermath of the referendum to push for fair play for Wales, not least for people with a mental illness and their families who rely more than most on public services...