The Mourning Thread

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

A sad day indeed. A true champion.

[Jim]

Dave Swarbrick has died, fiddle player with Fairport Convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLDg...

saw him live, playing a duet with himself and an echo chamber

[Patti (baconater)]

Jim wrote: "Dave Swarbrick has died, fiddle player with Fairport Convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLDg...

saw him live, playing a duet with himself and an echo chamber"

Dave is well gutted.

Sez he saw him live in the Crewe folk club, he thinks. In some pub.

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

Jim wrote: "Dave Swarbrick has died, fiddle player with Fairport Convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLDg...

saw him live, playing a duet with himself and an echo chamber"

Another sad loss.

[Kath]

I saw him live too. A great talent.

[Alicia]

Jim wrote: "Dave Swarbrick has died, fiddle player with Fairport Convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLDg...

saw him live, playing a duet with himself and an echo chamber"

That was lovely. Thanks for the link. "Waltzing's for dreamers..."

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

Fairport had and continues to have so much talent. Richard Thompson has always been fabulous. If you get chance have a look at the video that's on the right - 1000 years of popular music - here it is in case you don't have the same list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDZdU...

[Will]

I saw Swarbs play last year with Martin Carthy in a small club. My close mate (the prototype of my character Unsavory Ron) played support to them, and Ron still reckons it as the finest hour of his musical life.

[Patti (baconater)]

We're watching Ali.

Wonderful portrayal by Will Smith.

[eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya)]

Knew it was coming but still a shock, the greatest sportsman of the 20th century r. i.p. ali

[Vanessa (aka Dumbo)]

Muhammad Ali...he was a real legend. Sorry to hear of his death, but it was sort of expected given his health in recent years. I remember him when he was Cassius Clay.

[eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya)]

that's sacrilege calling him that, he hated it, ask ernie terell.

[T4bsF (Call me Flo)]

It was his given name, like it or lump it. You can't change history!

[eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya)]

just stating fact

[Jim]

I too can remember when he fought under the name Cassius Clay. When referring to that period of his life, then that is who he was. Yes he changed his name, but he didn't change my memories or the records

[eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya)]

He was a born entertainer, he changed the world of boxing, lot of boxers have tried to emulate him , but there is only one ali.

[Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)]

Caroline Aherne, only 52. A very funny lady

[Jay-me (Janet)]

It's been quiet on this thread for a few weeks, today Caroline Aherne joins the list of those who have died this year. Another cancer victim.

[Tim]

That's sad :(

[Desley (Cat fosterer)]

Rosemary what's that coming over the hill wrote: "Caroline Aherne, only 52. A very funny lady"

I'm really shocked by that, I didn't know she was ill

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

It's sad that she struggled so much with alcohol, drugs and fame, as well as ill health.

[Kelly]

So, so sad - seems to have been a bit of a troubled soul.

Just heartbreaking, a beautiful talented person - and only 52.

[Matthew]

Gutted with the news of Caroline Ahearn.

RIP Our Denise :(

[Will]

Do we need to start another thread like this one for the likes of Chris Evans, Nigel Farage, Dave Cameron, Boris Johnson and soon, maybe, Jeremy Corbyn?

2016 seems to have switched tactics from bumping off celebs that we loved to ending the careers of politicians and others who we didn't.

[Jim]

Interesting point
Of the party leaders in England in 2014, none are left leading their parties

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

The trouble is there is a danger of it breaking faster than the morning thread. You'd better give Patti warning.

[Will]

That's true. Oh, and I forgot to mention Roy Hodgson.

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

Sadly, I've just found out that Frank Dickens has died, as has Bristow, of course.

One of the great true British cartoonists.

[T4bsF (Call me Flo)]

I'm mourning the death of a 13 year old boy today. He died in 1916 in a mining "accident". He was crushed by a runaway underground tram. His name was Rhys Davies. In my volunteer work - digitising items from WW1 - I came across this as an entry in GKN Dowlais letters book. So sad that boys this young (and younger) were working in such conditions - let alone losing their lives. RIP Rhys.

[M.T.]

That is sad. Bless his heart. May he rest in peace.

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

Very sad Flo. Kids were dying in terrible working conditions in mills too. Trapped in the treadle and crushed to death, because they were small and able to crawl in.

[M.T.]

There was a fantastic book about that, can't remember what it was called but I think it was a Hodgeson Burnett... the baddie had a steam powered wheelchair and 'arranged' for accidents to happen to people. The kid was a fluff picker, ran under and grabbed the fluff off the surface of carpets before a big press came down... you could just about do two bits of fluff but three and it was curtains or a beating. They were so scared of a beating that often it ended up being curtains. She gets across the baddie and there are three bits of fluff on her carpet but someone rolls a metal bobbin under with her and it stops her getting crushed...

I'll stop wittering now but it was an epic book because it revealed the scariest world imaginable for a wriggly borderline hyperactive kid like I was!

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

Sounds like a wonderful book, Mary. I'll have to look it up.

[Jane]

M.T. wrote: "There was a fantastic book about that, can't remember what it was called but I think it was a Hodgeson Burnett... the baddie had a steam powered wheelchair and 'arranged' for accidents to happen to..."

That's the Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

[Pam]

Well done for remembering that Jane. I read that one when I was a kid. All I can remember is that it is set in an alternative history, but I am planning to re-read it eventually. It's the first of a series about the Dido Twite character. (Proud that I actually remembered that before I looked it up given my terrible memory.)

Anyway, here's info on the series and I see she wrote a prequel later - Dido Twite series.

[Elizabeth]

As a group, we have expressed outrage and disgust at the carnage caused by one misguided and unintelligent human being in Nice.

I feel very strongly that this thread should be used to mourn the deaths that move us - whether of the famous or, quite literally, the man in the street.

So I propose we view with utmost sorrow the untimely deaths of those who were the bright future, and those who tried to save them; but also those who were in Nice simply to enjoy the human state and celebrate an action, in the storming of the Bastille, that has come to represent the ordinary man's struggle for freedom and democracy.

For the bereaved let us express enfolding sympathy, and also for the survivors whose lives will be shaped differently by this crime.

And let us remember that perpetrators of acts like this, the haters of freedom, are ultimately slaves themselves.

[Alicia]

I mourn every death due to a choice like that, whether it be in France, Colombia, or Eritrea.

Nothing is solved by this kind of violence.

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

I remember well reading of the conflict between the Hutu's and the Tutsis in Rwanda. Evidently the cause was the difference in the distance across the bridge of the nose, that the Belgian colonialists used to identify the difference between the two tribes.

Identifying the difference enabled the sides to identify each other and commit genocide of the Tutsis.

[Lynne (Tigger's Mum)]

Well said Elizabeth, I'm also mourning for one of my neighbours. He was a lovely kind man and died this week.

[Desley (Cat fosterer)]

Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "Well said Elizabeth, I'm also mourning for one of my neighbours. He was a lovely kind man and died this week."

I'm sorry to hear that Lynne

[Elizabeth]

Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "Well said Elizabeth, I'm also mourning for one of my neighbours. He was a lovely kind man and died this week."

I'm sorry too. Death is never fair, is it?

[T4bsF (Call me Flo)]

Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "Well said Elizabeth, I'm also mourning for one of my neighbours. He was a lovely kind man and died this week."

That's sad Lynne - some neighbours are almost family.

[Patti (baconater)]

My Aunt's grand daughter, so my second cousin, committed suicide a couple of weeks ago, just as we arrived in Canada. Only 16 years old.
I've not quite processed it yet.

We had planned to visit my aunt and her kids and to meet the children I'd not ever met.
My sister attended the funeral but Dave and I were up north and couldn't.

[Alicia]

I'm so sorry, Patti.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Wow thats really sad - so sorry to hear it, Patti. ((((((((Patti))))))))

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo)]

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss, Patti. Such a waste.

[Jim]

Death is often difficult and painful to contemplate. In my opinion, one of the wisest and most sensitive observations that may be applied to the loss of a loved one is a direct quote from a children's book.

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
Theodore Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss - Children's books author (1904 - 1991)

[Lynne (Tigger's Mum)]

The number of lovely talented teenagers who commit suicide is tragic. I'm so sorry Patti.

[Elizabeth]

In reply to JIm, I think that is the most positive way to regard death.

I also happen to think that although the words 'never mind, they had a good innings' are meant as consolation at a difficult time, they are actually not. If you love someone, it doesn't matter how long they've lived - you just want them to carry on.

[Pat ()]

So sorry