20th July 2025

This morning I was just trying to think of how memories occur in the mind.  Often I will say that our minds are like the silver many faceted silver balls that you twirled to at the local dance hall.  Or maybe they are like a heavily scented perfume that drifts through, taunting you with its presence.  Very similar as to what Ted Hughes says in his 'The Thought Fox'

Till, with a sudden hot sharp stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

However a memory comes, it comes with an accumulation of emotions that flash by and you are hopelessly caught in the reel action.  So it was this Sunday morning when they played Spiegel im Spiegel.  The calmest music out, tranquil and slow it tunes down the rush of the day.

Yesterday we  walked to the park,  dogs abounded in every shape and colour all good natured and sweet.  Children played in the playground and Jean and I wandered round to the far edge where once John Fielden lived with his family.  A famous figure in doing good also a politician in the 19th century.

The house no longer stands but is etched out in the ground with a few laid stones.  The walled garden  still exists, planted in true council style - lines of flowers outlined by silver foliage.

Saint Volodymyr of Ukraine there seems to be a religious tie between the town and the Ukrainian people.... I should have pulled that plant aside. The leader of the country now is also called Volodymyr Zelensky, though it can be changed to Vladmir.

Another plaque reads: "60 years of Ukrainian life and culture in Todmorden 1947 to 2007.

The first Ukrainians arrived in Todmorden in 1947 to work in the cotton industry.  They gradually integrated into the local community staging dances and concerts at the Town Hall, Calder College and the Hippodrome."  

The hippodrome is being refurbished at the moment it will take at least a year but they have knocked down a part of it, see below, I think this is where the new cinema will be as part of the theatre.

Operation 'West'