Mary came home from school in tears. She explained to her mother that she had been punished for something she didn’t do. “That’s terrible,” said her mother. I’m going straight up to your school to have a word with your teacher. “What was it you didn’t do?” “My homework,” said Mary.

Well they say the old ones are the best, and this story reminds me of the time I had my pocket money stopped for a week back in my boarding school days. When my teacher asked me one morning for my homework, I replied “I have not done any homework because there was no boat to the IOM last night”. Was my Smart Alec answer worth four shillings? No! No amount of school boy laughter was worth a week’s allowance. The trouble was, I really liked that teacher. We got on really well and I probably got off lighter than anyone else would have done for the same thing. Why am I going on about homework? Well for some reason I woke up this morning with homework in my head. I think it’s probably because my trip over to Clatterbridge is now just three days away. I used to think when I smoked, that I would be able to pack in anytime. I would pack in when the coughing started, or when I began to have breathing difficulties. I guess that was doing my homework. The trouble is, I didn’t see lung cancer coming, and my homework was totally inadequate. Believe me, there is nothing you can do that will prepare you for lung cancer. If you kick the habit now, then even if you are unlucky enough to fall in to cancer’s clutches, at least you will be able to say that you did everything you could to avoid it, and you won’t have any pangs of guilt regarding your treatment. My homework was inadequate. Your homework need not be. Sling it, that’s the best homework you can do. Good luck to you, and more importantly good health.

Of course if you enjoy a smoke and you’re not afraid of catching lung cancer, then good luck to you also. I will hang on to my Clatterbridge brochures as you will probably be in need of them to at some point in the future.

Well I shan’t bang on about smoking any more. When I packed in, I said to myself, I don’t want to be one of those former smokers who keeps banging on and on about smoking, so sorry smokers if I have gone on a bit. Of course I still am a smoker, I suppose it’s just that I haven’t had one now for 8 months.

Today being Friday means that the gathering will take place this evening. Tonight will probably be the last of the gatherings for sometime although we are going to relocate one of the gatherings to the camp site in Meols. I am now going to start packing my bags for my little jaunt to pastures new. I will blog tomorrow folks, and then after that I really don’t know when my next one will be. Next week the intention is that Barbara will do the blog on my behalf, although I don’t know if she will do so every day. Anyway I shall be hitting the blogging keys tomorrow. So until then, this is Tom Glassey with News at 10.15, on the Banks of the Silverburn River.