Francis Gay

She wasn’t much taller than the two wheelie bins she was struggling to push up the slope to the roadside.

I shouted for her to wait and I would help but she didn’t respond. When I took one of the bins, she jumped. She explained she was hard of hearing. She was taking the bins out for some “old dears” who couldn’t manage. I guessed she was in her late 80s or early 90s. Her walking stick hung on one of the bin handles.

Coming back down the hill, she squinted at the path and wished she had brought a broom with her. Someone who didn’t see well (like her, apparently) might slip on all those wet leaves.

I eventually left, feeling honoured to have met her. Small, elderly, a little infirm, hard of hearing, visually impaired but still looking out for others!

Which of us could compete with her heart?

On Remembrance Sunday, you won’t have to look far to find quotes from the poems of Wilfred Owen.

The young lay-preacher and soldier, who died aged 25 in the last week of the First World War, left a legacy of poetry that continues to remind us of the futility of war.

I was discussing his poem Anthem For Doomed Youth with my friend Allan. He told me he would be attending a special performance this weekend. The words of Wilfred Owen sung to the music of Benjamin Britten. But the aspect of it he was looking forward to most was that the main singers will be British and German, standing together in peace and remembrance.

If we would truly and sincerely remember the fallen, then let us send no more to fall in their place. Instead, let us raise our youth not for the “doom” of war but to sing. Together!

Jim and Gina are very involved in their daughter and son-in-law’s lives right now.

They have two children under three, and that’s a big load for anyone to bear without help. The other day as they were leaving, their daughter said: “You know how much I appreciate you, don’t you? I mean, I have told you, haven’t I?

“It struck me,” Jim told me afterwards, “those are two very different things. We know she appreciates our help but she also tells us. They both do. It’s lovely.

“But, all too often, we assume people know things – our appreciation, our love, things that hurt us, the help we need – without actually putting them into words.

“And the words do make a difference. In fact, we’re encouraging our grandchildren to ‘use your words’. It left me wondering about the words I haven’t used. Who haven’t I told that I appreciate them?”

The summer season is long gone,

Dark nights are here instead,

But we have a land of gold,

Trees of yellow and fiery red.

Being in the great outdoors,

We are sure to find, A sense of beauty and wonder,

That uplifts heart and mind.