Autumn/Fall

An early morning walk two days ago in brilliant sunshine took me past some beautiful autumn scenery, see for example the scene above of   the garden of the local Catholic church, although my iPhone photograph  does not do it justice.

The road on our nearby home was covered in leaves, hence presumably the USA name of Fall  as distinct from the British Autumn..

Since the above picture was taken, there have been torrents of rain particularly  during last night and this morning, so that the autumnal views have largely dissipated to be replaced by wet leaves underfoot.

Perhaps the name autumn is  the more apt before many of the leaves fall, with the latter name (fall)  being apt when most of the leaves are swept down from the trees by the passage of time or weather.

Lord Nelson

 

 

The Nelson Hospital in Merton Park is named such I believe, because Lord Nelson who was born in East Anglia had a home in that part of the world.

A few days ago The times had an interesting article about Nelson in its weather report page: 

Britain’s most famous naval battle took place 220 years ago on Tuesday. In October 1805, a combined French and Spanish fleet was ready to sail out of Cadiz to the Mediterranean. Admiral Horatio Nelson raced to engage the enemy, although the French commander, Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, wanted to avoid a confrontation, despite his 33 warships outnumbering Nelson’s 27.

Reports that Villeneuve was about to be replaced as commander persuaded him to sail, in a heavy sea swell and strengthening winds, on October 20. Nelson realised a storm was brewing and that he needed to battle the enemy fleet urgently before conditions deteriorated. On October 21, however, the wind dropped, leaving both fleets wallowing in a heavy sea swell. Nelson was obliged to concoct an audacious battle plan — two columns of ships would sail into the enemy line for a head-on attack before launching broadsides at close quarters.

Villeneuve tried, and failed, to head back to Cadiz, but the two fleets met off Cape Trafalgar when Nelson launched his attack. His flagship, HMS Victory, bore down on the enemy and sustained heavy fire, before it ran under the stern of the French flagship, the Bucentaure, firing devastating broadsides that left the ship disabled.

The centre of the Franco-Spanish fleet was reduced to chaos, but the crew of the French ship Redoutable massed an attack on Victory that left Nelson mortally wounded, before HMS Temeraire crashed into Redoutable and caused mass casualties on the French crew.

As the battle raged on, the devastating British gunnery ground down the enemy ships until the Franco-Spanish force collapsed. Although many of the British ships were badly damaged, the allied fleet was devastated, with 20 of their ships captured and many of the crew killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The gathering storm now blew the ships towards a rocky shore, and by next morning, several of the captured ships sank while some of the Spanish ships ran for Cadiz. All told, 14 of the captured ships were destroyed, and the total loss of life in the storm was worse than during the battle. As a result of the engagement, the Battle of Trafalgar left Britain in command of the seas.

Today of course, the UK's Health and Safety Executive would doubtless not have permitted a man with one leg and blinded in one eye to work as an admiral on board a ship of the fleet.

Autumn Lawn

 

The lawn at home is covered in somewhat unruly and ugly looking wild mushrooms as above.The fox which often enters the garden and forages ignores them as do so far after a week, the birds.

 The Times today has an interesting short article part of which reads:

This is an outstanding autumn for woodland fungi. It seems that the combination of summer heat and heavy September rain has generated an eruption of the fruiting bodies we know as mushrooms and toadstools. Naturalists with long memories may recall the same thing happening in the wet autumn of 1976.

The ancient woodland of Savernake Forest, in deepest Wiltshire, is alive with these fungi. The boles of some of the veteran beech trees there are encrusted with huge growths of the giant polypore Meripilus giganteus. More generally, honey fungi abound. These are nature’s decomposers, turning so-called “dead wood” into forest fertiliser.

The ground below stands of birch trees is studded with panther cap, blushers and fly agaric. Walk there with care, and delight — perhaps pondering how transformative it would be to encounter a hookah-smoking caterpillar on top of just one, as Alice did in her Wonderland. Best of all, the summer drought and the dry October have combined to ensure that few mushrooms and toadstools have been besmirched by slug damage (2025 has not been a good year for slugs or snails). This is the autumn to take up photographing fungi.

Trying to identify which variety of mushroom has sprouted on our  small patchy town lawn is proving difficult despite the photograph above. Some in the family wish the mushrooms and the lawn to be mowed away. 

I am puzzled by the fact that so many mushrooms have appeared on our lawn whereas those of neighbors seem unaffected. Presumably the spores were dropped by magpies, other birds or even or foxes  all of which abound in Wimbledon near to the Common.

Given The Times writer reports the large number of wild insects that can take refuge and thrive in mushrooms less deterred than is usual by larger species I am letting the mushrooms be for the time being.

NHS Again

 

After a Wimbledon Dentist spent some three hours last week tackling my teeth and jaw for the princely  NHS sum of c. £27, it was amazing to receive notification from St Georges NHS Hospital to attend an appointment there later this month.

The   Maxillo-Facial unit is the relevant department as my jaw is apparently is affected by the issues. 

Hopefully the speed of this initial appointment does not signify that the problems are too severe.

 We shall see. 🙈

A recent visit to a local dentist recommended by mrs maytrees, I had assumed would involve a thirty minute visit with maybe some work on a sore tooth.

The reality was quite different with the visit lasting overall at over three hours. 

The lady dentist, who was not the same as the dentist visited by mrs maytrees and youngest children, was brilliant. Her surgery was large clean and full of up to date equipment, She and her assistant took some time measuring gums and teeth with several instant X-ray photographs. She said that the issues were more than normal dentistry so that she would have to telephone St George's NHS hospital dental department for advice and for them to admit me there.

The telephone call she made on loudspeaker so that I could listen and be involved if needed. 

The St George's consultant said that  my issues  though serious were not sufficiently serious for an immediate visit to their dental department but that I would be tri-aged and probably called in, in about 12 days. Meanwhile advised her to prescribe two anti-biotics as there were multiple abscesses which needed to be sorted. She did this and the local pharmacy had the anti-biotics in stock. He also advised that she prescribed the tooth paste above or maybe she herself decided that what was required.

In any event, the prescription included  eight packs. of the toothpaste pictured above. Upon checking the price on Google I was amazed to find that their cost was c. £14 per small pack. 

The dentist came down to greet mrs maytrees and we profusely thanked her. The receptionist told me that the total cost  for her treatment and care, was £27.40 which seems amazingly inexpensive, with there being a nil cost for the  prescribed special toothpaste and antibiotics given my OAP status.

There are so many general  moans about the NHS that maybe the post above is  also worth considering in the general mix.

PWW - Retirement Party 26th September 2025

The only plaque outside the main entrance to PWW's offices is the sign below, hence it took me some time to find  them.                                       

Farewell to Alexa Beale

Gerald Kidd was kind enough to suggest that I say a few words at Alexa's retirement drinks party and with some intrepidation I agreed.

Gerald was keen that the talk was short but most know that lawyers rarely say in three words that which may be said in thirty.

A little history of the firm first which is necessary for the context of Alexa's retirement. WW was one of the first firms to act for many Catholic clients after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. Witham Munster Roskell and Weld was an early name for the firm which when I joined as an articled clerk a few years back had become Witham Weld. WW then had a Liverpool office and its senior partner in London Michael Kelleher usually arrived at the office wearing a bowler hat - common enough in those years.

The House of Lords case of Gilmour and Coates was involving a Catholic Trust was possibly one of Witham Weld's most famous cases though the more recent PWW Supreme Court case in 2012 involving a Methodist minister and her claim to be unfairly dismissed, which the Methodist Church through the firm won, is better known. My reading of the Gilmour and Coates judgement led me to believe that maybe King Henry VIII had still wished to be Catholic upon his death.

Catholic discrimination was followed by racial discrimination. A sadly common unfairness which I learned quite quickly as a Witham Weld Articled Clerk was that of racial discrimination.

With me as an Articled Clerk was Ralph Doyle. Rumour had it that he had only been interviewed because of his English sounding names and the partners at the time were too embarrassed not to employ him thereafter. He was I was I believe was among if not the first non British subject Articled Clerks in the country. He came from Trinidad & Tobago. He taught me very quickly how unfair particularly then, life was for many immigrant families. Eg In those days we as Articled Clerks had to attend personally at Somerset House to arrange for stamp duty payments on conveyances and other deeds. On one occasion when going with him there, he greeted Caribbean postmen, who were complete strangers to him, with a waived fist type salute. I learned from Ralph probably more about the hurts of discrimination than from anyone else. Interestingly he went on to have a most successful legal career back home where he became Attorney General.

Such discrimination against racial minorities still exists but seems to be rather less severe in the UK than was the case in the 1960s.

In the legal profession discrimination against women was rife in the 1970s and 80s and many might say that there is still such discrimination today although my GP surgery used to be almost exclusively male; yet all or nearly all the GPs there today are female.. An advantage of historic sex discrimination for PWW, was that some brilliant women who all things being equal should have been recruited by the top City solicitors but covert discrimination meant that were available for recruitment by Witham Weld.

Witham Weld a small firm but was able some 40 plus years ago to recruit one or two trainees a year. One of two brilliant women articled clerks recruited after I had been made a partner was Catherine and the other Alexa. After qualification Catherine I recollect secured a post in private client work at Farrer & Co. She became a partner there and went on to become the solicitor to the late QE II. I met her again at Farrers when shortly before my own retirement I worked there for a couple of years as a consultant. She was very highly thought of. Like Alexa she has I believe, retired recently.

Alexa to the best of my recollection went to Oxford University whereas I think Catherine went to Cambridge. Reverting to the difficulties faced by women at the time my own degree compared unfavourably with theirs, being only an. external London University 2:2.

Alexa worked tirelessly and was an extremely good partner at the firm. On one occasion I recall being prepared to visit an order of nuns in the Cotswolds. They had had a difficult employment issue. At 3 am on the day I was due to travel to see them, my wife who was expecting a baby had to be rushed to hospital. I telephoned Alexa to ask if she could see the nuns in my place later that day; which she did by all accounts very successfully.

Unlike her former WW colleague Catherine, Alexa has a family and her children must be in their 20s or even 30s now. She owned and maybe still does, a holiday home near to I think, Reims Cathedral and was kind enough to allow my family and myself to holiday there one year. We drove over to France via the ferry and later arrived at Alexa's house which seemed to have ample space for us all. However shortly after we had put our four children to bed, there were screams of terror. Two of the children's rooms had been invaded by hordes of spiders The four children crowded into the remaining spiderless room and began to full the gaps between floor and doors with newspaper to keep the invaders at bay. We did laugh.

Alexa was always a reliable partner and had the characteristic of fairness which she combined with good grace, neither of which characteristics are as common today in either part of the legal profession as in my opinion they should be.

Have a great retirement Alexa.

Family Tree

Younger brother John, has done some tremendous research into our family tree which is why this blog post focuses on the results of his labours, to date.

He managed to trace an old picture of our great aunt (see below) younger sister of great grand mother.Youngest brother reports that:

She married a man called Walter Brookman in Chelsea (Brompton?) and eventually ended up in Australia. She lived to 1941

                                    

Interestingly she bears some resemblance to our oldest but now sadly deceased, sister. She also bears some  resemblance to 11 year old  granddaughter  whom mrs maytrees and I occasionally call micro-dot.  

Younger brother's researches also led him to conclude that our great great grand mother may have been an Elizabeth Toohig whose parents seem to have died in Ireland during the potato famine there. She  a 12 year old,apparently fled    to Southampton and married Mr Burkett Martin. In  years to come one of their children married  a Jeremiah Crawley who was our great grand father. 

 In any event  relevant aspects of our family tree appear thus:

  Many thanks to younger brother..