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| Copyright relevant owner |
Well, I suppose I'd better do a post on comics before you forget what this site's supposed to be about and decide to bail out on me. I couldn't blame you if you did, 'cos some of my recent posts make for tedious reading, but it's cathartic for me and my chief way of addressing certain injustices perpetrated against me.
Anyway, TV21 #105 was the final issue of the 'New Series' direction of what had once been known as TV Century 21, which first appeared on newsagents' counters in January 1965 (cover-dated 2065). It had switched from its original title to simply TV21 with #155 in December (cover-dated January) 1968, and by the time of New Series #105 on September 1971, contained no Gerry Anderson-based strips, having been gradually phased out over the preceding months.
What's easily forgotten is that TV21 fearured a number of Marvel strips, Spider-Man and Silver Surfer among them. They didn't survive into the combined issue of Valiant & TV21 the following week and were hastily brought to unsatisfactory conclusions with this issue. Around a year and two weeks later, Marvel strips were resurrected in The Mighty World Of Marvel #1, and it's amzing just how many people now forget Marvel characters had still been appearing in a UK comic only 12 and-a-half months previously.
So, here are a few pages to remind you of Marvel's last stand in a UK comic by a British publisher, before 'official' Marvel took up the reins. Alan Class, of course, was still publishing his UK reprints, but they were monthly as opposed to weekly, and Class didn't resize and rearrange the strips in the way Odhams and IPC did.
Comments most welcome, Crivs. And don't forget to click on images to enlarge, then click again for optimum size. You don't wanna strain your eyes, do ya?!
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| The first combined issue |
Okay, seeing as how Ash Walmsley introduced him into the discussion in his letter to me, now let's talk about social worker Martin Gourlay. When I first met him, he didn't strike me as willing to be particularly helpful, though, eventually, he appeared to come round to my way of thinking on a couple of issues and managed to get the Home to do likewise. Namely, ensuring my mother's door was shut at all times so that she wasn't subject to the gaze of visitors or other residents when she might not have been fully dressed, or lying in her bed. I wanted my mother's privacy and dignity to be preserved, not have her open to public scrutiny or intrusion when she wasn't very presentable (and even when she was).
The other thing was to get the Home to prepare my mother for bed by 10 p.m. as I had originally stipulated when she first went into the place. Staff were in the habit of letting her sit up until whenever time she wanted to, because some numpty of an alleged 'senior carer' decided that as my mother sometimes went to bed early of her own accord, she was then therefore perfectly capable of going to bed at 10 p.m. This led to my mother sitting up extremely late, resulting in her being too tired to get up at the allotted time in the morning. I'd visit in the evening, only to find her still in bed and unresponsive because she was half-asleep. (Sometimes she was in a deep sleep, and I'd sit with her for a while and then come home.)
It occurs to me now that perhaps he only assisted me in this in order to keep me happy so I had less to complain about, which in turn kept the Care Home happy. However, staff continued to leave my mother's door wide open (or not close it when they saw it was open as they'd been instructed to do). I'll give you more details on that at another time. Like I said in a previous post, I had been trying to get my mother moved elsewhere, but Mr. Gourlay always hit me with the same spiel. "I'd advise against that as it wouldn't be in her best interests" he'd say, though as the relative with POA and a certificate of incapacity, that should have been my decision.
Given recent comments of his, it appears he effectively sabotaged my efforts to have my mother moved by informing Homes I applied to I was always moaning and complaining, inevitably resulting in them not wanting her. And how absurd is it for someone to visit my mother to evaluate her, then decide she seemed happy enough where she was? (Perhaps influenced by Mr. Gourlay's input?) As I said before, my mother would've been happy anywhere as she didn't know where she was to begin with. (She sometimes thinks I live there and asks me what room I'm in.) Moving her to another Care Home would've had no more (if any) adverse effect on her than moving her to another part of the building, which has already been done. As she is deemed unfit to make decisions for herself (aside from minor things like what colour of cardigan she'd like to wear, and what she wants to eat), that decision fell within my purview.
(Also, he said that seeing faces of new staff might be disorientating for her, though there's new staff in the place all the time, they don't keep anyone for long. And I doubt my mother recognises any long-term staff anyway. Nothing but feeble and unconvincing excuses to avoid moving her. No Care Home wants residents removed due to families not being happy with them as it looks bad, and it seems to me Mr. Gourlay is far more concerned with what Care Homes want than what families want.)
When I was 'phoning through a list of lawyers, one told me she had the same problem as I had, but in reverse. Social Work wanted to take her mother into care, whereas she wanted her mother to stay at home and be looked after - as did her mother. That's the thing about social workers - they impose themselves into your life and try and take over, making decisions that should lie within the province of families or individuals themselves. His boss returns from holiday on August 10th; I'm then going to see if I can have him replaced as my mother's allocated social worker with someone else. Even if the Home reverses its ban on me, how can I ever go into the place again, with staff holding the upper hand and being in a position of being able to make any accusations against me they like and be believed? It would be an untenable situation.
Given recent remarks of his, he seems to be siding with Meadowbrook and its employees on this one, without letting me know precisely what I'm supposed to have said (something about sitting on my knee) and who said it, thereby denying me the ability to hold her to account (in a legal way) for it. I've used the line "Well, sit on my knee and tell me what you want for Christmas" around a dozen times in response to people telling me I look like Santa over the last couple of months (with no negative reaction), and I have a dim memory of saying, in response to a comment about there not being enough room to swing a cat in my mother's room, something like "I know - if you wanted to sit down, it'd have to be on my knee, 'cos you're not getting my chair." Sexual harassment? My perfectly formed and finely-chiselled @rse!
Whichever it was, there was no sexual intent behind it, and all lawyers I've spoken to are incredulous about it. (As are various women I'm friendly with.) Knowing the precise words and the identity of my accuser would assist me in having a clearer recollection and help cut through my brain fog. How do I even know my accuser is the person I spoke to? She may have heard a colleague laughing about my remark and appropriated it for her own sinister ends. Meadowbrook doesn't care, as it provides them with ammunition against me.
That's why, whichever one it was, I suspect it's been seized upon in a blatant attempt to 'bring me to heel', in order to discredit my claims and complaints about some of the staff, and to deter me from making their many lapses public (as I threatened to do), out of fear that their (false) allegations of 'sexual impropriety' against me also become known. A scare tactic in other words. Or maybe even just to get their own back on me for making formal complaints about some of them. Hey, it could even be both, as neither possibilities are mutually exclusive.
Wish me well, Crivvies - and this isn't the end of this story - it's only the beginning.
******
Update: I've now been informed the 'incident' doesn't relate to either of the two possibilities I suggested (they did occur, but I can't remember who was involved in the first one, and there were a dozen or more separate individuals in the second) so that makes whatever it was (my knee still features in the allegation, oddly) a definite fabrication. It's either Meadowbrook trying to frighten me off from revealing any more of their shortcomings, or vengeful staff seeking payback for me complaining about them. Maybe even both. I'm determined to get to the bottom of it.
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| Incidentally, though this photo is virtually identical to the one above, it was taken a full week later, as the dates on the SD Memory card confirm. The floor hadn't been cleaned in a week, possibly longer. Shocking! |
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Okay, continuing on the same theme, when my mother first went into care, the Home said it offered all sorts of extra services, like supplying newspapers (at a price) and sundry other things. Then it changed its mind and said it couldn't obtain newspapers so I would have to find another option. That option appeared in the guise of a seemingly helpful staff member who lived across the road from the Home. She said she visited the newsagent's before work every morning and it would be no bother to get my mother's paper at the same time. She even dropped into work for a while on her days off, and said she would bring in a newspaper then, too.
This went on for a while until management advised me at a care review that it wasn't a good idea. I told the staff member I'd find another way of procuring newspapers, but she said "Nah, don't worry about that, I'll continue to get her papers, 'cos I do what I like, I don't listen to them!" How nice, I thought, so on top of the £50 per month I'd been giving her for the papers, I started giving the woman a gratuity of £20 each month (£70 in total) and she carried on getting them. Then, over several vists, I noticed my mother didn't always get a paper and expressed to another member of staff my concern, who must've mentioned it to the other woman.
(I should perhaps explain that my mother has a memory retention span of around 15-20 seconds. Often, when she gets to the end of a newspaper, she goes right back to the beginning and starts again. However, reading a paper had been part of her daily routine back home and become a habit, which I was trying to maintain for the sake of consistency.)
Next time I visited, the 'paper lady' came into my mother's room and said she'd forgotten to get a paper last time, so she'd bought a TV mag to make up for it. Price of TV mag? Around 45 pence, compared to the cost of around £1.30 for a paper. This happened a few times, and I became concerned about not all the money I supplied for newspapers being spent as it should. I mentioned this to the woman, who told me to get the papers myself then, which I'd been considering doing anyway. However, she still owed my mother two papers as I'd given her the money for them a month in advance. I was visiting my mother the night after she should've been supplied with the two papers (one a daily, one a weekly), but they were nowhere in sight.
What was in sight, though, were various newspapers from several prior visits, as they hadn't been thrown out. Why would two papers from only the day before be absent when older ones were still there? The woman claimed she'd given them to other staff to give to my mother, and even mentioned a 'witness'. When speaking to the person later, her response was "Witness? I wasn't even there!" So, here's a bit of interactive participation for you. What do you call a person who doesn't spend all the money she's been given for newspapers on newspapers, and then lies about it? Other lies were that I hadn't given her the £70 one month, and only given her £60 the month before - total nonsense of course. Anyway, Crivs, over to you...
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| Lorraine Miller |
Let me tell you a story - a true story. This took place just over two years ago and involves a staff member who works at the Care Home my 104 year-old mother currently resides in. I was leaving one night when I noticed there were no bedsheets or duvets on my mother's bed. Spotting a staff member at the end of the corridor, I said "Excuse me..." in a perfectly polite way. Her eyelids flickered, indicating she had heard me but decided not to answer. "Excuse me" I said again, "there's no bedsheets on my mother's bed." Her response? "Nothing' to do wi' me, I've just started my shift - I don't know what happens through the day" (though she should be informed at the handover) she said, without even looking in my direction. Her tone was contemptuous, and her manner seemed to suggest that I was out of order even speaking to her.
"If I don't tell you, you won't know," I replied, only to be met with a brusque "Ah'll pass it on!" I told her I didn't like her tone and I reported her the next day. Because I couldn't supply her name (didn't know it), my complaint was only partially upheld, though as only two or three staff were on in my mother's wing that night, it should've been easy to determine who the offending party was. Remember when I told you on a previous occasion about finding my mother fully dressed, slumped asleep in her armchair in front of the TV (which was still on, as was the room light) at 1 a.m. in the morning? (I'd gone up to check on something.) I also complained about that, and their response was to start locking the outer doors, clearly to prevent me from making any further early morning discoveries of neglect and incompetence. These doors had never been locked before in the two years my mother had been a resident so you can draw your own conclusions. (The inner doors had a keypad entry system to which I had the code.) When I asked this woman why the doors were suddenly being locked, she sarcastically replied "Cuz Ah fancied a change!"
This Care Home has an inability to replace my mother's hearing aid batteries on a regular basis, often leaving her deaf for hours at a time. Sometimes I would ask this woman to replace them and she'd make the excuse that she had something else to do first. This happened at least a couple of times. An hour later, it was time for me to leave, without being able to communicate with my mother as the staff member had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth. When I asked other members, they said they'd go and get the other woman to do it, but again, there was no show. This happened several times, and I had no alternative but to depart when my visit was over without being able to speak with my mother. It was clear to me that the woman was simply being spiteful to get back at me for complaining about her.
A few months back, I arrived and saw her through the windowed inner doors, lolling against the wall while checking her mobile 'phone. I could hear someone from down the corridor, repeatedly calling "Hello, hello, hello..." so this woman must've heard her too. When she looked up from her mobile and saw me, she walked off in the opposite direction from the source of the voice, presumably to avoid me. Once inside, I soon learned that it was my mother, standing at her door and calling for assistance (I hadn't recognised her voice at first), only to be ignored by this particular staff member. (This was documented in an email at the time.) You couldn't make it up, could you? Management, though, seem determined to protect their staff at the expense of the residents and their relatives and I'm made to feel I'm the problem, not their staff.
And now there have been other developments, which I'll share at a later date.
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| Janette Beckinridge |
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| Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd |
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
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| Images copyright relevant and respective owners |
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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
If you can remember the long hot summer of 1976 then, like me, you're positively ancient. There was a heatwave that year and I recall seeing waves of steam rising from the tarmacadam roads like a tangible force. Jack 'King' Kirby had returned to Marvel only the year before after a five year stint at DC, and in '76 he had two new Marvel Treasury Specials on sale. Namely, Captain America's Bicentennial Battles and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The two currently in my collection are replacements I acquired a good number of years ago and one glance at them returns me to those days of the mid-'70s in a heartbeat.
It's said you can get too much of a good thing, but I've never let that deter me from buying different printings of the same comics. Facsimiles, True Believers, collected editions, etc., are a magnetic lure to me I find nigh-impossible to resist. That's why I recently forked out for a new printing (well, 2021) of Cap's Bicentenial Battles Treasury, plus a Cap America collected volume (2005) containing the same titanic tale (as well as a few other Cap reprints). The TS is almost the same dimensions as the original, though on better paper, with a deluxe overlapping cover.
The book is around the same dimensions as a standard comic mag (but with more pages obviously) and also contains CA #s 201-205, again on superior paper. Whoever was responsible for compiling the credits for the front of the book had clearly never heard of Barry Smith, as, presumably having referred to the credits on the tale's splash page where Barry is listed only as B. Smith, appears to have taken a guess and rendered his name as Bob Smith. (I wonder what Barry would say if he ever finds out.) Thing is, because the original '76 Treasury is a peculiar size, being presented in a smaller format leaves too large a margin below each page.
The 'new' Treasury is a very handsome affair and if you're a Captain America or Jack Kirby fan, it's definitely one you should consider adding to your collection - even if you already own its original incarnation as it also features Marvel's Bicentennial Calendar in the back (one month per page). And just to be complete, below is the cover to Kirby's other '76 Treasury Special - 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you once had either (or both) of these two publications (or still have them), share your thoughts about them in our comments section.
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| Copyright relevant owner |
Okay, so where were we? Let me give you some background on the woman I was telling you about in part one. She wasn't too popular with other staff, considering herself to be the boss's 'favourite', and she often tried to 'lord it' over them, with not much resistance due to her perceived status. Indeed, rumours were rife she and her boss were having or had once had an affair, though truth to tell, I never saw any evidence of it, but a lot of staff believed it to be true and had stories to tell. I almost wish it were true, as then I'd have another means by which to expose her for the deceitful individual she is, but I'm not one to make accusations unless I know they're 100% true and accurate. However, they both certainly appeared to be close.
Anyway, to recap, we'd mended our fences 'til she offended me again and I once more decided to have nothing to do with her, so simply behaved as though she didn't exist. I continued my established daily routine of a few years, posting work to London in late afternoon and then visiting the foodcourt in the town's shopping centre for a cup of tea, sometimes a meal, and a read of my newspaper. I started to notice I was getting dirty looks from some people and was stunned to eventually learn she was insinuating that I was stalking her, and using my letter from several weeks before as alleged 'proof'.
Bear in mind she'd made no such suggestions about my letter at the time - the very letter which led to our 'reconciliation' and us getting along amicably until her re-offence. No, it was weeks (perhaps months) later that she sought to reinterpret my letter in support of her claim, even though I was studiously ignoring her very existence at that stage. I didn't know her address, nor her 'phone number, had never expressed interest in her, and was doing nothing in my daily routine I hadn't done for years. So how can you be stalking someone when you don't talk to or look at them, and pay no attention to them? Truth is, she was simply trying to make my life difficult to intimidate me into staying away from the foodcourt and show me she called all the shots (in her mind).
Once, as I was sitting having a cuppa in the foodcourt, she walked through, looked around to ensure she was unobserved, scowled at me, and then drew her finger across her throat in a slashing manner. Not exactly ladylike or even normal behaviour, is it? But there's more. A local druggie told me (while asking me for 'spare change') she'd approached him and asked how much he'd take for 'sorting me out'. He's now dead, but at least he was smart enough (just) not to entertain the notion. He'd have come off second best if he had.
Sounds almost unbelievable, doesn't it? However, I can assure you it's all 100% true. So what was in my letter that could be distorted after the fact to fit her malicious agenda? Here, let me quote some relevant extracts, which I can do verbatim (Susan's real name aside) as I made a copy before passing it on to her via her daughter.
"...without meaning to be rude to you, Susan is unequivically the only woman on the planet who I care talks to me or not."
"Anyway, Susan suggests that I apologise again, and her wish is my command. In fact, if she commanded, I would get down on my knees in the foodcourt and kiss your feet."
"However, that said, I shall continue to assume you want nothing to do with me unless you yourself indicate otherwise."
I just this moment dug out my copy of the letter to refer to for this post, but I'd forgotten I'd previously passed her a brief note (in the company of her boss, who read it first), saying the following: "To be honest, I don't actually give a sh*t if you speak to me again or not (and I'm sure you care even less) but for (boss's name) sake, I'm going to try and accomplish what you wouldn't let me do last time, and apologise (for ignoring her apology).
The smarter among you will have sussed another reason for my letter was I knew she'd more than likely show it to Susan, who I hoped would be touched by what a lot I thought of her. How could she not be, given how much I was prepared to 'humble' myself if she so commanded? Okay, admittedly I was indulging in humorous hyperbole - kissing anyone's feet was definitely not a statement of intent, nor a declaration of ambition (or even a remote possibility), merely a convenient tongue-in-cheek way of indicating the high regard in which I held Susan.
Like I said, initially the letter mended fences, with no sly insinuations at the time. No, they came several weeks later, after the fences got broken again. And that's important to remember, so I'll reiterate it: she made no spurious insinuations until after I fell out with her for a second time. Eventually, most of the security guards wised-up and warned this woman about her behaviour and false claims. One of her staff later apologised to me and admitted he'd been manipulated (his own word) into corroborating her outlandish claims about me. She never made an 'official' complaint, it was all sly suggestion and sinister insinuation, and the head of the shopping centre later told me she'd done this sort of thing before.
There's so much more to tell, and maybe I will at a later date, but for the moment, suffice to say I eventually went to the police and had a lawyer's letter sent to her, saying that unless she desisted from her false claims, I'd pursue legal redress with the full rigour of the law. It's important to emphasise she never thought she was being stalked for one second, it was simply a malicious, spiteful lie designed to create trouble for me. And it did. For example, fighting off three guys who attacked me in the food court on a day when the security cameras were turned off due to being repaired or replaced. Now I wonder who could've tipped them off about that?
However, at the end of the day I was vindicated and I derive a certain degree of satisfaction from that, though I'd prefer to have avoided the situation altogether. She was exposed as a bit of a nutter who enjoyed playing the victim, and she later advised one of her young staff who claimed an admirer was stalking her, not to say that as it could rebound on the girl as it had on her. (She told this to [or was overheard by] someone who worked nearby, who told me.) I suspect she still portrays herself as a victim now and again, though she'll be careful with whom she does it. Rest assured, if I ever hear even a whisper of her repeating her false and discredited claims about me, I'll be suing her for defamation of character.
So, Crivvies, anything like that ever happen to you, and if so, how did you deal with it? Reveal all in the comments section - if you're brave enough.
