Day 14 – Goodbyes, 1960's Film of HBO/Firs!!!

I took Lucy to see Father at John Lincoln Funeral Directors this morning and as expected it was very difficult indeed. I didn't really want to go a second time, but had to for Lucy – she coped far better than I thought she would overall. Thankfully he had hardly deteriorated since I last saw him. Lucy didn't want to leave him, so we stayed a few moments longer. As I tried to comfort her, I made her see that what we were seeing was only his shell, his soul and spirit has gone up with the birds – I think this helped her and myself. We glanced back to the door to say goodbye as we left.

Went to join Mother where we had lunch and spent the afternoon together. I had a text from Jim Thomson who said the DVD's of my VHS films were ready!!! Blimey, a 24 hours service, well impressed! Later in the evening I picked up my DVD's from Jim and then took Lucy home.

I spent the evening watching all four DVD's. There are some lovely shots of my Father on my wedding video in 1992 – also film of wedding guests sadly no longer with us and shots of me a good few dress sizes slimmer!

The next video was of a programme which I recorded called 'A Green Day Out' with Tony Soper, which was a weekly series covering different parts of the coast, this one was about Holme and has NWT Warden Bill Boyd and my Father at HBO talking about habitat, birds and migration.

The third video is very short and shaky and only a few minutes long of Richard Richardson walking up a slope to Cley Bird Observatory with Paul Kirby and Peter Jackson, a cat and birds feeding – a real mix!

The fourth and last video I had not seen before at all and is called 'Struggle for Survival' and was taken over the period of 1961-1962 – my goodness this was fascinating! It showed the sea frozen and ice floes at Holme! Lots of different birds shown including a water rail with feathers encrusted in ice, feeding from someone's hand, an oiled Great Northern Diver being fed on the steps of The Firs House and a starving Shag sitting on the low wall, Avocet feeding on Broad Water, Black Tern flying around the Broad Water! Waxwing at Wiveton and much more! This film was originally shot on 16mm silent film and transferred to video tape in 1997, runs for 36 minutes and now onto DVD – cheered me up no end watching this!