New Year's Eve

 New Year's Eve

So here we are. It's the last day of the old year and a New Year beckons. The slates have been wiped clean, the doors will be shut and then open again for business when Big Ben in London strikes as resoundingly as it always has done for as long as any of us can remember. Of course there was that lengthy five year of silence in Westminster when time quite literally seemed to stand still for reasons that have now been painfully documented and have now been consigned to some medieval bin of history never to rear its head again.

All across the world champagne bottles will be popped, toasts will be raised and then the yearly pyrotechnical extravaganza will burst into the sky. The now stunningly colourful fireworks display by the Embankment on New Year's Eve has become an almost permanent fixture in the calendar. There were two years when there was neither sight nor sound of a Catherine Wheel, rocket or sparkler since the coronavirus had brought the whole of Mother Earth to a grinding halt and nobody was allowed to do anything celebratory of any description.

But here we are on the verge of 2024 and we're all being tactile and affectionate, cheerful and optimistic, clearly aware that nothing should be taken for granted. The huge crowds will gather in their enthusiastic multitudes huddling together as kindred spirits, pulling up the hoods on our coats, rubbing our hands together and wondering whether peace and goodwill will ever break out in the New Year. Sometimes it really does feel as though we may be whistling in the wind and just breaking our New Year's resolutions as soon as Big Ben has rung twelve times so dramatically.

For some of us the diagnosis of Autism was something of a mystery in 1962.Throughout your youth  you muddled your way through all of the festivities and joyous parties that were going on all around you. There was never any sense of detachment or isolation because, quite frankly, you had no idea what was going on inside your head nor had your consciousness been heightened by anything out of the ordinary. Of course in hindsight your behaviour was totally irrational, embarrassingly immature and just anti social in every possible way. 

As a young male, teenage years and adolescence were about to become so traumatic, problematic and challenging that it hardly seems possible that it could have happened but did. Your lovely mum and dad would prepare themselves for their yearly dinner and dance on New Year's Eve and nobody really questioned the status quo least of all me. You wished them the most enjoyable and satisfying of evenings and just got on with the traditional duty of looking after my brother who was six years younger than me.

So after seeing off my parents and wishing them a happy and healthy New Year, my mum would polish off the sweetest snowball, an alcoholic drink that seemed so relevant to the times. It was either that or a Tia Maria and that heralded the beginning of another year. My responsibility was to baby sit my brother and make sure that everything would run smoothly and uneventfully. So we sat down to watch the TV and while kids of my age and generation were abandoning ourselves to boozy bacchanalia and carefree enjoyment, my evening consisted of nothing of any consequence. There were no friends of my own age, nothing even resembling partying or dancing the night away and the evening just disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Suddenly you found yourself trapped in a no man's land where everything that should have been happening was just one missed opportunity after another. You didn't know it at the time but the realisation became obvious that the social network you should have established had become totally oblivious to you and nobody knew of your existence. Sadly the early 1980s were just a desolate hinterland with nobody to trip the light fantastic with me and share hilarious jokes and pleasantries with.

Now it was that you were introduced to Ilford B'nai Brith, a Jewish, vastly influential and global charitable organisation with charming and hospitable people who gave me that warm sense of belonging that will never ever be forgotten. It was a life changing moment that turned my life inside out and for much the better. By Christmas 1983 you had now become totally accepted as part of the family and it may have been that same New Year's Eve when you were invited to a party that was conveniently situated around the corner from where you used to live. These would become lifelong friends and your cup of gratitude would overflow.

You can still see yourself at first slightly wary and nervous at first, reluctant to make any kind of small talk or conversation with anybody. But once introduced you began to feel at home and comfortable. We would turn on Capital Radio, a London based pop music station, and all around me were people sitting on the floor, drink and food in one hand while those who preferred to simply stand, just stood around casually chatting and exchanging humorous observations about anything and everybody. 

It would be a while before you found yourself drawn into a world that had been so feared and ignored. Shortly, small private discussions would flow and the inhibitions began to fall away. My interest in writing had yet to be fully ignited properly and a cheesy poem about Summer would be the harbinger for greater literary efforts in years to come. But that was the year that changed your life, giving it shape and purpose, a body and framework, hope and structure. Where before you had struggled to cobble anything in the way of a coherent sentence or a purposeful paragraph, now there was clarity and creativity.

And so it is that along with my lovely wife Bev, always loving, glorious family, my rock and wonderfully supportive we'll be quietly celebrating New Year's Eve with several bags of crisps, a drink or several and just all the warmth and love you could possibly wish for. We must wish for a year that can guarantee peace, good health, happiness and just being open to all channels of communication because without that valuable resource, war may always be the insuperable obstacle that may never be overcome. So wherever you are tonight on New Year's Eve enjoy the company of the people around you and let's be good to each other.  A Happy, Healthy, Peaceful and Sweet New Year to you all. Oh of course welcome to the world our first grandson Arthur. We love you deeply little man. And the same to you King Arthur.