Month: November 2016

It’s a fact of life that you have to be very careful what you say these days and how you say it. The Political Correctness police are everywhere and they will bring the sky down upon you if you make a slip up. Political correctness is described as the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against. That’s a fine mouthful but what does it mean?

Not so long ago, the use of certain terminology to describe some sections of the community was often offensive and particularly so for black people, gays and lesbians, people with physical or mental disabilities and others. They had a lot to put up with and for them, political correctness was, I would imagine, very welcome. The original intention was probably to achieve exactly that and to make life more comfortable for people generally.

We have gone overboard with political correctness

But somewhere along the way we have gone overboard with this PC business. It has become impossible to have a conversation with some who insist on correcting everything you say. If you mention male, they will interrupt and tell you to mention female. If you say he, then you must say she. If you mention him then you must mention her. I have attended meetings with people like this and it would drive you to distraction.

Policemen are now police officers and firemen are firefighters, chairmen have left the building and are now chairs. But be careful because you can still use chairperson and I think chairwoman is ok. As for humankind you better replace that with personkind. Gone is the man on the street and he, or she, has been replaced by the person on the street and you can tell your kids all about the person on the moon.

This is probably not something that exercises the minds of the average Joe, or Josephine, Soap too much and I’m pretty sure that as long as you are not insensitive in other ways, few people will be offended if you restrain yourself from putting ‘she’ after every ‘he’.

No offence but……

Pandering to every plea for politically correct terminology can make conversation impossible and can make the written word unreadable. There is a need to be balanced here and deal with the genuine issues and avoid taking offence at every opportunity, especially where none was intended. We have to maintain a sense of humour at the same time.

Some people believe that avoiding the possibility of giving offence, causing embarrassment, lowering self-esteem, reinforcing stereotypes, perpetuating prejudice, victimising, marginalising or discriminating is more important than telling the actual story. But if you take that to extremes then you probably wouldn’t open your mouth.

There are some examples of how a story can be altered for the sake of political correctness and, while some of them have been denied, they nevertheless give examples of how things can get a little PC mad from time to time.

A load of nonsense

There was a story about Punch & Judy shows that featured at the British seaside for centuries. In fact, its history stretches back to the diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote about seeing a show in Covent Garden over 350 years ago. That hasn’t stopped Barry Town Council from banning the show from a festival because of its “inappropriate hitting” – and because it depicts an “abusive” relationship. (Credit: WikiCommons)

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent allegedly banned the term “brainstorming” and replaced it with “thought showers” – for fear of offending epileptics.

An unknown school in England banned a Wonder Woman lunchbox for being “too violent”, according to a viral image posted online by a mother and a school in the US supposedly renamed its Easter eggs ‘spring spheres’ to avoid causing offence to people who did not celebrate Easter.

These stories may be completely ridiculous and may not even be true but they are entertaining. On a more serious note though, it is becoming more difficult for some people to express themselves honestly for fear of upsetting the PC applecart and using the wrong terminology without having the slightest intention of causing offence to anyone. Speaking in public is fraught with danger and it’s not always easy to navigate a safe passage through the mine field, especially when there are certain people ready to jump down your throat at the first opportunity.

A sense of humour is required

Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear fame, is probably one of those people you would not associate with being politically correct and he has found himself in hot water again recently because of remarks he made in relation to the Ebola virus. He described a particular racetrack as being dangerous because there is an unexploded bomb underneath it. He then went on to describe how it even looked dangerous on a map because, according to him, the shape of it resembled the Ebola virus.

If people are going to jump up and down about this we might as well throw our hat at it. The likes of Clarkson and Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian, would never see the light of day if these PC sensitive beings are to have their way. We need humour and to be able to laugh at ourselves and some humour can be found in the darkest of situations so let’s lighten up a small bit.

That we as a society should be considerate and that we should think before we speak and avoid the use of inflammatory stereotypes goes without saying. Political correctness is basically just being a thoughtful, curious, compassionate human being, sorry, person being. It shouldn’t be about trying to catch people out for being stupid (no offence intended to people who are stupid). Political correctness is about real life and that includes having a sense of humour as well.

 

 

I was asked recently if I thought that juvenile crime was on the increase. Were there more youngsters running wild and creating havoc now than there were in the past? It’s an interesting question. While I don’t have the figures from the Department of Justice, I would be surprised if there wasn’t some increase in incidents given the resource issue that has affected An Garda Siochana over the last number of years.

I think that the majority of young people we have in this country are good kids who progress to adulthood without causing too many problems. Many of them distinguish themselves through sport, volunteerism or academic achievements without causing an ounce of bother. In my experience it has always been a small minority who cause trouble and bring themselves to the notice of the Justice system. I don’t know if this group has grown but I suspect that the lack of resources in An Garda Siochana has led to less interaction with youngsters over the last few years and as a result they could be more boisterous than would have been the case previously.

Do the figures add up?

Figures from the Court Service’s Annual Report suggest that juvenile crimes and public order offences have greatly reduced over the last number of years. In 2013, there were 5,365 juvenile offences, representing a 41% drop on 2010’s figure of 9,162. Public order and assault offences are also on the way down with 40,823 such offences recorded last year, in comparison to 61,652 such offences back in 2011, a 34% drop.

This seems to be at variance with the perception of some members of the general public who feel that those numbers don’t stack up. And they may well be justified in having that opinion.

The Minister for Justice has stated that since the first National Youth Justice Strategy commenced in 2008, the number of children detained by the Courts annually on criminal conviction has consistently dropped; the operational costs of detention have reduced by over 30%; the capital costs and space required in the new national detention facilities being built at Oberstown are approximately 50% of what was estimated in 2008; and youth crime has decreased.

Is there another reason?

It is possible that the reduction in the number of recorded juvenile offences could be attributed to the fact that a shortage of resources in An Garda Siochana may have resulted in fewer juveniles coming to the attention of the gardai in the first place. Another reason could be a claim that fewer incidents are reported because of the anticipated lack of response.

Commenting on the Court Service’s Annual Report a Garda spokesman said, “Preventative and enforcement” measures have been implemented by the force to reduce the number of incidents relating to such crimes. “On the prevention side, this includes our youth diversion programme that seeks to stop young people under 18 from re-offending, our schools education programme, and working with communities on programmes like Neighbourhood Watch and Community Alert,” the spokesman said.

I’m not convinced about the “preventative and enforcement” measures and if these measures are being hailed as the reason for the reduction in offences then I’m afraid that the report is flawed. These are the very same measures that have taken a terrible hammering in recent years in An Garda Siochana because of the unavailability of community gardai and because of the new roster. This is the same roster that the Garda Inspectorate decided is not fit for purpose. It is causing huge problems for garda management who still refuse to admit that it doesn’t work.

The schools programme was never easy

It’s infuriating that they continue to suggest that their “schools education programme and community programmes like Neighbourhood Watch and Community Alert” are actually working. To suggest the offences are reduced because of these programmes is pure delusional. The Garda Schools Programme, just to take one example, has significantly reduced in recent years to the point of being practically non-existent in many areas. I would be astonished if the returns for the number of school visits carried out by members of An Garda Siochana in recent years show anything other than a serious reduction when compared with previous years.

Even in the good times, it was a struggle to implement this programme because very few in garda management had any faith in it and when the cutbacks hit the Force, this was one of the first casualties.

The Minister for Justice commented that since the first National Youth Justice Strategy commenced in 2008, the number of children sentenced to detention by the Courts on criminal conviction has consistently dropped. Again, engagement with juveniles has been on the decline since 2008 so that too could have something to do with that drop.

The Youth Diversion Programme is something else that seems to be getting plaudits for reducing the number of young offenders. In plain English, the Diversion Programme provides youngsters who find themselves in trouble with an opportunity to make amends without having to enter into the Criminal Justice System. It allows for young people, under the age of eighteen, who may have done something silly to get a second chance without having the offence recorded against them.

It’s a very positive and practical programme and it is responsible for putting many youngsters on the right path as opposed to the slippery slope of criminality. But it only works as long as the gardai are engaged with it. The down side is that if the gardai are not in the schools and on the street dealing with these kids then the referrals are not going to be made and these young offenders will continue to commit crime until they enter the Criminal Justice System at eighteen years of age and at that stage they are dealt with as adults. And then it’s too late.

Having read some of the ‘Modernisation and Renewal Programme 2016-2021’ as announced by the Garda Commissioner, Noirin O’Sullivan, I find myself once again being a little confused. While I welcome the attempt by the organisation to examine where it is headed in the future, I have a concern that a lot of what the programme contains is nothing more than what we’ve been promised before.

An Garda Siochana has a great opportunity to get its act together and it has a lot of good people who are capable of achieving that. If this isn’t a genuine effort to change then we will be here in another ten years rehashing this argument with the launch of yet another programme for renewal to bring us from 2021 to 2026.

Speaking with forked tongue

My first concern arises in the Commissioner’s Foreword where she says, “We are in and of the community. Community policing is key and core to what we do, in routine operations, and in exceptional operations; this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and more significantly the 1916 Easter Rising Commemorations were hugely successful and passed off without incident. The central ethos for these successful policing operations was ‘community safety’ and the women and men of An Garda Síochána who policed these events showed fantastic understated professionalism.’

She is correct when she talks about the performances of the regular men and women of the organisation who put the shoulder to the wheel in difficult times of pay cuts, low morale and lack of resources. They did then, and still do, display total dedication to their duty and they deserve to be supported by an efficient organisation.

Her comments in relation to community policing being at the core of the organisation leave me somewhat confused. If she genuinely believes that then why did she oversee the destruction of that aspect of policing when it was working so well? Why then did she not fight to keep rural garda stations open and to keep those gardai in their towns and villages where they belonged?

Only if we can afford it

She goes on to say, “All of the directions laid out in this document will require significantly greater State funding. To that extent, I must state here that although the programme outlined here is supported by detailed action plans, it is contingent upon increased and sustained State funding.”

My concern here is that if the Government decide to implement more budget restraints at some future point does this mean that the whole programme will come tumbling down once more?

“Every day, members of An Garda Síochána work with the community in every part of the country. Policing in Ireland has been synonymous with being of the people and for the people. An Garda Síochána has traditionally had a close relationship with the community through sport, community groups, schools and a wide array of local activity. However, in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the emergence of a serious drugs problem, the prevailing security situation, and increasing urbanisation meant more resources going to specialist units and diverted away from community policing.”

I don’t really understand this part of the statement given that community policing wasn’t formally introduced into An Garda Siochana until the late eighties. In any event, there were a number of reasons as to why gardai were diverted from community policing duties. One was a shortage of manpower and community gardai were regularly called upon to perform other duties because of that.

There has to be support

Another reason was due to the fact that there was little buy in to the community policing philosophy by members other than those directly involved in it. This too was identified by the Garda Inspectorate but appears not to have been mentioned here.

The Garda Inspectorate has also pointed out that the introduction of a new roster and constraints on resources saw a reduction in the number of dedicated Community Policing Units, particularly in rural areas. The Inspectorate recommended that the roster for community gardai should be tailored specifically for them. The current roster is simply not suitable.

The Modernisation and Renewal Programme 2016-2021 states, “We will enhance our model of community policing to deliver the style and type of policing that shows our commitment to preventing crime, making communities safer, and addressing the policing challenges of each community.”

“We will establish Community Policing Teams (CPTs) in every District. CPTs will have Gardaí from a number of different disciplines working with the local community to prevent and detect crime.”

“A key focus of our community policing model will be gaining public confidence and trust, listening to the problems of the local community, and demonstrating that An Garda Síochána is committed to a new way of policing focused on the needs of the community to provide a greater sense of security within the community.”

We’ve heard it all before

“We will demonstrate our new policing ethos by engaging with the community through Community Policing Fora to determine their policing requirements. We will hold ourselves publicly accountable to the local community, at their local fora and community meetings, for the level of policing service that we provide in the community.”

This was already in existence but collapsed because the organisation didn’t deem it to be worthy of support. The Garda Inspectorate identified the lack of support for community policing by senior garda management as being a deficiency. Everyone supported the philosophy in public but privately much of this support was non- existent. That has to change.

At this point in the ‘Modernisation and Renewal Programme 2016-2021’ there is a photograph of two gardai standing on a bridge in Cork City. This photograph was previously used to promote the concept of community policing in 2006 when the photo was taken. It doesn’t bode well that the Modernisation and Renewal Programme is using a ten year old photograph to promote change.

 

On the 5^th December 1979 I stood outside the gates of the Garda Training Centre in Templemore with a group of other guys who were also waiting to be admitted. I can still remember the cold as we waited there with our suitcases, a bunch of complete strangers, about to begin our training. The feeling of apprehension is as clear to me now as it was back then and that’s all of thirty seven years ago. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then but it is amazing to think how quickly that time has passed.

That was the same year that Kramer v Kramer was released, Village People had a hit with “YMCA”, Pink Floyd released “The Wall”, Pope John Paul ll visited Ireland, Monty Pythons “Life of Brian” appeared on screen for the first time, Earl Mountbatten was killed by the IRA and Seve Ballesteros won the British Open. A pint of Guinness would have cost you 9 shillings and 4 pence or 47p in todays’ money.

Retirement was a long way off

A lot has happened since then and the years have just rolled by. I was told by an older member during my first year that my time would fly by. He said that the first ten years would pass quickly, the second ten would go by even faster and the last ten years would go by in the blink of an eye. As a youngster of course I didn’t believe him but I have passed those words on to many young gardai since then because it is so true. You really need to enjoy your time because it doesn’t last long.

I can remember being in a friends’ house when I was about twelve years old and as it was coming up to five o’clock in the evening his mother told me that I had to leave. The dad was due home any miniute and they were having a little family party to celebrate his birthday. He was fifty years old. I can remember as I was leaving, he pulled up in his car and as he got out I looked at him and I thought to myself, he’s an old man. I’m now eight years older than he was at that time and I still consider myself to be a young guy. So does that mean that I’m delusional or has something changed?

The good guys are gone

I don’t ever remember spending too much time thinking about retirement. That was so far away from me that it wasn’t worth wasting time even considering it. I was more concerned about building my house so I could set myself up for life. My wife and I were going to be young forever.

Now all of a sudden, I’m retired and we are looking at downsizing the house and preparing for the next stage in life. We complain about the arthritis and promise to spend more time in a warmer and drier climate. We are grandparents and we have bundles of tablets by the bed. We get up in the middle of the night to do what old people do and then we have trouble straightening up in the morning. We compare pains and aches. So how did all this sneak up on me?

A lot of good people have fallen by the wayside over the years from illness or accident and it makes me wonder why we are spending so much time in turmoil and conflict when life is so short?

It’s a complicated issue

A photograph appeared in the Sunday paper recently and the image continues to bother me. It showed four kids hiding under a truck somewhere on the Syrian / Turkish border. One child was looking straight at the camera and he can’t have been more than five years of age. He’s squatting down with his hands in his pockets and he has the face of someone older who has seen too much. It’s like a look of acceptance but he is just a toddler.

There was another photo of a little boy in the back of an ambulance with blood on his face. He looked to be in total shock and was covered in dust as a result of an explosion. He wiped some of the blood off his face with his hand and then looked at it not knowing what to do next. This is wrong on every level and life is way too short for this.

It’s a complete mess

I find it difficult to get my head around the rights and wrongs of what is essentially a very confusing and complicated civil war in Syria. It seems that Russian and Syrian government forces are fighting to take the city of Aleppo back from the rebels and the fighting there has caused thousands to make their way to the Turkish border to seek refuge. The UN does what the UN does best and makes strong protests. It has expressed concern that access and supply routes are now cut off. It has asked Turkey to open the border and has called on other countries to help Turkey with aid. German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused Russia of bombing civilians and Russia said it didn’t.

It is a complete mess but in the meantime, you have God knows how many children living in fear and confusion when they should be at home playing with their toys and their friends. They should be laughing and having fun without a care in the world. They should be in the comfort of their own homes surrounded by their families and not out in the elements hiding under trucks like frightened rabbits.

They should be looking forward to their future and all the things that they will do before they wake up some morning suddenly find that they are in their fifties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confusion reigns

I’m a little confused. I know that there are many of you who won’t be surprised to hear that but this is different. I’m trying my best to get my head round this gender neutral business but I’m struggling. Normally on issues like this I tend to say, live and let live and then I turn my mind to other matters.

I have sympathy for any minority group who feels excluded or disadvantaged and usually I would champion their cause and support them albeit from the comfort of my recliner. But there comes a time when you have to question whether the majority should always be moved to change to accommodate the few.

If the cap fits

For example, I can recall a time when the Irish Sikh Council called for Sikhs to be allowed to wear turbans instead of caps when they join the An Garda Siochana. This call was following a case where a Sikh who volunteered to join the Garda Reserve was refused permission to wear his turban as part of his uniform.  The Garda Síochána rejected the call for any variation in the standard uniform.

The Irish Sikh Council claimed that Sikhs do not cut their hair for religious reasons and they are obliged to cover it with a turban and asking a Sikh community member to get rid of his turban “is like asking him to remove his head”. Well, An Garda Siochana too has a dress code and it requires its members to wear a cap not a turban. This is one of the requirements for membership of this particular organisation and if that doesn’t fit in with your personal beliefs or religious requirements then that’s too bad. You’ll just have to try an alternative organisation.

Our old friend from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would probably want to wear a colander on his head if he decided to become a policeman in Ireland and that would not be acceptable either.

How complicated is going for a pee?

I imagine that most people don’t put too much thought into what toilet they use. Unless they need a disabled facility, they either head for the men’s or women’s loos. They are usually easy enough to find and they are normally identified by signs like Men/Women or Fir/Mna or by male and female symbols. But apparently there is a growing number who don’t have such an easy decision to make, such as transgender and non-binary people, when they want to spend a penny.

So what exactly is a non-binary person? Those with non-binary genders can feel that they have an androgynous (both masculine and feminine) gender identity, such as androgyne. Have an identity between male and female, such as intergender. Have a neutral or non-existant gender identity, such as agender or neutrois. That’s the official definition and my understanding of it is that these people can be caught between two stools when they try to figure out whether they or male or female.

To pee or not to pee

To give an example, one guy told of the difficulties he faced when he changed from a female to a male and he said it was always a struggle to decide what toiled to use. While he was in the process of transitioning, he dressed and looked like a man but he wasn’t able to use a urinal. So he had to use a cubicle and if one wasn’t available he would have to wait. He felt awkward and felt that people were looking at him and he thought that this was unfair so he now wants gender neutral toilets to be available as well.

Now, you can call me old fashioned, but I don’t get this and I suspect he is being a bit super- sensitive or maybe even a little paranoid. If I use a public toilet in an airport or a pub and I want to use a cubicle then I wait until one becomes available. I don’t feel the eyes of the world on me while I’m standing there so why should he. If you want to use a cubicle and one isn’t immediately available then you have to wait for one. Surely there could be occasions when cubicles wouldn’t be available in a gender neutral loo either.

Making a case for extra loos

Another guy told a story of how he had been turned away from the women’s toilets only to be insulted in the men’s toilets. He said he would plan the entire day around it and sometimes he didn’t go to the bathroom all day and ended up with bladder infections from holding it in. This is why the trans gender community has been calling for more gender neutral toilets.

Now come on, if you want to make a serious case for these toilets you have to do better than that. I can’t imagine any situation where I would compromise my health for the want of a pee especially if I was to spend the day planning for it.

Some are suggesting that there should be four types of toilet to accommodate men, women, disabled and gender neutral and some believe there should just be gender neutral toilets for everyone. But using mixed bathrooms might be difficult for some people of certain faiths. It has also been suggested that there will be many trans people who will object to having to use a toilet for trans people as opposed to one of their required gender. This is giving me a headache.

Who can pee where?

In Florida, the ‘Bathroom Surveillance Bill’ would ban transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms except those designated for their gender at birth. Transgender advocates have attacked the laws as discriminatory and accused legislators in some states of “attacking the dignity and humanity of transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Who would have thought that taking a pee would be so complicated?

 

Women have lots of good points. It would be very difficult to live without them and I don’t necessarily want to give it a shot. They have some unusual traits but we do our best to be understanding. We comfort them when they are sick or in pain even though they have never had the man-flu so they can’t possibly know what it’s like to be really sick.

Some of the things they do confuse me and I have just resigned myself to the fact that I will never understand most of them.

Shopping requires stamina

For example, when a woman wants to buy something she will walk a thousand miles and go into hundreds of shops. She’ll pick up dozens of items that she neither needs nor wants and she will feel them, squeeze them, turn them over and then put them back where she got them. It’s only after she has searched every shop in the city that she will return to the first shop she went into and buy the damn thing there.

But that’s ok, they probably enjoy it and that’s their business. But there’s something else that drives me to distraction and there is no sense to it.

Multi-tasking isn’t as easy as it sounds

You’re standing in a queue for the check-out in your local shop. The queue is moving along nicely and your turn is coming, there’s only one woman left in front of you. She’s up next and she places her bits and pieces on the counter. Then she puts her handbag on the counter as well and goes hunting in it for her purse. Then she takes out the purse and opens that and has to go rooting for her money. There are other things in the way, scraps of paper, coupons, receipts and God knows what else so they have to come out too. Then she wants to use up her change so she’s like an Archaeologist on an important dig and she goes excavating for one cent and five pieces. It has to be the exact amount. As soon as the money is handed over, the purse has to be back filled and then returned to the handbag.

All through this silliness you have to stand there and resist the urge to kill. Why is it not possible to have all this done while they are waiting in the queue? They’re always barking on about how well they can multi task but yet they can’t queue and count at the same time.

 

It’s more than a little ironic that we have the Garda Commissioner, The Minister for Justice and other politicians calling on the gardai to defer the forthcoming strike. They have been suggesting that the relationship between the gardai and the community will deteriorate if the strike goes ahead. They are concerned that the security of the State will be diminished and the lives of its citizens will be put at risk. They claim that it will be very difficult for them to provide a proper service to the public with the reduced resources that will be available to them in the event of a strike. They are concerned about the long term effect that this dispute will have on the State.

Has the penny finally dropped?

It’s wonderful to see this new found interest in the role of An Garda Siochana. It’s also wonderful that, at last, many of them have come to realise what it is like to run a police force with limited resources. It’s good too that they seem, for the first time in years, to be concerned about the long term future of An Garda Siochana as opposed to just looking as far as the next election or the next promotion list. They have been told this on a daily basis for years but have chosen to deny that there is an issue and it has taken this threat of strike action to bring it home.

Lay the blame where it belongs

Noirin O’Sullivan and Frances Fitzgerald are now making an attempt to intimidate and bully the members into calling off their proposed action. This dispute is about more than money, it’s about years of mismanagement bringing the Force to its knees. Change has to happen, starting with a Garda Commissioner who will lead from the front with a plausible vision for the future of policing in this country and one that will not dissolve into becoming yet another box-ticking exercise. If those in power want to start pointing the finger of blame at anyone, then maybe they should start looking a bit closer to home.

The ghosts of the dead return

With it being this time of the year, I did a little bit of research to find out what this Halloween lark is all about. What I found out would make you wonder about the kind of people our ancestors were and the type of imaginations they had. They must have been a little demented when you look at some of the festivals and rituals that they came up with.

It seems that Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, as a time of year that was often associated with death. They believed that was the time when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred so on the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when they believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Why they wanted to come back is unclear to me but presumably it had something to do with having a laugh at our expense.

The Irish are to blame

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low so there was always a fear of going hungry. Many people were also afraid of the dark so the short days of winter were full of stress. Halloween was when people thought that they would meet ghosts if they left their homes after dark so that added another worry. To avoid being recognized by the ghosts, people would wear masks when they went out so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. People placed bowls of food outside their homes to keep ghosts away from their houses.

When America was flooded with millions of Irish who were trying to escape from the potato famine, the tradition of Halloween took hold. Americans began to dress up in costumes and would go from house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became what we know today as the “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they would see the name or the face of their future husband by doing tricks with wool, apple skins or mirrors.

How to pick a partner

All Souls’ Day is on 2nd November, and this is an opportunity for Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholic churches to remember the faithful departed and they get a chance to say a few prayers for the souls of the people who are in Purgatory. This is the place in which those who have died have to make amends for their minor sins before they get to go into Heaven. It’s a little bit like a waiting room if you like and the idea is that when a soul leaves the body, it is not fully free from sin so you have to wait for a bit in Purgatory before you get to meet God.

There was also a belief that during Halloween, if a young woman ate a sugary substance made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before she went to bed that night she would dream about her future husband. Young girls tried different ways of trying to identify their future husband and one of those involved throwing apple-peels over their shoulders. It was said that when the peels would fall on the floor, they would form the shape of their future husbands’ initials. They also tried to learn about their future partners by standing in front of mirrors in dark rooms while holding candles and looking over their shoulders to see if they could find their future husbands’ faces.

I suspect that a few of these practices might still be in use today because some of the pairings I have encountered over the years could only be explained by the use of strange substances, dark rooms and a bit of witchcraft.