I remember when… I got an ice cream, a driving lesson and a belated lesson in humility

It was about 1971 and I had a friend, A dear friend. He was tall, rather generously endowed and as gentle as a lamb. We called him Gentle Ben, after the American bear made famous in those days. He was my soul mate, my best friend and the person I felt more at home with than anybody else. Gentle Ben known as “ Big Douggie “ to his friends, was also a young policeman. He walked the beat in a cold town and was known for rescuing baby birds in the pockets of his great coat, carrying them back to the Police Station and putting them into the hot water cabinet so that they could restore their health and warmth.. Douggie was the guy who I turned to when I needed a helping hand or a day out with no risk of strings attached. To say that I loved him would be trite. I did, and still do. Even now, after 50 decades, it is Douggie that I call when things get tough and I need a gentle ear and a kind voice. He, of course, married and so did I. But my dear friend Douggie was the person who taught me about how to have fun. I was a young teenager and attending a girls school and Douggie would roll up in the police car and get out, put me in handcuffs and take me away to be dealt with.
My friends could not believe it – seeing me arrested and hauled off in a police car. I would step in to the back seat and Douggie and I would laugh and think that tomorrow would be an interesting day at school. I needed to learn how to drive. Douggie took on the task and I drove his car through forest roads and learned about things like gear boxes, clutches and how to change a tyre. I learned how to walk hand in hand and explore copses of wooded areas and listen to the silence. I learned how to have fun from simple things. We used to play silly buggers and he would encourage me to laugh. One day, after a driving lesson in the forest, we went to a small roadside cafe to buy an ice cream. We approached the front door and he said to me “ OK . Bubbie, let’s have some fun. “
( He still calls me Bubbie and I still call him Douggie all these decades later) We walked in. There was a man standing behind the counter. Douggie said “ Tell the man what you want Bubbie. “ Now, I was a young, blonde, drop dead gorgeous little minx and I looked up at Big Douggie and then to the shop owner and said “ Can I have an ice cream? “ “Of course you can.” Replied Douggie, aged about 18. “ Tell the man what you would like. “ By this time, the poor bugger behind the counter was starting to get concerned. “ How many scoops can I have? “ I asked, with a face that would have melted the heart of any one near by. Douggie responded “ You have been a very good girl today. I think you deserve 3! “ The poor man behind the counter asked what flavours I would like. I said that I would like strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. The man looked at me, looked at Douggie and then, with a hesitant voice said “ Do you want the strawberry on the top or the bottom? “ Anyway, we got my ice cream and it came to paying “ the man”. Douggie gave me some money and said that I should pay the nice gentleman. I took the money and handed it over. The cash register clinked and the change was proffered. He stood there with the coins in his hands. The man looked at us both and asked “ who should I give it to? “ “ Give it to Bubbie “ said Douggie. “ She needs it more than I do. “ Today, it dawned on me. Our childhood game has become real life. What was fun back in 1971, is now deadly serious, Who gets the change and what colour appears first on a triple decker ice cream. Douggie and I had fun. We laughed. We never sought to ridicule or demean. We were just a couple of kids having fun. But nothing has changed. People are still reluctant to speak out and the only thing that has changed is that while we pranked a guy about ice cream, these bastards are destroying a Nation.

I am ashamed yet I feel I had no choice. We run a piece every weekend on my blog called " I remember when... " I received a piece from a contributor talking about the fun she had as a young teenager with an 18 or 19 year old fellow and how he taught her to drive, played silly buggers together and held hands and are still in touch after 50 years. Yet her article was concerning. She was 15 years old - he was 19 and they set about having fun. It started to sound like grooming and I could not publish it. God we live in a sick world where I am too frightened to publish something just in case some prick from the left has decided it is wrong. It was a lovely story about driving lessons, ice creams and teenage friendship nut these days?

I was at the supermarket this morning and I have to tell you this, I was behind a grandfather and his badly-behaved grandson. He had his hands full with the child screaming for lollies, biscuits, Easter eggs and all sorts of things. The granddad was saying in a controlled voice: “Easy, William, we won’t be long . . . easy boy.” Another outburst and I heard the granddad calmly say : “It’s okay William. Just a couple more minutes and we’ll be out of here. Hang in there, boy.” At the checkout finally the little horror is throwing items out of the trolley. Granddad says again in a controlled voice : “William, William, relax buddy, don’t get upset. We’ll be home in five minutes, stay cool William.” Well, I was really impressed, and when I got outside I saw the grandfather loading his shopping and the boy into the car just near Subway. I walked over and said to the Grandad “It’s none of my business, but you were amazing in there. I don’t know how you did it. That whole time you kept your composure, and no matter how loud and disruptive he got, you just calmly kept saying things would be okay. William is very lucky to have you as his granddad.” “Thanks,” said the Granddad. “But I am William. The little bastard’s name is Kevin.

Serious questions. Why did this happen? Where is America heading? What is the solution? How can we solve this situation? When will it happen?

PRINCE PHILIP : LEGEND

Speaking to the General Dental Council, 1960: “Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practised for a good many years.”

Speaking at the Scottish Women’s Institute, 1961: “British women can’t cook.”

When shown art during a trip to Ethiopia, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons.”

Speaking on American TV about the Windsor family’s finances, 1969: “We go into the red next year … I shall probably have to give up polo.”

During a visit to Canada, 1969: “I declare this thing open, whatever it is.”

When asked about visiting the Soviet Union, 1969: “I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.”

To Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner: “It’s a pleasant change to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”

Speaking during an official trip to Canada, 1976: “We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves.”

Accepting a gift from a woman in Kenya, 1984: “You ARE a woman, aren’t you?”

To a British student during visit to China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes.”

When asked his thoughts on Beijing during a tour of China, 1986: “Ghastly.”

During a visit to the city of Xian in China, to a group of British exchange students, 1986: “If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”

Asked if he would like to pat a koala, Prince Philip responded: “Oh no, I couldn’t. I might catch a ghastly disease.”

At a World Wildlife Fund meeting, 1986: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”

While chatting to a fashion writer Serena French, 1993: “You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?”

Chatting to a British man during a visit to Budapest, 1993: “You can’t have been here that long – you haven’t got a pot belly.”

To a group of businessmen in the Cayman Islands, 1994: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”

While speaking to female solicitor: “I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit.”

Shouting at the Queen, from the deck of the Britannia, while she spoke to their hosts on the quay during an official visit to Belize, 1994: “Yak, yak, yak; come on get a move on.”

Of daughter, Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”

In a conversation with a Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”

Addressing German chancellor Helmut Kohl during a speech, 1997: “Reichskanzler.” (Which was actually Hitler’s title …)

While speaking to a British student who had hiked in PNG, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”

While inspecting a factory in Edinburgh and spying an old-fashioned fuse box, 1999: “It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.”

After presented with a hamper of goods form the American south by the American Ambassador in London, 1999: “Where’s the Southern Comfort?”

When he asked politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, whose mum and dad are Jamaican, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” To which Lord Warwick replied: “Birmingham.”

During a visit to Cardiff, to children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing near a Caribbean steel band, 1999: “If you’re near that music it’s no wonder you’re deaf”.

Speaking to a group of female politicians at a Buckingham Palace party in 2000 whose name tags had ‘Ms’ on them: “Ah, so this is feminist corner then.”

Spying two robots bumping into each other at a science museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”

When offered some fish by Rick Stein, 2000: “No, I would probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”

To a guest in Berlin after the Queen had just opened the new $32 million British Embassy in Berlin, 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”

The Duke of Edinburgh said “any bloody fool can lay a wreath at the thingamy”.

Reflecting on his role as a working royal: “Any bloody fool can lay a wreath at the thingamy.”

In a curiously prescient aside, 2000: “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but Dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.”

To Elton John, who lived near Windsor, 2001: “Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle.”

Speaking to Aboriginal elder William Brin in Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

Address a 14-year-old member of a Bangladeshi youth group, 2002: “So who’s on drugs here? … HE looks as if he’s on drugs.”

To the Aircraft Research Association, 2002: “If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”

Speaking to a 13-year-old named Andrew Adams who wanted to go into space: “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”

While chatting to a young fashion designer at Buckingham Palace, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard.”

To a young female police officer wearing a bulletproof vest, 2002: “You look like a suicide bomber.”

Speaking to Susan Edwards, who is blind and wheelchair-bound and has a guide dog, 2002: “Do you know they’re now producing eating dogs for the anorexics?”

To businessman Atul Patel at a Palace reception for British Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”

After being told that then-President Barack Obama had just met with the British, Chinese and Russian leaders: “Can you tell the difference between them?”

To a 25-year-old woman wearing a dress with a zip on its front during a Jubilee event, 2012: “I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress.”

While meeting a Filipino nurse at a hospital, 2013: “The Philippines must be half empty as you’re all here running the NHS (National Health Service).”

Chatting to Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, 2013: “(Children) go to school because their parents don’t want them in the house.”

During an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2016: “Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant.”

It is something I have never understood. I have read that Mitch McConnell was blackmailing Trump and other theories but still am none the wiser. Does anyone have any thoughts? I would really appreciate your input and thoughts. Cheers.