As I wend my unhurried English way in the direction of the personal marker of my 80th birthday, 

the words of my fellow countryfolk come to mind with increasing relevance and resonance.

The lament from Charles Lamb leads the way:

"Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?"

How readily those words bring to mind family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are no

longer with us; whose presence served as guides, markers, and perhaps even more important, the 

means to avoid those hidden hazardous pitfalls along life's often fraught highway..

As if to emphasise their importance, John Donne put forward the premise that "No man is an island..."

whilst Robert Herrick advised: "Gather ye roses while ye may, Old times are still a-flying." - and

Edward Fitgerald added: "The Moving Finger writes, and having writ moves on;"

Clearly, all intent on making us aware of the importance of "Carpe Diem".

And as the years remorselessly accrue, Charles Kingsley renders the advice 

"Creep home, and take your place there,

The spent and maimed among:

God grant you find one face there,

You loved when all was young."

And as the approach of Dylan Thomas's "...the dying of the light" nears our earthly existence, it seems

all too appropriate to seek a legacy for heart and mind to carry us on to the Unknown.  I think, with

gratitude, of the words from Edward Thomas in that seemingly endless summer before the winter

of World War One. -

"Yes, I remember Adlestrop, the name,

Because one afternoon of heat,

The express train drew up there unwontedly.

It was late June."

And there let me leave this foray into the future that awaits us all, with the comfort and consolation 

in heart and mind that there will always be that reconciliation with the best of what we knew, that each 

of us will be able to think of our past life in a glow, as if always and forever - "IT WAS LATE JUNE" !.

MC