Dolly Parton is a megastar. We all know the story of her very humble beginnings in a one room cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. With her singing voice and her engaging personality, she forged a successful career for herself in the entertainment industry.
She could have spent her millions entirely on herself and immediate family but that is not who Dolly is. She remembers where she came from and has a strong urge to help others. Back in 2020 she made a personal donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to support the development of the Moderna vaccine in the battle against COVID 19.
But what mostly impresses me about Dolly Parton is the mission she took upon herself in the 1980s to do something very positive to tackle illiteracy. Her Imagination Library organisation has given out well over 100 million free books to thousands of targeted children - not just in The United States but in several other countries too. Sheffield's neighbouring steel town - Rotherham continues to be one of the recipient communities.
Dolly could never have children of her own owing to her endometriosis and the partial hysterectomy she had at the age of thirty six but she has tried to ensure that many other people's children get off to a good start in life. She recognises the vital significance of reading and writing and how being literate can so often be the key to a fulfilling and happy life.
Over decades, The Imagination Library has worked its magic across the state of Kentucky and last week Dolly Parton received that state's highest public service award. She became a Kentucky Colonel and that made me smile. God bless Dolly!
Stewart prepared a special Easter Sunday dinner. The Lamb of God was on the menu with roasted potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, leeks, carrots, parsnips and peas. For dessert, Shirley had followed the vegan sticky toffee pudding recipe in the first "Bosh!" cook book and all was good. Earlier there had been an Easter egg hunt for the little ones and then we all went off to a Sheffield museum that I had not visited in many years - The Emergency Services Museum at West Bar. Greatly improved and still run by volunteers, it was a perfect excursion for all of us and we finished up in the museum's little cafe enjoying a light lunch. We had seen police cars, ambulances, fire engines and even a redundant lifeboat called "City of Sheffield". We all enjoyed the visit. As you might imagine, I will be coming back to this museum in a future post. On the way there, the roads had been blocked off near Sheffield Children's Hospital as 750 motorcyclists arrived at Weston P...
The view from Simon's back yard. It takes an hour and a half to travel to the village where I was born and raised. Today, Shirley came with me and saw my brother Simon for the first time since August 2019. As a nurse for more than forty years, she was not daunted by his changed appearance. With the cancer and everything he has become a bag of bones. So painfully thin - like a malnourished prisoner working on the Burma railway under Japanese supervision. Wasting away. We stayed all afternoon. Shirley had his washing machine on and we changed his bedding. I had bought a new fitted sheet, duvet cover and pillowcases from Tesco. Shirley said that his old bedding was "disgusting". We brought tins of mushroom soup and cans of "Fanta" and "Coke" and some pots of chocolate mousse plus a couple of pints of milk. They were received with zero gratitude. In fact, he insisted that six cans of soup was far too many. I encouraged him to have a bath while...
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