2026
This I a blog that has been waiting onth back-burner for what seems like ages...
Tis a missing piece in the puzzle, if you will...
As I have covered other bits in other blogs, I will start it onth day that I was at Sale library, where I noticed a large poster asking for volunteers for the WRVS (or the RVS, as it is seemingly now known) …
So, having looked at such a poster, at a time when I was officially unemployed (although still working towards becoming self-employed), I felt the need to give something back to society...
Unemployment was a lot different in those days, as there was no need to prove that you were actually looking for work - twas simply a small regular payment for those who were not working - and during university out-of-term periods it was a benefit that university students could claim, if they wished to (according to 'hardly a ray of light', anyway) …
So, as the Sale office of the WRVS was only a very short distance away from the library, orft I trotted in order to offer my services...
My offer was, of course, eagerly accepted - resulting in me putting aside the greater portion of one day per week in order to do such voluntary work - work that simply involved handing out one pre-cartoned/boxed meal plus one pre-cartoned/boxed pudding to each customer on/from the typed list given to both myself and the driver...
In the early days, twas simply a job that only involved my mind - however, as time went on and I got to know such regular customers it began to involve my heart also - and so became more enjoyable, rather than merely perfunctory...
There were people from all sorts of backgrounds - an eccentric former scientist, and a former concert pianist who had travelled 'all' around the world, for example - as well as many fairly 'ordinary' people of course...
...But all with a story to tell, if they so wished to...
After a while I was 'promoted' to driver - which I actually saw as more akin to a 'demotion' - as I then no longer enjoyed such developed interactions with such customers...
At a later date I also volunteered to do one day per week with Altrincham WRVS also...
And at a later date still I started doing voluntary work with the North Cheshire MS Society - although this was only a regular once per month assignment - and was during the evening, to pubs that more readily accommodated such sometimes wheelchair-bound MS sufferers...
...Although there was also the occasional trip out - trips out to York, Blackpool, and other such places - all during the daytime, of course...
I remember, during one such evening occasion, a male volunteer who happened to be a fireman, in seeming very good health - he informed us, in a seemingly fairly unconcerned way, that a golf-ball sized lump had formed upon his sternum - and then, upon the next month's evening attendance, we were told that he had died...
...Something that shocked us all - seemingly unknowingly, he had lymphatic cancer - and it had rapidly spread around his body...
I remember a very nice wheelchair-bound lady who had married a similarly wheelchair-bound man - both were fairly wealthy - and, if my memory serves me correctly, both died not long afterwards...
And then, at another point in time, I volunteered to push a 'tea and treats' trolley around some of the 'F' wards at Wythenshawe Hospital - I think this was on a once-a-week basis also - although it was during lunchtime, for a couple of hours per occasion...
Eventually, the WRVS 'meals-on-wheels' got taken over by a professional organisation - which was a great shame really - as the many volunteers seemingly very much enjoyed such work...
There then came the time whereby unemployed people (or at least some of us) were required to attend certain courses intended to help get us back into the workplace...
The first one I attended was a 3-month Systems Analysis an Design course - twas held just outside the centre of Manchester - and was a 5-days-per-week one...
Although enjoyable, only 2 of us ended up getting an interview - myself and another guy - twas for a textile company, if my memory serves me correctly...
...Anyway, the other guy got the job - and he was the better candidate anyway - so fair do's, as they say...
...But hey, I did end up with a certificate/qualification in Systems Analysis and Design (S.A.D.) - for what it was worth - and it was indeed sad that, out of all of us, only one became employed due to such training...
And then there was the Desktop Publishing course - of a similar daily duration, if my memory serves me correctly - with such a daily venue being held/hosted within the much more local Didsbury...
Once again, I ended up with a certificate, but no job interview - in fact I am not aware of anyone who did get either an interview or job offer, actually - something that seemed to be a very rare commodity indeed for such courses, apparently...
I am trying to remember why both the North Cheshire MS Society and the Wythenshawe Hospital voluntary work both stopped - but am having difficulty doing so - although I think I simply stopped doing the Wythenshawe Hospital one due to finding it to be too socially challenging for me, due to my anxiety and depression taking a greater hold of me...
Anyway, during such a similar time-period, I decided to try to transliterate the Works of Nostradamus - something that took me a rather considerable time to complete to satisfaction - and something that I had hoped I may publish...
...However, I simply no longer had the energy to do so - twas as if I simply wasn't meant to - resulting in me having no other option than to file it all away within several A4 binders...
I remember, at some point in time, that the unemployed were required to prove that they were actively trying to look for work...
If my memory serves me correctly we simply had to produce some job adverts that we had ostensibly applied for...
And then, later still, we were required to prove that we had indeed applied for jobs...
...Twas about the time when I was stood in a long signing-on queue, whereby I noticed one of the seated employees giving me a rather pitiful look actually - I guess my depression was becoming rather noticeable - twas a look that rather shocked me actually, as I didn't realise how depressed I obviously looked...
...Anyway, as 'luck' would have it, I very soon afterwards was announced no longer fit for work by my local GP - and was put on sickness benefit, as a result - twas the occasion when I awoke at circa 5(???)am with the walls of my bedroom seemingly coming in towards me that caused me one of my rare GP visits...
...Anyway, this in turn, resulted in a later appointment to see a psychiatrist as an outpatient, once a month - as well as seeing a counsellor once a week for getting on for a year, if my memory serves me correctly - the 'sertraline years', as I would now describe it...
...With such monthly appointments eventually coming to an end, due to the fact that I wasn't following the consultant psychiatrist's prescribed medication regimen - twas simply due to the fact that I deemed it unhealthy to take the maximum dosage of such prescribed sertraline on an ongoing basis - resulting in me both taking less than the maximum prescribed dosage and electing to take a rest from ingesting them, on repeated periodic occasions...
...But hey, at least I was honest with him...
Talking about such medications reminds me of some other voluntary work I chose to undertake - twas feeding the homeless during Xmas times - and was held in a building close to Victoria train station...
...I was one of the volunteers who washed the dishes etc, and handed them back to the food servers, through a square hatch situated to the immediate right of the washing-up sinks...
...On one such occasion I could feel a panic attack coming on, so I sat in one of the cubicles within the male toilets for a while, until I felt I had it under control...
...And then, afterwards, whilst waiting at Victoria train station for a train/tram to take me back towards home, I noticed that one of the neon adverts that I was looking at didn't seem to be making sense, in a very obvious way - twas simply the effects of the medication that I was being prescribed - as the consultant psychiatrist explained to me, before changing my medication...
Twas a voluntary job that I did for 2 Xmases, for 3 occasions per Xmas...
Anyway, I think that very much covers such 'Wilderness Years'...
Although, obviously, I could probably mention other things that I experienced during such a time period, like the many UFO dreams that I seemed to have had, for instance...
And what did such a time period encompass, you may ask - to which I would answer, roughly between 1986 and 1999 - with my redundancy from Colgate Palmolive taking place in 1984...