(9.3.2018: the screen grab of this photo of the papercutting, or the photo itself, is not clear enough for transcription so I will have to go back to the original.
Nice photo of (my great-great Uncle) James Archer (my grandfather’s father’s brother), and a not-so-well-chosen photo of my father, FGBA, bottom right. Which gives me an opportunity to record here (in typically unsystematic location) my recent conclusion that Dad did get ‘it’ right, meaning some, perhaps many, of the things that matter in life, right. That means quietly getting on with being honest and true and hard-working, reliable, friendly, considerate, and a regular church-goer. This latter I have until the ‘Trump era’ not particularly valued before, though a church goer myself, but now see as an affirmation of a belief or faith in something which at heart has an ethical content (as most religions do) never mind its mystical stuff, which I find more difficult - thoiugh I am happy with Shakespeare’s ‘divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may’ which, if anything is, perhaps I have to admit, is as mystical as many-a-concept.
And it bears mentioning that ‘Uncle James’ Archer made his wealth in one lifetime starting from nothing but a (perhaps borrowed from his father) horse-and-cart, without resorting to the (so they seem now) unethical 19th century systems of slavery that were at their height in James’s young days. (9.3.2018).