ABOUT ME

This is a page ABOUT ME, the author and owner of this website A-London-Tourist-Guide, so let me introduce myself. My name is Francis Bennett, but everyone knows me as Frank. I have been married now for four years to Jid, a lovely Thai lady. We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary on 3rd October 2010.

I am retired and devote as much time as I can to building this site. It is about a subject that is close to my heart and one that has fascinated me for years.

The subject has given myself and others untold pleasure for many years, as we delved deeper and deeper in an attempt to uncover its past, an uncontrollable curiosity and desire to discover all that it has to offer at the present and maybe enough knowledge not to speculate too much as to what its future may hold.

The subject is of course London, one of the great cities of the world.

Have you ever wanted to build Your Own Website. I have and I am building this Website as we speak and hope to be adding to it for many years to come..

I AM now retired and have a passion I want to share with others.

After a lifetime working in the Construction Industry, I retired from Site Management in 2009, with a plan already firmly established in my mind as to what I was going to do with my newly found freedom. I wanted to Build My Own Website.

From as early as I can remember, maybe even further back than that, I have always been fascinated with history, not only English history, but the history of the whole world.

I was born in a town called Wigan in Lancashire. It is a town which has a long and unrivalled history of it's own, stretching back for more than two thousand years.

I hope I may have time in the future to perhaps build my own website about this fascinating place. My home town.

It will have to be in the future however, for my fascination with all things historical, combined with my love of the City of London has already occupied my spare time for years, since 1975 in fact, when I found myself transferred to the County of Kent.

In the meantime I will endeavour to provide links to established and excellent authoritative websites about Wigan, so that anyone unfamilier with the town, may, if they so wish, familiarize themselves with it.

For anyone who is interested in what was probably the decisive battle of the English Civil War, Pre and Post-Industrial Revolution England and of course the Industrial Revolution itself, then the sources I will be linking to will be invaluable.

Although the postal address of the town is Greater Manchester now and has been for some time, to myself and everyone else I know, it will always be Wigan Lancashire.

As I mentioned earlier, in 1975 I was transferred to Kent in the south east corner of England, when the firm I worked for, contracted to construct a section of the M20 motorway from Farningham Hill, past the motor racing circuit of Brands Hatch and on towards Wrotham.

I spent eighteen memorable months of my life there and am not ashamed to admit, that I was heartbroken when the job eventually came to an end.

It was while I was working on that job, that I met Liz, a wonderful lady who would become my constant companion.

For the next several years, although now firmly based in London, she would accompany me around the country as I moved from job to job. That was the nature of my work.

Eventually we grew a little tired of that style of life, so the rest of my working life was spent on construction sites within daily travelling distance of London.

Now I could spend a lot of my free time involving myself more and more in my passion, which was to get to know as much as I could about one of the world's great cities.

The more I delved into the story of London and the more I learned about it, the more it began to dawn on me that I could spend the rest of my life just on this one subject alone without even scratching the surface.

I bought many books on the subject. Liz and I and Liz's grandchildren (I had no children of my own) spent as much time together as we could, rooting around Greenwich, Hampton Court, taking cruises up and down the River Thames as often as we could. We would try just about anything and everything.

We made many friends on these excursions, including the crews of the river boats, most of whom have now retired like myself.

Their knowledge of the history of the tidal river Thames and its banks, expressed in their own inimitable fashion was both educational and entertaining.

It was Liz who first mentioned her dream of wanting to be able to write a book. This she admitted was not a desire to write one about London, she was more interested in writing about romance.

However, over time she confided in me that she had tried to start writing many times but on each occassion she could get no further than the first sentence or two.

Her efforts however, were beginning to stir something within myself to try and write down my own thoughts, not neccessarily as a book, but maybe just a diary.

We all carried on enjoying ourselves and then one day in February 1999, I went to see my Doctor.

I had what I thought was a mouth ulcer, and no matter what medication I tried, it would not go and seemed to be getting worse. At times it just felt like a small blade inside my mouth, it was not very painful at all, just an irritation which I could not get rid of.

When the Doctor asked me how long I had been experiencing this irritation, it was then I began to think it may be something that needed a bit of special treatment. Nothing prepared me for what was about to happen.

When I revealed I had been experiencing it for about six months, the Doctor very calmly said she was referring me to a Specialist at Kings College Hospital in Denmark Hill SE London and in so doing she helped to save my life.

Within three weeks I was sent an appointment to attend the Hospital. It was at this appointment I met the man who would lead the team who performed the operation that did save my life.

Mr. Andrew Lyons, Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon, informed me that if the cancer which had spread through my lower gum, tongue and throat was not removed I would not be alive in eighteen months.

Three weeks later I was in the Operating Theatre. From initially seeing my doctor to the removal of the cancer, an amazingly short time span of six weeks had elapsed. Dedication if ever there was any.

To everyone who was involved in the complete process from the very start to the finish, (which did not end there, for I had to undergo radiotherapy and many more very minor skin operations over the next twelve months. These were just like going to the dentist in comparison) they had and still have the heartfelt thanks of my family and myself.

I was later informed by Liz, my sisters and the hospital staff that it had been a very complicated operation. What should have taken about seven hours, had taken about twenty two hours of patience and dogged determination by what was at the end, a very weary and dedicated team led by Andrew Lyons.

Several weeks later Mr. Lyons told me of Liz' actions during the time I was in intensive care. He informed me with a tone of admiration and a look of utmost respect for her on his face, how he had been witness to such a tremendous outpouring of love for me from her.

He recounted the time with not a little amusement in his voice of the occassion she had him literally pinned up against the wall, breaking her heart and pleading with him not to let me die.

Mr. Lyons and his team moved from King's College Hospital several years ago and are now over at Guy's Hospital by London Bridge, working at Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust.

It was with a feeling of horror that I watched the news unfold on television in July 2003, as reports were coming in that Mr. Lyons had suffered a horrendous accident while water-skiing.

The initial reports were saying he had lost his right arm, the arm that had saved my life and that his own life was in danger.

Thankfully his arm was saved and when I saw him the following year on my annual check up he was doing remarkably well.

I have not seen him since, for he informed me on that visit I was completely recovered and unless I felt the need to, I did not need to make any more appointments. He did stress however, that if at any time I felt the need to speak to him, I was to get in touch with him immediately.

I am very pleased to say that as far as I know he is very well.

On leaving Kings College Hospital, I had to attend St. Thomas Hospital, which is situated on the south side of the River Thames, directly opposite the Houses of Parliament.

Every weekday for seven weeks (Saturday and Sunday were not included)I had to make this journey of about eight miles by car for a course of radiotherapy. Most days, because of the traffic, the eight miles there and the eight miles back would take a full day. The radiotherapy took 3-4 minutes.

Throughout the next twelve months I was lovingly nursed back to health by Liz, who never left me unattended for one minute. She saved my life just as much, if not more so than the dedication of Mr. Lyons and his fantastic team had done.

I returned to full time work at the second attempt early in the following year 2000, but on light duties at the insistance of my employers.

Liz and I tried and succeeded after a slow start at getting our lives back to normal, we began to get back doing all the things we had previously done. Several trips to Broadstairs, a seaside resort we both loved helped my rehabilitation enormously.

Things got better and better during the course of 2001 and 2002. We were enjoying ourselves again. The 2002 Christmas shopping went perfectly to plan, as it usually did each year.

MY DEVASTATION

On Christmas Day in the early hours of the morning, my dear Liz died. She had suddenly and without warning been taken away. I was devastated

I was constantly thinking about Liz. She was always at the forefront of my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about the things we had done together, which were many.

Apart from work, which was a great help in the process of overcoming the intense grief I was feeling, I needed to occupy my mind fully at all times.

I gradually came to a decision.

As a tribute to Liz I would attempt to Build My Own Website about the City of London. It was the place where she was born and the scene of some of our happiest moments together.

BUT WHERE WAS I TO START.

The next three years went by routinely. In 2003 I went on holiday with my two sisters Kathleen and Mary, visiting our brother Jim in Ireland, who has lived there all his life. Our younger brother Gerald did not accompany us.

It was a happy time, reminiscing about our childhood. Our mother was born in Dublin and as children, we would spend our summer holidays there most years, with our grandmother.

We toured around the eastern part of Ireland, spending much of the time in the lovely County Wicklow and visiting Killucan in West Meath where my father's mother was born.

The following year we went to Ireland again, but this time we rented a cottage on the shore of Galway Bay and spent our time touring around rugged Connemara. Another beautiful part of the Emerald Isle and well worth a visit.

I had by now come to terms with the death of Liz. It had taken a long time but I still missed her to the extreme and I always will miss her.

The human heart has an enduring, even infinite capacity for love of many people and things, without ever diminishing in the slightest, the value of any new found love and vice versa.

Of this I am absolutely certain, and to myself, a living testament of its truthfulness.

Early in 2006, I was very fortunate to make the aquaintance of a lovely, indeed beautiful Thai lady by the name of Jid.

Writing about it now, five years next month since our initial meeting, I can't but wonder at the speed our relationship developed.

October 3rd 2006 was our Wedding Day and subsequent events have once again made me a very happy man. We are doing different things to those I used to do with Liz, but in very much the same way. It is so very difficult to put into words an explanation of what I mean or the way I feel.

My new found life, had in no way obscured my vision of what I had set my heart on doing by way of a tribute to Liz. If anything it had given me the energy and stoked the fires of determination within me to succeed.

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