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| Daphne |
Every so often, bloggers seem to disappear. I don't mean that they walk off into the hills or leave their clothes in neat piles on remote beaches. No. They just disappear from the blogosphere.
It is almost a year since Mrs Daphne Franks of Leeds, Yorkshire last blogged and before that the frequency of her posts was already reducing. I used to love her blog - "My Dad's a Communist". That woman had a way with words and she brought you into her world, made you think that she was speaking only to you.
From a distance, I observed her issues with diabetes and her passion for theatrical work - including her own practised role as a simulated patient in medical training establishments. I met her family through the blog and visited her home. I witnessed her ebullient mother's declining health and before that shared her grief as her much loved father - the "communist" and chemist - left life's stage. Sitting at the computer with a cup of tea and "My Dad's A Communist" on the screen was one of life's little pleasures. I was always guaranteed a good read.
Maybe Daphne simply got fed up with blogging. Maybe she felt she had said everything that she wanted to say. Maybe she found new avenues for her wit and her humanity. Maybe she could no longer find the time. Perhaps all blogs will end that way - petering out like candlelight.
Daphne was a swimmer. She loved to swim in cold sea water and swam the length of Lake Windermere in the Lake District. I hope that she didn't swim off across the North Sea or try to tackle the Atlantic. That would have been disastrous but it could also explain her silence. If you never got to read Daphne's blog and you have the time - please go here - and trawl back through "My Dad's a Communist". You will not be disappointed.
In the meantime, I have decided to remove her blog from my sidebar blog links. To tell you the truth, I am fed up of clicking there and finding that nothing has changed. As with children's toys in the attic or books you last read twenty years ago, sometimes you reach a point where you know you've got to be ruthless. What's the point of spring cleaning if nothing gets chucked away?
So if you're reading this Daphne, I hope you're fine. Thanks for the hours of interest your blog gave me and thanks for reading mine and if you decide to recommence your blogging activity, please let me know and you'll be right back in my sidebar. Nothing lasts forever. So long old friend.
I don't know her
ReplyDeleteBut I like her
Nice one YP
I'm surprised your blogging paths never crossed John.
DeleteLike you I have wondered about Daphne. I followed her and her friend Silverback who has recently made a brief appearance and mentioned Daphne in it. I wondered if it was her mother's health issues that made it difficult to blog. I've left it that I follow her blog so I'll know if she returns.
ReplyDeleteBTW I see Carol has disappeared again.
I thought about her mother's declining health too - after all there are a few things that are more important than blogging. Regarding the lovely Carol in Cairns, I have just checked and her blog is still purring like a well-tuned Holden Commodore!
DeleteYes...it's sad to lose bloggers...even though we never get to meet our blogging friends in real life...well, very rarely...they do become our friends...and when they go missing in action...they are missed. Well, by me they are...
ReplyDeleteHelsie...Carol is back again...I think it might just have been a blimp on the blogger horizon yesterday with her blog...because I had problems with it, too...but this morning it was back again.
I have met Jenny (Demob Happy Teacher) and Katherine (The Last Visible Dog) in real life! I thought they were just cyber people but amazingly they are both flesh and blood like me and you. There are some ways in which "friendship" takes on different dimensions through blogging.
DeleteMany people will be able to relate to you on this one. Good blogs just seem to disappear. Sometimes there are little hints. ..little complaints which relate to a bigger challenge. You've given this blogger a good send off.
ReplyDeleteBefore they go, output seems to reduce but in Daphne's case I think she will be back before long as I have discovered that she has been rather ill and is now getting better.
DeleteI miss Daphne's blog very much too, although I don't include sidebar links to other blogs on my own blog so I had nothing to remove and no "tidying" to do. Silverback is back a little, as Helsie said, and he did mention Daphne and Stephen. I too wonder if her beloved mum, who still swam in the ocean at the age of 84, is still with us. Thank you for showing everyone her photo and writing of her today.
ReplyDeleteApparently her Mum is still going strong at 90 (according to Jenny from Wrexham).
DeleteYorky, Helen & Lee ~ honestly it is nothing personal removing my blog for short periods of time. Life just gets complicated here and I struggle to know whether to continue blogging or not. Like you say ~ nothing lasts forever! and sometimes real life must take a priority to entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI am always disappointed when good bloggers stop writing regular blogs but there's usually a good reason such as illness or bereavement or just a busy life. I was quite ill last year and I couldn't think of anything remotely funny to write about for months. YP would probably say I still haven't!
ReplyDeleteIt's very quiet. I just watched some tumbleweed rolling down the street.
DeleteHave just discovered your blog. A lovely poignant tribute to a blogger I am sure I would enjoy. Let's hope she returns. Nice to see some other friendly names on here, and good company. I'd not thought of what it takes to be a blogger before. I love the cross referencing it produces with other posts but ultimately you are bravely putting ideas and information out 'there' for others to comment on. Please keep doing it! Jan B. from Suffolk.
ReplyDeleteThanks for calling by Jan B. You know I rather think that Daphne will return because a little extra research last night revealed that she has probably been quite ill this last year - with issues connected with her diabetes.
DeleteA lovely blog post Mr YP. Only the other day I was going to fire off a comment and ask were you missing teaching? Why? Because of late you posts have become ever more teacherly. I miss the tongue-in-cheek posts of yore. I was going to put 'I miss your tongue in cheek posts of yore!' You being a stickler for all things grammatical, and using the right words, in the correct order'n'stuff, I bottled out. Now, although I admire your quest for perfection on the page, I just love firing off odd rants and love the freedom to use words that I hope people will get, even though they are wrong... so very wrong. I wouldn't mind but English used to be my much loved subject at school... now I'm just a Slack Alice and I ought to say proud of it. Perhaps it's inverted snobbery... I dunno?
ReplyDeleteLLX
I can't help being who I am Lettice. I never mean to be schoolteacherly but I guess that forty two years after I first tried my hand as a teacher - in Fiji - it's somehow got into my bloodstream. I apologise if I ever got under your skin about grammar and suchlike. What really matters is CONTENT well above the mechanics of the language.
DeleteI know exactly how you feel - but several of the bloggers I used to follow have died. I only found out about the last one because I went back through her posts, remembering that she had once posted a link to her husband's blog. On it I found a tribute to her. We conversed privately for a while and sadly I discovered that I knew him, and could have got to know her in real life.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have really hated is when bloggers - or members of their family - have removed the blogs. One was a really good guide to Bury St.Edmunds, and was invaluable when I first moved to the area. Another was a gardening blog, invaluable as a reminder to what to plant when on an allotment. Beautiful and informative, creative and funny - I would have thought they would be lovely and lasting tributes to a loved person - yet they are wiped, as if they had never existed.
It's a good question JR. What happens to blogs when the bloggers expire? Will this blog be accessible in ten, twenty, thirty years time - long after I have shuffled off my mortal coil? Will my progeny get to know me through the blog? Or will the Interney have simply imploded by then - replaced by something new that we can hardly dream of.
DeleteThe husband who I knew said that he had had to leave his wife's blog up because he didn't know her password. I think he is glad now, almost a year on, but his first instinct was to wipe it. However, when a male blogger died of cancer, his wife wiped it. She posted and said that it was going, she couldn't bear seeing it there, and gave a week's notice.
DeleteAs for the internet - who knows. Google has already mucked me about, I have lost an online journal and they wiped the lot because they decided that you had to have a gmail email address to use it. I think that anyone who wishes to keep a record - and you certainly should, for your children - would be wise to make some kind of backup or copy.
I don't have Daphne on my sidebar anymore, but I'm still checking periodically and hoping she comes back with new stories to tell.
ReplyDeleteMy reserach now suggests she is getting better after diabetes-related illness.
DeleteIt's actually not that long ago (was it this year or towards the end of last year?) that I wrote about fellow bloggers and friends who seem to have dropped off the planet. Like you, I miss them and think of them, and every now and then someone reappears after a long absence.
ReplyDeleteI hope Daphne is fine.
Maybe blogging is like life itself - ships that pass in the night.
DeleteShe's still fine and very present on Facebook, YP. Her mum is doing really well too - 90 years old last week.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will not be removing my blog just yet, even though it's a month or more since I last posted. Too busy with the Welsh classes and organising Dad's eventual move up her to live near us.
Jenny - I will never remove your blog from my sidebar. After all it's quality not quantity that counts. I guess you'll miss those stressful drives down to Bristol. Much nicer to have Dad on your doorstep. Thanks for the Facebook info - it's not something I have ever accessed.
DeleteDon't remove me either just yet please ... I promise to try and get more regular again (with the blogging); several things are getting in the way at the moment but I love blogging / waffling too much to give it up forever1
ReplyDeleteNot going to remove your blog Brian., Just going to send some heavies over to Tortosa to shove your arm up your back - "Blog! You s.o.b. - Blog!"
DeleteIt's all very familiar. I lost a blogger without trace: no email address, no nothing. I have wondered for several years what happened because there was no warning. Another brilliant blogger no longer does but at least she's safe and well. I can cope with that.
ReplyDelete