Lucy Letby

I have been following the gruesome coverage of the trial, conviction and sentencing of the former nurse Lucy Letby. She was sentenced to life in prison, until the day she dies. Ms Letby, in brief, killed babies on a neonatal unit in Chester, England, in 2015 and 2016. These were deliberate acts, but a motivation has never been established, and in all likelihood never will. This touches at the heart of the trust all patients have to place in the health professionals that tend to them. A breach of trust is of the utmost severity, but even more so when it affects the most vulnerable patients - the newborn, particularly those born prematurely. These crimes have deprived families of their children, or damaged them for life. Ms Letby was not in court to hear the victim impact statements from the affected families, or to hear her sentence pronounced. My thoughts are with the families of the babies lost or hurt. As for Lucy Letby, only one question remains. Why.

9 / 11

I have just scheduled the two blogposts for the commemoration of 9/11, on September 11th. It will be 22 years ago this year, but to those affected (directly or indirectly) it will seem only like yesterday. 

My thoughts are with the family and friends of those lost in the four attacks. May they rest in peace.

We're world news

 A very sad event has propelled the island of Lewis, and specifically the beach at Tolsta to international headlines. Fifty-five pilot whales beached themselves on the one-and-half mile long beach, 15 miles north of Stornoway, early on Sunday morning. All but one died. It was thought that one female became distressed whilst giving birth, and ended up in shallow waters as the tide went out. Fifteen survived the intial strandings, one was helped back out to sea, but the others had to be euthanised. It is thought to have been the biggest stranding of whales in the United Kingdom for 70 years. 

I love Tràigh Mhòr Tolastadh, to give the beach its Gaelic name. The cetaceans appear to have come aground on the southern portion of the beach, near the cemetery. Many's a time I've ambled down its sands, head in the wind - and in company as well. But there will now be a sad edge to a future revisit. 

J-land @ 20

Eighteen years ago, I joined a group of people from the USA and the UK who were bloggers. We had a great time, interacting through comments on blogposts; We would share our lives on line, with photographs, images of all sorts. Joys, sorrows, births, deaths and marriages. I think at one time, I would write more than a dozen posts a day. My blogs were called Northern Trip (until October 2008), Atlantic Lines (until October 2018) and now A Cobbled Road. We were friends, are still friends of course. Some sixty bloggers have passed away over the past twenty years since AOL J-land was set up. To the best of my knowledge. 

Blogging has fallen by the wayside. I only see half a dozen blogs still posting regularly. Everybody else has gone to Facebook, myself included. I sometimes post here in order not to feel constrained by Facebook's setup. Nonetheless, J-land does live on, albeit in a different form. I hope for many more years to come.

End of June

 As the first half of the year 2023 gently glides into history, I am sharing some pictures taken at the solstice, on the evening of June 20th. On that day, here in Stornoway, the sun rises at 4.20 am and sets at 10.35pm. These are a series of images, taken between 11.30pm and 12.10am. 

 

Of the Titanic, the Titan - and Kalamata

My sympathies remain with the families and friends, left bereaved by the loss of their loved ones in the implosion of the Titan submersible last Sunday. By all accounts their deaths were instantaneous, and they would not have known what happened. One report suggests the implosion was followed a microsecond later by an explosion of hydrocarbons, apparently present in the atmosphere within Titan, which would have incinerated any organic matter immediately. It takes the human nervous system 25 microseconds to even start to react. (source)

The five men on board the Titan had reportedly paid £200,000 each for the journey. An excursion, to see the wreck of a liner that went down 111 years ago with the loss of 1,500 souls.

My sympathies remain with the families and friends, left bereaved by the loss of their loved ones in the sinking of a fishing boat off the coast of Greece, earlier this month. They were migrants, and some 600 are thought to have drowned, a hundred of them children. I think we have all forgotten about this terrible tragedy. The name Kalamata, referenced in the blogpost title, is the name of the nearest port city in Greece.

These were indeed migrants, seeking a better life in Europe; or fleeing persecution or war in Iran, Afghanistan or Iraq. It is likely that they each paid thousands of dollars to be crammed on a boat that eventually broke down and sank, in 5,100 metres of water. The Mediterranean Sea is at its deepest off that point of the Greek coast.

Before the Titan was reported missing, last Sunday, the Greek Coastguard had been severely criticised for its apparent refusal to assist the migrant vessel. Although it had been shown to have been stationary for 7 hours before sinking, the Greeks claimed to have checked it out and all was well. They did nothing. 

We all know the story of the Titanic, whose wreck those on board the Titan had gone to view. The Titanic was not the first ship to have been lost with massive loss of life. I mentioned the Norge  earlier this week, which sank off Rockall in 1904 which left 700 people drowned. Its story is barely known outside of Norway or Stornoway. We have a tombstone in the local cemetery to 9 survivors from the Norge who died in Stornoway after being brought ashore. 

They were dirt poor migrants from persecution in Tsarist Russia, allowed out by god's grace and headed for a new life in America. I don't think they had to pay over the odds for their passage. What is the difference? Nothing seems to have changed in nearly 120 years.

Of the Titan, the Titanic and the Norge

Why would anyone wish to visit the wreck of the #Titanic as an excursion? For scientific purposes, maybe. To see what remains, to check its gradual decay.

For the rest, it is like descending into an open grave. Fifteen hundred people died there, and nothing remains of them. To me, its wreck carries echoes of another maritime tragedy that occurred 8 years before the Titanic hit the iceberg.

In June 1904, SS #Norge hit the islet of Rockall, far west of the Western Isles, and sank, taking 700 souls to the bottom. At the inquiry in Copenhagen, the next year, it was determined that a lack of life-saving apparatus (lifeboats) contributed to the loss of life. But the Titanic also had insufficient life-saving equipment.

Had the recommendations from the Copenhagen inquiry been followed, the losses from the Titanic's sinking would have been far less.

May they all rest in peace.
I hope that the occupants of the Titan are found alive.