Kay Buckley
I am retired, I am hard of hearing. I enjoy time spent with friends and family, singing, and on my allotment. I love learning and have done a few futurelearn courses previously.
Location Yorkshire, UK
Activity
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Kay Buckley made a comment
My father had two older brothers. One, an educator, worked in Malaya (as it then was) and also in Iran and then Malawi, possibly for UNESCO or some such organisation. The other ran a gold mine on the Gold Coast, as it then was. I imagine that they were employed by ‘The Empire’.
I believe now that the East India Company, which sounded so impressive, were the...
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Kay Buckley replied to Joanna Turnbull
Thank you for mentioning the book. Like you, I have little knowledge of this topic. I live in Yorkshire and remember being on a walk a few years ago and came across a gate or stile which had a little plaque mentioning slavery. Visiting Brodsworth Hall and Gardens this summer, I discovered from their English Heritage brochure that their wealth had been gained...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I live in Yorkshire and have visited splendid houses in beautiful grounds and gardens, some of which were built by slavers. I have wanted to discover more about these people and how they lived. Hopefully, this course will inform me.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m fascinated by history and the more one learns, the more intricate it is. I’ve just been reading about the Ottoman Empire. I knew nothing because usually the references are to Turkey.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I won’t remember your names.
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Talking about clans, my grandmothers maiden name was either McDonald or Macdonald?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’ve just noticed this course. Perhaps I’ll learn more about some of my background. My paternal grandmother was Scottish but she died early 1940’s. I believe my father was born in Glasgow in 1906 but within six months he was living in England. My grandfather was a civil engineer and arrived here in England in 1922 with the family. It was time for the three...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’ve just spotted this course. As I had a Scottish grandmother that I barely knew, this course looks interesting. I don’t remember my father talking much about her. How strange?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m trying to post a photo of the ruins of the Greek Theatre in Taormina, Sicily. It’s position is second to none and I imagine the Romans may have just worked on it a little. Anyway, I can’t, but there about a million photos of it in circulation.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Has any nation had poets as a basis for building etc.? Something new here!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
It tells me that people like order. The need to know what to expect. They need to feel the power of the instigator and to know what he/she is trying to communicate.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
They are just impressive!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’d certainly have beautiful coloured mosaics on the walls. I seem to remember I only saw black and white ones at Villa Adriano. Perhaps there had been others inside.
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For now, Hadrian. We in the uk have his wall and I have visited his amazing villa outside Rome.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
The timeline is so useful.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Yes, certainly an impressive start to the course. I didn’t expect the depth of the study.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Impressive.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Fabulous! What tools we have today!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I wonder if the popes had not been in Rome would the aqueducts have disappeared completely? I’m always in awe of ancient sophistication.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
So interesting!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
From huge buildings to tiny coins. So interesting.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Amazing that Grand Central Station was modelled on Roman bath houses. It so impressed me when I visited N.Y.
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Isn’t one of the reasons for establishing communities on hilltops such as those in Rome a way of avoiding the diseases of valleys eg. malaria.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Most interesting!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Italy is my passion. I have visited Rome on several occasions and am hoping to go again next year, corona permitting. This course should help prepare me to go further into my particular interests, which I hope this course will develop.
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Kay Buckley replied to Anne Barnes
I live in West Yorkshire and have never heard of Wheeldale Moor. North Yorkshire, I imagine from the map. Another adventure beckons!
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I think each strategy is essential, depending on needs, and all four should utilised in some measure wherever possible. But a massive change of heart is needed first. People before profit.
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When I was a child after World War 2, we (my mother and I) used to collect Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice from the local Clinic. Obviously, vitamins A and C. Free. I guess that was part of the then new National Health Service in the UK. And we had free milk at school. One wonders where this pandemic might take us in terms of global government intervention for...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I usually eat a Bircher type breakfast similar to breakfast 3, with just oats, chia seeds, some fruit and milk. I admit to sweetening it with a little maple syrup. I’m surprised how many nutrients are in number two. It somehow feels less healthy and I imagine it has more calories but maybe not.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I think of myself as a flexitarian whilst my granddaughter is vegan. I’m always keen to learn more about human health.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Hello. I try to eat a ‘healthy diet’ but I’m keen to update the knowledge I already have and to delve deeper into this subject.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I only know of the Hospice in my town. It opened in 1987 and I remember the planning and fundraising that went on for a good number of years beforehand.
And of course is still has to do fundraising much of the time. There is also a children’s hospice where families can stay for a short while for respite based on their particular needs after the loss of child.... -
Kay Buckley made a comment
I have nothing to add to all these excellent comments.
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Kay Buckley replied to Marie C
@MarieC I could not say anything more. Marie has covered it so well.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I imagine that a hospice death would be preferable. As some people have said, we hope hospitals cure us whereas hospices are there to assist dying.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m probably wrong, but I think (or feel) that we have a notion of being in control in this society that we do not actually have. Or do I mean that the questions so far suggest that we will probably be in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones and medical staff? Or will there be different options in the next sections? Just thinking.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Q2. I don’t think personal autonomy is necessary to have a good death. I feel if one’s family were informed or knew one well enough, they would be able to be in on the decision making processes of the medical staff.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I feel a good death would mean being warm and comfortable; any pain medicated. Not alone. Even if, say, family or friends can’t get there, to know that someone is there. Just to know one is cared for by people who care.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I think that the death of my ex husband/children’s father fits into these three categories as a good death. I feel it was.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I suppose that medical staff who are not sociologists may not always have time think of trajectories. I imagine the concept will need quite a lot of teaching and observing.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I think assisted dying is acceptable if the person wants it. But only that person must decide. I think I would want it but I can’t be sure at this moment in my life.
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Kay Buckley replied to Jennifer Timer
I would say that death denial and death anxiety are quite similar. I think at first I was telling myself I wasn’t going to get Covid-19 but there was a lot of anxiety in there. Now I’m calmer yet not in denial. I’m as likely to get it as the next person.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I like Sarah Pattenden’s post. Saying people give up once they know they are terminal. All though we all know we have to die, what would it feel like if you knew you only had a few days or hours or even minutes? I can’t possibly imagine.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
As people say, is it the process or the moment? Someone can be said to be dying if they have an incurable disease even if it may be several months or years in the future. Or someone is dying as they take their last few breaths. Or we are all dying from the moment of our birth?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
My understanding of what happens in my area, people are largely treated in hospital until it becomes obvious that they will not recover. At this stage they are transferred to the Hospice, a separate building some miles away, where the care is obviously different. A recognition, I believe, that whilst the patient is near the end of their life, families are...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I didn’t realise hospices were included under hospitals. I’m thinking about people wanting to die at home and those who want to be in hospital. I suppose it all depends on the home situation.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I assumed more would die in a hospice.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
That was very interesting. What a caring doctor and with so much experience. How difficult to allow the patient to feel in control whilst choosing the best procedures for their decline and death. Recently, a friend, in and out of hospital with bone cancer for several months told me she was going to refuse the next intervention because she knew it was both...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
How does the term ‘good death’ relate to the person dying or deceased? Is it subjective or objective. Surely it’s the description given about the deceased by the observers. However, in question 3, I can see that someone might feel under pressure to ‘die’ in a certain way if they had been in a difficult relationship with someone at the bedside; or feel that...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I suppose if you’re fatally injured, say in a road traffic accident, but still alive in this moment, you would want to be able to hear the ambulance arriving, have pain killing medication administered, be warm, dry, somebody being kind and making you comfortable, reassuring you that your family have been contacted and are on their way to the hospital to which...
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Kay Buckley replied to Kirsty Robinson
I agree with you completely. For several years I have volunteered, one day a week, with a dementia group. As you say, touch, music, pictures and lots of laughs. We had a great time. For various reasons, that group no longer exists but I have wonderful memories. I wonder if they have any?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
One morning last October I received a call from my daughter informing me that her dad had been taken into the ICU and she and her husband were on their way there. Her sister was on the way from the south of England with my grandson, her brother was on his way from Germany and my grand daughter was travelling from Durham University. Did I mention I live in West...
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Kay Buckley replied to Kay Buckley
Just to be awkward, what would happen if I’d changed my mind?!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I loved sociology when I was studying it. It was feminism then, for me. But mapping the life one could lead seemed just as difficult and impossible as these death trajectories. However, it’s better to be able to refer to a map when one is unsure than to just proceed randomly. Perhaps?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I have just seen a clip on TV of an elderly/old Covid-19 recoverer who was kept unconscious for several weeks and is skin and bone and will spend weeks in rehab. Would I want that? I live alone and my family are living their lives. I still live as full a life as I can although my hearing loss isolates me in most situations. I don’t think I would want that,...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
No, I didn’t find the exercise difficult. I feel I focused mainly on the individual and the temporal; some was also social. Another time, I might focus on the social. I have questions about, for example, changes in the language we use and why.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Dying is the ending of a physical life on this planet; the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, organs wind down, breathing stops, etc., not necessarily in that order. A life ends. Yet, the old questions remain. Can all the thoughts, experiences, learning, memories, feelings (both physical and emotional) just cease to exist? Wouldn’t we love to know...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I feel this course is going to be interesting. Each of us necessarily has an emotional connection with death and dying but perhaps we vary in our intellectual understanding or awareness of current and new thinking around it. I’m looking forward hugely to learning loads because death and all that surrounds it is still so much under the radar.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I am 76. I have a Behavioural Sciences degree from the eighties. Apart from quite serious hearing loss, physically, I am well. I spend a lot of time on my allotment. Obviously, I have begun to think about dying and also the pandemic has brought up so many issues around death and dying and how and why and where and I’m interested to be part of some academic...
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Although I was devastated at the 2016 referendum result, and still am to an extent, I have had to ask myself why others felt and voted differently. Do I have a false belief or do they? And people seem to have voted the way they did based on so many different views/beliefs. I find it very confusing.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
It is a bit bleak. And we seem to be discovering facets of animal behaviour we were unaware of? That they are aware in ways we had not understood.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
All we lack then, is a soul.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Is it that humans are aware of past and future differently from other animals? That we are able to learn very different skills? We know bird species differ in their practice of nest building but each species does the same. We do not. How have we developed this way?
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All great questions. It seems to me that being a humanist is far harder than having a faith. Fewer certainties, or am I wrong?
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You make an excellent point. Why should the cross need removing? I’d be interested to know as well.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Very interesting.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m really looking forward to knowing more.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Yes, it sounds so interesting. Just what I was hoping for.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’ve watched it again. I suppose the humanist words are rational, intellectual; I associate spiritual words, belief-type words with religion. I’ve no real idea what I mean. I shall continue to wonder.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I admit I also watched the video before I received instructions not to. However, I heard what I expected to hear. I think being good without God; being the best human we can be without needing to believe in the supernatural or magic; using intellect and taking responsibility for ourselves. I’ll watch again now!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I have some assumptions about Humanism that I like. I want to grow my knowledge of it and maybe take it further.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Fascinating.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Also, I only discovered recently how the aristocracy had actual pieces of furniture, their travelling canteens, such as that one containing the silver mentioned above, that they moved around their own estates as they travelled between them. Also to those of their potential hosts, and even abroad, I suppose.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’ve often wondered why Anglicanism had retained some of the show of the catholic communion service behaviour along with the prostestant beliefs. I’m so slow sometimes. I’ve always wondered at the back of my mind why, for instance, non-conformist churches are so very different ie. just plain and simple. Or so it seems to me.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
A belated hello to you all. I’ve recently finished the excellent Commonwealth/Empire course. So now, more history I know very little about. I live in Yorkshire and had a Scottish grandmother I never knew.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Great course. There are so many thoughts fermenting in my mind. Which aspect shall I investigate further first?? Thank you.
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Kay Buckley replied to Alec Benson
Has anybody read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Brilliant on that period of Nigeria .......
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Macmillan sounded like a pompous headmaster sending his students out into the big wide world. I can still remember his voice and terribly posh accent. I watched a programme on TV recently about the horrendous damage being done in some poorer and less powerful countries as they are used and misused to fulfil consumers ever-increasing need to shop for more and...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Of my two uncles who worked in the empire, one was an educator. He worked in several commonwealth countries setting up teacher training colleges. The other one was manager of a mine in the Gold Coast, now Ghana.
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The people I know voted for brexit are retired with excellent pensions.
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Kay Buckley replied to Alec Benson
That’s fascinating. I must read the book!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Yes, British Empire Exhibition. Thanks for the link, Linda. Most interesting.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Today, cricket being played between Commonwealth countries keeps the myth of empire alive. England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies. Have I missed anybody? Yes, South Africa recently. Bangladesh? You can google further should you wish.
The word Commonwealth still rings of empire. Commonwealth of Nations. How many countries are... -
Kay Buckley made a comment
One thing. I’ve just a spotted a newspaper article criticising Prince William of ‘white saviour’ mentality in an Africa wildlife film. It says ‘experts condemn lack of African voices in a film depicting the royal’s visit to conversation projects in Tanzania.’ Just saying.
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It would not be easy but I would think it possible. An interesting area of study would be to collaborate with some Commonwealth University(s) to see what the beliefs and views of emigrants were around Empire. Did they differ from those left at home?
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Kay Buckley made a comment
So far, the course has given me an understanding of some of my family’s Brexit support and indeed of their political views. Days of empire means nothing to me but it does to them. I could probably say that they blame EU for our hollowed out, formally booming West Yorkshire town and subliminally (to use Mik’s word) hark back to days of empire. Plus the Free...
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A Jane Austin book I read some months ago had a ship’s captain who went to sea and came back with his fortune made. East India Company? Or other profits of empire? Never occurred to me to investigate.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Also interesting that Sir Harry (in 39 Steps) says ‘but for the Tories, Germany and Britain would be fellow workers in peace and reform.’ No wonder Harold Wilson held the Common Market referendum in 1975. He knew what could happen! Now I understand the Brexit idea. I’m shocked, but mainly by my ignorance.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I re read 39 Steps and Greenmantle a couple of years ago, as adventure stories I’d read as a child. It has just occurred to me that Greenmantle was possibly about the Ottomans? I didn’t understand it. Therefore is Prester John also about colonial South Africa? We read The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers recently at Book Group. Another one. And...
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Kay Buckley replied to Mik Wisniewski
As it obviously did to my father’s two brothers after WW2.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’ve only just remembered that another uncle, a brother of the UNESCO one worked in mining on what was the Gold Coast in Africa; Ghana since 1957. I remember receiving a doll from him when I was seven in 1951. It had a crushed foot. He was my godfather. It has never occurred to me to wonder why I had two uncles working abroad in the Commonwealth. There was a...
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Shocking!
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I mentioned my uncle earlier. He was an educator in Malaya after WW2. My memory is a little blurred. He worked (I think) for UNESCO. After his war service he ran a college in England for trainee teachers from the commonwealth. Then the same in Malaya; then in Teheran. After that he went to Tanganika (now Tanzania) or Nyasaland (now Malawi). Obviously Iran is...
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Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m not sure why they are called ‘small stories’. However, they must serve a purpose in informing us about individual experience of living under or during Empire. A subjective view is as informative as an objective one, depending on what the emperor or researcher or planner or general or historian desires to know.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
Oh dear. Here we go again. Men already sure they know it all about women so let’s back to what’s important.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
It may be possible to be objective, but subjectivity is another matter.
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Kay Buckley made a comment
To answer point one, I think it would take months or years of internal self investigation for many of us to transcend the biases of our own cultures.
It may be that we are inevitably dominated by ideas of the rich and powerful but are we talking about subjective or objective ideas/thoughts/assumptions. Many would insist that their own experience and... -
Kay Buckley made a comment
I’m interested that he favoured the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph? I know they had had that position for some centuries. I’m still trying to get my head/mind around the Ottomans. It feels like a hole in my historical vision of world power and influence.
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I would think that ‘Britishness’, British values, etc. is something that developed during the early days of industrialisation and empire, ensuring that the British worker and soldier sided with the ruling class against the ‘natives’. They ensured a compliance with the wishes of the upper class although perhaps not in the actual interests of the working class....
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Good point. I’d never thought of it like that @TrevorWyeth
