Ellan Vannin

It was a sad day today in our neighboring town of Thame at Robin Gibbs funeral. He had lived for 30 years in the Old Rectory across from St. Mary’s Church and was well known and liked in the town. His casket was draped in the flag of Ellan Vannin, the name in Manx Gaelic of The Isle of Man, where he and his brothers were born. The Bee Gees adapted a poem of the same name as a song which ends with the words which seem so appropriate today;

“And in all my times of sorrow

And on some lonely shore

I'll go back to Ellan Vannin

To my childhood days once more”

The Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea is a truly unique and beautiful place inhabited since 6,500 BC and never incorporated into either the Roman Empire (Julius Caesar referred to it as Mona in 54 BC) nor is it part of The United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the European Union (EU). ). Its parliament, the Tynwald is of Celtic / Norse origin and over 1,000 years old, and is the oldest parliament in the world with an unbroken existence.

It had a unique Gaelic-Norse culture and the motto on its three legged (Trie Cassyn) flag is; “Quocunque jeceris stabit” – loosely translated as “wherever I’m thrown, I will stand” – probably a fair summation of Robin Gibbs life and achievements.

Vinnie Jones' hard and fast Hands-only CPR

I saw this TV advert from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) featuring Vinnie Jones a few days ago and thought it was simply great. I have been trained in first aid off and on since I was a kid.   I'm currently a designated workplace first aider.  During the actual training I come away feeling fairly confident about carrying out CPR for suspected heart attacks.  Yet as time goes on I get less and less sure, that in an emergency, I would remember the exact sequence of mouth to mouth resuscitation and chest compressions. If I feel this, you can understand why members of the public, who have never been trained, often panic and don't do nothing when they come across someone dying of a cardiac arrest. What the BHT and Vinnie "explain" is just get on and do "Hands-only CPR" in time to the music (ironically) of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It can make a dramatic difference in survival rates if CPR is given promptly. Time is of the essence.

There is a serious side to this. I will declare that my father died of a heart attack in the street of a small town while he was on a long distance walk. The family know that a Police Officer did attend and tried CPR which eventually failed.  What we don't know exactly is how long it took for officer to arrive and whether if a passerby had tried "hand-only CPR" earlier there might have been a different outcome.