The Shepherd by Fredrick Forsyth

 

In 1979, As It Happens debuted its reading of The Shepherd, narrated by then-host Alan Maitland, whose dulcet, comforting tones earned him the nickname "Fireside Al."

The year is 1957. An RAF pilot is heading home from Germany for Christmas. Fog sets in and all radio communication is lost.

For one Royal Air Force pilot, one last hurdle remains between himself and a cozy Christmas morning in England. A sixty-six-minute flight in his Vampire fighter plane from Germany to Lakenheath. A routine flight plan and a full tank of fuel. What could go wrong?

But as the fog begins to close in, the compass goes haywire and the radio dies, leaving him in silence, lost and alone up in the inky black sky. All hope seems lost as he accepts his fate when, out of nowhere, a vintage fighter-bomber appears and is miraculously trying to make contact.

For one lonely pilot this is a miracle, but really the mystery has just begun ... 

CBC Radio has aired this reading every Christmas Eve or close to it. I am listening to it as I write at this link. The Shepherd | CBC.ca. It is about 30 minutes. 

 The short book is avilable on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.ca/Shepherd-Frederick-Forsyth/dp/1804943908/ref=sr_1_1

If you are a movie fan, John Travolta stars in this 2:29 movie from 2023.

https://youtu.be/VOqk3HxtWYo?si=sgLQIevRIBqWQODU

Christmas Letters

 Long long ago, in a land far away, that is the 50s when I was a kid, Christmas cards were a big thing. My grandfather made a rack that held about 100 and sometimes it filled up. I think it cost 3 cents to send one as long as the envelope wasnt sealed.

Before the days of social media, people kept in contact by letter. It became a tradition to send an annual Christmas letter to bring people up to date on kids and cousins etc. Some people were good at it, some people were not. My late wife loved to write letters and spent many a Sunday afternoon at the kitchen table cranking out letter after letter. Her Christmas letters were personal for many years but she got tired of repeating the same stuff so eventually went to photo copies.

We used to get Christmas letters but with Facebook and Instagram, we got fewer and fewer. I appreciate any we get. 

When she passed away, I continued to write with lots of pictures and only enough copy to hit the high spots. Twenty years worth make a nice history of my family growing up. I used to send by email and a couple by mail. This year the bulk of them went as attachments on Messenger, a few by email, and since the Post Office is on strike, my one brother is out of luck. He'll get his from my other brother at Christmas. 

Some people have no clue how to write a Christmas letter and go into every detail of the year's activities, almost day by day. People love to make fun of them and the examples below tell you why.

Click to embiggen

This is a bad photo copy of a Hallmark card. I hope you can read it. We wrote a take off and read it at our church christmas dinner. My aunt was in the congregation and told us afterwards that she thought it sounded familiar. We had in fact used some famous lines from her and her sister.

This article picks out the standard lines from typical letters and I have to admit I may be guilty of some of them, so I usually let my kids write their own paragraph.

I would love to get a letter like this. Or send one if I had the nerve

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate the 20 odd holy days from mid-November to mid-January