Sad News

On my way into town today I was listening to BBC Radio 4.
This is fairly unusual for me, but mum was driving so she had the choice of radio station, and she likes listening to the news in the morning.
There were two very sad announcements today.

First, Patrick Swayze had passed age 57. I had known he was fighting Pancreatic cancer, but I was very sad to hear this news. I enjoy watching his films, and Dirty Dancing is one of my all time faves - along with Ghost, probably his most well known roles.
His most recent role was in a TV series called The Beast. I never watched this, but I have a friend who adores the show. I was surprised to hear he was working on the series while he was fighting his illness.

Cancer is a truly terrible illness, we don't know nearly enough to be able to fight it easily and effectively as we hope. I have had family affected by this awful disease, friends who have survived and I recently lost someone to cancer myself.
My thoughts and prayers are with Mr Swayze's family, especially his wife Lisa at this time, hoping they will find the strength to carry on, knowing that people all over the world will be thinking of them and praying for them.


The second announcement was that Keith Floyd had died from a heart attack aged 65. He had also been fighting Bowel cancer, but he had good chances of recovery. This was more sad news. I had grown up watching his cooking programs, and though I wasn't partial to his recipes (I'm not a big meat fan - and almost all of his recipes included meat or fish of some sort), I loved his carefree attitude, and the way nothing was measured out or weighed.
He constantly had a glass of wine with him when he was on screen, and I was impressed at the way it seemed he could cook something no matter where he was. Inside, or outside, he would manage to pull some fabulous recipe out and impress all around him.
His career was very impressive. Nearly 35 books and 18 television series, which I still see played fairly often, despite some of the shows being made 20 or so years ago. Just take a look at the list here.
Again, I find myself sending prayers for his family and all those who will miss him.


I'll be back soon, hopefully with a brighter post, but I couldn't let these two deaths pass without commenting.

xxClairexx