Understanding the Man in the Mirror - Making Peace with the Man I Was

The man I am today was shaped by the little boy I once was. It took me six decades to understand him—and even longer to make peace with him.

I believe that if we really want to understand ourselves, to be truly centred and at peace, we have to be willing to look back at where we came from.

Today, I'm a relatively content man, but I haven't always been. I've often wondered why I'm the person I am now compared to the man I was 30, 50, or even 60 years ago. I also believe that what happens to us in our earliest years can shape us in ways we don't even realise. Childhood experiences, especially traumatic ones, can quietly influence every part of our lives.

My earliest memories are traumatic. A drunken father and a dying mother. I lost my mother when I was four years old. After that, I was sent to an orphanage where I was constantly verbally and physically abused by the nuns simply because I was C of S. a Protestant.

When I was five, I was fortunate enough to be taken in by my uncle and aunt, who brought me down to London. From that point on, I grew up in a loving and secure home. But the past never really left me. It would return in dreams and flashbacks. My aunt used to tell me I was imagining things, that the flashbacks weren't real. But I knew they were. I'd lived them.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because I now understand that the fear I felt of my drunken father, the helplessness of watching my mother slowly die, and the anger and hatred I carried towards the nuns shaped the person I became.

From the moment I stepped off the Flying Scotsman at King's Cross Station as a frightened five-year-old boy, I became a fighter. I fought in every aspect of my life. I wasn't going to let anyone control me. Deep down, I felt I had to justify my existence.

Sport became one of the ways I did that.

Academically, I was average, but I constantly pushed myself to be the best in sports. It wasn't until I reached my forties that my attitude began to change. Instead of trying to be better than everyone else, I started trying to be the best version of myself.

Looking back now, at the age of 69, I can honestly say I've achieved a great deal. I'm a 10th Dan black belt in Kempo Jujitsu, hold high-ranking black belts in several other martial arts, became a professor of sports science, and in my younger days I wasn't a bad boxer or powerlifter either.

I'm proud of those achievements.

But they came at a price.

My obsession with perfection and my relentless drive to succeed made me a selfish man. I always did what I wanted to do, often without considering the people closest to me. Over the years, that pursuit led to divorces, heartache, and more broken relationships than I'd care to admit.

Then, several years ago, I lost my wife.

Caring for her during her illness led me into social healthcare, and working in that field completely changed my outlook on life. It made me stop and ask myself some difficult questions about who I really was and, more importantly, who I wanted to become.

I'm still proud of what I achieved throughout my life, but I'm no longer proud of how I achieved it.

That's why I believe our early years do influence the path we follow. They shape our beliefs, our fears, and the choices we make. But they don't have to define us forever. At any stage of life, we can stop, look back, understand what has driven us, and choose a different way forward.

I've had a good life, and for most of it I was happy. But happiness isn't the same as contentment. For many years I wasn't truly at peace with myself because I didn't understand what was driving me.

Today, I don't live in the past. I live in the present and look towards the future. But I also know that finding contentment meant facing my past, understanding it, and finally making peace with the boy/man I once was.

"But in My Day": A Perspective from a Man Born in the 1950s.

This isn't about saying the past was better or the present is worse. It's simply one man's reflections on how the world has changed, and why those changes continue to spark debate.

People often laugh when I begin a sentence with, "But in my day..." Yet those five words carry a lifetime of memories.

I was born in the 1950s, and the world I grew up in was very different from the one we live in today. Back then, life seemed simpler, or at least it did to us. You were either a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. That was how nearly everyone understood the world. We didn't hear conversations about gender identity, neurodiversity, or mental health in the way we do now.

Does that mean those things didn't exist? Looking back, probably not. It's more likely they simply weren't talked about.

If someone struggled with anxiety, they were often told to "pull yourself together." If a child found school difficult or behaved differently, they might have been labelled lazy, naughty, or odd rather than being assessed for autism or ADHD. Many people quietly lived with depression or trauma without ever having the words to describe what they were experiencing.

Stress certainly existed too, although we rarely called it that. People worried about paying the bills, keeping a roof over their heads, raising families, and holding down physically demanding jobs. They simply carried on because that's what was expected.

So why does it feel so different today?

Part of the answer is that society has changed enormously. Science and medicine have advanced, giving us a better understanding of how the brain works and how mental illness affects people. Conditions that were once hidden or misunderstood now have names, diagnoses, and treatments.

The same can be said for gender and identity. Society has become more open to people sharing experiences that many previously felt unable, or unsafe, to express. Whether everyone agrees with every aspect of these changes is another matter, but it is undeniable that more people now feel able to talk openly about who they are.

Some people from my generation wonder whether we've gone too far, questioning whether ordinary ups and downs are sometimes medicalised or whether too many labels are used. Others argue that these labels help people understand themselves and access support that previous generations never received. There are reasonable people on both sides of that debate.

What I do know is this: every generation believes the world it grew up in made more sense than the one that followed. My grandparents thought my generation was changing too quickly. My parents worried about television, rock music, and long hair. Now my generation finds itself puzzled by smartphones, social media, and conversations about identity that would have been almost unimaginable when we were young.

Perhaps that's simply the cycle of history.

The world hasn't necessarily become weaker, nor has it necessarily become stronger. It has become different. We know more than we once did, but we also face new challenges that earlier generations never imagined.

So when I say, "But in my day...", I'm not claiming everything was better. We had our own problems, many of which were ignored or hidden away. What I am saying is that the world has changed beyond recognition in just seventy years.

Whether those changes represent progress, decline, or simply the next chapter of human history is something each person must decide for themselves.

Let Nature Be Your Soundtrack .

Amazingly, companies are now advertising waterproof speakers specifically for paddleboards and kayaks!

For me, the whole point of getting out on the water is to immerse yourself in nature. It's about listening to the gentle splash of your paddle, birds calling from the shoreline, the rustle of the wind through the trees, and the sound of waves or flowing water. Those are the sounds that make paddling such a peaceful and rewarding experience, not artificial music blasting from a speaker.

Open speakers are also a nuisance to other paddlers. Many people head out onto the water to escape everyday noise and enjoy the peace and quiet of nature. Playing music through a speaker takes that experience away from everyone within earshot.

Many people agree with this and suggest that, if you really want to listen to music while paddling, you should wear earphones instead. Personally, I don't think that's the best solution either. Wearing traditional earphones reduces your situational awareness. It can make it harder to hear boat horns, approaching watercraft, other paddlers calling out, or even changes in the wind and water that can warn you of potential hazards.

If you really feel the need to listen to music while you're on the water, I'd recommend considering bone conduction headphones instead. These work by transmitting sound through vibrations in your cheekbones directly to your inner ear, leaving your ear canals completely open. That means you can still hear what's going on around you, making them a much safer option for outdoor activities.

They also have a few other advantages. Because they don't sit inside your ears, they can help reduce issues such as ear canal irritation, earwax buildup, and the discomfort some people experience when wearing conventional earbuds for long periods.

Perhaps the biggest benefit, though, is that you won't be disturbing everyone else. You can enjoy your music while allowing other paddlers to enjoy what they came for: the natural soundtrack of birdsong, wind, flowing water, and the peaceful silence that makes paddling such a special experience.

Stop Blaming the CRT... Here's Who's Really Polluting Our Waterways

Before We Blame the CRT or Environment Agency... Who's Really Responsible for Our Polluted Waterways?

If you've spent any time paddling our rivers, canals or lakes, you'll have seen it. Green algae, murky water, floating rubbish, the occasional dead fish, and stretches of water that just don't look healthy.

The first thing many people do is point the finger at organisations like the Canal & River Trust or the Environment Agency. You'll often see comments online saying, "What are they doing with all our money?" or "Why aren't they cleaning this mess up?"

But is that really fair?

The truth is, it's a lot more complicated than that.

The Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency don't create the pollution. They're left trying to manage the consequences of it, often with limited budgets and legal powers that many people don't realise.

Let's look at where much of the pollution actually comes from.

One of the biggest culprits is untreated or partially treated sewage entering our waterways. During periods of heavy rain, some water companies discharge sewage through storm overflows to stop homes and streets from flooding. While these overflows were originally designed for exceptional circumstances, they've been used far more frequently than most people would consider acceptable.

Then there's agriculture.

Farmers have a difficult job feeding the country, but when heavy rain washes fertilisers, slurry and animal waste into nearby streams and rivers, those nutrients don't simply disappear. They encourage huge blooms of algae, reduce oxygen levels in the water and can have devastating effects on fish, insects and aquatic plants.

It's not always deliberate. Sometimes it's simply the result of weather, ageing infrastructure or farming practices that need improving.

We also have pollution from roads, industrial sites, plastics, fly-tipping and even things people pour down household drains that should never have been there in the first place.

So what are the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust actually doing?

Quite a lot, although much of it happens behind the scenes.

The Environment Agency monitors water quality across England, investigates pollution incidents, prosecutes offenders where there's sufficient evidence, issues environmental permits and works with farmers and industry to reduce pollution before it reaches our waterways.

The Canal & River Trust has a different role. They look after over 2,000 miles of canals and navigable rivers. Their teams maintain locks, reservoirs, embankments, bridges and towpaths, remove thousands of tonnes of rubbish every year, manage invasive species, improve habitats for wildlife and work with volunteers on countless conservation projects.

Neither organisation can simply stop a water company discharging sewage or tell every farmer how to run their land. They have to work within the law, and that law is ultimately made by Government.

This is where prevention becomes so much more important than cure.

Once pollution enters a river or canal, cleaning it up is incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive.

It's far better to stop it getting there in the first place.

That means investing properly in sewage infrastructure instead of relying on ageing systems that struggle every time we have prolonged rainfall.

It means encouraging farming methods that reduce runoff, such as creating buffer strips alongside rivers, planting more trees, restoring wetlands, improving soil health and storing slurry more effectively.

It means tougher enforcement where companies repeatedly fail to meet environmental standards.

And yes, where necessary, much larger financial penalties that actually encourage change rather than simply becoming another cost of doing business.

Technology also has a huge part to play.

Modern monitoring equipment can detect pollution far more quickly than ever before. Drones, satellite imagery and continuous water-quality sensors are helping authorities identify problems sooner, allowing faster responses before pollution spreads further downstream.

But it's not just governments, water companies and farmers who have responsibilities.

We all play a part.

Every time we pick up litter after a paddle...

Every time we clean our kayaks to stop invasive species spreading...

Every time we dispose of waste properly...

Every time we report pollution when we see it...

We're helping protect the places we enjoy.

As paddlers, anglers, walkers and boaters, we're often the eyes and ears of our waterways. We notice when something doesn't look right because we're out there enjoying these places week after week.

So rather than immediately blaming the Canal & River Trust or the Environment Agency every time we see pollution, perhaps we should ask a different question.

Who's actually responsible for putting it there in the first place?

Our waterways belong to all of us. Protecting them isn't just one organisation's job. It takes water companies investing properly, farmers adopting the best environmental practices, governments providing effective legislation and enforcement, organisations like the CRT and Environment Agency managing the waterways, and the public doing their bit as well.

Because when it comes to clean rivers, canals and lakes, prevention will always be better than cure.

If we can stop pollution reaching the water in the first place, everybody wins: wildlife, paddlers, anglers, boaters, and future generations who deserve to enjoy waterways that are healthier than the ones we've inherited.