Mark Budden

he/him, priest, retired civil servant, gay man, HIV+ and undetectable since July 1998, views are most definitely my own 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏳️‍🌈

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@MoreManKind Absolutely gorgeous 😍

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@ITattum Thank you very much Ian. Trusting you are both well

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

I've had a lovely 66th birthday. Saw #jesuschristsuperstar this evening with#SamRyder Excellent

[Ricky Gervais @rickygervais]

This billboard wasn’t allowed in public incase it offended anyone so please do not repost it. Thanks.

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@MoreManKind Set on Kefalonia, of course

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@Jamesbondobs4 You are so darned sexy 😍

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@MoreManKind Have a lovely time, gorgeous man

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@PaulKohlerSW19 @metpoliceuk Good for you, Paul. But you must have put yourself at risk

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@bagshaw2112 Bernie the Bolt

[Love Classical Music and Movies 🎺🎻💖🎥🎬 @AlexTran677026]

This scene melts my heart😍

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@thecushmann Xx

[Music over time🎻 @Peal8888]

41 years later… this song is even more relevant now than it was then…

[Danny Deraney @DannyDeraney]

51 years ago today, one of most iconic British sitcoms made its debut on the BBC.

Who else loved Fawlty Towers?

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

“Don’t tell him Pike”

DAD’S ARMY (1973)

Remembering ARTHUR LOWE — born 111yrs ago toddy.

[Mark Budden @markbudden]

@FrenkieWoody It was an old R reg Mini 1000. Passed first time, 18.01.1978

[Mabel Reed | Reviewing Britain @MabelReviewsGB]

My booking failed — then this Devon pub texted me.

The Who’d Have Thought It Inn in Milton Combe, Devon, turned a frustrating failed booking into the sort of welcome that made me remember why tiny village pubs matter.

My card simply wouldn’t go through on my phone. Before I could properly give up, Matt had noticed I was struggling and texted to say we could sort it when I arrived.

That set the tone.

This is a little 16th-century inn tucked into the village near Dartmoor. My room was spotless and comfortable, and at night I could hear the stream outside. It felt wonderfully removed from everything.

But breakfast was the bit that got me. They knew I was pescatarian, so smoked salmon and beautifully creamy scrambled eggs had already been arranged. Matt’s mother-in-law was serving that morning, and the whole thing felt less like a transaction and more like being properly looked after.

I went in expecting somewhere pleasant to sleep. I left thinking this is exactly what a great village inn should be: personal, thoughtful and full of character.

[Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken @woofknight]

It occurred to Pooh and Piglet that they hadn't heard from Eeyore for several days, so they put on their hats and coats and trotted across the Hundred Acre Wood to Eeyore's stick house. Inside the house was Eeyore.
"Hello Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Hello Pooh. Hello Piglet," said Eeyore, in a Glum Sounding Voice.
"We just thought we'd check in on you," said Piglet, "because we hadn't heard from you, and so we wanted to know if you were okay."
Eeyore was silent for a moment. "Am I okay?" he asked, eventually. "Well, I don't know, to be honest. Are any of us really okay? That's what I ask myself. All I can tell you, Pooh and Piglet, is that right now I feel really rather Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All. Which is why I haven't bothered you. Because you wouldn't want to waste your time hanging out with someone who is Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All, would you now."
Pooh looked at Piglet, and Piglet looked at Pooh, and they both sat down, one on either side of Eeyore in his stick house.
Eeyore looked at them in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"We're sitting here with you," said Pooh, "because we are your friends. And true friends don't care if someone is feeling Sad, or Alone, or Not Much Fun To Be Around At All. True friends are there for you anyway. And so here we are."
"Oh," said Eeyore. "Oh." And the three of them sat there in silence, and while Pooh and Piglet said nothing at all; somehow, almost imperceptibly, Eeyore started to feel a very tiny little bit better.
Because Pooh and Piglet were There.
No more; no less.
(A.A. Milne, E.H. Shepard)
This is National Suicide Prevention Week.

[McMich @McMichelSim]

Très TRÈS GRAND RESPECT !!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
En 1936, devant les yeux d'Adolf Hitler aux Jeux de Berlin, un jeune homme de 20 ans fend l'eau à une vitesse phénoménale et fait taire tout le stade. Sept ans plus tard, en novembre 1943, il monte dans un wagon à bestiaux direction Auschwitz avec sa femme et leur fillette de deux ans. Ce soir-là, privé de son nom et réduit à un simple numéro gravé dans la chair, personne ne sait encore que cet homme brisé accomplira après l'enfer l'un des plus grands miracles de l'histoire du sport.

Son nom était Alfred Nakache.

Avant la guerre, Alfred est le roi des bassins, l'un des nageurs les plus rapides de la planète et le fierté de toute la France. Mais en 1941, sous l'Occupation, un article de presse le désigne publiquement comme « le Juif Nakache » et exige son bannissement immédiat des compétitions. Par solidarité, d'autres nageurs français refusent de plonger sans lui et se retirent des championnats. Ce geste magnifique ne suffira pas à le protéger de la haine.

Dénoncé, Alfred est arrêté avec les deux êtres qu'il aime plus que tout au monde.

Dès leur arrivée sur la rampe d'Auschwitz, sous un ciel gris et glacial, la sélection sépare la famille en quelques secondes. Alfred est envoyé aux travaux forcés. Sa femme Paule et leur petite Annie, âgée de deux ans à peine, sont exécutées dès le premier jour. Alfred l'ignore et continue d'espérer chaque matin, trouvant la force de survivre dans le seul souvenir de leurs sourires.

Il a perdu sa dignité.
Il a perdu sa femme.
Il a perdu sa petite fille.

Après avoir survécu aux travaux exténuants et aux marches de la mort en plein hiver, il est enfin libéré au camp de Buchenwald. Il n'est plus qu'un squelette vivant, pesant à peine 40 kilos, les yeux creusés par le chagrin lorsqu'il apprend la terrible vérité : il ne reverra plus jamais sa femme et son enfant.

N'importe quel homme se serait laissé mourir.

Mais un peu plus d'un an après sa libération, en 1946, Alfred s'avance au bord d'un bassin. Ses bras sont marqués par les cicatrices, son corps porte les traces de la faim, mais il plonge. Dans l'eau, il ne ressent plus la douleur des camps ni le poids de l'absence. Il bat le record du monde du relais. Deux ans plus tard, aux Jeux Olympiques de Londres en 1948, il est le seul survivant des camps de la mort à s'aligner au départ, nageant non pas pour la gloire ou la vengeance, mais simplement pour se sentir encore vivant.

Alfred a consacré la suite de sa vie à transmettre sa passion aux enfants de Toulouse, leur apprenant à flotter, à respirer, à ne jamais abandonner face au courant.

Un après-midi de 1983, alors qu'il effectuait sa traversée quotidienne dans la mer, son cœur fatigué s'est arrêté. L'eau, qui lui avait tout donné et qui l'avait aidé à traverser le pire, l'a emporté paisiblement.

On croit souvent que le courage consiste à se battre contre les autres, alors qu'il s'agit parfois simplement de trouver une raison de continuer à respirer quand on a tout perdu.

Si ce destin hors du commun vous a touché, partagez-le pour que le nom d'Alfred ne soit jamais oublié. On a tous en nous une force cachée pour surmonter nos plus sombres épreuves.

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

When Vincent van Gogh died in 1890, he was not the world-famous artist we know today. Much of his work remained obscure, hundreds of his paintings were in the possession of his brother Theo, and there was no guarantee history would decide Vincent was a genius at all. The person who changed that was a 28-year-old widow named Jo van Gogh-Bonger.

Jo had married Vincent's younger brother Theo in 1889. Their happiness lasted barely two years. Vincent died in July 1890, and Theo, devastated and already seriously ill, died just six months later. Jo was left with an infant son and an extraordinary inheritance: hundreds of Vincent's paintings and drawings and a vast collection of letters between the brothers. People around her did not necessarily recognize the treasure she possessed. She did.

Instead of simply selling the collection, Jo spent decades carefully building Vincent's reputation. She loaned paintings to exhibitions, cultivated critics and dealers, organized shows and strategically sold works so Van Gogh paintings entered important collections rather than flooding the market. In 1905, she organized a monumental Amsterdam exhibition containing more than 470 Van Gogh works, the largest exhibition of his art ever assembled.

But Jo understood something equally important: people needed to understand the man behind the paintings. She had inherited hundreds of Vincent's letters to Theo, filled with his thoughts about art, loneliness, ambition and failure. For years she deciphered, organized and edited them, finally publishing a major three-volume edition in 1914. The letters helped transform Vincent from a misunderstood dead painter into a human story audiences could connect with.

Jo continued promoting him until her death in 1925. During her lifetime she sold nearly 250 of Vincent's paintings and drawings, deliberately spreading his work through the art world while preserving a major family collection. That collection eventually passed to her son and became the foundation of the Van Gogh Museum.

Today, Vincent van Gogh's name is almost synonymous with artistic genius. But fame after death is not inevitable. Vincent created the paintings. Theo believed in them when almost nobody else did.

And after both brothers were gone, Jo van Gogh-Bonger spent the next three decades making sure the rest of the world learned to see what they had seen.

#drthehistories