After all this time...

‘Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters!’ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Although I can’t say I’ll be visiting Tintern Abbey as Wordsworth did on his tour in July 1798, it certainly does feel like five long winters since my last tour.  Five is such a special number: five fingers, five minutes, five years.  It certainly doesn’t feel like five years but let’s look back just briefly at the Mr Alexander of five years ago.  February 2020.  Just a month before Boris’ sombre announcement when everything changed. A full summer booked, May to October.  Martin and I rehearsing for the summer season. All was good with the world. It felt like being hit by ‘Calbourne’ the 02 class W24 Havenstreet steam loco going full tilt on the Isle of Wight Railway. Within two weeks every show was cancelled. Martin left for Cairo, where he still is and I went round the bend, where I’m not still, thank goodness. I did blog for a bit, but a Travelling Blog that doesn’t travel isn’t a Travelling Blog.  I struggled on with it for a few chapters and made some fairly feeble attempts at becoming a viral Youtuber. I had 16 followers. My Channel doesn’t even seem to be there anymore.  Not surprising.  I’m an entertainer.  I needed a live audience. By the second wave of the Thing in 2021 I was lost.  Mental illness takes a lot longer to heal than a virus.  My family took me in and saved me from myself.  Hilary took the wreck in and started helping him put the pieces back together.  She is so good at that. She was, and my family are, and always will be, my rock. I took on some teaching work, starting slowly as a Teaching Assistant, working my way up to Sanctuary Hub Manager in a local High School, working with all the rough diamonds and the misfits.  The neurodiverse.  Like me.  It was fascinating work, exhausting and enlightening. The next bombshell hit in January 2023. A brave public apology letter from the Headteacher and Governors of my own school (I’ve blogged about the horrors of Christ’s Hospital before).  The apology was to the boys of the school who had been historically abused. I was floored because I was one of those boys. Here’s a copy of the letter if you’re interested - www.mralexander.co.uk/ch-apology It turns out that my favourite drama teacher had been jailed for six years for child sexual abuse at my school.  So that threw me into another downward spiral of guilt and anxiety. Long story, but I took some counselling, found out I had PTSD and dissociative amnesia and started writing a book about it.  I’ll put extracts on the blog at some point.  And again, my family and a chance encounter with another boy who, 56 years ago, had joined the school in the same house on the same day as I, picked me up, dusted me off…well you know the rest. So now, two years on from this latest trauma, I say, enough of the grief and on with the show. This coming summer Mr Alexander is again, for one last season with the travelling stage, taking to the road.  The websi