Well that’s it. Since our last little ramble I’m a year older.

I’ve had a birthday and, do you know, I don’t feel any different.

In fact the last year has passed so quickly it seems as though it only lasted for ten months.

But let’s face it. When you’re 78, you can see the finishing post appearing out of the mist. To put it into a local context, the light has been switched on at Signpost Corner.

But, as I say, the time has flown, so I must be enjoying myself.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that, now and again, I think about how long I have got left and, just as important, how will it end.

Will I slip away peacefully in my sleep, or will I sit up with my eyes open and dramatically cry out ’O Death, where is thy sting?’ when I discover that all my life, I have lived with a potentially fatal wasp venom allergy.

Some time ago, I wrote an amusing little poem about going to the doc for a check-up which ends with this last line that I speak to my wife as we are enjoying a pleasant lunch. It goes like this:

’Do you know, with my last breath, I’d like to show some skill.

’I’d eat my mint and pop my clogs before he brought the bill.’

We shall see.

Some folk make the plans for their funeral service well in advance. They may have chosen a favourite hymn or a few lines of poetry that had special meaning for themselves or their family.

I remember an old friend who sailed on his way to eternity accompanied by the words of ’A Slow Boat to China’.

Another sadly-missed soul, who was a pleasure to know and who had lived his life to the full, had been a long standing member of the Lhon Dhoo male voice choir.

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that there was not one dry eye in the congregation when his fellow choristers sang ’Softly as I leave you’ as the curtains closed.

The late Sir Norman’s transport of choice was a horse-drawn hearse and a drive along the Prom, whilst another good friend of ours from Greeba, who had been a member of the Purple Helmets Motorcycle Display Team, had invited his friends to join him in a final drink as he lay in his open coffin in the summer sunshine in his back garden.

He was then given a mounted guard of honour by his fellow Helmets on his final journey to church.

That is what I call style.

I must admit that I have no extravagant plans for my own funeral but, as a final request, I would like to see the works on the Douglas Promenade completed, and that my last ride would be on the re-instated route of the number 23 Bus. That should guarantee me a good few more years.

But, say what you like, and look at things from whatever direction that you choose, there is one thing that we all have to face. The one great leveller that makes us all equal.

It’s not the fact that the bell will one day toll for each and everyone of us, but the reality is that when it happens, it will come as a surprise.

Whatever your religion or belief, whichever leader you follow, you will never know the truth until it’s too late to tell anyone. No one ever comes back to spill the beans. In life, we are all different. In what is to come we are all the same.

Folk often ask me how do I decide what to write about. The answer is always the same. It just happens. This is the last verse of a poem that just happened.

’For our life is a journey, beginning to end.

’To be travelled alone, or with who you befriend,

’So to join up your circle and make life complete,

’Be at peace with yourself and with those that you meet.’

PS. Don’t forget the Pullyman ’Personalities Calendar’ and the Pullyman book, ’The story of the life that became Pullyman’, on sale island-wide or on line at Pullyman.im.