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 Village News Magazine |
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This page was last updated on
Saturday March 4, 2006
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| Meeting a Special Need |
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One of the people who I remember with sadness from my childhood here in Marchwood was a man called Ben Hardcastle. Ben had extreme learning and speaking difficulties, and was physically deformed with a hunched back. His real name was Walter, and he lived with his
unmarried sister Lucy in the terrace facing Old Cracknore Close.
When their parents died, Lucy was left to look after her brother. She was a very proud
independent sort of lady, not very big physically, but she cared for Ben with sacrificial sisterly love, and when he had one of his tantrums she alone could quieten him, with just a word.
For Ben was a big strong man, in his late fifties I guess, and he could be very violent at times and we children were rather scared of him. We never got close to him, and yet at the same time felt sorry for him and tried, from a safe distance, to talk to him.
In his younger days, Ben helped my uncle with his cows by bringing them in from the field and preparing them for milking. However in the 1940s he spent most days when it was fine and dry sitting at his cottage gate in a high backed solid wooded chair. There with his cap at a jaunty angle, he played with string and watched the traffic go by, greeting each passer-by with grunts, which we know were friendly, but which strangers found quite alarming.
Of course in this day and age, Ben would receive much more help than his caring sister Lucy was capable of providing on her own. So as I remember that brother and sister, I do so with the thought that people with special needs today can live a much higher quality of life, which must be pleasing to us all. My only regret is that such welfare services came too late for my friend Ben Hardcastle.
The Bible tells us that we human beings all have one special need and that is to find the quality of life that God always intended us to enjoy. Two thousand years ago, God took the initiative in providing his own welfare service, and so Jesus Christ came into our world with this stated intention, “I have come so that you may have life, and life to the full”.
At Easter-time, all our local churches will be particularly thanking God for his goodness in providing this gift of abundant life by the death and resurrection of his Son and once again we warmly invite everyone to join us in our celebrations.
Roland Drake
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