It’s a great privilege to be able to wish my oldest child, Richard, a Happy Birthday on his 70th. Happy Birthday Richard and may the next 70 years be as adventurous as the last 70 – for you, for your brothers and sister and for everyone. It’s a wish I am confident will come true.
Just as the last seventy years have been “such a wonderful time to be alive”, as Dr Zhivago said in Boris Pasternak’s 1957 book. So the path ahead is strewn with potholes but the road leads to opportunities not yet imagined. You, your wife, Annie, your children, Tim and Zoey, their spouses Jen and Jeff and your grandchildren, Ruby, Abigail, George, Bennie and Judah, will live through times we cannot comprehend today.
May blessings of every kind endow your and their paths.
For those who don’t know him, Richard was the first child of my late wife, B, and myself. He has built his life around being a Minister in the United Reform Church. Now retired from running a Parish day to day he is still super active with attending to the spiritual and physical needs of many who come to him for help from all corners of the globe. In what I laughingly call his spare time he works closely with his engineering son, Tim, whose Glasgow business is at the forefront of today’s lifting technology.
Richard is also a ‘clockaholic’. Mindful that our ancestors built innovative and beautiful clocks in London between 1740-1790, Richard and his brothers have collected some of them as they came on the market and restored those that needed bringing back from the parlour park. That was before the period of tailoring. Richard and his siblings are all Merchant Tailors to remind us of that period, too.
But if you were to ask RIchard what he had achieved in life he would probably say that he had tried to be a helping hand to those he found at a crossroads. I can’t vouch for this as I have not shown him today’s Daily Paradox, because if I did I am certain he would ask me not to publish it.
Well, there it is, old boy. You’re catching me up. I hope you will have many years ahead and see the immortality which is now within our grasp.
All your family will be wishing you a Happy Birthday today.
This particular wish comes to you with love from Eliza and your Dad and Gina
and, of course, from the spirit of B, your devoted and tireless mother
from wherever she is smiling down on us all.
XXXXXXX
Good morning
John Bittleston
18 January 2026
