from Gibraltar to Broadway

Gibraltarians won't be familiar with his name but A! Alloy was a man with Gibraltar roots who was once nominated for a Tony, the most prestigious award in American theatre.

A1 Alloy was born Oscar Alloy in 1887 in New Orleans only a few months after his family had emigrated from Gibraltar. When he was 17 he ran away from home to join a brother who was living in Philadelphia and working as a theatre electrician. A1 entered the same trade and it soon became apparent that he had a particular talent with lighting effects. Electric light design was a new field at the time and A1 developed along with it becoming a leading practitioner. He would go on to do the lighting for more than two hundred productions during his Broadway career.

It was while working on the play Most Im mortal Lady that he met his future wife actress Barbara Grace. They were married on 27th November 1928 and had two children, one of whom,Anthony,also became a lighting designer for theatre productions.

A1 was known for his professionalism and creativity and was not concerned about public ity, in consequence his name is seldom seen on playbills. An exception is the Broadway hit musical Take Me Along for which he received the Tony nomination for 'stage technician' in 1960. He lost out to a carpenter for the play The potholes with grass up the middle and only three hours of daylight!

Miracle Worker.

Take Me Along is a musical based on the Eu gene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness and starred Walter Pidgeon, Eileen Herlie, Jackie Gleason, Una Merkel and Robert Morse. The 1959 pro duction was directed by Peter Gienville and the music and lyrics were by Bob Merrill. It opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on 22nd October, 1959 and closed on 17th December, 1960 after 448 performances. Take Me Along is a romantic comedy based in a small Cormecticut town in 1906. It was a serious challenge for Alloy's talents as he had to light 13 different scenes. In all Take Me Along received ten Tony nominations but the only winner was Jackie Gleason (a comedian best known for his smash television series the Honeymooners)for Best Ac tor in a Musical.

Although A1 worked mainly on Broadway he was also involved with the Festival of Music in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1960;during his spell there he designed the first'dancing waters' with lights. He also did the lighting for numerous Las Vegas shows.

Al Alloy retired to Florida and died there in 1976, aged 89.

Within each of us there are vari ous forces battling for control of the decision making process. Decision making is not a democracy. At best it is a presidency, taking counsel from learned advisers and at worst it is a self serving, impulsive and short sighted dictatorship.

The protagonists in this battle are morality, sobriety, altruism, thrift,consideration and experience (shouting from the back).

The antagonists are desire,greed, selfishness, lust, avarice and glut tony;only sloth is missing to make up the full set.

It is dependent on ones strength of character and personal resolve as to which traits join the select committee. Please don't misunder stand me, 1 am not rubbing shoul ders with the saints, my profession deals with the emotional processes, motivations and afterma^s of deci sions made or about to be made as well as clinical mental illnesses.

We all make decisions that seem to make perfect sense at the time or we have ignored the screaming stereophonic voices of conscience and experience to make.

Life has often been likened to a journey with an origin and a destination already mapped out for us in the stars or another cosmic force as prescribed by our personal belief system. However,to me, this journey is not like any normal trip. It irresistably moves forwards along our own personal timelines,and at the risk of sounding morbid, the origin is the cradle and the destination is the grave.

Remember, 1 am not trying to disprove your beliefs but for the purposes of this article I must ex plain some of mine, I don't believe there is a single,preplanned destiny for each of us but rather there are many possible destinies that result from the decisions and paths we have chosen. These choices are made in response to the "chal lenges" or indeed "opportunities" that life throws at us. One of the major problems is there arc no road maps, no Sat-Nav programs nor non-cryptic sign posts to guide us along the way.

There are various means by which we may receive counsel on moral,ethical or financial decisions but for life direction these decisions become hybrid and illusive. We receive advice from other people at different stages of their life jour ney but sometimes their choices and pathways were right for them at that point in their lives but they were responding to different stimuli in different times.

1 am not saying all advice is wrong or indeed right but it just adds to the confusion.

There are also all sorts of mi rages, snares and blind alleys for us to stumble into. Pro-determined structures are presented to us that are assured to result in more hap piness and contentment than our hearts can handle, but only if we stick to the plan.This system works for some people whose direction becomes straight, until life itself starts to play its unexpected event cards.

As I have said in previous articles we cannot control the great chal lenges life throws at us, natural disasters, infertility, disability, stock market crashes etc.but we do control our responses to them if our life direction choices dictate that we are affected by them.

The way is never clear and the journey is strewn with pitfalls, blind alleys and multiple choices.

If you think life is a six lane mo torway, forget it! It is a winding, narrow country track with high hedges,lots of side turnings,lots of

Another thorn in the side of decision making is fear. The fear of new things,the fear of failure or the derision of family and friends. For example relocating lock, stock and barrel to another country is seen by many as absolute, self indul gent insanity; whereas for others it provides new opportunities to expand and develop their vistas and experiences and to explore a miriad offuture possibilities. I'll let you guess which side of the fence I'm standing on.

Sometimes we make terrible mis takes. Mistakes that not only affect ourselves but also others around us. Trust is destroyed, respect is lost and pain is handed out in liberal measure. The mistake can be financial, career path, lifestyle choice, sexual or a hundred other areas of human involvement.

It is often said the biggest prizes come from taking the biggest risks but at what cost? Very often this justification is used to reduce time scales not the overall results and it is always worth checking which trait was in the decision making chair at the time.

Another adage to bear in mind is "Don't gamble unless you can afford to lose".

I am a great believer in conse quences, not "If you disagree with me you get a smack in the mouth" but real grown up consequences, the acceptance of responsibility. Before we do anything we should consider whether we are prepared and able to take the consequences if our decisions go wrong or indeed, right.

Your desire for a rocket ship rise to fame,status, adventure and for tune may not be a dream shared by your partner.Any exciting physical liaison becomes routine and do mestic when you move in together rather than excitedly meeting for forbidden sex twice per week. Communication is the key. Con stant, honest communication.

In some instances the mistake or mistakes are too serious and sometimes unforgiveable. The relationship, whether business or personal cannot survive and has to be dissolved.

Although the pain and anger is enormous we must endeavour to face it like adults and to make it as painless and as dignified as possible. This is not getting away with anything, the price still has to be paid emotionally as well as financially and the responsibility needs to be faced.

The termination of all types of relationships will also initiate the grieving process, this grief needs to be dealt with by all who have an emotional investment in the relationship, both business and personal.

The opposite of love is indif ference not hate. Hate is just as strong an emotion as love but is ultimately destructive especially if it is long term. Whatever pain you endeavour to inflict on the other party you also inflict on yourself and those around you with the bit terness, upset, rancour and forced loyalties.

Point scoring is pointless and if there are employees,other partners or children involved the effect on them and their trust mechanisms can be very far reaching.

At the end of the day, although you may feel justified, you have no right to inflict your pain and indignation onto other innocent parties. Accept that the relation ship is finished, cut your losses, take professional advice(legal and emotional), grieve properly for the loss of the relationship and start to rebuild for your future life.

There is far too much to do to be come embroiled in trench warfare.

You are not alone. Even in the midst of all of the emotional up heaval an experienced counsellor can help you through the grieving process and emotionally sup port you through the worst emo tional storms and deep emotional troughs.

Friends and family members can be very supportive at these times but they can also be biased — you might even want them to be biased but although they are well meaning this can sometimes add fuel to the fire of acrimony.

Only you know the intimacies of the broken trust and relation ship. The beauty of being a well meaning outsider is that you never have to face the consequences. It's a little like shouting advice to people fighting in the street from an upper storey window when the advertisements come on during Big

Brother. The adviser returns to.the programme not giving a second thought to the consequences of their advice.

If the people involved genuinely decide they are prepared to try to re pair the relationship the well mean ing advisers can wreck the whole fragile enterprise. Even when the reconciliation is begun they are not yet out of the woods.Very often the miscreant is watched like a hawk, transactions scrutinised, pockets rifled,e-mails read and missed calls examined.They are constantly and repeatedly tested for honesty and repentence.

The constant flow of reminders of the mistake and the pain caused do not allow the wounds to begin healing for all of the involved par ties. Punishment for the actions taken should be proportional to the offence and paid in full, a repentent person will not object to a fair penalty.

But then a line needs to be drawn under this very sad and very painfull part of your lives. Take time to tell each other,calmly,how you felt

Healthy Minds

and how you still feel. If there is any insincerity it will soon manifest itself and a more permanent deci sion can be made.

To make a reconciliation work there is no choice but to trust. This does not mean this becomes a repeat behaviour, more than twice with the same person means you need to reassess the situation.

Coping and healing strategies are available and they do work. Forgiveness is a huge and valuable gift to possess and a priceless gift to pass on to others hence it must be given with great care. Trust is also a gift of equal value and im portance and with time trust can be restored.

If we hang on to pain, mistrust and misery it becomes a comfort able friend and loneliness will be a permanent resident. Before long the same "mistake" or one similar will become a self fulfilling prophecy.

The loss of trust and the holding back of forgiveness signals the loss of hope. Whether your differences are unreconcilable or whether you really want to repair the damage, please don't get stuck in misery, mistrust and pain. Offer an olive branch to yourself or to others and perhaps when you have climbed out of the dark pit the sun will be shining and the only cloud will be Cloud 27.

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How To Lower Your Blood Pressure

A happy marriage is good for your blood pres sure, but a stressed one can be worse than being single, a study suggests.

Prior studies have shov\'n mar ried people tend to be healthier than singles, so the second result is a suprise to researchers.

Further studies are needed to as sess long-term health Implications, said Holf-Lunstad, an assistant psychology professor at Brigham Young University, who carried out the study.

The study involved 204 mar ried people and 99 single adults. Study volunteers wore devices that recorded their blood pressure at random times over 24 hours. Married participants also filled out questionnaires about their marriage.

Analysis found that the more marital satisfaction and adjust ment spouses reported, the lower their average blood pressure was over the 24 hours and during the daytime.

But spouses who scored low in marital satisfaction had higher average blood pressure than single people did. During the daytime, their average was about five points higher,entering a range that's con sidered a warning sign.

Contact Board

Hi

"1 think this is worth some at tention," said Karen Matthews, a professor of psychiatry, psychology and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. She studies heart disease and high blood pressure but didn't participate in the new work.

Few studies of the risk for high blood pressure have looked at mari tal quality rather than just marital status, she said.

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I do hope you can help me.My mother has been trying to track down a family friend, Mr Tony Casano,his wife is Flo and a son Darren,for the past three years to give them the sad news of my father's death, but as of yet we had no luck! My father is Trevor Thomson and I really feel I have to get in touch with them as they were really good friends. 1 would be very grateful for any help given. Thank you.

Miss Jennifer Thomson - jen@tighbeag.co.uk