ANOTHER SAD DEPARTURE

As you get older, you become increasingly aware of your own mortality and this has led me in recent years to scan the obituary column in our local paper - the Kent Messenger - each week. I work on the prinicple that if my name isn`t in there, then I know I can carry on for another week at least.

So I take a kind of morbid interest in reports of more well known people who pass away and today I see that Mary Travers has died at the age of 72 (just two years older than me) from the side effects of chemotherapy that led to leukaemia.

The younger among you will be forgiven for never having heard of her, but Mary was the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary - one of the leading folk groups in the 60s and 70s with chart toppers like `Leaving on a Jet Plane,` `Blowin` in the Wind` and the unforgettable `Puff the Magic Dragon.`

But the real reason for me to remember Mary was that there was a story about the trio when they were on a long distance train across America. They sat down alongside a nun and thought that, as they were going to be together for a long time, they should get to know one another. Peter started the introductions:-

"Hi, my name`s Peter...but I`m no saint."

"I`m Paul," said Paul, "but I`m no prophet."

"My name`s Mary," said Mary...."and I don`t know what the hell to say."

Where, indeed, have all the flowers gone?