This my only photo of Uncle Russell and my Mum.

I was 6 in 1960 when my Uncle Russell kindly held my hand and took me down his garden to show me his bees and tend his hives. For 5 more years he made me feel so proud of myself, handling frames of bees and extracting honey and he took equal pride with his gift of my own jar of liquid gold to take home.

Uncle Russell passed away when I was 11 and it was only many years later Mum told me he never spoke, never uttered a word, he was gassed in the trenches in the war. The government gave Russell and thousands of other broken spirited ex servicemen bee hives to discover for themselves a mysterious sense of peace and an appreciation of the democratic superorganism and united world of bees to calmly relieve their traumatised minds.

I promised myself to take up beekeeping when I retired and I did, 7 years ago. In my solitude and wonderment at the apiary I often think fondly of my beautiful Uncle Russell, and I cannot recall a single sting..