Keep Smiling Be Happy

Today has been a happy day I reckon, having had the car serviced and passing its MOT without anything needing done.

Also, picked up Martin’s prescription from Boots, before going to the library to register for my free bus pass, which, I can start using in a couple of weeks when I turn 60.

In search of a blip, I popped down to Haddington, where I found this plaque for Samuel Smiles, who I had never heard of, but was apparently, an early endorser of self help books.

Anyway, here’s some info about this happy man:

Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 – 16 April 1904) was a British author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he promoted the idea that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His primary work, Self Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire Government. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism’ and had lasting effects on British political thought.

Anyway, keep happy and as Charlie Chaplin would say, Smile.