‘One’ of my most treasured memories from my stay up North – was breakfast time with the Professor. I’d come down to a beautifully laid table – with hot toast in a rack, proper butter in a dish and homemade Marmalade – made by Yaffle himself – plus there was always a bowl of fresh blueberries to dip into over tea ‘n’ toast and conversation…

I wish I’d taken a few more videos of the Professor at the breakfast table but alas I didn’t have a phone in hand – in fact I don’t own a mobile phone so I had to rely on Tom’s device – and he wasn’t always up in time for the Breakfast-time Lechur!  And besides the toast would have gone stone cold!

I fondly remember breakfast on the day of my departure…I was treated to a ‘lecture’ with actions and voices – all about Napoleon Bonaparte over tea ‘n’ toast – and blueberries. By this time my cold had developed into full blown flu – and I can remember sitting at the Professor’s table – thinking I really should be capturing this but I just felt too ill – complete with raging temperature – and a five hour journey via rail ahead back to Devon; God my head hurt more at the very thought!  I shall ask Yaffle to retell ‘Napoleon’s Tale’ when next we meet – so that Tom can catch it on camera…  

If I was Director-General at the BBC – I’d give Yaffle his own series – perhaps called the ‘Breakfast Table Lectures’ – or ‘Lechurs’ —— Yaffle’s deliberate misspelling! I think my Aunt Sonia summed it up this morning when she emailed me and said “Thank you so much for the tale of such an endearing little mouse, so very sweet and told by The Professor in his mellifluous voice it comes alive again.  Mind you I think he could recite the alphabet and make it sound interesting! Such an erudite man – not stuffy at all and all the more engaging because of it.”  

Here is another treasured video of Professor Yaffle – this time it is “Origen’s Theory of the Universe’… 

PS I’d never heard of Origen let alone his theory before Saturday 20th. May 2017…