Looking Back At New Year’s Eve Celebrations Of The Past

As I have grown older I keep thinking back to happier and more pleasant times. As it is New Year’s Eve I have been going through my blog to see what I was upto the past few years on this day. The last few years have been mostly spent at home with just my parents and sometimes my sister & niece will also join in. We eat a quiet dinner and maybe some ice cream or cake.

I remember a couple of New Year’s eve was spent with friends and those are very special to me. Also a couple of years, back in 2006 and 2007, my extended family and I have had parties in a home and those were some of my favourite moments of all time. They remind me of when were were much younger and had spent New Year’s eve parties in our grandmother’s house. All those years where as kids we were not allowed to go out in the area but instead would get some food by 7pm and play songs all night and wish each other happy new year over ice cream or cold drinks.

I remember 2003’s New Year. For some reason I was alone and waiting for a call back from the job I had applied to. I was upset about a couple of things and I was out in the town and by lunch, I was in a bar near my house and had some lunch and a couple of beers and tears were streaming down my eyes. But then I got a call from the HR manager of the job that I had applied to and he told me that I could join the next week. That put me in a great mood.

Another New Year’s eve, a few years earlier – I think it was 1998 or 1999 – I was at home and we were watching Titanic with my mom and my sister’s mother-in-law. I think it was 1999 as my sister had her second son born a couple of months before that and that would explain why she was there. It was a boring New Year’s eve. I am not remember any other memorable New Year’s eve.

RIP Tom Wilkinson

Tom Wilkinson, the Oscar-nominated British actor known for his roles in “The Full Monty,” “Michael Clayton” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” has died, his family said. He was 75. A statement shared by his agent on behalf of the family said Wilkinson died suddenly at home on Saturday. It didn’t provide further details. , he received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2005, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).Wilkinson was nominated for a best actor Academy Award for his work in 2001’s family drama “In The Bedroom” and in the best supporting actor category for his role in “Michael Clayton,” a 2007 legal thriller that starred George Clooney.

He is remembered by many in Britain and beyond for playing former steel mill foreman Gerald Cooper in the 1997 comedy “The Full Monty,” about a group of unemployed steel workers who formed an unlikely male stripping act. Wilkinson was born in Yorkshire in northern England in 1948 and spent part of his childhood in Canada. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1970s. He starred in dozens of other TV dramas and movies, from “Rush Hour” and “Batman Begins” to “Shakespeare in Love,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Valkyrie.”

He became known as a character actor, acting in numerous films such as In the Name of the Father (1993), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Patriot (2000), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Batman Begins (2005), Valkyrie (2008), The Ghost Writer (2010), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Belle (2013), Selma (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Denial (2016). He portrayed Carmine Falcone in Christopher Nolan’s superhero film Batman Begins (2005). He also acted in films such as the horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Julian Fellowes’ drama Separate Lies (2005), and Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream (2007).

Wilkinson lived in North London with his wife, actress Diana Hardcastle. They had two daughters together, Alice (born in 1989) and Molly (born in 1991). Wilkinson died suddenly at his home on 30 December 2023, at the age of 75.