I dragged my lovely hubby to the flicks last night, I am getting him in training for his retirement in 18months time.

He has not in his life time acquired the cinema going habit that I have and the training to say the least is difficult, none the less I pick the films carefully and so far he has not left half way through but he has yet to buy a bag of popcorn.

Our film last night was Invictus directed by Clint Eastwood with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

It would not have been my first choice but I read a bit about it and thought this might be suitable training.

I am not really a Rugby fan although I do watch the occasional England match, I have been to South Africa twice and hated it both times, so from my persecutive it was not a good choice.

I cannot begin to tell you how it held my attention, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

It filled me with emotion and and made me realise what a difference it can make when someone or

something inspires not just one person but a whole nation.

The poem was an inspiration the Nelson Mandela he had it written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell.

Invictus is a poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley who was born in 1849 and died in 1903 at the age of 53

At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amutated directly below the knee. It was amputated at the age of 25. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. Despite his

disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death.

Like all films there was poetic license, but the fact remains Mandela

inspired his people and his nation, and when I read the poem it inspired me.

Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley It proved to be a good choice for my lovely hubby and myself. Blossom