Poems: Reflecting the Truth—Volume One

Ernie Hasler started working as an apprentice engineer with the Ministry of Defense at Royal Ordnance in Bishopton, Scotland at the youthful age of 16. He retired as a health and safety advisor after more than a half century of work on some big jobs, also becoming the first advisor in Scotland to gain the specialist NEBOSH diploma in environmental management. Hasler became active in the trade union early in his career, and saw many improvements in health and safety during his time. These improvements stemmed from the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, which led to slow but significant improvement in worker welfare. In his spare time, he ran a small charity Plant Tree Save Planet starting women’s tree nurseries in poor countries, mostly funded by himself and his two sisters, however, he closed it when due to poor health and age he could not effectively check out recipients. He continues to fund tree planting through Trees for the Future and in 2016 funded the planting of 20,400 seedlings and continues to do so, year on year. He has been a voluntary trustee with Emmaus Glasgow for twenty-one year’s helping take it from an aspirational concept to a functioning community of up to twenty-seven previously homeless people, Emmaus Glasgow now also match his tree planting funding. 75 years of experience has taught him that supporting people with needs on positive pathways is much more productive than punitive sanctions. Photo of Hasler steering friends boat past the lair of the nuclear monster’s base on the River Clyde. A far better policy would be to dig strong defensive positions all over the Highlands and make Scotland hard to invade.