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Pearls are mentioned nine times in the Bible and are symbolic of something precious and valuable. The most famous example of this, and which remains in common parlance, is heaven’s ‘pearly gates’:

Revelation 21:21: And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

Richard de Bold was my 24x great-grandfather, who died in 1211. He was lord of the manor of Bold which is in old Lancashire but present-day Merseyside. Bold is an odd word for a place and a surname. The Bold Parish Council’s site cheerfully offers the following explanation:

Rhododendron kiusianum, the Kyushu azalea is a striking flower. The Kyushu region of Japan includes the city of Nagasaki, the infamous recipient of Bockscar’s ‘Fat Man’, the atomic bomb which forced an end to the War in the pacific in 1945. It seems strange that so beautiful a flower should be associated with a place known for its appalling devastation and destruction.

Atheist: "If God made everything, then who made God? Hmmm?"

Christian: "If the Cook cooked the burger, then who cooked the Cook? Hmmm?"