Stories Volume 10
Barrie Mackwell - Armley Industrial Mills - #220
I’ve been working at Armley Mills Industrial Museum twenty two years.
One evening, May 2007, at about quarter to five in the afternoon I was going around with the keys to close up. A couple were coming towards me, an old lady and a young chap, tall. They didn’t make eye contact, but looked beyond me and I thought that’s strange! At that time of night any visitors going round would say “is this the way out?”, or “I am going the right way?” but they said nothing. The chap made a brushing movement with his hand against his temple, as if brushing away fibres from the machine. They pass me and go round to the door by the shop. I go downstairs and ask “Who’s that couple that are in Colin?” And he says “what couple?” I tell him I’ve just seen a couple on the top floor and he says nobody’s been in for the last hour.
I continue locking up and then meet my boss and four other colleagues. “Has that couple gone?” I ask. No one’s been in for an hour, they answer. “Come on, stop playing tricks!” I say, but they all swear there have been no visitors that last hour.
Then one of them asks “What were they like?”
And that’s when it hit me. There was a little old lady, who came up to my chest and a young chap, about 6ft 2. He had a frock coat, waistcoat, winkle picker shoes. All in black. The woman, she had a bodice style jacket and dress on, also black. And she was wearing a cameo on her chest. I started sweating; I nearly fell to the floor.
When I go home my wife asks if I’m alright, says I look as if I’ve seen a ghost. I say “I have!” I tell her what I saw and she makes me a cup of tea and puts the bath on. I get in the bath and settle down.
Within a month my wife had died, within a month of my seeing this.
Michael Hassell - Brothers In Arms - #221
This is the story of John and Samuel Wark, two of my Grandmother’s brothers, my great-uncles.
In 1892 my great-grandfather, Matthew Wark moved the family from Londonderry to West Yorkshire. Why? I don’t know. It could have been because Matthew, a Protestant, had married Biddy Mullen, a Catholic in 1888. In the late 19th century. Londonderry had a Unionist majority, but there was much political activity at this time, in Ireland and in the British Parliament, and Matthew may have decided to move his family to England. Or it could simply have been a move to find work, and a better future for all of them. Matthew’s brother, James Wark and his family moved with them. The two families had worked on the farms back in Ireland, but came to the mining areas of West Yorkshire. However, the 1901 Census shows Matthew working as a General Farm Labourer, and James as an Agricultural Labourer, Cattle and Horses.
John was born in September, 1891 in Ireland, and my Grandmother was born in England in January,1893, so we can feel sure they moved in 1892. Another girl was born in 1895, and Sam was born in 1898. Altogether there were 9 children. John was the oldest male, and Sam was six years his junior, but we know Sam looked up to his older brother.
The 1911 Census shows both Matthew and James, still on the farms, but John, now aged 20, and Sam, only 13, were both working as Colliery Labourers
1914 brings WW1, and John now 23, and Sam, just 16 enlist. They join the West Yorkshire Regiment. We know they joined at the same time because they have consecutive army numbers; Sam is 16978, and John 16979. As these Regiments get depleted by the large number of casualties, troops are moved.
At some point John and Sam are moved to the King’s Regiment (Liverpool), but again they have consecutive numbers. Sam is now 49831, and John is 49832. They are in the same Battalion, but Sam is in ‘A’ Company, and John is in ‘D’ Company. There is probably a good reason or this.
There is a book, THE HISTORY OF THE KING’S REGIMENT (LIVERPOOL).
Chapter 33 tells of the days before and the days of the 3rd Battle of Ypres 1917. The Battle of Pilckem Ridge, 31 July – 2 Aug 1917 was the opening attack of the Battle. At the end of the Chapter is a list of Casualties from that conflict. Amongst the names are John and Sam.
Samuel died on the 24th July, 1917—John on the 31st July—just 7 days later. They were listed as ‘missing presumed killed’. Like many other soldiers their bodies were never recovered, but they are remembered in perpetuity on the Wall of Remembrance at the Menin Gate in the town of Ypres.
Their cousin James, son of James Wark, also died in WW1. He died of his wounds in April 1917 following the Battle of Arras. However, he does have a marked grave. Even so, 1917 was a tragic year for both families.
Kath Pengilley - Yscol Pantglas Aberfan - #222
I wasn’t quite four
When the BBC showed
Gritty, grey images, of stark faced men,
Digging through the floodlit night
Of apron clad women being led from school gates.
I didn’t understand why the tears
Were pouring down the reporter’s my mam’s and my gran’s faces,
Or how the black mountain flooded the school
Wiping out a village generation
I don’t remember telling my mam
They need Thunderbirds there
Or her response
I understand fifty years on
How five fateful minutes
Made Ysgol Pantglas Aberfan
The three saddest words to a Welshman
John Poulter - Copenhagen - #223
I ride into the centre of Copenhagen at about one in the morning. It’s the summer of 96. I manage to find the street my friends live on. Norbrogade. It’s a surprise visit.
There’s scaffolding and sheets of plastic covering one of the old apartment blocks that line the street. I bet that’s their place. It is. Bollocks. I park the bike and enter a bar. A few blokes scattered around. Drinking. On the jukebox ‘Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?’ Wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen eh? It’s a proper drinkers’ pub. Basic.
I ask the barmaid if the building’s occupants will have moved out. Oh yes. For a few months whilst the place is renovated. I go out to a nearby phonebox and call their number. Answerphone message. In Danish. I go back in and ask her if she could call the number and tell me what the message says. She obliges. We can’t get to the phone right now so leave a message. Of course.
There is a free city map on the bar and it shows the location of hostels. She starts to show me it then introduces me to a new arrival, her brother. His English is much better than hers. He will help me. She says in perfect English.
He has been to the fish market to get fish for their father. He starts to show me where the hostels are on the map. I ask him if he minds if we sit down. I’m knackered. We sit.
I explain that I have ridden from Poland. Over a thousand kilometres. Wow! Why did you travel so far in one day? Well I was going to stop in Germany but got pissed off with the place [in the process of trying to make a phone call] so decided I was just going to push on to Denmark. He laughs. Oh this is a story you can tell to any Dane about the big brother to the south and they will enjoy it!
He asks me about my travels. I tell him about heading off three weeks ago from Leeds to go to a conference in Helsinki. Via Denmark, Oslo and the Western Fjords of Norway up to Trondheim then across to Sundsvall in Sweden before riding down to catch the ferry in Stockholm. How after the conference I had headed into Finland before crossing to Estonia then riding down through Latvia and Lithuania before crossing Poland and, today, Germany. A tour of the Baltic. We laugh while we talk. He susses me out. Weighs me up.
He folds up the map. Forget a hostel. You will stay with me and my girlfriend. We live 20 metres from here. Are you sure?! Yes.
I give him a few minutes to go up and clear this with her… They pull a small mattress out into the hallway of their tiny flat. Before I collapse onto it we sit up till four chatting and polishing off my Polish vodka to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd.
The next day he is working but his girlfriend gives me a bicycle tour of the city. I have left a message with my friends to ring the flat but no word yet. That evening my hosts apologise to me for not being able to invite me to their friend’s birthday party as it will be a sit-down meal. No problem. I will enjoy just watching telly after nearly a month on the road. They go out. I wash up, watch a bit of telly then crash on my mattress. I am awoken by their jubilant, drunken voices in the early hours. John!! You are here!! Our friends told us we were mad. That when we came home you would be gone and so would our television! But we said no. We think he will be there and he may even have done the washing up. And you are here! And you have done the washing up!!
I stay with them for five nights before my friends finally get in touch and invite me to stay. Lovely people. People are lovely.
Bernice Hardy - My Life - #224
I spend time knitting squares which get made into blankets for the St Vincent de Paul Society in Leeds. I enjoy feeding the wild birds and the pigeons in my garden. I’ve had a very interesting life really!
I was born in 1930 to Jessie and Fred Clarke and we lived in Scholes, which was a small village then. The houses were surrounded by fields and I think rhubarb was growing at that time.
I went to the local school and one thing that sticks out in my mind is that during the war there were evacuees from Cross Gates who came to stay in the village. This meant I only went to school for half the time with the other children going the other half.
My Christian life was very important and Oxford Place Methodist Chapel which we called ‘OP’ was a special place with lots of happy memories.
We were quite well off, as my Dad had a good job and we were one of few families to have a car. Sadly, my Dad died of heart failure, whilst driving through Kippax on his way to work in Castleford.
My Mum remarried when I was 10 giving me not only a new Dad, but two new brothers and a sister.
I left school at 14 and went to work on the telephone switchboard at the Utilus Clothing Company. I used to try their coats on.
I went to a night school to learn touch-typing and later moved to work for the London and Lancashire Insurance Company in East Parade. I used to cycle to work each day and when it was foggy cars followed close behind me as I guided them on the road.
I loved to sing and I joined the choir at Oxford Place where we sang oratorios including Handel’s Judas Maccabeus and The Messiah. I still have the music and I hope someone will want the books when I’ve gone.
I married my first husband Walter in 1954, though I wasn’t his first choice as his fiancée had fallen ill and died. We had four children, two boys and two girls, but Walter was poorly and died. Then my youngest son Christopher, who was born with spina bifida, also died. I worked for a while at the special school that he attended. It was a very difficult time for me but I had to learn to be adaptable. I was lucky to marry again in 1968 to my second husband Harry. He had been recently widowed and we moved to live with him and his only son.
Our children all got married and I have grandchildren and great–grandchildren too.
My husband Harry died quite a few years ago so again I had to adapt. I think that is a gift I have been given, to be adaptable.
Debbie Spirrett - Highlight of the Holiday - #225
During a recent holiday to Totnes, Devon, me and my partner were walking past a church one evening when we heard music coming from inside. We went in and saw an orchestra playing, so we watched, spellbound, from the back of the room. A couple of the musicians saw us and beckoned us to come fully into the room and sit down. For about half an hour we listened to this wonderful orchestra playing a Beethoven symphony.
When they had finished a few of the musicians came up to us and told us that they were the Torbay Symphony Orchestra at their weekly rehearsal. We told them how wonderful the music was and thanked them for letting us sit in and listen to them. They were overjoyed that we had come in! A short while later a group of them came into the pub we had gone to, saw us and joined us for a drink. We ended up having a really enjoyable evening and it was definitely a highlight of the holiday.
Lesley Roebuck - Miscarriage - #226
In the early 70’s, after having completed a two year pre–nursing course at Thomas Danby college, I was accepted at Leeds General Infirmary to train as a state registered nurse. I had a boyfriend at this time and things were becoming quite serious between us. I had begun to suspect I may be pregnant and had discussed this with him.
One particular day I had been really busy and was looking forward to having my lunch break. Sadly, that lunchtime, I had a miscarriage. I was rushed away to be examined then put in a private room out of sight. The following day I had to have an operation, as not all of the baby had come away. A few days later I was sent home.
I had to report back six weeks later to see the matron. I thought she would tell me when I could return to my nursing, but instead she sacked me because my boyfriend and I weren’t married.
Roy Norcliffe - David - #227
Decades ago, as a Head of Year, a file came across my desk concerning a young man I will refer to as ‘David’. He was slightly deaf, had a speech impediment, and some eyesight difficulties. Social Services wanted to move David from special school into mainstream education. His file told me that David had seen the deaths of both his parents, both his step parents and witnessed his sister fall down their cellar steps, miscarrying her baby in front of him. The more I read, the more my soul reached out to this 13 year old.
On meeting, he was a red–haired young man of fiery disposition. We struck up a genuine rapport but after an uneasy start, came complaints of rudeness, swearing at staff, temper tantrums, anti-social behaviour and worse. What could be done? I was determined to keep him.
Supportive colleagues, perhaps believing in me as well as David, embraced my suggested plan that he work alongside them. These days it’s entitled flexible learning. In the 1970s it was simply common sense! So a special timetable was created for David. Drama and English with me, Art, Rural Science and Sport. He ran well! All other troublesome subjects, and teachers, were jettisoned.
He had a preference for drama. Creative improvisations became his world, and his progression in confidence, social integration and most significantly an awareness of others was truly outstanding. His fellow students loved him to bits.
He had some lines in a school production of ‘ Oh What a Lovely War’. A line beginning with the letter ‘S’ became a problem for him in rehearsals and prompted his stutter. Come first night his fellow actors were told not to let him suffer but to jump straight in and keep up the continuation of the play. Imagine the complete astonishment of all when ‘Sergeant’ rang out crystal clear. Everyone on stage was stopped in their tracks.
He developed in to a splendid young man and became a frequent visitor to my home until life sadly and inevitably drew us apart. I don’t know what life has held for that astonishing young man, or where he is. He simply drifted out of my life. Maybe that’s how he planned it?
Peter Bartram - The Blackpool Snapshot - #228
My mother and me, we were my father’s second family. The first family, another mother and another son, had both died, and throughout my childhood that was all I knew. The subject of the first family was totally taboo, never to be mentioned. My father’s mental wellbeing was always fragile, and any accidental reminder would leave him visibly distressed. So the first family was shrouded in mystery, and for me a subject of idle curiosity.
It must have crossed my mind at some point that, had he lived, the first son would have been my elder brother, strictly speaking a half-brother, but still a brother. As an only child, I would have liked that.
Like most families in those far-off days, the 1950s, we possessed a photograph album. It was always kept in a cupboard on the landing at the top of the stairs, along with the Christmas decorations, a battered stringless banjo, and other assorted paraphernalia. The album consisted mostly of black and white holiday snapshots, a holiday always in August, always in Blackpool, and always in the same boarding house, Miss Lee’s. This eccentric establishment had an air of old-fashioned, pre-war, respectable gentility, frayed at the edges. With hindsight, I think my father, from a mining background, probably hated it, but my mother, with her dreams of polite society and afternoon tea at the Savoy, not to mention a week’s respite from her endless chores, thought she was in heaven.
By the time I was eleven or twelve, one particular snapshot in the album began to intrigue and fascinate me. My parents are sitting on a low wall on the seafront, my mother, in the centre, just about managing a smile, my father, on the left, scowling in a scruffy tweed jacket. I stand squirming in front of my mother, pushing back against her knees. I might be four or five. The most relaxed member of the group is a good-looking young man in his twenties, sitting next to my mother on the right of the photo , smiling cheerfully at the camera, and looking for all the world like a happy member of the family. I had decided, on the evidence of this Blackpool snapshot, that this young man must be my brother. The fact that I had absolutely no memory of him didn’t matter.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. I even began to imagine that I could remember playing football with him in the back garden. However, at some point in my late teens, I decided that I needed to settle the matter, to know one way or the other. I decided to ask my auntie, my mother’s younger sister, who was sure to have known him, and was marginally less unpredictable than her elder sister. I often went to their house, so one day I took the photo with me, showed it to her, and asked, “Is this my brother?” She barely glanced at the photo before she said “Oh no. That’s not him”. There was a tone of emphatic finality about it, an unspoken but unmistakeable message that this matter was not to be mentioned again.
In my late twenties I paid my parents a short visit from wherever I was living at the time. By then, my father was in his seventies, his health failing, and his paranoia giving cause for concern. For some reason I felt the need to look at the photo album and that Blackpool snapshot, maybe for the last time. I went upstairs and opened the cupboard on the landing. I couldn’t find the album. I rummaged through the Christmas decorations and the assortment of discarded debris, but it definitely wasn’t there. I asked my mother where it was. Of course she didn’t know, hadn’t seen it. I couldn’t bring myself to ask my father. The album, and the snapshot, were never seen again.
Of course with the arrival of the internet and ancestry websites, I was able to find some answers. My brother had died in 1943 , the year before I was born. My auntie had been right.
It might sound like a contradiction at the end of this story, but I try not to look back or think about the past, at least not intentionally. Sometimes my mind will take me there, despite my best efforts not to let it. But I’m not into nostalgia, regret or sentiment. The past is the past and it can’t be changed. I do my best to live in the present and look forward with optimism to the future, and whatever that might bring.
Jenny Tuite - Life Saver - #229
When my husband died in January I was devastated. It was made twice as bad by the pandemic, because I couldn’t be with him when he died. I lost two stone in weight and felt that I was getting ready to go and join him in his little patch of earth out in Otley.
I knew I had to do something but I didn’t know what to do – so I joined the slimming club. The first week that I went, I said, “I’ve just lost two stone and I’m not eating but I can’t go on like this, so I’ve joined because I want you to teach me how to eat.”
The second week I had maintained weight, but gradually things slowed down until I was losing weight the right way. What I gained were the friendships with these women. At the beginning I was sitting with a big black cloud over my head. And now, ten months later, these people mean so much to me in my life, that I’m still continuing to go. It was the saving of me.
Jojo - The Bath Mishap - #230
Way back in the 1970s baths had a much slope-ier back than they do now. My brother, who was 5 years younger than me, used to like watching me slide up and down it after our bath water had drained out. He giggled so much; it only encouraged me to keep going.
My mum was the big meany who told me to stop doing it as it was dangerous (and this was way before any health and safety laws really existed!) Anyway, this was a normal Sunday evening bath, water all drained out and I am happily sliding down and back up the sloped end. Unfortunately, I miscalculated this one time and I didn’t slide, instead I bumped down.
Not the worst experience you might think and this would usually have been true, but in this occasion my teeth took a chunk out of my top lip. Well, not wanting to get into trouble my first thought was to exit the bath however I could. I cried for my mum when I saw blood. I did not tell her anything like the whole truth. For over 35 years she thought that I slipped getting out of the bath. I still got a clip around the ear when I finally admitted what had really happened. Sadly, I live in a house with only a shower now!
Ann Clarke - The Man From The Pru - #231
When I was young my parents didn’t have bank accounts. They both got their weekly wages in cash and always knew exactly how much money they had (or didn’t have) to spend. When the wage packets were opened a suitable number of coins were put into the separate sections of a tin box, designed specially to pay the various bills for rent, gas, electricity etc when due. My mother was a great believer in life insurance and ‘the man from the Pru’ would call in person to our house in Seacroft to collect the payments.
On one occasion he came through our front door looking as white as a sheet. While I made him a cup of tea (my mother offered him whisky which he refused) he told us what had happened. He had just come from his last customer, an elderly couple who lived just down the road. The man invited him in and immediately asked how he should go about claiming for his wife’s death. Thinking this would be about routine paperwork, the insurance man’s first question was, “And when did your wife die?” The old man nodded his head across the room and there on the floor, protruding from behind the sofa, were the feet and lower legs of a woman’s body. She had dropped dead only hours before and the poor man didn’t know what to do.
Recounting this now it seems so extraordinary that I wonder – did it really happen or was this just a story told to me, an urban myth perhaps?
Memories are tricky, always newly made and inevitably reinforced over time. But in my mind it remains real and has stayed with me ever since.
My mother later sold our upright piano to the insurance man and that was the end of any music in the house.
Roger Harington - The Bike - #232
The Bike
I’m 32. I don’t have a bike.
I’m not intending to buy a bike.
I see a film called “Breaking Away.”
It’s about a boy who lives for his bike,
The joy of a boy in the life on a bike
The very next day I buy a bike.
On a bike to work, on a bike around Leeds.
My son on the bike to take him to Nursery
My wife on a bike is taking our daughter
On our bikes from the campsite to get to the sea.
Loving one rides leads to another
Leads to another that’s steadily longer
Wharfedale, Nidderdale, Wensleydale, and Swaledale
But the Tour de France, says a friend
Do I watch the Tour de France?
Who is this in the mist on the mountain?
It can’t be, it is, it’s Stephen Roche!
He wins the Tour. What a race!
What an event! Vive le Tour!
I must have a go at a mountain myself.
It’s too hot it’s too steep it’s too far I’m so slow
Still 10k to go yes I’m loving the challenge but why can’t it stop?
I can stop I can stop I keep peddling I can stop I don’t stop
I won’t ever get there I’ve got there I’ve made it I’ve made it.
The bike has brought me this beer and this view
Of the mountains embracing the sky at the top.
I go down I take off I am starting to fly
But I break by the bend and then break again
I’m too chicken to fly I’m just fluttering down
But I’m not a Pro I’m a tourist and I can’t wait to try this again.
On a bike in the Alps and the Pyrenees
On a bike in the Picos and Sierra Nevada
On a bike in the Dolomites, Apennines, Cevennes
On a bike by the fjord, the Rhine, and the Volga
On a bike by the Nile and a bike that punctures
And thorns kept puncturing by Kilamanjaro
On a bike in the sun and the rain and the wind
Sweating and soaking and shattered and when can I do it again?
I’m 52. Campaign to cancel the debt of developing countries
G8 leaders are meeting in Birmingham. Get to the Demo by bike.
They meet in Cologne we get there by bike.
They meet in Okinawa, we get there by…you what?
Fly to Washington and just keep riding west.
Here come the rivers, the Potomac, Missouri and Rio Grande
And here come the mountains, Appalachians and Rockies.
And here are the plains with roads that don’t end
And here is Indiana where “Breaking Away” is set
And here is our host who was in the movie
All these places we’ve been to and people we’ve met
All because of that film and here we are where the film was made
And here is the sun getting hotter and hotter till here is the desert
Where the son I once took on the back of the bike’s now leading his Dad
We do 113 miles in 120 degree heat I’m no longer solid I melt
But here’s the Pacific the bike’s been the way to cross the USA
And here we are on the 4th July in the Hollywood Bowl in LA
Then fly to Japan and its “mishi atsui” its hot and sticky and mostly raining
By bike from Fukuoka to Kumamoto to Kagoshima
No I don’t believe it either but here is the boat for the Demo in Okinawa.
And campaigning continues by bike across France
Over the Alps to Genova, over the Rockies to Calgary
London to Edinburgh’s not very far so we go via Kenya and Tanzania.
And finish campaigning in the oh so flat bug-filled forests of Latvia and Estonia.
Thanks to the Bike shops advising on bikes
Selling bikes and mending bikes
Thanks to Caygills, Drakes and the Edinburgh Co-op
Put bikes on a ferry for Arran, Jura, Islay, Orkney and Mull
Put bikes on a ferry for Lewis, Harris, Uist and Skye
Then push the bike through snow at Pitlochry
Put the bike on the train then the bike on a boat for Sardinia, Corsica,
Put a bike on a train to the Cotswolds
And here is the bike by the River Jordan and the sea of Galilee
And the bike’s drinking Guinness on the west coast of Ireland,
The bike’s by the pub with the fiddles and flutes on the Wild Atlantic way
From Berwick on Tweed down the coast and across to Hadrian’s wall
Then Teesdale Dentdale and here I am back in Swaledale
But why are all these motorbikes here
So many police on motor bikes here and all these promo vehicles
So many cyclists going so fast yes here they come it’s the Tour de France in Swaledale
The tour de France is passing the Farmers Arms and the Black Bull
I’m watching them ride over Grinton Moor and the next day
Here’s the official car at the head of the race and here I am in the car
From York to Sheffield I’m in the car at the head of the race
In a car at the head of the Tour de France
Too many things that couldn’t possibly happen are happening
And here I am translating for Bernard Hinault
And here I am on the Champs Elysees I’m watching the finish of the Tour de France
I didn’t have a bike.
Because of a film I bought a bike
Because of the bike I watched the Tour de France and went to the mountains
Because of the bike I went to so many places.
Because of the bike I met so many people
Because of the bike I made such very good friends.
And because of the bike the joy on a bike of a journey with those I love.
I’m now 72. My wife and I still go on holiday by bike.
An electric bike but it’s still a bike.
So, if I’d never seen that film…
Rosemerry Venet - Family Holidays - #233
There were always cars in my family, even when I was a child. I remember my father loved driving, and well into his seventies his Sunday mornings were spent in the drive, washing and polishing his pride and joy. In fact, in the nineteen fifties, when I was quite small, I can remember summer holidays spent driving to France and Italy, four adults and four children squashed into a car, always driven by my father, with the luggage tied on to the roof rack. There was Mum, Dad and my brother and me, and my Mum’s sister, Auntie Corinne, with her husband, Uncle Stanley, and their two children, who were a little older than us, though we got on well with them, as we still do today.
I don’t remember us ever coming to any harm, and the four of us children used to sit on little stools in the back facing the traffic, accompanied by a two-ring stove, or a primus stove, pans, a kettle and a potty. It was a great adventure, particularly when we got across the channel and drove through France. We generally booked our final destination but en route we took pot luck. I remember more than one place we stopped at where there wasn’t enough room for all of us and the men had to sleep in the car. And another where Uncle Stanley slipped into a nearby field to pick some corn for us to eat on the cob. They were great holidays. There was one year when we must have been short of money because we had booked into the Norbreck in Blackpool, but on the day we were due to go it was pouring with rain and Mum announced that she wasn’t going to go. Dad sat us children down – there were three of us by that time – and asked if we were willing to pool our savings and drive to Italy, always our favourite destination. Democracy in action. Not that we hesitated for long. We stayed in a brilliant motel north of Rome and spent a lot of time playing in their outdoor pool. What happy memories.
Harry Venet - War Stories - #234
Have you noticed how difficult it is to tease war stories out of those who took part in World War Two? I have a friend whose father spent most of the war building railway lines at the behest of the Japanese. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Those of us of a certain age, remembering The Bridge On The River Kwai, or King Rat, were keen, when we were young, to get the true experiences of those who had suffered, but when we asked, all we got was “you don’t want to know”. They clearly weren’t willing to tell their stories.
My Dad was the same, and he didn’t go anywhere near the far east. He was in the Royal Artillery, crossing the Channel on D Day plus 3, and fought his way across to Schleswig Holstein, near the German/Danish border. He was wounded twice, once by shrapnel within an inch of his life, but he never told of his wartime experiences. The only things I ever got out of him were that he often slept by a heavy gun, which must have been quite an experience, and he was stationed in Nijmegen during the battle of Arnhem but was never called on to join the fight. He ended the war as a saxophonist with the Regimental dance band, which was his happiest contribution to the war effort.
Bluebell - ARRANGED - #235
Always knew I would be presented with you/husband
Relatives came forward with suggestions
Red was my traditional wedding outfit
And we had our ceremony at the Temple
Now my new life began with you
Gone was my previous existence
Ended up being beaten
Dared to run away and start anew
Tamara McLorg - The Garden - #236
and the child said…..
Let me take you to
the garden
of no fences, pickets
or walls
Where flowers grow themselves
and trees help us breathe
Away from governments that are
covered with lies and greed
Let’s destroy all walls
across the lands
so we can join in clasping
of our hands
and the child whispered…..
I’ll show you
gardens of enchantments
where bubbles float through
the air
away from this land of despair
Where poverty is abolished
and all have a home
no more borders but
freedom to roam
No barbed wire or
electric fences
where roses, lavender
and pine
belong to all men
and the child cried……
Let me take you
Where all the gods have run away
with the persecutors and abusers
Away from the pitiful cries
of starving children
and grieving wives
No separated families
divided by a fence
no broken men in
camps so dense
and the child said…..
I will take you
To hear the crumbling of
walls
as they fall
To a garden of magical
delights
where
andelions make wishes come true
umbrellas fly through the sky
zebras roam free
stars shine bright
bees dance in hives
slugs are beautiful
oceans are clear
and
children can fly
Let all walls dissolve
and turn into sand
so we can move forward
and walk
hand in hand
Marcia Wright - Sitooterie - #237
I’d never seen the word “sitooterie” before but I realised what it meant when I heard it said aloud.
It’s an essential part of any garden isn’t it.
Somewhere to sit and have a chat with a friend or just somewhere to sit and let the world go by.
David Hamilton - A Simple Idea - #238
I woke up one morning and an idea popped into my head. “Start a dance company”.
Hence Phoenix was born.
40 years later I look on with satisfaction and joy – the pleasure, what more can you ask for?!
Sally Owen - Lifetime Disappointment - #239
The compound of the bungalow in Abeokuta was pretty dull, mostly grass and a few pineapples growing here and there. It was, though, full of insects and reptiles.
Lizards, toads, tree frogs, chameleons, cigar–sized millipedes, praying mantis and butterflies. The house walls were covered in Geckos that appeared at night to eat the insects attracted to the wall lights.