Sunday Miscellany
Hello Raccoonistas. I have been away for a while. Some things have diverted me. But I could not let this weekend pass without a voice. 70 years since the end of the Second World War. I want to ponder that for a moment. In a way I was brought up with it very much in mind. My father in this present incarnation – still going strong at 92 – fought from Normandy to Germany, where eventually he was blown up, with the people around him killed, one sliced in two. His survival was a matter of luck, of how the shrapnel spread and where he was standing at the time. He never talks about it, but it was firmly inculcated in my mind, by what process I am not sure. Maybe it was comics like “The Victor” or the “Commando” books which did it. They were still standard stuff when I was growing up in the 70’s.
PTSD was not invented in those days, so my father, like many others came home to be told – thanks, job done. Cheerio, here is a cheap suit. And he just had to get on with it, which he did. But the echoes still remain. I kind of inherited it. He killed a young man his own age at point-blank range (outside a farmhouse in Normandy, actually) and still feels the guilt for the death, even though it was kill or be killed. He went through the man’s pockets afterwards. That was not glory hunting, it was orders – there could have been a map or a scrap of information. He found a set of rosary beads and photo of the man’s wife. My father is a strict Catholic. I am told my father told my mother – I felt I had killed myself. That guilt has echoed, indirectly, into my life. It just does. All that blood, effort, poverty, sacrifice. If I had a thousand pages, I could not do justice to it. In a war to defeat ideologies of supremacy, anti-science, cruelty, violence and vicious cruelty, the free nations of the world joined to face forces of extreme darkness. Thank God.
And what now, 70 years after? It is not long, in historical terms. Now, I don’t get political very often here. I am not sure of my “rightness” and I am not clever enough. But today I will. The word “betrayal” is a dangerous word – it has been used too often by people trying to exploit differences and promote hate. But, just for once I am going to get political. There are those who openly espouse the imposition of Sharia Law in this country. They say the Black Flag of Islam will fly over No. 10 Downing Street, and maybe it will, unless people get their act together. The world faces a Death Cult and the government deplete our armed forces. It seems powerless to control our borders from migrants, many of whom are probably decent people, but many of whom are probably not. The BBC toes the liberal line and refers endlessly to the “so called” Islamic State. Meanwhile, young men who have fought for this country in Afghanistan or Iraq sleep under bridges. This is a betrayal of those people who suffered, bled and died, is wicked. I truly despise The Establishment.
No way, Jose
Meanwhile, as a sort of football fan, I have been up in arms this week. Jose Mourinho, the “Special One”, has been in fine form of late, dismissing his club doctor and physio from the bench because they ran on the pitch and treated a player after the player fell over and seemed hurt and the ref invited them on. Like many, I am very keen on injured Chelsea players. I do like to see a Chelsea player fall over and roll about. This is not an anti-Chelsea thing, or a weird grudge. That is because the Chelsea club doctor who comes running on when one of the multi millionaire mercenaries falls over and breaks a nail or scrapes his knee is one Doctor Eva Carneiro. Doctor Carneiro is a very highly qualified medic and has played a big role in keeping Chelsea’s squad fit, and bringing home the silverware. However, Doctor Carneiro is also rather…well this is embarrassing… and not very “PC”….she is also…well, ahem…rather “hot”. Sorry for the everyday sexism, but as the saying goes, or used to go, she’s fit as a butcher’s dog, frankly.
The subtext to all the coverage surrounding Chelsea and Jose’s suspension of Doctor Carneiro this week is that it was all motivated by sexism. I think the sub text is that the interest is motivated by something much more unfashionable – chivalry. People (like me) don’t like to see a woman, and yes, particularly a very attractive woman, being hung out to dry for doing her job because the manager doesn’t want to take responsibility for what he or his Russian paymaster might regard as a poor result. I have often thought of Mourinho as an engaging character with charm, clever and talented at what he does. But there is a dark side to The Special One, a Special Petulance. You probably need a ruthless side to get to the top on a tough business: see Ferguson A on that one. But Jose has crossed the line on this one. Dr Eva was doing her job, as far as I can see. Indeed, I can imagine it must be quite hard being (a) female and (b) so easy on the eye in such an immature, loutish, male dominated sport. And no, I wouldn’t give a whatsit if Dr Eva didn’t make me go all “gooey” every time she runs on to tend a metatarsal. But what’s wrong with a little good old-fashioned chivalry?
Love, Actually
And speaking of going “gooey”, I have the most massive crush on someone. It’s a girl. I mean, she’s a girl. Well I mean. Oh hang on, it’s hopeless. I can’t write. See – that’s what it’s doing to me. She is blond, tall, charming, bright as a button and utterly beautiful. And the worst of it is, she is very kind and happy to talk with me. I bought a book yesterday (Anthony Beevor, “Ardennes 1944” – masterful and compelling) and she was asking what I had bought and talking about her love of thrillers. However, the problem is I appear to lose the power of coherent speech and thought in her vicinity. I either end up mumbling, so she can’t hear what I say, or saying something so inane and nondescript that it makes me cringe afterwards. It’s embarrassing. So in my mind it goes something like: “I want to tell you something. You are so beautiful it breaks my heart just to look at you” and what comes out is: “Oh hi, nice to be you…sorry, see you. I’m just off to buy a new hole-puncher. Bye.” It’s quite sweet, in its own way. Ah, well. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. For now, just comfort eat dark chocolate digestives and worry about my waistline.
Pennies from heaven
Finally, things have been a bit tight on the financial front lately, and I was a bit down about it. Anyway, I came across a video on YouTube which caused me to try an experiment. Just imagine that you can find pennies, the speaker suggested, and imagine that when you find the penny you feel great, terrific. Then go about your business as usual; and when you do find a penny, privately celebrate as if you had won the lottery. Out of interest, I decided to give this a go. I spent a little while imagining finding a penny, and imagining feeling great and celebrating. And then off to the gym I toddled. Later that morning I came to pick up my phone from the ledge where I had left it. Next to it, was there a penny? No, there was not. There was a shiny 5 pence piece. It was odd, because I had not seen anything there when I put my phone down. I decided to quietly celebrate on the basis that I had been provided by someone, or something, with five times what I had asked for.
I have persisted in this strange experiment. And I keep finding loose change. For example, I went to the automated checkout in Tesco – and there was a pile of change lying waiting for me in the bowl thing. I was having coffee in town yesterday, and when I went to the rest room there was loose change all over the floor. My conscious mind keeps saying “well that’s just a coincidence” and “it’s just because you’re looking”” and so forth. But another part of my mind says: no, it’s not just that, and persist. It is explicable in the sense that the mind has been attuned to find what I instructed it to find. Even if that is the only explanation it is intriguing. On another level, it suggests that the relationship between our minds and the universe is more mysterious than we have been taught to believe, and that our expectations shape our reality. This, then, is the nature of faith. If this can happen with pennies, must it stop there? I shall continue this experiment.
By the way, if there any typos above – sorry. (A) I’m love struck and gaga, and (b) I am rushing about today!
Gildas the Monk
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August 16, 2015 at 4:21 pm -
‘PTSD has not been invented in those days’. After the shell-shock experience of the First World War and its aftermath, where it was felt there was a certain proclivity for some men to become ‘malingers’ whether or not they had experienced frontline action at firsthand, there was a deliberate policy of of psychological ‘screening’ for recruits in the 2nd. I don’t know how successful this was in prevention – no doubt there were many psychological casualties, if only civilian.
Churchill had no time for the headmanglers:
he wrote to the Lord President of the Council in December, 1942, in the following terms17:I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen [psychologists and psychiatrists] … it is very wrong to disturb large numbers of healthy normal men and women by asking the kind of odd questions in which the psychiatrists specialize.
However across the pond,(not subject to actual bombardment) they thought differently.
Here’s a thumbnail history seeing the world through the retro PTSD lens:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181586/ -
August 16, 2015 at 4:48 pm -
I bet you feel stupid now. Just imagine how rich you would be if you’d imagined £10 or £20 notes instead of pennies. Some people just got no ambition.
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August 16, 2015 at 8:36 pm -
No, I do not feel stupid. Because implicit in the post was a lot of research, and the principle that faith is like a psychological muscle – it needs use to grow, but like lifting weights (which I do, by the way) you need to start with what you believe you can cope with, and then work steadily to increase your strength, gradually stretching what you can do.
So, as I said above. No, I don’t feel stupid at all. There was quite a lot is subtext in that part of the post.
I bet you don’t feel stupid now, because you probably have no idea what I have just told you.
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August 16, 2015 at 5:03 pm -
If you’re going to pick up a penny in the middle of the road as you are crossing it, just make sure that there isn’t going to be some vehicle hurtling down on you as you bend down to do it, I suppose…but otherwise, you’re fine.
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August 16, 2015 at 5:04 pm -
Firstly, good to have you back and posting Gildas…just in time too I note for the Landlady to off shivering timbers and doing things to her main brace.
what comes out is: “Oh hi, nice to be you…sorry, see you
Little Blocked Dwarf True Story (sorry if i have recounted it before, blame Old Age and the damage alcohol has done to my brain). When I was a teen Dwarf at Sixth Form I was painfully shy and embarrassed around Girls. Blame it on having had a 44″ waist, an overbearing Mother and being the paper cut out target for every school bully -Hell I was even bullied by the girls.
One day across the Quad I spied a Girl , sitting outside the library, on the ground with her back to the doors (under the crest http://tinyurl.com/ofzgtbw ) in the sunshine and talking to her friend. This was a girl who got on the College bus with me and sometimes said ‘hello’ even..and smiled. She’d EVEN shown me her copy of The Apostles’ LP ( a somewhat niche ‘punk’ music band , M’Lud) I made up my mind to grasp the iron and walked passed, as I came level I turned my head, smiled and meant to say ‘Hello’. I was ‘bricking it’ as I walked up to them but trying to look COOL and MANLY.
Of course just at that moment my voice decided to break and I SQUEAKED like a mouse from Bagpuss “hhiiiIIIIIIII”…..and probably went red…from the windburn as I hied me to the canteen to hide in a darkened corner.
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August 16, 2015 at 5:10 pm -
Just imagine that you can find pennies
Many years ago before witchcraft rebranded as ‘Wicca’ ,requiring silicon implants, saying ‘blessed be’ at all opportunities and ‘magic’ was still spelt correctly, there was a book titled ‘Experimental Magic’ or some such. One of the ‘spells’ involved visualizing intently a £5 note. The author swore that if you imagined hard enough and long enough then magically a fiver would come your way. Never tried it cos it seemed an awful waste of imagining.
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August 16, 2015 at 6:27 pm -
Imagination is free.
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy. And ideas are bulletproof. “
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August 16, 2015 at 5:28 pm -
There is an informal get-together down here at a local libertarian think tank (The King’s Head, if you want to know) where we discuss stuff – cars, engines, cricket, rugby and, particularly music. One of our number, Peter, wasn’t there a month ago and I enquired as to why. Apparently, he’d slipped over on an escalator at a local bank (backwards) and gone all the way down. He cracked a rib and a collar bone. Hurty.
He sent me a drink from his hospital bed via a mutual chum.
So, when he rolled up on Friday, I reciprocated with a pint of Exmoor and asked him to describe the experience:
“Well, it was no f*****g worse than baling out of a burning Wellington over Holland with a scorched arse and a dodgy parachute in 1943…” He had been the tail gunner.
Peter is 93.
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August 16, 2015 at 5:57 pm -
“They say the Black Flag of Islam will fly over No. 10 Downing Street, and maybe it will, unless people get their act together”.
‘They’ say a lot of things, Gildas. Icke has a line about lizard people. Most of it is complete twaddle.
I do fear you have been reading too many history books and still fear for the Turk at the Gates of Vienna. You really need to read the newspapers regularly and get out more.
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August 16, 2015 at 5:58 pm -
Para 2 will stay in my memory.
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August 16, 2015 at 6:35 pm -
Welcome back, Gildas. Just 2 things to note –
1) Lumped in to your free nations bit (I assume) was Russia. Stalin in the 1930s made Adoph look like a playful pussycat.
Read The Great Terror by Robert? Conquest who treats the period with forensic skill.
2) Regarding the lovely lady, remember Fortune Favours the Brave – so BE BOLD. If you don’t feel up to saying it, write her a letter (you are good with words) and hand it to her. Good luck! -
August 16, 2015 at 6:46 pm -
I too am proud of my dad, still going strong at 96.
He was in at the very start of WW2 – part of the BEF who were rescued via Dunkirk. To any surviving May 1940 crew of HMS Impulsive, he’s always remembered your efforts.
Via various postings, he was there to the very end – part of Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’ slogging down Burma.
He has always maintained that those two atom bombs saved hundreds of thousands of allied lives by impelling Japan’s early surrender.
The Kohima Epitaph:
“When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today” -
August 16, 2015 at 8:14 pm -
Far from my best post! But good to be back in the Snug!
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August 16, 2015 at 10:14 pm -
They’re all good, so seeking ‘better’ or ‘best’ is redundant. Great to read your thoughts again, good to have you back.
As regards your lady-love, I can’t improve on the aged, mildly-distressed airman’s idea above – go for it, she’ll probably be both surprsied and delighted, then you can take it from there.
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August 16, 2015 at 8:38 pm -
If that sort of cosmic ordering works, I’d feel safer not doing it.
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August 16, 2015 at 10:10 pm -
My stepfather joined the Army in 1932 – he was 16 but lied about his age. He married my mother in 1963. I was a bloshie teenager who had never had to live with a man in the house before; he had never had to deal with a teenage girl before. In military service, he had risen to the rank of RSM and knew how to deal with bolshie soldiers; but a perpetually angry, outspoken 13-year old girl with a mind of her own was well beyond his ken. So we didn’t exactly see eye to eye.
He spoke very little about his war, at least while I was present. I did gather he’d been too close to an exploding shell at Monte Cassino and had had to spend weeks lying on his stomach while bits of metalwork were carefully extracted from his back. Up until then he’d been lucky enough to escape any injury.
Pretty much the only part of his war that he had been happy to talk about was the time when he had been one of the soldiers present at the German surrender at Luneberg Heath. In this photo you can see him standing at the back of the tent. According to him, he and his fellow guards had been ordered to treat the German generals with respect, but he said he had no need of such an order. The generals were fellow soldiers; they had fought a hard war, surrendered with dignity and so they deserved his respect.
He had PTSD. And of course, nothing about this was known then. I vividly remember when, for the first and only time, he displayed a flash of the deep psychological disturbance that his war experiences had left him with. It was the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot; we three were at at the kitchen table eating supper and listening to the 7 o’clock news on the radio. The first reports of the shooting were coming in; one said that the Senator had been shot through the head. At that my stepfather said “That’s bad, very bad. A bullet can do terrible damage.” Then, sitting straight up, staring at the wall and speaking in an almost robotic monotone, he told us about an incident. His unit was walking in single file along an Italian road when a sniper opened fire; a bullet had hit his mate a yard in in front, passing through the man’s torso from front to back and just missing my stepfather. He finished the description with a flat “It opened him up, his liver fell out.” And stopped there.
My mother and I just sat in stunned silence. Then my stepfather shook himself as if he was waking up, muttered “You shouldn’t have heard that” and went back to eating.
I can’t say that made me understand him any better or improve our relationship – I was after all, still just a bolshie, angry ignorant teenager. It took me many more years to understand what it was that had made him constantly drink so much, constantly gamble away my mother’s hard-earned money, made him walk out of job after job. So, folks, there was never any tearful reconciliation, no weepy forgiveness; in fact I stood at his grave and said “At last, you bastard.” But, but…. growing up with him made me what I am now – stronger, a bit wiser, though still bolshie.
That’s life.-
August 16, 2015 at 10:26 pm -
Unlike yours, my father returned from his own six years of Hell without any evident symptoms of PTSD – however, I didn’t know him before so can’t compare any after-effects. But like your stepfather, he also avoided describing details of the many horrors he had witnessed, only very rarely adding one as a post-script to some other passing media story – I guess he was blocking out the memories as much as he could.
Those of us who weren’t there can’t possibly imagine what it was like, living every day knowing it could be your last and seeing many of your close mates violently experiencing their last, just as we can’t imagine the damage it did to their long-term characters – whether the 1945 approach of ‘just send them home and let them get back to their lives’ was overall better or worse than today’s hyper-caring one is difficult to calculate. The main comfort in the past 50 years is that no other involuntary UK conscripts have had to go through that sort of experience and it is to be hoped they never do again.
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August 16, 2015 at 11:02 pm -
For the words-that-won’t-come around a pretty girl – you have my profound sympathy, Gildas! God, the hell they put us through…
But this: “… and when I went to the rest room there was loose change all over the floor…” Ew, I don’t think that was ‘cosmic ordering’ in action, unless it was a particularly well-kept bog! I’m reminded of an event that still makes me shudder at the thought of it – my first ‘solo’ journey to Leeds (or just possibly Bradford, so as not to enrage Petunia) as a young lad to see a concert. The pre-gig dutch-courage meant braving a trip to the station toilet, and the riff-raff “hanging around” there made a cubicle visit the only sane option. The whole place was rank, the puddles of wee quickly wicking their way up my suede goth-style winkle-pickers, horrifyingly.
I almost jumped out of my skin as two whole arms came at me from beneath the door, to drag me ankle-first to Hell, I thought, Freddy Kruger-style. But no! They were drunkenly, desperately flailing in search of discarded cigarrette butts – of which there were many – swollen to burst with urine. Proper old school tramps in search of the next roll-up… the horror! Don’t go there!
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