Archive for January, 2012


Posted on January 9, 2012 - by

Why do I write this?

Tabula Rasa

Tabula rasa! It’s taken me forty years to discover this Latin phrase that means ‘erased tablet’ or ‘clean sheet’. It helps explain how dear Mr Turner my primary school headmaster innocently collaborated to establish a pattern in my life by replacing my shoddy workbooks at my frequent behest. Little did kind Mr. Turner know I would carry this inheritance throughout the rest of my life. However, the strange thing is how my daydreaming nature has not prevented me from holding down extremely responsible jobs in the ensuing years. Since I’m one of those human beings (I assume there are others) that lived life as an observer of themselves, let me attempt to explain:

I have always been, fascinated by other people’s perceptions of what life is about, and if they consider they developed an adequate philosophy for survival or ‘success?’ on their life journey. What follows are some of the mind pictures, incidents, and responses that seem to have contributed to making me who I am today – for better or worse. I muse that an hour of my life is no longer or shorter than yours or anyone else’s and suddenly the cliche “It’s not the years in your life that count – it’s the life in your years” has a poignant ring to it.

In his 80’s my father documented his impressions of his life events spanning from boyhood to old age, and to me it is significant he seemed to become lost for words at the point which describes the night he returned from WW2 and re-met me, his oldest son, after 6 years away at war. I was then aged around seven. As best I can, I shall start my story from that point.

It was my first smell of beer-breath and feeling of prickly stubble being raked over my face. My world had been distinctly feminine flavoured till then, and the event became indelibly recorded in my subconscious. My father dressed in khaki leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek and said “take your feet off the bed, son”. To this day, I clearly recall the words, the smell, and the eerie feeling of stubble being raked across my face – I felt indignation. What my father didn’t know was that my mother had sat me on the bed feet ‘n’ all to greet him – a returning war hero.

Until the night of my father’s return, my mother, my older sister Ann, my younger brother Bob, and myself, like thousands of others, were shunted around to various “safe” areas of Southern England as part of the British evacuation programme. Bob and I were fortunate compared to Ann. Being slightly older she was parted from us and sent with thousands of young children to Wales, one of the refuge destinations.

The night of my father’s return we were billeted in the tiny village of Morchard Bishop in Devon. Although from Kent, we were all termed “Evacuees from London ” and waited in the local village hall hoping the benign local farming community would accept us into their homes. It was in a small bedroom of Mr and Mrs. Alfred Veal, and their son Derek that my father’s homecoming took place.

My family’s rented home in Rainham, Kent, was central to a major target of the German bombers invading England being about halfway between London and Dover, and only a few miles from Chatham Dockyard, a major military target. Kent at this time had many small aerodromes dotted throughout that were home to fighter aircraft that lie in readiness for the nightly German bomber attacks. We lived near a relatively small Army Artillery battery that ensured we were constantly aware of the violence and mayhem of large scale warfare.

The blood-curdling wail of air raid sirens, the screaming and sound of soldier’s hob-nailed boots running on flint roads, the criss-crossing of massive searchlights that so powerfully penetrated the night sky were but a preview to the main events that followed, night after night. Given my tender age and the prevailing circumstances it is difficult to be precise about dates, times, and events. The most pervasive feeling remaining from those days, is apprehension. Even now I feel this more at an emotional level rather than having a clear intellectual understanding of events. Since many men were at war, it was the mothers that controlled all aspects of children’s lives. The resulting bonds between mothers and their children were undoubtedly intensified by fear.

As evening fell, I could sense my mother’s tension increasing. Her soft, warm arm gripped me tighter and the exchange of anxious glances between the women huddled in our tiny ‘front’ room told us toddlers and babies – all was not well. The tension started long before the drone of hundreds of bomber engines became audible. For some reason my mother was a leader in this strange cohort of neighbours drawn together by fear. Maybe it was because she was older, or maybe it was because she had already laid out the dead in her life. Either way, I watched her eyes, and every action she made to prepare our little cowering group for the furore that was soon to erupt.

Intelligence was gathered from reading our mother’s body language. The tensioning of muscle in her soft protective arms I can feel to this day. Predictably the air raid siren’s deep-throated wail soon wound up to blood curdling scream and massive searchlights criss-crossed the sky like a giant game of noughts and crosses. It seemed within minutes the first shots were fired by the anti aircraft guns installed at the nearby army camp. Soon the fighter aircraft that escorted the German bombers would be engaged by their British counterparts. The scream of aircraft engines resonated through our taped-up windows till they vibrated in sympathy, and gunfire shook the house to crumbling point. It was the bombs that really seemed to preoccupy our mothers’ attention since it was bombs that mainly burnt, maimed, and killed, and this was their greatest fear. I can remember peering into a huge bomb crater during the morning search for shrapnel and loss assessment. The crater was halfway between our home and the army camp and looked even more awesome given the softness of the stark white Kentish chalk it had displaced.

However, it is the songs of the era that have lingered and had lifetime ramifications for me. So many wartime songs urged postponing happiness till the “boys come home”. These were typified by Vera Lynn and “White Cliffs of Dover” and must have torn many a heart apart with longing. Despite the potentially horrible and deadly threat that hung over us all, I recall more nostalgia than fear from those times. The sadness of waiting and longing for promised better days to come. Sadly, they didn’t.