Wednesday 14^th November

We had our two minutes silence on 2XS, at 11.00 on 11/11, as we drifted silently past the magnificent cliffs at Cape Hauy.  ABC radio played the Last Post and the Reveille for us, all very fitting.

Afterwards we all talked a bit about war in general and in particular, and about how most of the men we knew who had been involved in active service in the Second World War never spoke about it at all.  Maybe the odd humorous side story, but they never talked about the day to day combat, boredom, terror.

Ann-Marie told us that her father served in the British army, in France, Italy, all over, from 1939-1945, and then in the occupation forces in Germany for a further two years.  And – nary a story did he tell!  Well only one… He was apparently involved in organising a few shiploads of Italian prisoners-of-war.  It was an impossible task; they were all very vociferous in their protest.  “I can’t go on that ship!  I don’t get on AT ALL with him!  I need to be with my brother, on the other ship!”  He ended up sighing deeply and opening the gates so they could sort themselves out before locking them away, more contentedly, in their chosen vessels…

India #17

I think I have mentioned the handcarts before but they are worthy of a little paragraph of their very own.  They are all over India, big roughly-made things on big metal wheels, like huge flat barrows.  They move through traffic and through markets and through railway stations, heavily laden, and are quite terrifying.  If one got you unawares in the back of the legs, well I think you wouldn’t have legs at all any more.  When I say heavily laden I mean it.  They are often piled very high with huge bales of heavy stuff, or crates of food, or building materials, and they power along on their horrible metal wheels, pushed by two or three thin wiry men, sometimes no more than boys.  I have no idea how they do this; they steer through the chaotic traffic, moving at a brisk trot, and make their way through the impossibly crowded railway stations, seemingly without crashing into anything or without killing anyone.  I noticed, to my amusement, on our first occasion waiting in Victoria Terminus that the men pushing the handcarts would get people to move out of the way by making a whooshing sound, exactly the same way that Pete does to get his mobs of sheep to move this way and that on the farm.  It is very effective; all of us sheep-like humans hopped promptly this way and that in response to a whoosh or two from a handcart boy.