An Old Man’s Musings Part Thirty-Three

Image by Jaesub Kim from Pixabay

Interesting reading Never up to the job’s article on digitising family ‘photos, recordings and other memories. A great deal of aechive material to work with.

I am at the opposite end of the spectrum as I have no such hard evidence of early family life. We four brothers spent most of our early years in an orphanage; though we were not orphans, my father was wartime RN, Chief Stoker I believe.  We were, eventually, placed with foster parents.

The only solid pieces I have are a head and shoulders photo of my mum cut from a group shot with some fellow patients in the psychiatric hospital, a studio picture of me and two brothers when I was probably two years old and a traditional family photograph of my father and his siblings, together with their parents, taken maybe in the 1930s.

I also have an extract from a social services file of dates in and out of the orphanage in the forties and fifties, I do carry a few recollections in my head of small events from my early days but that is it.

That is not to say that I did not have a happy childhood – it is true to say that what you haven’t got you don’t miss. I had a great time; we were well housed, well fed, well looked after in our separate groups by our ‘House Mother.’  Spacious grounds, lots of play areas, fields and an orchard, school nearby and a good degree of freedom to roam far and near I recall going up Portsdown Hill and watching Italian POW’s working clearing land.

There was an assembly hall, occasional entertainment and at least once the Yanks visited to give us a great Christmas party and welcome presents.  I remember being shown around the inside of a submarine and an outing on board the moored carrier Invincible or Ark Royal.

Where politics is concerned I think I am getting to the ‘A plague on all their houses stage.  TTK’s ‘war footing’ is one of the most idiotic thing I have heard in years. He is clearly delusional.

I have lost track of what Nigel’s position is, I see Dominic Cummings is putting his oar in and appears to be dropping some truth bombs but it is all getting to be a bit too much. Inane comments and suggestions on every side, gross misrepresentation of facts and hardly a truth spoken out loud. I think I shall retreat to my comfort blanket for a while, put my hands in my ears and softly croon la, la, la, la to myself….

An article referred to ‘ war and war’s alarms. The line is taken from WB Yeats’ poem.

Politics

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here’s a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there’s a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war’s alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

I am an avid reader and in the field of crime and police procedural my favourite author remains Michael Connolly with his Harry Bosch novels. I find is there are a lot of writers in the genre but it appears very formulaic now – central character has something in their past – loss of a wife, husband, partner, child or maybe a physical or mental aspect to their life. I like stuff that is well written and believable and I have found myself giving up after a chapter or two as some are unreadable.

I nowadays mostly prefer action and adventure books – Wilbur Smith, Bernard Cornwell and suchlike and the old favourites, Frederick Forsyth, John Le Carre, Leonard Deighton to name a few. Another good novelist is Robert Goddard, each book is well written and thought provoking.

I have mentioned Caimh McDonnell whom I found recently, I have now read twelve of his books. Very quirky, a bit chaotic but in an engaging way but from time to time guffaw inducing.

If anyone has authors to propose, adventure or top notch crime writing I would be pleased to hear. I have never read a Stephen King novel nor am I interested in magic and stuff like that.
 

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