A Vist to Paris

Aftermath 1947 

Having survived six long years of warfare, we , my wife and I decided the time had come to take  a real holiday and visit France.   Britain at this time was in the grip of post war shortages, and nearly everything needed repairing or replacing.  The country was in a sorry state which was going to take years to rectify.  Yes we definitely needed a break and where should we go?

We chose Paris, for we had never been abroad before, and although France  we expected would have fared no better than the UK at least it would be different.  It was different --what a shock !

Paris insofar as we could see had suffered no material damage,  food, clothes and all manner of goods seemed normal. In fact in 1947,  Paris was still Gay Paree.  This was in total contrast  to the country we had left behind where just everything was in short supply.

We stayed for fourteen days and enjoyed every moment.  So much so, that repeated visits in the years which followed never failed to satisfy. Now I am far too old to make the journey but I still get pleasure in reminiscing those times of yesteryears. A few highlights come to mind of places we visited  which gave me lasting memories of this truly unique city.

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The Louvre Art Galleries where we stood enraptured before the Mona Lisa’s portrait which was in those days without the glass protective screen it bears now.   I believe  it is the only painting deemed necessary to wear an armoured glass screen in the whole of the galleries.    

In the basement is to be seen The Lady with a missing arm ----the Venus de Milo another masterpiece from ancient times.  Although she stands amongst hundreds of similar statues she is instantly recognisable  even from a distance 

These two exhibits alone made my visit unforgettable

The very large flea market in the north of Paris is another place to visit for I never seen such a variety of antiques [bogus and genuine] all on sale where you might pick up a bargain or just view in amazement for free. It was raining on when I chose to visit but it never spoiled my day   

Very cold it was on the night we took a trip along the Seine on a large pleasure boat but it was worth the effort for surprise, surprise,  we came to a river island where upon stood a smaller but nevertheless impressive, version of the Statue of Liberty. { The real one was given to the USA by France ]   The Statue was floodlit and a sight to behold.

Next day a visit to see the Arc de Triomphe in its setting on the Place de l’Etoile  roundabout is breathtaking, gasp if you will, at this huge masterpiece of civil engineering built by Napoleon two centuries ago but there’s more -----inside.   There is public access to the interior and to the flat roof.  Yes there is a lift to the top avoiding nearly 300 stairs to climb.

Another day took us to the ultra modern Science Museum which was opened less than 20 years ago and contains the very latest technical developments Here I saw a motor car being assembled by a robot.  A small car yes, but it shows what can be achieved by man.

Finally a visit to Galeries Lafayette department store for in the basement is a bureau  where it’s quiet and the lighting is subdued.   Thoughtfully provided with comfortable chairs to relax in   where at the end on a long day one can rest those tired aching feet ---Just about the only spot in Paris where one can do so undisturbed and for free.  Enjoy   Ron .                              

Britain's Health Service

Britain’s National Health Service  {NHS}

Until the out break of World War 2,  hospital service was provided in Britain, on a local basis financed mainly by charities.   Every town and city had its own general hospital to provide health care for its local inhabitants, this was augmented by smaller local hospitals specialising in other health aspects. 

All treatment, was even in those early days was quite free and efficient. No one ever thought that this should ever be different.  Every summer for instance there would be a huge gala day and parade staged to raise funds for the ‘Hospital’ and this would be enthusiastically watched by the townsfolk giving all they could afford to keep ‘their’ hospital in funds. 

Occasionally, local wealthy business men would donate enough to provide funds to equip and run an entire new hospital ward.  In my town a complete maternity hospital with ongoing running costs was provided by a  local shoe manufacturer. Another gifted  enough to start a hospital purely for curing long term bone diseases.  Those facilities still exist today nearly a century later. Again, all comers treated for free, regardless of wealth or status. 

Then in September 1939  came the outbreak of WW.2 and things had to change, five long years later the war ended ---a lot had changed and the concept of the NHS was muted and later brought into being.  It’s basis was that all would be treated without payment, and by ‘all’ it meant every one regardless of race, colour, creed or nationality.

Now in year 2009 a lot has changed, costs have risen astronomically but the original concept still holds true. On the outskirts of Coventry where I live stands a newly built NHS. hospital  It is vast ----the site is almost that of small city in size ---- the largest hospital in Europe  with 27 operating theatres and a wealth of specialised facilities.

I had to take my wife there a week ago for diagnosis of a condition which had recently developed, and it brought home to me the wealth of equipment necessary and technicians required to investigate even any condition, before treatment can begin. The cost of all this must be frightening and far beyond the means of an ordinary citizen to pay. 

Even cleaning this huge building is a major cost for its takes place night and day  with a sizable force of cleaners working non-stop.

So how can this be for it is said ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch?

No indeed there is not-----the money is all borrowed –to be paid back largely by people who are not even born yet, over the next 35 years. 

Whether they [our descendants] will thank us for creating this enormous debt for them to shoulder remains to be seen, but for the moment the hospital exists and is functioning well. For my part I will say ‘Thank you very much for this wonderful facility’.

Sunnyron   

The Urban Fox

Maytime 2009

Said by some to be the Merry Merry month of May, a time when the gardens of the UK are looking their loveliest.  Mine too stands resplendent at the moment having benefited  from the hours of toil, often in most unseasonable weather, that I have spent in restoring the damage that winter has inflicted.

This surely is the time to relax and enjoy a sunny afternoon sitting on a garden chair--- but for me, it is not to be, for alas I spot the presence of invaders, to wit—a very determined fox has arrived paying a nightly visit.   Mr. Fox has no regard for fences for he either chews through them or simply tunnels underneath.  My neighbour  tells me he disturbs her sleep by howling his defiance to the moon on occasions----I didn’t know that foxes had nocturnal cries, but I am assured they do indeed.

Filling his tunnels in makes no difference  ---he simply  digs another the next night.

I mentioned ‘invaders’  --- no mistake for the second one is relentless and unstoppable

Its name is IVY --- this  pest finds its way through close knit wooden fences, and colonises the said fence in an awesome way, covering a brown wood fence in just a couple of months  Concrete posts disappear underneath the dense ivy too, and what doesn’t penetrate fences, like the fox the ivy tunnels below ground. 

I cut it all away only to see it grow back more densely  than before in less than two months.

What with Mr. Fox and Mrs. Ivy, at times a gardeners lot is not a happy one ---- Maytime  could be better.

Ron  

Reflections

Patriotism---- at what cost?

Now that the credit crunch is really starting to bite it is small wonder that retired folk such as myself are asking why are we having our savings income slashed to almost nothing in order to support the feckless ?  

Why indeed are we penalised in this manner, so that money is available to service massive pensions for bankers until they die?

Is this to be the reward we old folk have inherited for those years of sacrifice called World War 2 ?   Let me tell you of the true cost to so many who gave their all, by recalling exactly what happened to my generation, who by chance happened to be just 16 years old when war was declared in September 1939.

I begin by turning the spotlight on a town of 100 000 inhabitants in the heart of England –on to a working class district where I grew up.   Most of my fellows were aged about 17  and it was here that we grew up ---played together as children, spent many a day out in the countryside, went swimming in a nearby river, or joined mostly youth organisations to be trained to lead a good decent life as  we became adults.

Life was good, and we formed a local association group of about 10 members enjoying life on a daily basis ---not a gang ---definitely not !!   but friends who went to the same school, and later at14 started work together, sometimes in the same factory.  We knew each others siblings and parents. In short we shared each others lives. 

This was the start of a relationship which under normal circumstances would last throughout life. It was not to be however, for every single one of us would be a changed person in six years time, mostly never to meet each other again.  This was the unseen cost of total war, and apart from myself nearly all members of our group found their lives blighted for ever.

I will tell now of that which befell  my fellows as a result of those days in the five years following the out break of war in 1939.

Two were killed in action--- the first being on D Day hit by shellfire whilst landing on the beach-head in France. The second shot down in a Lancaster bomber during a night raid on Germany—his body was never recovered, much to the misery of his mother.  Twenty years hence she had never accepted his death.

Three joined the Royal Air force --- one of whom survived many nightly raids over occupied territory, only to have his nerves shattered by many near misses by anti aircraft fire. Another became captain of a flying boat and survived the war, but returned to have to take a lowly job [a chimney sweep] in civvy street  The third I presumed survived but I never remember him returning .

One joined the Navy and served on a destroyer, was torpedoed and shipwrecked.  He survived but died of cancer shortly after the war. 

.Two were in the Army being captured in the Far East, and survived years in a Japanese prison camp.  On their return to the UK,  I  met one and was appalled at his physique --- he was just living skin and bones.  Both these men died a few years afterwards presumably from their ill- treatment.

Another survived being dug out after being buried alive by shellfire.

And sadly one jumped ship and deserted after days of being cooped up in the bowels of a ship waiting to cross the Channel on the D Day. invasion. 

To my knowledge he was never seen again.  

 Here you have the true story of ten of my companions of whom  some returned to civilian life only to find their sacrifices were quickly forgotten

Their aspirations in life were gone --- they were given a de-mob suit, a gratuity, and the promise of employment---nothing more.

For most that meant  taking work at the bottom of the pecking order --- where they were likely to remain.    Not from prejudice but from sheer practicality – for these men  time had passed them by, for these men the time for learning a trade had gone.

As you can see from this microcosm of life, just how it afflicted the citizens of the UK  during and after the War years and is shown by what happened  to my band of friends.  This generally applied to all who lived through those times.  There were no winners –just some were more fortunate than others.  And I being in a reserved occupation was one of those, but still life was still pretty grim..

Churchills’ prediction of ‘Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat’ which I heard live on the radio, proved to be telling words for most.  

This might be said to be the true cost of warfare, and is clearly not understood by those politicians who weren’t born at the time, otherwise the readiness to settle disputes by force of arms would not occur.

Sunnyron      March 2009.

 Chronicle--- Postscript.

Having written and published the three parts to ‘A Chronicle’  I decided that the story  needed to end with a final part based on events which occurred much later in the early 1990’s,.some 40 years after World War 2 had ended.

Remember Sedan? In 1940 that small town sitting on the Franco-German border astride the mighty Maginot Line, which was built to defend France from invasion.

The Maginot was a long line of underground fortresses linked by a subterranean railway, manned by soldiers deep in the bowels of the earth.

The fort at Sedan [the only one ever to be attacked,] was overwhelmed and the line breached in one single night,  by a small company of German infantry.  Fumes from their own [the defenders] exploding ammunition gassed the trapped occupants killing them all.

This could not possibly happen, for the line of forts took ten years to build and was invincible--- but it was not, and the unbelievable did happen. The soldiers  became prisoners within their own fortresses –that is those that survived the initial onslaught.

The cost of building this fortress defence all but bankrupted France and proved to be worthless.

Then the German Blitzkrieg stormed on through the forests of the Ardennes and ended six weeks later in Dunkirk with the French defeated and the British in the sea.  I watched this drama unfold from across the English Channel.   Britain was now alone, lost its army, and was all but defenceless.  All in a matter of six short weeks.                   

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Some 50 years later [having survived]  I decided to visit the Ardennes to see for myself, just how the German army achieved the task of penetrating miles of dense Ardennes forests with such ease and perhaps see the fortifications left derelict since the war  A surprise was in store, for when I found [at Sedan] the actual fort  was open to the public having been left for half a century undisturbed.  Manned now by a small team of French volunteers, who were ready and willing to explain exactly what had occurred that fateful night so long ago.

It was early morning and there was just a few visitors wandering round the various levels of this damp eerie concrete tomb of the French soldiers.  I paired up with another man [German] and together we descended 120 feet to the very bottom of this claustrophobic  mausoleum. A  daunting experience which brought home to me the sheer horror of life that these men endured ---trapped in a concrete prison  for months on end waiting to be attacked

Eventually we had enough of this nightmare and slowly began climbing the stairway to the surface, leaving the edifice to the ghosts of the past.   It was time to part from my German friend ---we said our goodbyes  and he asked where are you from?

I’m from Coventry, the city that was bombed so savagely in 1940 I replied.

And you? I asked ----I’m from Dresden came the unexpected reply.

This caught me unawares,  for Dresden was mercilessly destroyed by a senseless

British air-raid at the very end of the war. What a strange coincidence that two opposing sides should meet by chance, in this derelict French fort after all these years

I sought to hide my consternation and failed.   He gestured with his hands saying simply ‘Its War’  He meant there was no animosity now. 

I, for my part felt the real insanity of settling disputes by warfare as never before ---and yet it still goes on with scarcely a day going by another conflict occurring.