Joan and Jacks today with several notable absences Pat & Brian, Sally and Sue.
Sue sent us her story, which I read out first, detailed her introduction to serious walking with its scary finish wading through the sea. Ann told of the mysterious green ink correspondence. John recounted the story of the brave Major. Joan let her imagination take us to the USA and a teenagers life with her friend George the horse.
Sheila told of her friendship that faltered when she found her playmate had a nasty side to her. Rosemary told of a time when memories were unbending in dislike of the Germans. Joan related how her childhood farm came on the market with pictures on the Internet. I told of what might be Prince Phillip's view of life.
Rosemary won the popular vote.
Next month "They are on the brink" chez nous
A FRIEND OF MINE
I want to tell you about a friend of mine. We first met when she was 12 and I was 14, and we attended school together for a short while. At first she was very different to any friend I'd had before, and it took some time for us to begin to know and understand one another. But once we did, our friendship was sealed -FOR LIFE! Friendship is a wonderful thing, especially when it spans the generations as ours has done!
I can't begin to tell you how many hours we spent talking and giggling together - and over the most RIDICULOUS things! It seemed that we were on the same wavelength in so many many ways, and we grew closer than I'd ever been with other friends that I'd grown up with and known for years before she came into my life.
I was virtually an only child because my sister is much older than me and was married once she was demobbed after the War. My new friend actually WAS an only child - but unlike me she didn't have a father. He had been posted "missing, presumed dead" during the War. Yet both she and her Mother had never given up hope that one day, ONE DAY, he would turn up. She spoke a lot about him and obviously still vaguely remembered him, and was absolutely CONVINCED that he WAS alive somewhere or other. Maybe, she said, he had lost his memory, or perhaps he had been badly wounded and was even yet still recovering somewhere. She talked like this when she was at our house and my Mum would always have to wipe away a tear, and my Dad who was the kindest and gentlest man anyway, went out of his way to make her welcome in our home.
Whenever we went out on trips in my Dad's 1930s Ford 8 (top speed 28 m.p.h.!) she would come with us. So there are old photos of us at Whipsnade Zoo, outside Windsor Castle, and enjoying many many picnics in the beautiful Oxfordshire and Cotswold countryside. Soon my friend began to call my Dad her SECOND DADDY, and yes, we WERE just like sisters together, sharing our lives as much as possible during the fairly brief time of our friendship together - for sadly the day came when she left Oxford, left school, and left me behind too. Yet the miles between us didn't in any way break our friendship, as letters flew back and forth. Neither of our families had a telephone, and of course there were no mobile phones in those days!
As I said before, a friendship which spans the generations is something very special indeed, and that's exactly what happened to my friend and I. Years later she, her husband, and 2 young sons came to stay with us in Oxford, and it was as though the years apart were gone in a trice. Her boys made a great fuss of our baby daughter. But her eldest son wasn't so happy a few years later when we visited them with our 2 children, and my daughter followed this now 11 year old lad everywhere with adoring eyes! He even went out of the house early each morning in an attempt to escape from her!
Over the years there have been many other get-togethers of our two families - the children now adults of course, and last time we visited them it was to be introduced to my friend's 3 lovely grandchildren!
During their last visit to us they were absolutely AMAZED when we took them to Exbury Gardens, and my friend's husband took countless photos to prove to THEIR friends and neighbours that rhododendrons and azaleas really DO grow that huge and glorious in the South of England! Sadly, because of her husband's failing health my friend said it would probably be the last time they'd make the journey to visit us, so now its down to phone-calls, Christmas cards and the occasional letter enclosing the latest photos of our families.
SO JUST WHY IS THIS FRIEND OF MINE AND OUR LONG FRIENDSHIP SO INCREDIBLY SPECIAL? Well, Wilma is GERMAN and, like one of two other German children in previous years, she came to stay with us for 3 months in 1954 through an organization called "The International Help for Children". Each year 2 coachloads of children from all over Germany were brought to Oxford to become part of English families for 3 months. They were all children who had suffered during the War - perhaps been injured, made homeless, or orphaned etc.
Each year before they came our neighbours would ask my parents "You're SURELY not going to have a GERMAN CHILD again this year, "are you?" "They're the enemy" and my Mum would reply "Yes, because if there's any hope of lasting peace between our two countries, then I believe the CHILDREN becoming friends must help. After all, there must have been thousands of ordinary Germans who didn't want this War any more than WE did." Despite my Mum's words, every year those neighbours sent our family to Coventry, refusing to speak to us or have anything else to do with us for weeks both before and after the children came, as well as during their stay.
Contrary to her hopes and conviction, Wilma1s father NEVER returned, and although MY Dad died just 3 years after her time with us, she STILL speaks of him as her SECOND DADDY, or her ENGLISH DADDY - and she even told her husband Willi that she fell in love and married HIM simply because he reminded her of her SECOND DADDY! So THIS is Wilma, A VERY SPECIAL FRIEND OF MINE!
Continuation of the serial
Gradually, as the seconds ticked slowly by on the illuminated dial of the clock beside her bed, she began to relax. Her heartbeat slowed and she sank back on the pillows, her hands releasing their frantic grip on the sheet. She started to recognise the reassuringly familiar night noises; the rustling of the ivy outside the window in the breeze, the hoot of the resident owl in the old oak opposite her window and the usual creaking of the floor boards in the old house. Eventually her eyelids fluttered downwards as they became heavier and she started to drift off to sleep once more. Then she was wide awake again as she recognised the noise which had so abruptly awoken her before. There it was again. What was it? An alien sound intruding into the familiar, a sound which shouldn't be here in this time and place –and it came from the hall outside her bedroom door.
She lay there biting her lip a habit she had when she was nervous or afraid she reached for her phone and then realised it was down stairs. She started to remember the stories her grandmother used to tell her about the house, which was about 300 years old for the past 200 years, generations of her family had lived here. In that time there had many births and deaths, which had all been recorded in the family diary. However the first 100 years were a mystery there was a legend that a great evil act had taken place but nobody knew exactly what but her grandmother was convinced the house was haunted. She always thought that this was her grandmother’s imagination after all there was no such thing as ghosts. There was the sound again she knew she had to find the courage to open the bedroom door she got out of bed and reached for her glasses put on her slippers and dressing gown something she was always told to do by her mother and started towards the door when she stopped, had the door handle moved she could hardly breath she watched, waiting for it to move again, eventually she told herself of course it did not move she took hold of the handle opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.
Before she could put the light on, she felt something brush past her legs. She screamed and froze ridged. Then the hall light went on and her son was coming towards her obviously worried and still half asleep. With the light on she could see that the thing that had brushed her legs was a bird - a big black bird that was still flapping its wings in fright, trying to find a way out. Her son took off his pyjama top and threw it over the bird. Then he opened a window and released it, watching the bird as it flew away, not appearing to be hurt at all. They went downstairs, checking that all the windows were shut. They got to the kitchen and made a welcome cup of tea and talked about what had happened. Once back in bed she made a mental note to find out how the bird had got into the house.
