A difficult Day

This week brought the sad news of the death of a close and dear friend so Saturday found us on a journey to the beautiful city of Wells to discuss arrangements for his funeral.  We spent the journey in silence with lots of thoughts in our heads.  Our friendship had lasted for 32 years, we first met when we had small children, we had 2 boys and they had a boy and a girl, all our children are now in their 40's with families of their own.  It was difficult and we used lots of hankies during the day. We left late afternoon in a low spirited state for the journey back across the Mendips but soon the sun came out and we took in the beautiful countryside stretching for miles in every direction, baby lambs were appearing in the fields and we saw
lots os snowdrops in the hedgerows - none of these things had been apparent to us a few hours earlier.  It might be fanciful but we really believed we were being reminded of the continuence of life and finished our journey almost on a high.  Was Stewart saying to us - whatever has happened to me and however you feel   'get up, dress up and show up'.
At his funeral next week I hope someone will say - 'don't cry because his life is over, laugh because it happened'.    RIP Stewart

RAF Biggin Hill

A friend who lived close to us some years ago had many interesting, sad and funny stories to tell. He flew a spitfire during the war (aged 19 years) and was eventually shot down over Holland and reported 'missing in action'. He woke up lying in a field smothered by his parachute and wondering if he were dead or not. Rain stinging his face made him realize he was very much alive and in great danger of being found by the wrong people!
Thankfully he was found by the right people - 2 Dutch men, who quickly buried his parachute and took him to a 'safe house' where he found the cellar decked out for unexpected visitors such as he.
Day by day he was moved by guides from 'safe house' to 'safe house' making his way across Holland, Belgium, France until 3 months later he found himself in the foothills of the Pyrenees and along with a mountain guide he began the long walk into neutral Spain and eventually rejoined his old Squadron at Biggin Hill and continued flying until the war ended. He never lost his love and gratitude for all the people who had helped him and kept in touch with many of them until his death as a very old man.
One day he had a call from a TV company in the Netherlands who said they were doing a programme about the people who fought their own war with the Germans by finding 'lost' allies and helping them to get home. Would he like to tell his story? He sure would.
The TV company asked if he could name some hotels close to his home wher they could base their staff but he decided to ask the church
congregation the next day for help and to his astonishment he had more than 30 offers of accomodation.
He was delighted to call back and say 'Bring as many people as you wish, I have 'safe houses' lined up here for them'.

Money!

One dark night in 1940 a small vessel slid out of the English Channel stacked with millions of pounds of British money, the ship was surrounded by destroyers who accompanied it to Canada where the money was placed into the 'safe hands' of the Canadian Government until after the war in Europe was over.
Last year 2011, the British Government gave 126 million dollars to Zimbabwe as a gift mainly to be used on education as many schools have no text books or indeed chairs.
The Zimbabwe Government spent 25,000 dollars on primary schools and absolutely nothing on secondary education.
Meanwhile they managed to scrape together 120.2 millions to spend on the office of Robert Mungabi and Prime Minister Tavangirai and a mere 5 million on updating Preident Mugabi's home (picture).

The value of money has changed so much over the years as we in Europe well know but so has the idea of   'putting your money into safe hands'.

Robert Kennedy

Today I saw in the newspaper that Joseph Kennedy the grandson of Robert Kennedy opened his campaign for a seat in the US Congress.  This sent my memory off to the day I sat with my 2 year old son and watched the funeral of Senator Kennedy and it seems a long time ago.
Senator Robert Kennedy was murdered on the 6th June 1968 just a few years after his brother President John F. Kennedy was also murdered.  Robert had worked tirelessly for civil rights and to stop the war in Viet Nam; two things which made him very unpopular with the Establishment.
He had always lived in the huge shadow of his charasmatic elder brother and never believed himself to be liked.   There were many who did like and respect him, though he found it hard to believe.  He endeared himself to African Americans, native Americans, immigrants, the disaffected, the impoverished and the excluded - insisting on opportunities for employment and free health treatment for all the poorest people in the USA.

These were some of the people who lined the 270 miles of train track to watch him being taken to his last resting place in WashingtonDC.

Two days after his murder a state funeral was held in New York City attended by thousands of the great and good and watched by the ordinary New Yorkers.  Afterwards his  coffin was loaded on to a train which was to take him along with his close family members to be interred next to his brother, the President, in Arlington Cemetery in Washington.
The family settled down for the quiet journey to gather themselves together to face the second ordeal of the day.   They were so wrong - they and certainly not security could   have prepared themselves for the next few hours.
Thousands of the people he had been fighting for walked quietly to the railway tracks and stood in silent tribute to say their own 'goodbye'  - lined up for the whole of the 270 miles
 journey to Washington.
The train which had set off at a regular pace soon had to slow down for safety reasons
to such an extent that the funeral was eventually conducted late at night in the pitch darkness.   The first one in the history of Arlington ever to be so.
All that happened over 40 years ago and since then Hollywood has fought hard to spoil his memory - the truth of this we shall never know. Whether he would have carried out all his promises, we shall never know.  Whether he would have been voted in as President, we shall never know.  (They got Nixon instead!).
But an interesting and loving testimony came from the one nearest to him.  One her 80th birthday, his wife Ethel was interviewed on TV and asked why she had never remarried.  She looked genuinely puzzled for a second or two and then said,  'I was married to Robert Kennedy and still am, no man could walk within a mile of him in my eyes, I love him'.

How wonderful for someone to say that of us.