I racist?

I racist?

When I started this blog I wanted it to be light hearted, somehow it has become far too serious.

For many years I had a wonderful friend and he was the most overtly racist man I have ever known. Wait a minute (interrogatory), you were friends with a racist?

This man would say the most disgraceful things about people… then one day I was driving down to town and saw him striding up the hill carrying four large bags of shopping and engaged in an animated discussion with an elderly Asian woman. Was I surprised… no, it was exactly what I expected.

I was talking to a friend of his some months later and was told of an incident where my friend, who was an ex-boxer and trained in martial arts, had seen off four youths who were trying to intimidate an Asian shop keeper.

Then at my friend’s funeral I found myself standing next to a young black man of West Indian descent – a man who would certainly have been the butt of many of my friend’s off the cuff remarks. I got talking to the guy and he told me that he had had trouble with a couple of his neighbours… and my friend, who was a work colleague, had sorted it out for him.

You see my friend was a verbal racist, but when it came down to it he was a thoroughly decent guy who believed in fair play. I always knew that if he saw anyone in trouble, black/white, man/woman, young/old he would intervene.

Would I?

Was he the racist or am I?

For many years I was connected with the Anti Apartheid Movement.

I suppose more than anything I think I am an egalitarian and a co-operator. My local branch of the AA set up a Youth Section and I asked if I could join. I was told I was too old. Fair enough, because at one point I was young enough. Then they set up a Women’s Section… and I couldn’t join… so I suggested may be they should set up a Black Section. No one saw the irony of my remark.

I was at a meeting later and was nominated for a position. A black guy stood up and said ‘all white people are racists’. Racism he told us was all around us and white people never challenged it. He had a point. I never attended another meeting.

I racist.

Just to return to humour for a moment. I arrived at an Anti Apartheid meeting held at a Friends’ Meeting House and a man I didn’t know was sitting alone outside the hall. He stood up, shook my hand, told me his name and started talking in an animated fashion about himself. Anyone connected with such organisations adopted a level of suspicion and cynicism that was probably rarely if ever justified and as a result I was quite circumspect in my replies. Others arrived and we all traipsed into the meeting room. Our new friend introduced himself again and then sat down and remained silent for about 30 minutes of our in depth discussion. Suddenly he stood up, apologised, said he had accidentally come to the wrong meeting and walked out. When I left an hour later I looked on the notice board. There were two meetings that evening and the other was Alcoholics Anonymous…. I have always smiled at the incident, but still, over twenty years later, feel sorry for the poor man.

There I go again, I have reduced humour to pathos….. oh well… perhaps next time.

My Julie

My Julie

I met My Julie nearly nine years ago and have spoken on the phone to her on nearly every day since. She is part of my soul.

My Julie is the bravest woman; the bravest person that I know. She was born Spina Bifida and thirty three years ago today lost a leg through Osteomyelitis. I won’t tell you her medical history; suffice it to say being born Spina Bifida and losing a leg have been the least of her struggles.

In addition to her health tribulations five and a half years ago Julie was prematurely widowed and instead of giving up as many in her position would have, she remained relentlessly independent until today, refusing hospitalisation or institutionalisation.

The pain that Julie endures has shocked many medical practitioners who have come into contact with her.

Tomorrow Julie will be given a life saving operation at the Nuffield Hospital in Oxford, the leading hospital in the country when dealing with infectious bone disease.

That operation will be a success and after several months recovering Julie will lead the pain free life that she deserves. I believe that, but I also believe that the good thoughts of my friends and the knowledge that people are thinking of her, will help her through the next hours – and will help me also.

If you have a God, or a faith or a simple belief in goodness and fair play please spare a thought for My Julie tomorrow.

Not dead, just missing, Private Albert Herbert Street of the Yorks & Lancs Regiment

Not dead, just missing 

Private Albert Herbert Street 

of the Yorks & Lancs Regiment

I met a man today whose grandfather died in the First World War. Many men died in that awful conflict, but this man’s story was particularly poignant. He was given his grandfather’s three medals (1914/15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal – or Pip, Squeak and Wilfred) and his Memorial Plaque, twenty or so years ago by his grandmother, who lived to the age of 103 and never remarried.

On the 8^th May 1915, a week after arriving in France, Private Street of the York and Lancaster Regiment sent his wife a standard Army Issue postcard marked by him in pencil to indicate he was well. That was the last day that Private Street was seen alive. He disappeared, presumed dead whilst taking part in the Battle of Ypres (Wipers).

Just over one year later on the 13^th May 1916 his widow received official notification that, although his body had not been found, Private Street was now ‘officially dead’.

Mrs. Street never remarried because she was never quite certain he was dead and would not suddenly reappear.

It reminded me of a strange incident of many years ago

I was at an auction in Fife, Scotland, and I purchased a Memorial Plaque. As I collected my lot a small elderly man sidled up to me. ‘That’s me’ he said. I asked what he meant and he told me his name appeared on the local War Memorial. He deserted in Belgium, married a Belgian woman and did not return to Scotland until the mid 1920s. He had been presumed dead and then officially confirmed as dead, yet he was still alive. He had a wife already waiting for him in Scotland, was she happy to have a bigamous deserter home?

Private Street’s Army Card Index records

Street entered the conflict on 1^st May 1915, confirms his entitlement to three medals and is marked “Pres: D. 8. 5-15.”

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission notes

18330 Private Albert Herbert Street, 1^st Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, born Heage, Derbys, enlisted Chesterfield, official date of death 8th May 1915, killed in action in the Western European Theatre.

His name is recorded on Panel 36 and 55, Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial

His age unknown….. another life sacrificed for imperialistic aims.