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The Path of Fate Shame without blame. by
The
TaleWagger
Another lesson I learned at this time was not to always trust old sayings such as 'better late than never'. No longer having the indirect incentive of financial gain by attending the Church of England classes, I tried to widen my religious horizons. A friend of mine attended his classes at another church, I believe it was Methodist, and I decided to go with him. I enjoyed the morning; the song were bright and modern, the hall less over-powering and the atmosphere more light-hearted. The other children appeared to be happy to attend, not doing because they were forced to! It won me over and, when I arrived home, I told my mother. I was a bad decision. No! It was a very bad decision! My mother went berserk and I was warned in no uncertain terms to dabble in other religons, the funny thing was though that my mother was not told contacted by our church about my absence. I left home each Sunday morning but never went to Sunday again, never was definitely better than late! Later in that summer of '43, we broke-up for the school holiday and, inbetween playing cricket and football, our little gang went swimming down at the local beach. However, one day it was very windy and I decided to use some of my wealth to buy bus tickets and travel to the shelter of nearby harbour. There we could swim in the smoother water of the river and play on the small but sandy area, which was exposed at low tide. When the tide was low there was very little current running and we enjoyed ourselves swimming and playing. Later the tide started to flow and, as it was nearing teatime, we left for home. A few days later I heard from one of our schoolmates that he and a mutual friend had been on the other side of the river and, on seeing us, they had decided to swim across to us. As they neared the fast-flowing water of the middle of the river the decided to turn back, it was no place for a eight-year old, no matter how good a swimmer, and our mutual was swept away. His body was recovered later that day, trapped between moored boats about three miles upriver. We never swam there again, neither did we tell our parents that we had been there, and we never discussed it amongst ourselves. It was the first time that I lost a friend to to an early death by accident and unfortunately, it was not the last. Although there was no way that we were to blame, we were indirectly involved and I think that each of us secretly felt that we were at fault for the accident. The ability to accept blame for the action of others is a sentiment I have come to realise is all too common among the young. Another guilt-feeling and, this time also unjustified shame, for an action in which I was involved but for which I was not to blame, happened to me in the following Spring. It remained a secret in the dark depths of my mind until finally revealed to my wife some fifty years later. As is common with all kids, I was fascinated with items connected with war. These ranged from persuading the gunners to let me sit on the seat and operate the wheel that revolved the large twin-barrelled anti-aircraft gun, down to investigating the maggot-ridden wastebins behind the mobile kitchens. Everything was absolutely entralling. Then one day, I cannot remember why but it was probably due to mistaken childish pride, I mentioned that I knew the location of a bird's nest in the nearby orchard and one of the soldiers asked me to show it to him. An innocent enough request, or so I thought! I led him deep into heart of the orchard, which had been neglected due to the war and along a narrow path that I had made between the brambles. I carefully parted the thorn-covered brambles and pointed to the nest. The soldier whispered to me that I should reach into his trouser pocket for his penknife so that he could cut off the bramble that he was holding. When I did so, I realised that not only was the pocket lining missing but he also had no underpants on. My immediate reaction was to push him into the brambles and run away as fast as I could. To this day, I cannot think why I acted so quickly; perhaps children have a built-in system of self-preservation, as I certainly was not taught to act this way. The mad rush through the brambles damaged my clothes, and I took the punishment from my mother without disclosing the reason. I never told her and I was never caught in a similar situation again.
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