Monday 28 October 2013

The Scarred Wounded Man.

And So The Day Begins.







I picked up this poem on the web.

It is by a Brit.
Clive Sanders.



They said it was wrong to fight in the war,
It must stop now with killing no more.
Give peace a chance, let god us adore,
Man is not bad, let love be the cure.

So a truce was agreed by the powerful men,
That let them re-arm, while the world said Amen.
Til a Maniac's bomb exploded and then
the fighting and dying started over again.

And the world shook its head and said we deplore
The hatred and violence that we all abhor.
If powerful men can't bring in a law.
What on earth can be done to finish the war.

Then the General said, "You must give me the men
Who are ready to fight any where, any when.
And support them you must, it's the sword not the pen,
That will finish the war and make peace again."

It's the boot on the ground that ends the war.
It's the man with a gun that evens the score.
It's the scarred wounded man,just his family adore,
Who will end the killing and justice restore,

By Clive Sanders.

Didn't he do well.

Agman

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Uncle Tom





post: 2 class
date: 19 November    
Year: 1964.
Cost   5d  ( 5 cents)
Yes a long time ago?




This is a letter that I received from a friend of mine in Hobart Tasmania  








I always knew him
as Uncle Tom.
but in fact his name was
Edward Stanford.
Aged 80 years  approx

I was first introduced to Uncle Tom by my girlfriend, I believe
he was her uncle and he lived in a converted garage on the corner of her fathers property.

When I would go and visit I made a point of looking out for him,because I found him interesting to talk to, also from our first hand shake, he was my friend.

Often Josephine would ask "what we talked about?" and I always smiled and said "the mountain," and he did at times, Mt Wellington dominates the city of Hobart, a grand sight with it's organ pipes stretching up to 4000 feet.

Over the 8 months I was posted to Hobart I had many talks with Uncle Tom.
He spent his whole life on a farm outside of Hobart, he was a small man who wore baggy trousers with straps as well as a waist belt, and boots, always wore a trilby hat on his head and always had a smile on his face which was white and his nose was pink with a twinkle in his eye.

His life long dream was to drive a tractor, which at the age of 67 years he realised and loved it.
One day I asked if he had ever been married, he looked down and said "no" and went quite.
I changed the subject to tractors, I could see it was not an easy subject for him.

When I left Tasmania we wrote a few letters to each other, his were not unlike this one, which I kept.
I also put two of them in a bottle and threw them over the side of my yacht whilst crossing the Irish sea.

They were so personal; A pouring out of his emotions, Pulling at the strings of my heart, to hear an old man's pain.
It was possible the first time I realised how hurt he felt.
He wrote of his lady, gently always in a quite way,
saying how much he loved her, but was too shy to talk to her, so he lost her.
How he witnessed her getting married in the local church in his village,
and how he nearly went crazy in his grief, wanting to take his own life! blaming himself  for losing his love because he was too shy.

Later in their lives they became good friends and they had many a good chats in the village and he came to terms with his life.
She never knew.

I don't remember what I wrote back, I tried to keep him up to date with the aeroplanes I was flying and what we were doing with them as he had showed a lot of interest in them, well as always in these things our letters stopped, I reckon he must have died.

I landed in Hobart a few years later and went looking for Uncle Tom and Josephine and her family,
story from a neighbour was that the men had died and Josephine and her mother had gone to Melbourne.
So that's the end of Uncle Toms story,
it may be of no interest to other people, I just wanted to remember him.
For his epitaph I would just like to say.

"He was a good and kind,honest man, who I called friend".

Agman



Sunday 20 October 2013

Isn't it Daft!

Gently.
















I learned a new word this week, 

I don't know why it passed me bye,
I can't remember meeting it before,
It certainly has never knocked upon my door,
Of course to my dictionary I did run, 
reading it through I found the word was true,
The word that I'm eluding to is "Daft"
I must of course thank my blogger friend, 
for giving me a new word to spend.
The bloggers name is not for me to say, 
but in her picture you will see, the clue to the blogger,
who was good to me.
Daft:   mad, crazy, foolish, stupid and silly and other things.


A Dafty I may be, so be gentle when you think of me.

Agman.


Friday 18 October 2013

Unless you've been a soldier




I picked this up on Google +
thought it was worth a posting. 

I do believe our lads don't get the support their due, after what is asked of them to do in our names.




A poignant word or two about our brave soldiers.

 Clive Sanders.

If you call my name I will stand two.

Agman.

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Caught short in the land of the Pharaohs





Place :    Egypt.
              Nile Delta.

Aircraft:  Turbo Thrush.

Duty:        Crop Spraying


This is the short story about a wee 15 minute incident

It's mid morning, temperature is around 85F to 95F degrees  and the relative humidity is high as always in the mornings on the delta.

The heat haze is such that we navigate from minaret to minaret that stick up in the haze and we are able to fly from village to village using them, in the poor visibility.

Every now and again I would pull up out of the haze and look around to see if any other aircraft are in my zone.
The haze is about 200 feet thick and you can easily, see down through it from 200 hundred feet above it, the danger of collision, are very real in haze,

we are all flying around at about the same height  at 150 mph, so one must be careful. don't you agree?  

Okay lets get back to my true but humorous event?

I'm on my way back to my strip.

When that familiar moving pain, started to move about in my tummy, expanding probing about, for an outlet!

I knew that if I didn't land right now! I was going to poop my pants in a right royal style?

I was aware that a strip was just in front of me,
so I pushed the prop into full fine killing the forward speed, as she came under 100 mph! I dropped the flaps, she tried to rear up on me as the speed dropped off and I held the nose down to keep flying speed.

I saw the strip off to my left and side sliped over to it.
If for some reason I can't land here? and have to return to my strip, to put it crudely, I will be in deep shit. excuse the pun?

As I came over the end of the strip at around about 12 feet, I slip the prop into reverse pitch, by the time I contacted the ground I was stopped,

I stepped on the brakes just to create a wee bump mark in front of the main wheels, which would stop her rolling, if she decided to? then it was brakes on and locked,
Oh! I'm not going to make it? better run.

I jumped out of the aircraft, wet wipes in hand! pulling all my zips on my flight suit and ripping it off!
by the time I squatted down in the corn crop I was down to my boxers and a T shirt and flight boots.

Of course everything happened right there and then.
I'd made it! no problems?

In fact after a minute or two as I cleansed myself, a feeling of well being came over me, as I squatted there in the cool of the canopy of the corn leaves, feeling quite smug with myself.

Then I took my first look about and there! not more than 10 feet away sat an Arab women pulling weeds out of the crop, she just seemed to ignore me.
I turned away and pulled my kit on again, I do believe I was blushing profusely,  well anyway My cheeks felt hot.

As I went to walk away I placed some Egypt money on a plant in plain sight  and as our eyes met again I thought I saw the hint of a smile in those big brown eyes.

I just hurried away and got back on board and flew back to my strip.

end of story.

Way to go! wet wipes!
                        
Agman

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Good Ole Cup of Tea

molly Brett




















A lady in the bookshop said to me.
"You canna beat a good cup of tea,"

You can have it  weak or have it strong,
It doesn't matter what's gone wrong,
Tea will fix with a song.

In the bookshop I could see all the ladies drinking tea,
So that's when I started, drinking tea?

So here I sit in my chair drinking tea,
Not being able to stop you see.

Because now, I'm addicted to this blasted tea

Agman.