Monday Mumbles
Aside

Goodo! At last we ‘over 60’s’ have a champion. She’s bright, intelligent, articulate, a northerner (Stockport) and used to be known as the thinking man’s crumpet when she used to host ‘Late night line up’ a few decades ago. She’s had a play written about her by Harold Pinter, who had a well documented affair with her and now she’s been invited by the government to look out for we oldies, with no strings. She’ll do nicely thank you.


Yesterday I was really looking forward to a programme by Jo Brand about Vera Brittain, who I mentioned in yesterday’s post, and it just didn’t happen and I neither saw nor heard a reason why. Buck up B.B.C!


One last word about WW1 then I’ll shut up for another year: Harry Patch a Somerset lad was an 18 year old apprentice plumber when he joined the army; He fought at Passchendale in Belgium, was wounded and saw his three best friends killed. He never spoke about his experiences until he was 100 and swore he would never return to the battle field. Now aged 110 he changed his mind and wanted to pay homage to the German soldiers. He met up with a German survivor of the battle and with companions who could translate, had a moving chat about the futility of war and how they bore no grudges. With difficulty they both leaned over the table and clasped each other’s hands in a long moving handshake. Harry said:

‘Too many died. War isn’t worth one life.’