thank you thank you for an excellent essay
"what i did on my winter hols"
at least 9 out of ten
(most of mine back in those far distance days of
dreary classrooms and passing notes to the gels,
scored 2/10 SEE ME.)
True confessions . . . a little like the luck of the draw
and the Wellington crewman aforementioned
who came through against all odds . . .
9 out of ten of all the ones I fancied ( and
tried to really get to know) had fathers or mothers who
served in the RAAF. One of this bevy was Stephanie
from Casino, NSW. Her dad was a Watson. He and
his crew (Manchester or Lanc?) were MIA, their fate never
discovered. As with quite a number of kids of servicemen,
Steph never knew her dad. And he never saw her.
Again . . first wife's dad was adjutant to a Catalina squadron
based at Melville Bay near to Gove. He featured in the fairly
recent excellent book by Andrew McMillan , Catalina Dreaming,
in a chapter called The Cook's Lament. Not an altogether
complimentary reference either. He had the guard fire over the
heads of some locals (Yolngu) who had a camp on the outskirts of the
base, and who would come up to the cookhouse to be given
scraps by Alf, the cook in the book.
One quiet, mysterious and illusive one in the same class at Canberra High
School had a dad in the RAAF. AVM Geoff Hartnell. They lived
in Yarralumla. My friend the late GC Paul Metzler once made the comment
that Hartnell was a bloody good pilot, before he became chairborne.
Danny when you say . .I always was Kipling's Cat Who Walked by
Himself, and All places were Alike to Him....that does point to an
alter ego in some ways different to the author of numerous
posts pointing to a man who rubbed along pretty well with most types.
But who probably at the same time, kept his own counsel.
And survived by dint of more than a modicum of monkey cunning.
Last edited by Fantome; 18th May 2015 at 18:06.