Happy Sunday!

It was wet and cold, a neighbour said “What a miserable day!” and I said “It’s only as miserable as you allow it!”.   That cheered her up; her lovely daughter smiled and that brightened everything.   In the evening my wife called “Dinner’s ready!”; when we are alone we eat in the kitchen, me facing the digital clock.   It read 19.39 and I thought “The war!”.   For my  father,  George Robey was terribly funny - “The year war broke out my Missus said to me ‘What are you going to do about it?’”  I thought it was ridiculous.   Then it was 19.40 - Dunkirk!   Whatever people say, there is no question but that God intervened on our behalf.   He stilled the waters as He did on Galilee, thousands of our troops were saved and the Nazi invasion of our islands was averted.   Carol’s father was given up for dead but one of his men detected a heartbeat, dragged him to the boats and got him back home.   Alas, he died a war hero at Anzio a few years later.   And the clock ticked on - soon it was 19.43 and I got a letter from the King - “Brian old chap I need you” and off I went to join the RAF.   I wanted to be a spitfire pilot and shoot down hundreds of German planes but it was not to be and I became a radar mechanic instead - but in a way that was better because without radar we would not have won the war.   Then 19.44 and I was in Burma...then 19.45 and I was at sea with the fleet for the invasion of Malaya.  Suddenly it was called off: Japan had surrendered.   Those atomic bombs had taken hundreds of lives but we thought that thousands - even millions - had been saved.   Was there an equation there somewhere.   It’s a pity that after 19.59 the clock goes to 20.00 - so much happened in 19.60 onwards....but that’s another story!