Is Death Knocking at Your Door?

Is Death Knocking at your Door?

Some people seek solace in smoking a cig.

Some folk get comfort from cider

Some fellows are regaled by reading tall tales

But my fun is just with the writing.

I love writing.  I don't write enough.  I don't have a target, or want to have fame as a writer.

To research a book is definitely interesting, if at times gruesome.   

I write as therapy, a way to get the demons out of my head.

 I've just looked at the statistics for the Battle of the Somme, and they are unbelievable - except you have to believe them because they are true.  The General on the Allied side, Douglas Haig, saw the battle as a shock tactic, to be over in twenty-four hours.

It went on for almost six months.

He became Lord Haig, and was given a lifetime pension.  

Many, many thousands of households did not receive lifetime pensions, 

instead they received a medallion to commemorate the death of sons, husbands, and brothers.  

These were called the "Death Pennies"

Lord Haig's family did not receive a Death Penny.

There were even skirmishes after that six-month "shock attack", when my great-uncle Tom Beesley was killed on January 13th 1917.

Such brave men . . . on both sides.  How must they have felt?

The waiting must have been the worst bit.  Waiting, waiting, waiting, with your heart pounding, just waiting to hear that whistle, as though it were the start of a football match.  At least then, you could do something you were trained to do, even if it was robotic and clinical.  

Even if it was just to be injured or killed for King and Country.

A million troops were killed or injured in six months at the Somme

for just ten miles of territory gained on a thirty mile front.

What must have gone through those troops' minds as they waited in the trenches, calculating the odds of their not seeing the next sunset.?

I recently had an inkling, when I had a fall just over a week ago.  It was just a simple fall, and I got up without any help.  And yet, I thought, for no obvious reason, that I should get it checked out at hospital.  Three hours, and two tests later, i found myself in the Coronary Care Unit, where I stayed for almost a week before I was let out again "on leave" before a return to Hospital for my particular time "in the trenches"

In that week, they examined my "dicky ticker" and came to a number of conclusions.  The team were absolutely wonderful.  I have a surgeon, Dr. Brian Plunkett, who, although, based in Sydney, has worked all over the World.  Canada, the USA, etc.  He was returning from New Zealand before he saw me.

He managed his team, who, day by day, came to see me, with total transparency, to tell me what they could do, what they would like to do, what alternatives they had, why they would advise me to do, - and what my chances were of survival were.  

What were my chances of survival?  Why 100% of course!  I'm never going to die, how could I?  For the last seventy-six years I've been indestructible, so why should that not continue?

The operation itself is straightforward, if long, (about six hours), and then I have to be revived.  For most people, "waking up" is the normal natural thing to do, but I have a problem.  I only have one working lung.  This cuts my air down to 50% of "normal".  When we walk side by side, you may be walking, but aerobically I am running to keep up.  In practice, of course, 50% is my ideal, but in actual fact that is nearer 35% in reality!  In other words, I shall be on a ventilator and I shall wake up and breathe for myself, and from there on it's onwards and upwards into the sunlight.

Unfortunately . .  . at 35%, it may take a few hours to get me to breathe again by myself.  I inflate my lung by using the diaphragm muscle, as I have ever since I was born.  The ventilator will do the job for me during the operation and immediately afterwards, but at some stage I have to be weaned onto my own breathing.  My lung function is not good, and it may take a few hours to get me breathing again, but the trouble is that for every hour that passes, the diaphragm becomes weaker, and in a frighteningly short time, (a few hours only), it becomes "tired" so that it becomes impossible to breathe unassisted.  If the ventilator is switched off, a few minutes later I die.  Regardless of your ideas of the afterlife, your present life will be ended.  No more Christmas, no more trips to the camera club.  Not even one more cuddle with Marg.  If things go wrong, I will have made my last purchase at the supermarket.  I will never come home again.

It's strange.  I have no (well, a little) fear of death, but I wonder what it will be like for those who know me.  What will it be like to eat your meals and watch the telly on the sofa by yourself?  There are so many decisions to make.  How many people should be at the switching off?  How will Marg or anyone, cope with the decision by themselves?  Might I still be mechanically conscious when the machine is switched off, and gradually lose consciousness and die within a space of up to thirty minutes.

I wonder who will take Marg home from my death.  We will have been married for forty-seven years on October 4th.  It's Marg's birthday on August 2nd.

On the other hand, like the soldier back from no-man's-land and into the relative safety of his trench, I shall probably survive.  In which case, I shall go to the supermarket again.  There will be Christmas.

As Thomas Hardy wrote about the First World War:

"How quaint and curious War is!  You shoot a fellow down, you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown"

What knife-edges we all exist on!  On what thin ice we skate!

End of Part One.

Wish me, please, a start to Part Two.  

WATCH THIS SPACE

Banging on again about guns!

Back in June 2007 I was holidaying with University friends in Bavaria in Southern Germany.  Bavarians appear to be a religious lot, and every morning at about 7 am I was woken by the local church bells.  They were loud.  I was never late for breakfast.  It was a great Saturday night, much merriment and beer, and I knew I would sleep soundly, and would find it difficult to make the 7am breakfast - after all, it was Sunday.

However. . . It was also June and it was Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ).  Just after 4 am I woke to hear church bells being rung way down the valley.  At precisely 30 minute intervals, the bells were rung closer and closer up the valley.  I could hear the sounds of the bells  pealing and their peals were being reflected by the mountains.  Either that or I was developing musical tinnitus.  I got dressed. At about 6.30, I was asked if I was going to the Corpus Christi celebrations.

At 7 am the Schlierberg bells rang again, and near the church there was a procession.  It was a long procession of clergy, choirboys, ladies laced into their dirndls.  There were also hunters (Jaegeren) who supported a canopy held over the Priests who held the wine and bread.  There must have been over two dozen Jaegeren who were armed to the teeth with rifles, but we felt no fear.

That is, until halfway through the outdoor Mass, as you probably know, the wafer of bread is held aloft, and a bell is rung, and the same happens after the chalice of wine is raised (ding-a-ling).

Not in this Mass!  At the point where the bell would normally ring, there was a giant bang as the shooters fired in unison.  Most of us jumped at the sound of two dozen rifles being discharged when we were expecting bells.  The same thing happened when the chalice of wine was elevated.

But the weird thing was, we were all alarmed, but none of us was frightened.  They had obviously rehearsed, they knew what they were doing and why they were doing it.  It was obviously something that had happened at ceremonies for decades, if not centuries..

A few hundred kilometres to the South West of Bavaria lies the peaceful neutral country of Switzerland, which adopts a policy of armed neutrality.  There are (good pub quiz question, this!) more guns per head in Switzerland, than in any other country in the world, and many, perhaps even most of them are assault rifles.

At the age of 18, all Swiss youths that are fit, have to join the Swiss Army and remain in it until they are in their early 40s.  In those twenty-two years, while they have this obligation - although they are still allowed to do proper jobs - they have to have an army assault rifle locked up in a safe place, and removed only when they are called for regular military training, which continues for as long as they are in the Army.  This encourages many of the Swiss soldiers to like shooting, so they do.  They hire a field somewhere, have a beer tent, a roundabout for the kiddies, and they have lots of fun taking part in gun competions.  A good time is had by all, and afterwards, the guns are locked away in their secure cupboards at home.  They had a good time that day, but it was also yet another practice so that they could keep future enemies out of Switzerland.  

The Swiss have one of the lowest murder rates in the world.

In 2018, I was in Italy.  I don't particularly like Venice, but a photographer friend told me about Burano.  So, I spent a couple of nights in a Venetian hotel.  The first evening I ate in a local Venetian restaurant.  I sat at the same table as an American and his wife and they were on a "four week trip round Yurrup".  Yes, they said, they were having a wonderful time and had I ever been to the US of A? (I didn't think people ever said the US of A in reality!).  So, I mentioned that I had been to several states from New York to Virginia to Pensylvania to Hawaii.  I made the mistake of mentioning the 2016 election.  They were from Florida and they were Republicans, and he added "I yam a TRUMP supporter"  Somehow the subject came round to guns.  I explained the British police policy of not normally carrying guns, and foolishly said that I didn't like travelling to America because of the number of private Americans owning guns.  He leaned forward, opened his jacket, and chillingly said "and not only in America either"  I didn't see a gun, but I did see what I took to be a shoulder holster!  How did he get a gun into the country?  What might he possibly want it for?  Why would he mention it, and show me?

I behaved as an Englishman, should behave.  I gave them "the bum's rush" 

I immediately stood up, and shook his wife's hand.  She stood up..  I shook his hand, and he also stood up.  "I do hope you have a really lovely holiday", I said in my best English accent  "You, too!" he said, and then they paid and left.  The owner of the restaurant asked if I would care for a coffee and liqueur.  He brought me the largest limoncello ever with my espresso.  When I left, he charged me for the coffee only. 

I believe that in the USA, a "mass shooting" is any homicide where four or more people are killed.  Today, as every day, there was another mass shooting, this time in Chicago.

There have in the previous six months of the year, been over three HUNDRED mass shootings.  This is about 1.2 mass shootings (at least five people) killed PER DAY.

A cousin of mine who lives in San Francisco sent me an email:  I won't quote him verbatim, but he sent me a copy of the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  It states something like:-

IN A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

If you read it carefully, the Founding Fathers of the United States appear to have wanted a defence based on the Swiss model.  There is no right to bear arms unless they are controlled by citizens being members of a militia.  Can you name a militia?  I can't and that's a deadlier question than that which might be asked in a pub.  But if the American has a right to bear arms, what training does the militia give him, and also what standards have to be met?  Maybe, just maybe, if the full amendment was read and acted on, there would be the same number of mass shootings as Switzerland in six months, i.e. none.

The unpalatable truth is that various organisations do not encourage the full reading of the Second Amendment.  Gun Culture has become politicised, and with a split Senate and Supreme Court this is likely to continue.

HOWEVER . . . The least read part of the Right to Bear Arms is the title.  The Second AMENDMENT to the Constitution.  If it is an Amendment to the Constitution, then the Constitution can be, and has been, amended,. and so, in theory at least, the Second Amendment can itself be amended.

All it needs is for America to want it, and to fight a Senate, Rep, and Presidential Election to get it done.  Sadly, some of the nicest people in the World are in danger of becoming  Pariahs, unless they show the Political Will to change.