A child's worth?
Learning of the Marine who died from some mutant overwhelming infection arising from a scratch on his leg by heather or scrub; my mind began to circle around memories of similar deaths I can remember.
The first was at my school in Trowbridge when we were 13. She was a beautiful honey blonde, very popular for all the right reasons, and very inspiring for us pubescent lads. She was a boarder, and at the Christmas party we boys all attempted to have at least one dance with her. Then we broke up, and went to our own homes. At the first assembly in January we were told that she had died from some unknown infection on Christmas Day.
At my medical to join the RAF I stood in the naked queue with a boy who had gone to the local grammar school whilst I had gone further afield. I was rejected because I couldn't balance on one leg for the regulation period, and he was accepted and after initial training became a Pilot Officer. (I volunteered for the Army). His family were elated with this and readily gave permission for him to marry his sweetheart (with whom also I had been at school). Some six or seven weeks after their honeymoon I came across her leaning over the town bridge looking at the water and crying her eyes out. He, her husband, had been killed on a training flight, and she was desolate.
Recently, here in Norfolk, a Flight Sergeant who had perished in the same way as my friend, and whose remains were recovered after 60 years from the recovered wreckage in the past year from the Wash, was buried with full military honours at RAF Marham.
My best friend during my early teens was a diabetic. He couldn't do any military service because of his condition. My mother was instrumental in persuading him to become a trainee surveyor with the local council. Over the years he steadily progressed until he became the Borough Surveyor; controlling a huge staff and a very large budget. On his 60th birthday he attended at the London HQ of his professional body to receive some sort of fellowship to mark his success and his impending retirement from public life. He returned to our home town during the late afternoon to attend a retirement do given by the borough council in his honour. As he stepped from the carriage onto the platform of the railway station he suffered an instantaneous and fatal heart attack.
All of these have a common feature.
However far back our memories they are, we still remember them and catch glimpses of them in our modern daily lives.
I give thanks for each memory, hurtful though they may be or have been.
Gloria patri!
