Bombing London 1940

The Only way to fit

my entry into AOL's

space is to squeeze

tight making the column

long.

 

I HATE AOL

 

 

PBS is showing tonight a documentary

about the bombing of London by

Germany in 1940. My father's family

was bombed out five times during WW2.

When I met my Uncle Eric in London,

decades ago, I must have been too shy

to bring up that subject. My father,

being reticent, told me little to

nothing, in Australia,  about his

family in London. So meeting Eric

was almost literally meeting a total

stranger. He told me he processed

his own film, but he took no photos.

It was dark. I   took  some photos

without flash and the pictures were

bad, color-distorted. He seemed a

bit miffed I had a good camera. To

Americans the English, sorry    Brits, 

seem inordinately preoccupied with

social and money status.  For example,

Erick may very well have been

scandalized that a total stranger

would enter his house and start

taking pictures, even if it was only

after an elaborate request, and

putting the camera on self-timer.

Erick's wife was spectacularly

beautiful. So lacking any kind of

information I secretly made up

that my father lost his girl friend

to his younger brother,  so fled in

shame to Australia, self-transported

so to speak.

The 1940 bombing of London by Hitler

was avenged pretty soon after by the 

RAF incinerating of the East German

city of Dresden, where more people

died than died at Hiroshima.

Vengeance is bad, and the seeking

of vengeance a sin, to be regretted,

but it is oh so human, and it might

not vanish in the immediate future.

The best footage of the 1940 bombing

of London was assembled by the

director of the first Beattle movie.

I met him, and worked for him, on

a British TV commercial in Jamaica. 

I mentioned his documentary, but in

doing so I must have made a faux pas.

He froze.  The commercial we shot

was for After Eight, a dinner mint. 

By happenstance we shot in Jamaica

while the Queen was visiting.  I noticed

she had an enormous Yacht at the time, a

vessel later given up. Austerity?

Barry