What my dad (probably) did in the war

I was telling you about rushing to Wiltshire to discover what it really was that my Dad did in the war – questions never answered back in childhood, and nor since, until almost this week.

Good friend writer John Northcott, who lived just down the road in his Pom days, learned about the film The Secret Spitfires, now showing in Salisbury, while browsing on the web from his home in New Zealand.

The chance to learn of my Dad’s role in Salisbury back in the war had me rushing to the wintry medieval city.

I found the Odeon, sat through what seemed like hours of commercials blasting out at around a zillion decibels, and then sat up smartly for about 45 minutes of stunning documentary, The Secret Spitfires, as it began drawing appreciative gasps from the (very) mature audience.

Totally new

It was an amazing experience, not just getting towards the answers about what my Dad did in the war, but being in the presence of people who must have been toddlers when I was learning to walk and to talk.

I’ve lived in this body for more years than I care to tot up, and yet suddenly here was a totally new experience, and I don’t mean just the vociferous commercials.

I’m familiar with the cinema chain’s little presumptions that customers are equally short on IQ and powers of hearing.

Here nearly were lifelong answers for a lad born into the madness of a world war. The lullabies for this little blue eye fair-haired babe had been bombs dropping all around and anti-aircraft guns quaking the ground enough to challenge the Richter scale.

As mentioned this week, back then no-one talked about the war, the action, the madness, and worse what my father was up to out there in wartime, war-torn Salisbury.

Secret factories

He seemed to spend most of his waking life then working on Spitfires in secret factories in Salisbury, or else out somewhere on Home Guard duty, wearing his tin Home Guard helmet.

What excitement for a little lad. Bombers, fighters, guns firing, sudden frenetic dashes to the garden bomb shelter, everyone within the home button-lipped.

Continues of the blogs for my oceanic adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, here >>>> at SailingToPurgatory.com