Uncanny Tales – (095) The Call of Duty - On A Wing and A Prayer

 

Being a man of a certain age, I have always been a great admirer of the generation ahead of me and there resoluteness in the face of adversity.

Their resilience and fortitude during the Second World War when ordinary men and women donned the many and various uniforms of the armed forces and stood up to be counted.

In the beginning it was a voluntary system, and you had some level of choice as to what arm of the forces you wanted to go into but once you chose your preferred service there was no guarantee that you would get it and once in you had no control as to what you would end up doing.

Now obviously some roles were more dangerous than others but nonetheless I still think they were very brave.

There wasn’t really a cushy number to be had you were all in the firing line to some degree.

And it wasn’t just those in military uniform who risked their lives.

Police, Firemen, ARP, fire watchers, Observers and the merchant marine were just as brave.

 

If it were me joining up back, then I’m not sure which service I would have preferred.

But whatever service you ended up with or the role within it there were some more hazardous than others.

Some so hazardous that it was like wearing a target along with the uniform.

The peril that some of them placed themselves under was truly astonishing and there are a number who deserve special mention, so I have picked one example from each service and one civilian occupation to illustrate the courage that was commonplace.

 

Glider Pilots

 

Finding a candidate from the air force was quite difficult as I have always thought that military pilots in wartime were very brave whether in fighters or bombers, on the attack or in defence and I hold them in the highest esteem.

But my greatest admiration has to be reserved for the glider pilots.

As such you need to be every bit as competent at flying powered aircraft and a bit more.

These pilots had to fly into enemy territory normally at night and land a fully laden aircraft of equipment or soldiers, and land on a precise spot in the dark or at best half-light.

And if you manage to avoid being shot down on route by enemy fighters or blown out of the sky by anti-aircraft fire or crash the glider on impact.

You then stop being a pilot and become a soldier and fight with the men you were carrying.

So, if you were carrying a glider full of Royal Marine Commandos you had to join them to their objective and fight as a Commando, what a daunting prospect.

Uncanny Tales – (094) The Call of Duty - For Those in Peril on the Sea

 

Being a man of a certain age, I have always been a great admirer of the generation ahead of me and there resoluteness in the face of adversity.

Their resilience and fortitude during the Second World War when ordinary men and women donned the many and various uniforms of the armed forces and stood up to be counted.

In the beginning it was a voluntary system, and you had some level of choice as to what arm of the forces you wanted to go into but once you chose your preferred service there was no guarantee that you would get it and once in you had no control as to what you would end up doing.

Now obviously some roles were more dangerous than others but nonetheless I still think they were very brave.

There wasn’t really a cushy number to be had you were all in the firing line to some degree.

And it wasn’t just those in military uniform who risked their lives.

Police, Firemen, ARP, fire watchers, Observers and the merchant marine were just as brave.

 

If it were me joining up back, then I’m not sure which service I would have preferred.

But whatever service you ended up with or the role within it there were some more hazardous than others.

Some so hazardous that it was like wearing a target along with the uniform.

The peril that some of them placed themselves under was truly astonishing and there are a number who deserve special mention, so I have picked one example from each service and one civilian occupation to illustrate the courage that was commonplace.

 

The Merchant Navy

 

I was spoilt for choice in the civilian occupation, the mere fact that you are unarmed and for the most part non-combatants qualify as brave in war time, but I think my candidates are beyond brave.

 

If you joined the Royal Navy in wartime, you could rightly expect to face danger and discomfort no matter what sized vessel you found yourself in.

Battling with enemy warships, risking submarine attack or Dive bombing went with the territory.

In short, they were a highly trained body of men manning state of the art vessels.

I certainly wouldn’t want to diminish the image of the Senior Service and the life of a Sailor was certainly hazardous enough, but my admiration is with the Merchant Seaman.

 

These men were often ineligible to serve in the armed forces either because of age of fitness yet they risked their lives on a regular basis in order to deliver vital materials to our beleaguered island.

The Merchantmen consisted of vessels of every size some as big as a heavily armed Battleship, physically and literary as big a target as a warship, but without the means to defend yourself apart from light antiaircraft defences.

Crossing a vast ocean like the Atlantic in a convoy, carrying vital supplies for the home front in the foulest of conditions at the mercy of the elements and the wolf packs of hunting U-boats.

 

These were brave men indeed who frequently ran the gauntlet on our behalf and when they had a ship sunk beneath them there first thought was to sign on with another ship.

Uncanny Tales – (093) Rewriting History One Fact at A Time # 3

 

If there is one thing that irritates me more than any other, it has to be historical inaccuracies in film and TV scripts.

Now I’m not talking about things like Braveheart or The Battle of the Bulge or countless other attempts by the Americans to rewrite history.

No, the things that irritate me are the little things, the small easy to verify things, the things that they just can’t be bothered to do right.

 

For example, take the 2006 movie “the Holiday” with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, and Eli Wallach, which. I particularly liked.

It has all the ingredients required for a great Christmas film, engaging characters, humour, pathos, romance, cute kids, and a happy ending, or in this case a multiple happy ending.

That aside the Grinch in me won’t forgive the unpardonable sin of a glaring error and a failure to research correctly.

Eli Wallach’s character, Arthur, asks Iris played by Kate Winslet

“What part of England are you from?”

To which she replies “Surrey”

“Cary Grant was from Surrey” Arthur says.

“That’s right he was” Iris confirms.

No, he bloody wasn’t from Surrey he was from Bristol.

How did they not get that right, why did they not check a simple fact like that?

If they wanted to keep the Cary Grant reference, Iris could have answered Arthur’s question.

“What part of England are you from?”

By saying, “Bristol”

Or if they wanted her to be from Surrey, why didn’t they pick another internationally known actor from Surrey such as Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Edward Woodward, Julia Ormond, Julie Andrews, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Peter Cushing, or Ronald Colman.

How simple would that have been “Laurence Olivier was from Surrey” Arthur could have said, but no they had to ruin an otherwise perfectly good film.

Uncanny Tales – (092) Rewriting History One Fact at A Time # 2

 

If there is one thing that irritates me more than any other, it has to be historical inaccuracies in film and TV scripts.

Now I’m not talking about things like Braveheart or The Battle of the Bulge or countless other attempts by the Americans to rewrite history.

No, the things that irritate me are the little things, the small easy to verify things, the things that they just can’t be bothered to do right.

 

For example, in the American hit TV series NCIS there is a character, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo played by Michael Weatherly, who, apart from being a special agent also considers himself to be a bit of film buff.

DiNozzo is constantly either quoting from movies or is making endless film references to accompany any given situation he is in or indeed crime scene he is at.

In one episode he is drawing a parallel between his own situation and that of the characters in the 1938 classic “Angels with Dirty Faces” with James Cagney, Pat O'Brien and Humphrey Bogart.

And the afore mentioned parallel would have been quite apt, had he not made a serious faux pas, well I think it was serious.

He referenced to the fact that Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connolly grew up as tough kids in Hell's Kitchen, the toughest part of New York, and their destinies were set when Rocky got sent to reform school and Jerry escaped the law and went on to becomes a priest.

So far so good, but where DiNozzo went wrong was to say that the Father Connolly character was played by Bogey (Humphrey Bogart), who was in the film, when he was in fact played by Pat O'Brien.

Quite unforgivable when DiNozzo is supposed to be an aficionado of film.

Uncanny Tales – (091) Rewriting History One Fact at A Time # 1

 

If there is one thing that irritates me more than any other, it has to be historical inaccuracies in film and TV scripts.

Now I’m not talking about things like Braveheart or The Battle of the Bulge or countless other attempts by the Americans to rewrite history.

No, the things that irritate me are the little things, the small easy to verify things, the things that they just can’t be bothered to do right.

 

For example, there was an American sci-fi series in the 90’s called “Babylon 5” which I much enjoyed, and if truth be told I liked it more than the Star Trek equivalent of “Deep Space 9”.

However, in one episode, “Comes the Inquisitor”, there was a character called Sebastian, who it transpired as the story unfolded was in reality Jack the Ripper.

When his true identity came to light during the story it was announced that in the late 1800’s Jack the Ripper plagued London’s West End.

No! No! No! Jack the Ripper did not stalk the theatre district he was too busy amusing himself killing prostitutes in the East End.

It was a simple mistake that just shouldn’t have happened, but it did and there really is no excuse for it this day and age when research is such a simple matter.

I find it difficult to comprehend that such a basic error made it to the airing.

Surely one of the writing team or production staff or even one of the cast, would have asked “Are you sure it was the West End?” but apparently not.

 

Last Christmas my wife bought me the boxed set and when we were watching the relevant episode, we both braced ourselves for the fateful moment and then laughed when we discovered it had been rather amateurishly dubbed.     

Uncanny Tales – (090) There’s More to Life Than Being Young and Fit

 

Now I’ve left middle age behind me in the distance I occasionally hark back to my youth when I really was as young as I felt, to the days before my six pack became victim to too many six packs, I suppose my current physique I have to confess is not so much a six pack but rather more a party seven.

(If you don’t know what a party seven is then this ramble probably doesn’t apply to you).

The thought of my girlfriends of the day with their firm buttocks, flat stomachs and gravity defying breasts stir my loins with more than a sense of nostalgia, and part of me wants to return to those carefree days of youth but I have grave reservations about being a teenager again or worse being myself amongst teenagers.

Having shared a train carriage with four teenage girls only a day ago and having endured the incessant and inane jabbering for two long soul-destroying hours, when they had exhausted their limited vocabulary within the first 10 minutes, the thought of repetitious teenage pillow talk fills me with dread.

How is it that with all the many means of communication at their disposal they still have nothing meaningful to say?

There is a lot to be said for being with a woman who is wrinkle free and supple and of limited sexual experience, carnal knowledge was so much fun to learn, and all this reminiscing leaves me with a certain longing.

But the price is too high to pay, it is so much better being with someone with life experience, someone you can have a proper conversation with in between the love making or indeed instead of it.

It doesn’t have to be deep and meaningful converse just a bit more than he said/she said init.

It can be as simple as a common history or shared knowledge, someone who knows the name of the dragon in Ivor the Engine, or someone who watched Brief Encounter and didn’t think it was funny.

Someone who remembers being able to play music at the wrong speed and who remembers having to wait for the black and white TV set to warm up.

Just someone who understands what you are saying and doesn’t stare vacantly at you when you mention an event that happened pre-1990.

Uncanny Tales – (089) Its Official, I’m An Old Man

 

I was sitting in my car, which was parked in a side road behind the church where I was waiting for my wife.

It was a “no through road” and its primary function was as an access road to the shops and its double yellow lines were designed to deter men from waiting for their wives but at six o’clock in the evening, we were there in numbers without fear of causing an obstruction.

It was a warm late afternoon/early evening in June and the bright sun beat down on the car and subsequently we were all sat with our windows down to benefit from the light breeze.

I was leant back in my seat, eyes closed against the sun, listening to the world cup chatter on the radio when I heard a car horn.

This was not an uncommon occurrence, there was always someone honking for something, I myself was no stranger to the use of the horn, so I didn’t open my eyes and continued to listen to the radio.

Then came a prolonged blast which did open my eyes and caused me to turn to see where it was coming from.

I had to crane my neck to see the source of the noise which was behind me and to the right.

A woman in a large salon car who was trying to exit a car park was waving her hand in an exaggerated gesture which I took to mean “can you move the car back”.

I arrived at this interpretation mainly because she shouted rather forcefully out of her open window.

“Move back, move back”.

Despite the fact I was not level with the entrance nor was I blocking it in anyway and had she got her positioning right she would have made the manoeuvre effortlessly,

I pointed out to her quite politely that she was only driving a saloon car and not a tank, but this fell on deaf ears, so she repeated her demand.

“Move back, move back”.

I acceded to her request and reversed back out of harm’s way but as she was making the turn she stopped and shouted to me through the passenger window.

I was expecting a thank you but instead she shouted in a voice somewhere between Caroline Langrishe and Margot Ledbetter.

“If I didn’t have my daughter in the car, I would have something to say to you, you silly old man”.

I was so taken aback by the superciliousness of her comment that I laughed.

This was not the response she was expecting which seemed to fluster her and she missed her gear.

“Are you not even a little bit embarrassed that you can’t manoeuvre yourself out of a car park”?

She eventually managed to find first gear and lurched forward but then found herself tight up behind the car that was parked in front of me before I moved.

I couldn’t resist the temptation and leant out of my window.

“Would you like me to ask him to move as well”?

She reversed back quickly then lurched forward again only to find she still couldn’t clear the parked car, so she threw it into reverse again and quickly shot forward.

To my shame the child in me applauded as did the driver of the car in front.

Then a jewelled hand appeared from the drivers’ window and extended a single digit and from the passenger side a smaller hand appeared and gave a thumbs up.

Then the brake lights came on as she violently braked sharply, at first, I thought she was going to engage us in some witty repartee or that she had noticed her daughters’ supportive gesture but no, it was just that she nearly ran down some poor unsuspecting pedestrian.

The driver of the other car and myself exchanged knowing looks and I chuckled to myself and was still chuckling when my wife arrived and got in the car.