Dear Friends and Family,
My mind is still preoccupied with the Luftwaffe pilot Willi Schludecker. I did not mention it in my previous post but Willi is actually a good friend of mine. We live in the same part of Cologne and have for many years been drinking partners. This is probably why I object so strongly to criticism of what he did when he went over to England to apologise. I know from first hand conversations with him that he was deeply divided over whether to go or not. He was advised by his family not to go as they said that he would not be made to feel entirely welcome and it would be like a murderer facing the families of his victims. I think that this interpretation is entirely wrong. As I said in my previous blog, he was simply part of a war, a world war in which he had to do as he was commanded. I personally think that he made the right decision in going. The media attention that he had to face was, I imagine, quite stressful and so I am pleased he managed it at his age.
I have not seen Willi for many weeks now as he has become very ill. He has fulfilled his dying wish of making an apology so I am pleased that he can rest in peace. I hope that you will all think of him at this time.
Guten Abend
Friday, 14 November 2008
Some news
Dear Friends and Family,
Today I decided to purchase an English newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph. Although it is very expensive, I used to read the Telegraph when I lived in England. In the News Review and Comment section, there is series of diary extracts from a GP who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and subsequently died at just 47 years old. It is a deeply moving article and the diary extracts are very honest. It was a particular section in his extracts which prompted my blog,
"The hospice director has said the most useful thing so far in any of the conversations I have had since this whole cancer thing started: slow down. In the first month following the diagnosis, my wife and I had chased around seeing solicitors, financial advisers, even a cemetery, as though my death was imminent. Of course the pressure was all from me. I needed desperately to know that things were sorted out, and unable to sort out any of the big things, like undoing the cancer, I needed to settle for the mundane. The consequence of this was that I was exhausted and hadn't given myself space simply to be and start to experience the feelings, the enormity, despair, that my life had become."
In this man's diary, I really related to his desire to tie up all the loose ends before he dies. I have had prostate cancer for several years now and up until last week, it had been kept under control or at least prevented from spreading. I am now told that it has spread to other major organs. It is strange because I do not feel any different. I have been given various medical options but being the age that I am, those options are relatively limited. I have decided that I am going to use this blog to tie up my own loose ends and I will leave it in my will for my family to read once I am gone. There are a few areas of my life which are 'grey patches' so to speak. I would like to clear up those 'grey patches' as I know that a great weight will be lifted not only for myself but for my family also.
Guten Tag
Today I decided to purchase an English newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph. Although it is very expensive, I used to read the Telegraph when I lived in England. In the News Review and Comment section, there is series of diary extracts from a GP who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and subsequently died at just 47 years old. It is a deeply moving article and the diary extracts are very honest. It was a particular section in his extracts which prompted my blog,
"The hospice director has said the most useful thing so far in any of the conversations I have had since this whole cancer thing started: slow down. In the first month following the diagnosis, my wife and I had chased around seeing solicitors, financial advisers, even a cemetery, as though my death was imminent. Of course the pressure was all from me. I needed desperately to know that things were sorted out, and unable to sort out any of the big things, like undoing the cancer, I needed to settle for the mundane. The consequence of this was that I was exhausted and hadn't given myself space simply to be and start to experience the feelings, the enormity, despair, that my life had become."
In this man's diary, I really related to his desire to tie up all the loose ends before he dies. I have had prostate cancer for several years now and up until last week, it had been kept under control or at least prevented from spreading. I am now told that it has spread to other major organs. It is strange because I do not feel any different. I have been given various medical options but being the age that I am, those options are relatively limited. I have decided that I am going to use this blog to tie up my own loose ends and I will leave it in my will for my family to read once I am gone. There are a few areas of my life which are 'grey patches' so to speak. I would like to clear up those 'grey patches' as I know that a great weight will be lifted not only for myself but for my family also.
Guten Tag
My wife, Ilse
Dear Friends and Family,
I can remember as a child, my grandfather telling us long and laborious stories about when he was a young boy. I do not wish to bore you with my stories but simply to leave something of my life behind when I die. That is why I am now going to address my blogs to friends and family as I would like to think of them being able to log on and read about my life when I am gone.
I have never told anyone how I met my wife, Ilse. Ilse was a wonderful woman and whilst she was alive, they were the happiest days of my life. Everything in my home, from the angle of the tissue box on my desk to the handwritten labels on the oven explaining which way to turn the button, are all her doing. There are of course the exceptions such as the robust chairlift and the dangling emergency courts which hang from every known crevice in the house. She always said that she would never grow old. How lucky she was not to.
We met in the summer of 1939 when I was just 18 years old. I was very keen to get involved in the English group at the University I had started at. I perhaps did not mention in my earlier blogs that I grew up in England until the age of 10. We had to leave our farm in Somerset to take over the family one in Cologne when my grandparents were too old to manage it without help. Anyway, I really enjoyed my time in England and being fluent in the language, I decided that I would like to meet people with the same interest. The group talked about English culture and many students were learning English and so keen to practise their skills on me. After the first group meeting, I went every week without fail. Of course the reason I went was because I fell head over hills, the second I walked through the door, with the group leader - my future wife. She was so charming and charismatic. I had never met a girl with so much confidence and so self assured.
After a couple of months, we became good friends and she would often say hello to me if she saw me around the University. I decided to invite her round for dinner with my parents. This may sound strange to my grandchildren as now a days it would not be 'cool' to invite friends, girlfriends or boyfriends to dinner with their parents. None the less, it showed honest intentions in those days. The dinner was less than a success. Ilse was a vegetarian which of course my mother did not approve of. I can remember her saying something along the lines of 'no wonder she is so skinny. She needs to eat proper food.' Although the dinner was not a success for mother, I knew that Ilse was the sort of girl I wanted to be courting. That evening, I walked her home and we kissed outside her house. I was on cloud nine! I immediately asked her to go to the picture house with me and the following week we went to see 'The Wizard of Oz'. It was a wonderful film and one which we saw every year on our anniversary. Just two months later, the British declared war on Germany and our lives were separated for a number of years. We vowed in that time to be married once we were reunited.
Guten Nacht
I can remember as a child, my grandfather telling us long and laborious stories about when he was a young boy. I do not wish to bore you with my stories but simply to leave something of my life behind when I die. That is why I am now going to address my blogs to friends and family as I would like to think of them being able to log on and read about my life when I am gone.
I have never told anyone how I met my wife, Ilse. Ilse was a wonderful woman and whilst she was alive, they were the happiest days of my life. Everything in my home, from the angle of the tissue box on my desk to the handwritten labels on the oven explaining which way to turn the button, are all her doing. There are of course the exceptions such as the robust chairlift and the dangling emergency courts which hang from every known crevice in the house. She always said that she would never grow old. How lucky she was not to.
We met in the summer of 1939 when I was just 18 years old. I was very keen to get involved in the English group at the University I had started at. I perhaps did not mention in my earlier blogs that I grew up in England until the age of 10. We had to leave our farm in Somerset to take over the family one in Cologne when my grandparents were too old to manage it without help. Anyway, I really enjoyed my time in England and being fluent in the language, I decided that I would like to meet people with the same interest. The group talked about English culture and many students were learning English and so keen to practise their skills on me. After the first group meeting, I went every week without fail. Of course the reason I went was because I fell head over hills, the second I walked through the door, with the group leader - my future wife. She was so charming and charismatic. I had never met a girl with so much confidence and so self assured.
After a couple of months, we became good friends and she would often say hello to me if she saw me around the University. I decided to invite her round for dinner with my parents. This may sound strange to my grandchildren as now a days it would not be 'cool' to invite friends, girlfriends or boyfriends to dinner with their parents. None the less, it showed honest intentions in those days. The dinner was less than a success. Ilse was a vegetarian which of course my mother did not approve of. I can remember her saying something along the lines of 'no wonder she is so skinny. She needs to eat proper food.' Although the dinner was not a success for mother, I knew that Ilse was the sort of girl I wanted to be courting. That evening, I walked her home and we kissed outside her house. I was on cloud nine! I immediately asked her to go to the picture house with me and the following week we went to see 'The Wizard of Oz'. It was a wonderful film and one which we saw every year on our anniversary. Just two months later, the British declared war on Germany and our lives were separated for a number of years. We vowed in that time to be married once we were reunited.
Guten Nacht
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Some childhood memories
Dear friends,
I have not written on my blog for a while. It has been a very busy time for me with lots of family coming and going.
Anyway, I do enjoy engrossing myself in stories about the war. Perhaps some may call it a morbid fascination. In fact, my son once brought me a novel called 'War Junkie' - needless to say I have never got round to reading it. I have an objection to the haphazard association between war and a drug addiction.
I have thoroughly enjoyed an article recently about the 'Unknown Soldier'. In a visit to Westminster Cathedral, I did visit the tomb. It provoked some very deep thoughts. Namely thoughts about death. It is no lie that I am creeping slowly but surely closer to it. The soldiers in the World Wars who risked their lives must have thought about it a great deal. Perhaps they did not? Perhaps they took each day as it came and in return did not carry the burden that it entails. Of course they could be killed at any moment but on the other hand, they must have been aware that they equally had their whole lives ahead of them.
My first association with death was when I was about 8 years old. I was incredibly distracted by it. A close relative had died recently and my mother had decided that me and my siblings should not attend the funeral. Maybe if I had gone, I would have been less scared - maybe realised that the relatives life was being celebrated and felt that sense of closure which funerals often evoke. Either way, I can remember thinking about it for an incredibly long time until eventually I told one of my brothers (the eldest one, 5 years my senior). His reaction was dismissive - he was far more interested in his marbles which were sprawled out across the yard. I still to this day remember that he just responded by saying that he had gone through that same stage and that mother had told him everyone does. I was not especially comforted by the response but he and mother were right. Only a few weeks later, I was far more preoccupied by a new foal which had been born on our farm.
I have always thought about death on and off since that day. I think as you grow up, things are put into perspective and as my mother used to say, 'The World Is your Oyster'. You become preoccupied with living - building a family and a home. I think that now I am living alone and am unable to move around as freely as I would like, death has become a more poignant topic. I feel as though everywhere that I look, it is staring at me. On the television, in the news and even when I go for my daily walk I pass a cemetery. It is strange that the depression that I felt when I was 8 has gone full circle and the same emotions have been brought to the surface at 87. I wish a foal could come along and distract me - maybe I will plan a trip to the local farm and see if one has been born recently!
Guten Abend.
I have not written on my blog for a while. It has been a very busy time for me with lots of family coming and going.
Anyway, I do enjoy engrossing myself in stories about the war. Perhaps some may call it a morbid fascination. In fact, my son once brought me a novel called 'War Junkie' - needless to say I have never got round to reading it. I have an objection to the haphazard association between war and a drug addiction.
I have thoroughly enjoyed an article recently about the 'Unknown Soldier'. In a visit to Westminster Cathedral, I did visit the tomb. It provoked some very deep thoughts. Namely thoughts about death. It is no lie that I am creeping slowly but surely closer to it. The soldiers in the World Wars who risked their lives must have thought about it a great deal. Perhaps they did not? Perhaps they took each day as it came and in return did not carry the burden that it entails. Of course they could be killed at any moment but on the other hand, they must have been aware that they equally had their whole lives ahead of them.
My first association with death was when I was about 8 years old. I was incredibly distracted by it. A close relative had died recently and my mother had decided that me and my siblings should not attend the funeral. Maybe if I had gone, I would have been less scared - maybe realised that the relatives life was being celebrated and felt that sense of closure which funerals often evoke. Either way, I can remember thinking about it for an incredibly long time until eventually I told one of my brothers (the eldest one, 5 years my senior). His reaction was dismissive - he was far more interested in his marbles which were sprawled out across the yard. I still to this day remember that he just responded by saying that he had gone through that same stage and that mother had told him everyone does. I was not especially comforted by the response but he and mother were right. Only a few weeks later, I was far more preoccupied by a new foal which had been born on our farm.
I have always thought about death on and off since that day. I think as you grow up, things are put into perspective and as my mother used to say, 'The World Is your Oyster'. You become preoccupied with living - building a family and a home. I think that now I am living alone and am unable to move around as freely as I would like, death has become a more poignant topic. I feel as though everywhere that I look, it is staring at me. On the television, in the news and even when I go for my daily walk I pass a cemetery. It is strange that the depression that I felt when I was 8 has gone full circle and the same emotions have been brought to the surface at 87. I wish a foal could come along and distract me - maybe I will plan a trip to the local farm and see if one has been born recently!
Guten Abend.
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