The Commando Raid

Following on from my post about dad, this is another one about The Home Guard.

The unit throughout the war was controlled by the regular army, who looked upon them as a bunch of old idiots.

Nevertheless orders would be issued from High Command to effect certain actions!

On one occasion Dad's unit was told to lay a communications line from Hitchin to Stevenage, a distance of about six miles.

Dad's commanding officer, who was very similar to Captain Mainwaring, said to the High Command, 'No problem, when are you sending the cable to do the job?'

'Don't be stupid Captain, use your imagination!'.

So, Corporal John Holmes,( My Dad ) and a squad of aged commandos raided the local post office depot in the middle of the night and stole six miles of cable.

Before the event Dad blacked up with boot polish in his mum's kitchen and she said,'what are you doing son?'.' Can't tell you mum, it's a matter of national security!'.

So the upshot was that the military got six miles of communication cable laid and the post office had a problem with their inventory.

The local police were called in to investigate, but since most of them were in the Home Guard, they were stumped as to who might have perpetrated the crime!

A little bit of this kind of behaviour today might help our World.

Dad

My old Dad is 87 now and lives with me since my Mum died 6 years ago.

He's at that time of life where he spends much of his time reflecting on the past and those of you with elderly relatives will know that they can be somewhat repetitive.

However it is always good to be patient at these times because every now and then he comes out with some little gems.

Dad was born in 1922 in Kensington, which is in West London, his father had been an officer in The Durham Light Infantry during the Great War and was invalided out after the Battle of Passchendaele.

At the age of about six the family moved to Stevenage in Hertfordshire, at the time a small market town on the Great North Road.

At the age of eight Dad had a fall which resulted in him experiencing severe pain.

He was taken to the doctors and after many tests, it was established that he had tuberculosis of the bone and he was despatched to an infirmary in Stamford, Middlesex for what would turn out to be a series of operations over a four year period.

At the time TB was a killer and it was fortunate that it was not in his lungs.

The little laddie grew up fast in that institution, suffering not only personal physical pain, but emotional stress from the loss of friends who were in hospital with him.

He has recounted to me one particularly bad six month period when he was in plaster from his chest to his ankles.

The diseased bone was in his right hip and so a hole was cut in the plaster so that each morning the nurse could put an aluminium spike in the wound, to break up the puss.

This was done every day for six months, without the aid of any pain killer.

The old fella has a permanent tan since in those days they believed the best cure was fresh air, and so he was pushed outside in his bed irrespective of the weather.

In the end they stopped the spread of the disease by grafting bone from his shin into his hip and as a result he has no joint on the right side and his leg is four inches shorter.

All his life he has steadfastly refused to accept disability and he can be more than a little short with people who moan about pain!

During the Second World War he joined a thing called the Home Guard and if any of you have ever seen a BBC comedy series called Dad's Army, the old boy says it was just like that!

He has told me some very funny stories of that time, including one involving the Australian Army.

At the outset of hostilities the Australian Army Pay Corp were billeted at his local golf club and many was the time that Dad played golf with these fellas.

He says they would carry their golf clubs but also have a golf trolley to carry the beer!

One day a sergeant scored a hole in one and that was the end of the round, they had a party in the clubhouse that lasted a week!

Another time Dad was standing guard duty on the top of a water tower close by the main railwayline from London to Edinburgh.

A table was welded onto the top of the tower which had an engraved map of the local terrain as well as profiles of German aircraft.

One night Dad was on duty when a plane appeared from the South and checking the profiles he realised it was a German Ju88.

Armed with his trusty First World War Canadian Ross rifle, he started taking pot shots as the plane was heading towards him.

As it passed, he received a burst of cannon fire, puncturing the water tower, which made him bounce up and down.

To this day he believes the German gunner was simply saying,' don't be a bloody idiot!'

There are many more tales from his younger days that I am collating and I will relate them to you over the coming months.

It's Friday

The working week has finished and now we are about to embark on the weekend.

I am at home listening to Brazilian music with a fine glass of wine and a cigarette.

What are you doing?

Our masters will be doing the same and contemplating what new laws they might introduce to ensure we continue to perform in a way that meets their requirements.

Democracy requires that you control people by fear, so the press will tell us that Islamism is our current danger and watch out because Sharia law could be introduced.

Oh! please,does anyone seriously think that this is going to happen!

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a government that said we are going to repeal laws for the next term in office.

Over 3000 new laws have been passed since the criminal Blair came to power.

Remove laws and let people live and take responsibility for their lives!

Freedom requires that politicians do not interfere in anything that we do!

An Angry Man

This is a beautiful World and it is being screwed up by politicians and institutions, that are only interested in serving their own needs.

A bunch of self serving scientists and bureaucrats are in Copenhagen trying to create the next level of ' thou shalt behave' Global legislation.

These people are financed by organisations that directly benefit from creating an apocalyptic

view of the World.

Sure Global warming is probably taking place, but only the dogma of modern science would say that humankind is responsible.

These very same scientists will tell you that the Earth has gone through many such cycles in it's history.Some of which have happened very rapidly.

The very arrogance of science, to suggest that we can cure the problem, as if the World was some machine that they controlled!

Science denies the existence of spirituality, which will result in it's ultimate failure.

The universe will determine the future of our World, which is well beyond the comprehension of our narrow minded scientists.

You do not need to be of a religious persuasion to work out that we are not in tune with nature and that we are abusing the Globe.

The Greenies protest about this and that. Essentially there are too many people using up resources of the Planet.

Each country needs a smaller population and more focus should be on skills that help societies survive.

We need practical skills, spirituality, arts, engineering, mathematics, as was true in ancient times.

We do not need accountants, lawyers, pr consultants, marketing folk, politicians et al.

Old fashioned trades will be what is required in the new age, if man is to survive and rebuild civilisation, because the system is about to collapse.

Those who take the World forward will be those who have already given up a material way of life.

Those who still live with materialism are already dead.

I titled this post ' An Angry Man ' simply because I believe humanity has not yet woken to the fundamental changes we are going through.

The television generation is in danger of dying in the same way that biblical societies collapsed when Noah was asked to build his Ark.

What is Going On?

This post will have an Anglocentric bent, but I believe the principles still apply in other Western Countries.

I read the other day, that a couple were turned down in their application to adopt a small child, on the basis that they were white and the kiddy was black.

What kind of politically correct madness denies a child a loving home simply because of a colour difference?

This bairn is living in an institution, which by definition will not be capable of providing the most fundamental need of a child, which is love.

Love has no colour and if politicians truly believed in diversity then surely the best way to achieve it would be by ignoring ethnicity.

Would black couples in England, desperate for a child, turn down the opportunity to adopt a white baby, if it was offered to them? I don't think so.

What is more important? Political correctness or a child living in a happy home.

In Britain it seems ok for foster parents to look after kids of different ethnic backgrounds, but not acceptable for them to adopt these kiddies.

To me this is just another form of institutional racism.

I can remember when a couple I know who fostered kids, had a brother and sister from Ethiopia.

The little girl would have been about four years old and would always insist on sitting on my knee at my local cricket club and never stop talking!

She was the most beautiful little girl and very happy with here foster parents who under the law had no chance of actually adopting her.

Not only was this tragic, it was criminal!

Some faceless bureaucrat would say she needs to be with people of her own culture.

Total crap, at that age she needs love and security. When she is an adult she can investigate her origins and make up her own mind about these issues.

When she sat on my knee, she didn't look at me as a white man, but simply as a friend who enjoyed her company.

I started this post by saying ' what is going on?'. In my view the West has lost it's spirituality and is hide bound by rules and regulations which are devoid of humanity.

Children just want to be loved and we could all learn something from them, because they don't see colour!

My Lass

Well Maria Manuela Gomes has gone back to Belem today for four months and this old fart is on his own for a wee while.

She's gone home to see her old mum, another Maria, to spend time in the humid heat of Amazonia, on a series of flights that mean she won't be home until 1 o'clock lunchtime on Monday.

Poor lass will be starved of a cigarette in all that time because the airline industry says it's bad for your health.

Well we all know that,but let's get real, it really means their cleaning bills are less.

If governments really want to stop people smoking, they would ban it, but they don't do they!

Why? Because they want the tax.

Corrupt politicians across the World pontificate on this subject because the unelected health facists give them the ammunition.

We live in a World where these creeps profess a belief in democracy but institute laws that target groups who either don't support their party or have no political clout.

Real freedom is no longer to be found in western countries, they are now little more than places

controlled by petty bureaucrats and lawyers.

So to get back to Manuela, tomorrow she will be home in a country, whist not perfect, does not persecute it's citizens who want a bloody cigarette in a bar!

Paracelsus

Phillip von Hohenheim, better known to the World today as Paracelsus, was born in Switzerland in 1493, the son of a physician and chemist.

He commenced his University education at the age of 16, initially at the University of Basel and later completing his Doctorate at the University of Ferrara.

With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, he became a travelling physician, working his way through France,Spain,Germany,Sweden,Russia and Hungary.

Paracelsus was steeped in Hermetic, Neo-Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy and as was common at the time amongst physicians, he was a practising Astrologer.

An experimental practitioner, he was always seeking new ways to treat disease, which sometimes brought him into conflict with accepted methodologies and authorities, both academic and religious.

Often considered arrogant in the way he expressed his views, he lasted less than a year in the Chair of Medicine at the University of Basel, before being run out of town!

Resuming his travels, in pursuit of ancient and hidden knowledge he journeyed throughout Europe, Asia Minor and Africa.

The result of these journeys and the knowledge he acquired, culminated in the publication of 'The Great Surgery Book', the first editions of which appeared in 1536, helping to restore his reputation throughout Europe.

In his lifetime he used Alchemical practises more for experimentation on chemical and mineral elements than for personal development.

Paracelsus believed in treating the whole being, body and spirit as you would expect in a follower of Hermetic philosophies.

He was the first to suggest that many diseases of the human body were caused by outside agents, created the use of Laudanum, an opiate tincture, used up until Victorian times as a pain reliever.

Today he is considered the father of Toxocology and is quoted as saying,' all things are poisonous and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous'.

Modern holistic medical practitioners owe much to the early work of Paracelsus and some would go even further by stating that he initiated the foundations of what would become medicine as we recognise it today. Another three centuries would have to pass before this happened.

What Paracelsus can still teach us today across a wide range of sciences is this. Knowledge is universal and in nature is not narrowed down into specialist fields.

For truly great advances in the understanding of the universe and man's place in it, scientists of many disciplines need to cooperate and collaborate.

A simple example might be the discipline of archaeology which steadfastly refuses to engage with other disciplines which might disagree with pet theories, these being archaeo-astronomy,

geology and anthropology.

These sciences all working together in an open minded way, might yet discover that human civilisation is much older than current convention suggests.

This is merely one example amongst many where the high priests of science will consider anyone not conforming to their view of the World is a heretic, an experience Paracelsus new only too well.

He left this World in 1541 at the age of 47.