Hello Darkness…

| December 14, 2016

…my old friend The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. (Often attributed to Edmund Burke, Irish Statesman, circa 1770). The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time. (British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, 1914). We […]

Netherlands Remembrance and Liberation

| May 4, 2016

May 4th – May 5th It’s a fine day as the classical notes from a flute drift across the airwaves into the clubhouse. I turn towards the retro-styled ’30s radio as the tempo rises, lowers and then gently hovers as my thoughts cascade towards these day in 1945 – May 4th/5th, the Netherlands and the Canadian Scottish. […]

2nd Lieutenant John “Jock” Low

| September 25, 2014

Dinna Forget Today I have been thinking about one line that a fiancé wrote about her departed best friend. Appearing on the wall at the visitor’s centre at Tyne Cot Cemetery and Memorial, Belgium, the words remind us of a departed soul and the ones left behind to remember. And then I turn towards a […]

Splinters

| April 29, 2012

Fragments of Memory Like inverted stakes in the hearts of France and Flanders, the splintered trees from the fields of battle stand as rooted silhouettes. Their splinters litter the ground on which men once walked, crawled or ran; the belligerent skelfs, large and small, hurling about tearing and ripping the flesh, piercing the souls of […]

The Lion’s Roar

| July 24, 2011

There is something about the King of the Jungle, either as, the creature in person (animal!) or as carvings. I especially like to take pictures of them wherever I encounter them, as part of the Royal Coat of Arms, or featured on memorials, fountains, garden statues, crests, signs and what have you. Two of these […]