Wednesday, February 11, 2009
THE SIEGFRIED LINE
I've decided to devote the next couple of posts to my millions upon millions of LOCAL readers who want to read about LOCAL issues.
These posts are dedicated to them, even though they tend to have weird respiratory diseases and anger management problems.
In fact, I love them so much that I'd love to gather them up in a big old group hug. Well, if they didn't all smell of used ash trays, urine and dead breath, that is.
* * * * * * *
They bravely walked FIVE MILES through all of that snow ...
... so that they could play a snooker match.
We're not told if the snooker match was indoors or, possibly, outdoors in a beer garden.
To the Bexley Times, this invokes THE DUNKIRK SPIRIT.
Absolutely. Who could ever forget that day in 1940 when an entire regiment of Our Boys swam across the Channel, only aided by a motley collection of rusty bathtubs, rubber dingies, and in some cases, water wings, flippers and smeared in a month's ration coupons' worth of goose grease?
All of this so that they could play a game of cribbage at the Flag And Lamb pub in Deal!
Fair warms the heart, it does.
Back to the snooker players though - former RAF man Larry Parnes (89) had this to say:
"I think it's a rummin' disgrace they're not running the buses, trains or aeroplanes. In 1947, during the Great Snow Of 1947, they just used to keep the buses running all the time and we used to just carry on playing snooker as if nothing had happened. They were a different breed in those days. I don't know how they'd cope if there was a war now. They'd be too busy putting their lipstick on to have a game of snooker."
A few pages on in the newspaper, in Bob Ogley's "Times Past" column there are some old pictures of buses that ran adrift in snow or skidded off the roads in the 1940's.
Some people attempt to board a bus via the top deck in the 1940s in some snow, with life carrying on as normal.
Labels: beer gardens, Bexley Times, local issues, snooker, snow, the 1940's
