The Nonce: March 2009

I don't suppose many people have ever asked themselves that. But I find myself increasingly including links to other people's articles, or sites that I have found interesting, and which deal with the topic under discussion.
In ways never before possible, the Internet offers the means to share, and debate knowledge.
On my own blog I present musical resources in the hope of encouraging readers to find their own musical voice, but in the telling of my stories, I also try to include as much relevant background information as possible.
Yes, there is a lot of unreliable information out there, but if we compare notes, and share what we have found to be true, perhaps in time we can outweigh the poorer-quality information. And have fun doing it, after all, human beings are nothing if not sociable creatures. And I believe that is one of the reasons sharing information is so important to us.
Which came first, sharing knowledge, or sociability? I think one provided the means to the other.

Normally, when I'm feeling the pressure I request a lighter assignment and get something like a visit to the Music Hall, or my recent jaunt to report on the Commedia dell'Arte, so this time around I was rather surprised to get a briefing to join a train taking evacuee children from London to comparative safety in Wales at the height of the Battle of Britain!

It's just as well I arrived with time to spare before the train leaves. I had just settled down in the little Lyons Tea Shop across the way with a pot of tea and two slices of toast when the air raid siren started up. I had no idea which way to go and I think one of the waitresses must have seen the bewildered look on my face. She just seized me by the arm with a "Come along, Madam" and dragged me fifty yards down the street to the entrance to the Tube where we joined the throng hustling to get down out of the way of the bombs.

We didn't have long to wait, there was a descending whistle and the platform beneath my feet trembled a fraction before I heard the terrifying BANG! from somewhere overhead. At least I wasn't the only one who screamed. Then a stout fellow in tweed jacket and circular glasses stood up, took the pipe out of his mouth and announced in stentorian tones "Nothin' to worry about. Missed us by a mile!"

By my watch it was about twenty-five minutes before the "all-clear" sounded and we all started making our way back up to street level. Everything seemed more-or-less as it had when we went down; doorways still sandbagged, windows still taped, but about five hundred yards down the street, what had been a department store was now a gaping shell. The roof, floors and windows all destroyed by the blast, and the street littered with rubble and fragments. Already a couple of Bobbies were putting up barricades blocking traffic from the corner. And I had five minutes to retrieve my suitcase from Lyons and scoot across to Paddington Station to find the platform where my train should be waiting.

It seems so British that only a few minutes after the streets have been bombed from the air by Nazi aircraft, there are enthusiastic young boys running down the platform with notebooks and pencils in hand to jot down the details of the locomotives. And not far behind them, a small crowd of children aged between five and fifteen, loaded down with suitcases, knapsacks, and gas masks in cardboard boxes, and labels on string around their necks are being shepherded along by a handful of older women.

Once the train gets under way, at first children are running to-and-fro but things gradually quiet down, until we are joined at Ealing Broadway station by more evacuee children than I would have thought possible. It seems as if we have to stop at every one of the stations along the way, and at the larger ones, there are servicemen and women either boarding or leaving the train. As we approach Swindon, a group of boys further down the carriage is excitedly discussing the possibility that we might catch a glimpse of the major locomotive engineering works

We're only a couple of minutes out of Swindon when the train slows down and inches forward, then there is a loud bang, and one of the little girls starts crying. One of the older boys is trying to reassure her that it was only a detonator on the line to warn the workmen carrying out repairs as he guides her along the carriage to be comforted by the older lady sitting in the seat across the aisle from me.

She begins to sing a soothing lullaby to her young charge:

Before long, the girl who was so upset a few minutes before is curled up beside her chaperone and sleeping peacefully while some of the older girls are staring in amazement at the huge expanses of green fields passing by, and I take a few minutes to get to know my travelling companion, from whom I copied the song reproduced above.

Her name is Mrs.Reese, and she has relatives on her husband's side of the family in Wales, with whom she, and her two daughters will be staying.