March 8

Warming 

The sun has appeared, at last, and I am relishing it.

Last week, despite cold wind and sometimes rain I went out on my scooter most days, and at last, on Friday, had the luxury of a warming sun for a shopping trip up town.

On Sunday I went to the Penarth Yacht Club with my niece Brenda and Ivor for my first Sunday lunch there for three years.

The pace of my new life is quickening, too.

After rejoining the yacht club I am now becoming a member of the Penarth Civic Society which is doing good work.

I was was a member and did PRO work for Civic Trust Wales for many years when it was headed by Mervyn Jones, chief executive of Wales Gas.

We used to meet in the crumbling Insole Court mansion in Llandaff where in winter, with no heating, our meetings were kept short. The Court has since been restored as a community centre.

I have been contacted by Trinity Church Penarth which Rosemary and I attended and hope to go there again when the sun gets warmer.

The biggest treat, coming soon, is to spend a few days with Robert, Karen and Owen while my flat is being decorated. When I come back my home will be sparkling, redecorated and with new carpet throughout. I am looking forward to that.

So life is fine. How lucky I am.

March 7

 Seashore

Being able to get out on my motability scooter is a relief and pleasure, especially after being so long confined to my Turret suite in Sunrise but I miss walking. I was lucky to have had many years when I could walk for miles, enjoying the countryside and towns all over the world and, my favourite, the seaside.

My greatest pleasureswas here, in Penarth, my seashore adventure.

In the afternoon I would walk out of Windsor Court, cross the Esplanade down onto the stony beach and and go westward.

In those days the shoreline was not so badly littered with bottles and other dangerous rubbish but it yielded some unexpected treasure. As I walked, the pebbles gave way to sand and a little way along the coast, under the cliff, lay scattered gleaming pink and white alabaster, all shapes and sizes. I became a collector with some ready made, natural works of art.

There was jetsum of course, and it was fun looking for interesting objects. For a few weeks I was continually picking up little plastic ducks, scores of them, probably the result of a charity competition in a local river.

I found footballs, dolls and seawashed tree branches.

On to Lavernock, to climb up to the cliff path and enjoy the walk back to Penarth, looking out across the channel to Somerset, fourteen miles away, and east and, on clear days the two Severn. Bridges. 

Home to tea. 

A perfect afternoon.

March 5

 I try not to watch too much of the nonstop, depressing war news but I get some satisfaction and relief by reliving happier times.

Best of all was when our family and millions of others were reunited in 1945 although without my father who died in 1942.

I remember my mother worrying when Bert, my brother, in the RA F, went overseas at the height of the war when Uboats were a menace.The good news came in a letter from Banff in Canada

She worried again, late in the war, when I was call up for army service.

Until then, as a teenager, I was immersed in war news. I had a huge map on the wall in my bedroom where I followed day by day the battles raging throughout Europe..

Most vivid memories were of the Russian front where Hitler made the fatal mistake of thinking he could defeat not just the biggest army in the world but the most determined civilians, fighting to depend their homes as the Ukranians are doing today.

There were ferocious battles, - for Kiev, now Kiyv - and Stalingrad, where a million citizens died in the five month long battle that thwarted Hitler’s invading army

I marked on my map the Don and Other key rivers in that epic struggle.

And at last, after six years, came peace in Europe and the Far East. A time for celebration, elation and hope that we would never again encounter the madness of major war. 

How tragically wrong we were.

 

March 4

 Compassion

There is, thankfully, another aspect of the horrific war in Ukraine; the worldwide outpouring of sympathy for the besieged citizens of  bombarded cities.

And, much more important, practical help.

Just as the scenes of death and destruction are heartrending, the sight of exhausted women and children arriving by train in Poland, Hungary and other countries being greeted by local families with handwritten ‘Welcome’ signs and offers of a home is a wonderful example of  active compassion, of love.

The pictures from Poland and Germany are perhaps the most remarkable. They, and other countries in Europe lived through horrendous times, experiencing the same desperation, upheaval and uncertainty as the fleeing Ukrainian women and children.

They remember, and their instant response is a beacon that lights up the world on a very dark night. 

March 3

 Evacuation

The saddest pictures from Ukraine are of women and children struggling to get on trains to take them to safety in Poland and the other neighbouring countries.

Only a few men to be seen, waving goodbye before going home to join the fight against the advancing Russian army.

In Britain, you have to be well over eighty years old to remember the days when we suffered the same trauma.

War had come suddenly after months of uncertainty.

With fears of mass bombing, evacuation of children from London and other major cities began when war against Germany was ordered.

We Skinners were among the millions of families split up, many never to be totally reunited. 

The newspapers showed tearful children as trains took us live in safety around the country 

My brother Bert, eighteen, was called up immediately for service in the RA F, my sister Dorothy’s school moved outside London. I, then almost thirteen, was put on the train to go to live with my Auntie Flo in Splott where my mother’s family lived.  No need for tears for me, but worry, yes, about Mum and Dad left in London.

In fact, I experienced bombing before them, when Cardiff was attacked, bombs falling within a quarter of a mile of my home in Moorland Road. Mum panicked, calling me back to Wandsworth, just in time for the Battle of Britain and the mass bombing of the capital.

In weeks of almost non stop of bombing we escaped except one night when incendiaries fell while we were in our garden air raid shelter, Dad using the stirrup pump provided by the government.

That was a dangerous, sad time, but nothing like the catastrophe engulfing Ukrainian cities.

And worse, no-one knows how it will end.

March 2

War

The impact around the world of the Ukraine war is immense, with the prospect of dire consequences  that will shape the future for decades.  More serious than the cold war era.

Suddenly attention has moved away from our other war, the pandemic.

Ukraine is dominating the media with the BBC’s extended news bulletins presenting harrowing accounts and pictures.

Gone, and almost forgotten are the daily reports of the latest covid infection and death statistics of the insidious virus - 19 million cases and 162,000 deaths in Britain.

We are now obsessed with new daily death lists, of civilians killed in their homes in a senseless war.

It is indeed a strange world.

March 1

Visitors 

For me, living a normal life again has brought many rewards; many much missed freedoms, none more appreciated than welcoming visitors.

Despite the comfort and safety in Sunrise there were weeks, sometimes months, of loneliness to be overcome.

I look occasionally at me on television welcoming Robert and Ria at Sunrise after months of lockdown. Sitting in a gazebo in the front garden laughing and chatting. 

A rare pleasure which I shall replay whenever I start to think back on those unique pandemic years.

Yesterday was even better, proof  of my new life. My granddaughter Ria came again, this time with four year old Claudia. Her sister Rosa was at a birthday party. Both girls had enjoyed visits to Sunrise.

We had fun in my new home, making special ice creams and, a big treat, the short trip down to the Penarth pier, Claudia beside me as I drove my scooter, and a call in at the tiny sweet shop. 

A few days ago  Karen came again. Another marvellous day, lunch, shopping and, as usual, good advice.

This weekend  am going to the Yacht Club for lunch with Brenda and Ivor who have been regular visitors, not just recently, but for the many months in Sunrise.

I never felt lonely there but this is a different world and I am loving it.

  

the front garden. I will be replaying that scene for years.pl