Two old gents with a tale to tell
IT WAS A pleasure this week to meet two absolutely game old gents, each with a vivid story to tell. Peter Johnson, aged 89, lives in Westville and came along with his daughters. Cyril Crompton, 94, drove down alone from Johannesburg and was staying in a backpackers' lodge.
They were at Adams bookstore in Durban for the launch of their book, Luck's Favours (Echoing Green Press), which recounts their separate experiences in World War II.
To start with the elder, Cyril was stationed at the Bluff gun battery but found it a bit dull. He hankered for action and heard that the Royal Durban Light Infantry were about to be posted Up North. So he and a fellow-gunner swam the harbour mouth and re-enlisted with the RDLI.
So far, so good – except the army doesn't work that way. You don't pick and choose. Ten days later they were arrested by the military police and charged with desertion and banged up in jail.
But the army lawyers scratched their heads. How do you charge a man with desertion when he's signed up for another regiment? They realised the whole thing was bloody silly, dropped the charges and had them sent back to the Bluff.
From there, Cyril transferred to the Anti-Aircraft Regiment then found himself at Sidi Rezegh, site of an awful battle in the Western Desert that accounted for 10 percent of South African casualties in the entire war. Smuts described Sidi Rezegh as the Delville Wood of World War II.
The South Africans fought Rommel's troops until the last round of ammunition, then had to surrender. They went into the bag and much of Cyril's part of the book – titled For the Adventure of it – describes being sent as POWs to work the coalfields in Poland, then the incredible hardship of a forced retreat in mid-winter as the Russians advanced on the Germans.
Peter was a signaller who was taken POW at Tobruk. His account – titled On the Run in Wartime Italy – describes escapes from Italian and German POW camps and a phase when he joined Yugoslavian partisans who were harassing Axis supply lines.
He also describes the role of the ordinary Italian people – women especially – in assisting escaped POWs. He told the launch of his chance encounter with an Italian contessa who assisted him. Questioned by the audience, he insisted he had only this very brief association with the contessa. Did I catch a gleam in his eye?
These are two very game old birds indeed,.
Living links
PUBLISHER Jim Phelps described Cyril Crompton and Peter Johnson as living links with a time when South Africa was the darling of the world. A wholly volunteer army had successfully fought Nazism and Fascism. The prime minister, General Smuts, had been a driving force in founding the United Nations.
The Nats had seized South Africa by the throat in 1948 and ruined all that. We have still not quite recovered, he said.
It's a good point.
Round the bend
RESCUE workers in Jiangsu province, China, had to break apart a toilet bowl to free a man who had his arm jammed down it, trying to retrieve his cellphone which he had dropped. He was immersed up to his shoulder in the U-bend.
It rather reminds me of the story of the fellow who went to great lengths to fish his haversack from one of the ponds at the sewage treatment works.
It had his lunch in it.
UK defence cuts
WHAT'S the difference between Hitler and David Cameron?
Hitler didn't sink the Ark Royal.
Halloween
WINE makers in California have taken to growing giant pumpkins, according to this news snippet. In a recent pumpkin competition the winner weighed 1 500lb
That's some punkin. I suppose they rate it as a jeroboam. Does this mean a new idiom for the wine writers?
"This chardonnay has the nose of a hubbard squash, taking us swiftly into a delightful medley of butternut, gemsquash and pumpkin fronds ..."
Great for Halloween parties.
Tailpiece
"DOCTOR, I'm worried about my husband. He thinks he's a lorry."
"You'd better send him to me."
"Not today. He's gone to Newcastle to deliver some 10-ton steel girders."
Last word
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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