- Feb 3, 2024
- LitBits
- 0
Lives Well Lived by Michael James Treacy They will overcome some day
My friend, Stan, has his 100th birthday this August. His family are arranging a birthday party and are erecting two marquees to accommodate his extensive circle of family and friends. They’ve booked a local ‘swing band’ who will play jazz and ragtime music. I’m looking forward to that.
Stan is physically able, but his mind has deteriorated slightly over the last five years. Conversely, his wife, Betty, who is in her 99th year, is still sharp of mind and wit, though very unsteady on her feet. I see them toddling off to the local shops two or three times a week. Stan is strong enough to carry a bag of shopping in one hand and support Betty with the other, but would struggle to remember where he lived. She is at risk of falling when walking unaccompanied, but can always find the way home.
She’s a good baker in their small, but well-equipped kitchen. When you visit, Stan will make a pot of tea and cut you a generous slice of home-baked jam and cream sponge cake, while Betty will have a good old rattle with you. She calls herself, ‘Stan’s bit of fluff’ and tells you snippets about their life together.
He was one of the first British soldiers in Japan as part of the allied occupation forces at the end of the 2nd World War. Being only 19 years old at the time, the awful sights he saw at Hiroshima and the liberated prisoner of war camps affected him badly, and he became a committed pacifist when he was demobbed in the late 1940s. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he was a vociferous supporter of CND, and, arm-in-arm with Betty while both were singing ‘we will overcome’, marched in support of nuclear disarmament, anti-apartheid and other worthy causes. Betty herself was a very young member of the Women’s Land Army in the last year of the war and boasts that she was the only one in her unit who could hoist a sack of potatoes onto her shoulders… the other girls had to double-up to achieve this.
They gave Mrs Treaclechops a well-wrapped gift for her 70th birthday. It was a box of mixed coins adding up to almost £30. They confessed they’d been unwell and unable to visit a gift shop to buy a better present. It was a touching gesture that was both endearing and humorous in equal measure.
Stan and Betty are both only about 5 feet tall and may remind you of a couple of charming Hobbits, and when I’m standing beside them, I probably look like Gandalf the Grey… but I think that story has already been told.
.
childhood sweethearts…
still going strong
after 90-odd years
Continue reading...
Stan is physically able, but his mind has deteriorated slightly over the last five years. Conversely, his wife, Betty, who is in her 99th year, is still sharp of mind and wit, though very unsteady on her feet. I see them toddling off to the local shops two or three times a week. Stan is strong enough to carry a bag of shopping in one hand and support Betty with the other, but would struggle to remember where he lived. She is at risk of falling when walking unaccompanied, but can always find the way home.
She’s a good baker in their small, but well-equipped kitchen. When you visit, Stan will make a pot of tea and cut you a generous slice of home-baked jam and cream sponge cake, while Betty will have a good old rattle with you. She calls herself, ‘Stan’s bit of fluff’ and tells you snippets about their life together.
He was one of the first British soldiers in Japan as part of the allied occupation forces at the end of the 2nd World War. Being only 19 years old at the time, the awful sights he saw at Hiroshima and the liberated prisoner of war camps affected him badly, and he became a committed pacifist when he was demobbed in the late 1940s. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he was a vociferous supporter of CND, and, arm-in-arm with Betty while both were singing ‘we will overcome’, marched in support of nuclear disarmament, anti-apartheid and other worthy causes. Betty herself was a very young member of the Women’s Land Army in the last year of the war and boasts that she was the only one in her unit who could hoist a sack of potatoes onto her shoulders… the other girls had to double-up to achieve this.
They gave Mrs Treaclechops a well-wrapped gift for her 70th birthday. It was a box of mixed coins adding up to almost £30. They confessed they’d been unwell and unable to visit a gift shop to buy a better present. It was a touching gesture that was both endearing and humorous in equal measure.
Stan and Betty are both only about 5 feet tall and may remind you of a couple of charming Hobbits, and when I’m standing beside them, I probably look like Gandalf the Grey… but I think that story has already been told.
.
childhood sweethearts…
still going strong
after 90-odd years
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Continue reading...
