timegate

Being an Aquarian brings many advantages, according to astrologers. Take a 2001 horoscope for December. “Your life never turns out quite as planned – which is just as well, given some of the schemes you have dreamed up over the years. With eccentric Uranus linked to excitable Mars and a Blue Moon in the most creative and dynamic cycle of your chart, not even an astrologer can predict what your next move will be. View it as a chance to show people that innovation doesn’t need to be outrageous” With a recently acquired talent for painting, creating animals out of sticks and stones, crafting cardboard choir boys, writing short stories, running the convenience store at the Manor House and impersonating Santa Claus, life is still very full. With a dimple in my chin, I suppose I was born lucky. Even the black spots in life had silver linings until that fateful day in 1945 when I found myself inside a German Concentration Camp. The horrors and shock made a vivid impression in my mind, sufficient to cast strong doubts on anyone’s faith, mine especially since I had followed Jesus’ steps from Pilate’s house to Calvary and stood in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and breathed the air in the garden of Gethsemane. Still luck has followed me like a shadow. Now, at 87, I can trace the pattern of my life through the stories presented in this volume. I am all the richer for meeting ordinary people with extraordinary poems, like the patient in the hospital bed next to mine. When asked, he said he was a carpenter but then a fascinating story emerged. As Cornishman, he had trained as a Sea Pilot, then moved into Civil Aviation as a navigator, was picked up by the RAF and finished up as a Wing Commander. Or the retired classics master from Winchester College with an ambition, apart from playing the dame in local pantomimes, to save the one and only cinema from demolition. Or the Mayoress who had an unique way of assessing candidates being interviewed for a potential job.