As army men tend to do, I have kept in touch with someone from my old army unit. In my case it is our former sergeant major, a fellow classical music devotee.
He rang me today with some sad news. Two former members have died recently: Doug Tucker and John French -- former Captain and former Staff Sergeant. So this is my little memorial to them. I have vivid memories of both of them and it is hard to accept that they no longer exist.
Now that I am 70 I get that rather often. People whom I remember as lively and fun people are just dead. My imagination can not really cope with it.
One consolation today was that I heard there is one very senior member of our corps who is still going. He must be in his 90s these days. There are still some things that I want to ask him so it is very good of him to survive for so long!
I have put online all the academic journal articles I had published in the 70s and 80s -- and in consequence I do at times get people writing to me about them. They obviously expect that I still exist and am as compos mentis as I was when I wrote the articles concerned. Fortunately I am. But what if I was dead -- as many of my contemporaries are? What would they do then? I have no idea.
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