The Grand River

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order."
~ John Burroughs (1837 - 1921) American naturalist

"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority."
~ E. B. White (1897 - 1985) American writer.  Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of The Swan, Stewart Little.

"Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved."
~ Bill Bradley (b.1943) American Hall of Fame basketball player.  U.S. Senator.


"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
~ John Muir (1838 - 1914) Scottish - American naturalist, author.

"Although human subtlety makes a variety of inventions by different means to the same end, it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous."

~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) Italian painter, botanist, geologist, writer.

Wishing you a healthy and happy New Year ~ 2015
The Neat L'l Bookshop

 

Making New Year's Resolutions? ~ Consider 7 Factors

"Forty-four million people are estimated to have Alzheimer's disease, and there is currently no way to halt or reverse its ravages on the brain.  But a third of those cases could have been prevented by lifestyle changes, says neuroscientist Carol Brayne at the University of Cambridge.

Alzheimer's is caused by a combination of genetics and lifestyle factors.  To work out the effect of potentially modifiable influences, Brayen's team reanalyzed previous studies.  These covered seven factors known to be associated with Alzheimer's:  diabetes, depression, physical inactivity, smoking, low educational attainment, obesity and high blood pressure in middle age.

Diabetes, depression, physical inactivity, smoking, low educational attainment, obesity and high blood pressure in middle age.

They then factored in associations between some of the factors.  For example, increasing physical activity can also lower blood pressure.
One in three cases of Alzheimer's can be attributed to modifiable factors, estimate the researchers.  By reducing the relative risk from each of these factors by 10 per cent every decade, it would be possible to reduce the 2050 prevalence of Alzheimer's by 8.3 per cent, and prevent 9.6 million cases."

~ NewScientist, July 10-25, 2014  Andy Coghlan

DESIDERATA

 

GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & HASTE, & REMEMBER WHAT PEACE THERE MAY BE IN SILENCE AS  FAR AS POSSIBLE without surrender be on good terms with all persons.  Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story.  Avoid Loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.  If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself.  Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.  Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.  Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.  Be yourself.  Especially, do not feign affection.  Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.  Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings.  Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness.  Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.  You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & the stars; you have a right to be here.  And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.  Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.  With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.  Be cheerful.  Strive to be happy.

 

                                                ~ Max  Ehrmann,  Indiana poet, copyright 1922

 

Thought for Today ~

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth...The trite subjects of human efforts ~ possessions, outward success, luxury ~ have always seemed to me contemptible."  ~ Albert Einstein

"Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness." ~ Seneca

"Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight:  always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary."  ~ Sir James M. Barrie

"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds."  ~ George Eliot

~ RANDOM ACTS of KINDNESS, The Editors of Conari Press, 1993.

A wise and perceptive Grandfather who lost his son around this time last year thoughtfully prepared little gift bags for each child his family.  On Christmas Eve he watched while the children ran around on the lawn with laser fingers lighting the darkness.  The laser fingers were only one of the small gifts.  Greater was the Grandfather's gift of their uncle's tradition of bags of wacky, goofy things, the highlight of which was always the laser fingers.

"I'll be Home for Chrismas"

"In 1943 the world was at war, and many thousands of American [and Canadian] men and women in the service would be spending Christmas far from home.  As a special gift to them and their families came this lovely, tender ballad, recorded by Bing Crosby.  Just a year earlier, Bing had had a best-seller with Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas,' and his recording of this new song by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent also passed the million-record mark in sales.  On December 17, 1965, the Crosby recording became the first 'request' that was broadcast into outer space.  As astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman were hurtling back to earth aboard Gemini7 after their record 206 orbits, a NASA transmitter asked if there was any music they would especially like to hear.  Their immediate reply?  Bing's 'I'll Be Home for Christmas.' "

Merry Christmas Songbook, The Reader's Digest Assoc. Inc., 1981.

I'll be home for Christmas;
You can plan on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

Wishing you a bright, old-fashioned Christmas and much happiness throughout the year.

 

Wishing you peace and happiness at Christmas and always ~ Merry Chrismas

 

~ John & Lorna

 

 

Looking Back to Christmas With Snow

Candles ~

"The image of Jesus as the light of the world and the midwinter longing for the return of the sun have led to the candle being associated inextricably with Christmas.  This can be seen in church ceremonies such as CANDLEMAS, CHRISTINGLE, or candle-lit carol services, and in numerous home devotions."
Around the world, countries practice different customs:
In Ireland, it is the custom to place a candle in the window during the Christmas season.
In Eastern Europe a large candle is placed in the centre of the table, sometimes stuck in a loaf of bread.
In Germany the Advent wreath, the Lichstock,or Christmas pyramid, and the Christmas tree all employ candles.
In southwestern United States and Mexico luminaria and farolitas light up the night.

Australians flock in the hundreds of thousands to CAROLS BY CANDLELIGHT.
Pilipinos place candles in their parols.
In France a beautiful custom is carried on in France's Auvergne on Christmas Eve.  A candle is lit by the oldest member of the family and used to make the sign of the cross.  It is then extinguished and passed on to the eldest son,  The candle is passed from family members until it reaches the youngest.  It is lit and placed in the middle of the table  ~ a signal for the feast to begin.
In Norway the thick Christmas candle must burn all night long on Christmas Eve or, it is believed, a family member will die that year.
Gouda, the centre of the Dutch candle industry, turns off all the electrical lights in the city centre on Christmas Eve, while the mayor, by candlelight, reads the Nativity story to the crowd.

~ The WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA of CHRISTMAS, Gerry Bowler, McClelland & Stewart Ltd.2000.
Illustration from Tasha Tudor

Solstice ~

"Literally 'sun standing still,' when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon.  At the winter solstice, December 22, the sun is directly overhead at noon along the Tropic of Capricorn and the day is shortest in the northern hemisphere.  This has traditionally been a time of celebrations involving light, greenery, fire, and the return of the sun.  Such midwinter festivities have left their mark on the ways Christmas has been observed."

~ Spirit of Christmas Past

Tomorrow:  CANDLES, GREENERY, and PAGANISM.

Illustration from Tasha Tutor [Dear friend, Sharon, thank you for your most welcome call today.  Tasha has nothing over you!]

"When the first Christmas card appeared in 1843 it was denounced by some because the design, showing a Victorian family party drinking to the health of an absent friend, was thought to encourage drunkenness and alcoholism.  Yet now, for many of us, the season of goodwill really starts when the first card drops through the letter-box.  It signals not only that Christmas is really upon us ~ and we still haven't done a thing! ~ but that we are remembered by far-flung relatives, old and dear friends and new acquaintances."

~  The Spirit of Christmas Past - Evocative Memories of Years Gone By, Linda Clements.  Todtri Productions Limited. 1996.

[Post card JEWalker Collection]

Village Green 2014

A Big Thank-You to the Light-up Committee.

Village Green 2014 ~ Cayuga-on-the-Grand

The Gingerbread Castle
~ from The Tasha Tudor Christmas Book TAKE JOY!

"We always make a special cookie for each member of the family and for the children of friends and neighbors.  Besides the shaped cookies, we also make an elaborate gingerbread castle.  The size and shape of the house or castle is decided upon and sketched. Then it is cut out of cardboard and the cut pieces of cardboard are used as templates or guides in shaping the gingerbread dough on the baking sheet, before cooking.  Holes are pierced along the sides of the gingerbread slabs.  When they are baked, the slabs fit together quite nicely, rather like a prefabricated house.  They are laced together firmly with ordinary white string."

The New Haldimand County Fire Dept. Station 4 in Cayuga

Clearly Visible Behind the Doors:  Fire Trucks





Sign on Door: "This Station is NOT Staffed"

The New EMS STATION 3

 

 

"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours.  I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns."

~ Sir Winston Churchill (Nov. 30, 1874 - Jan. 24, 1965)  British Prime Minister.

Krista admiring photo entries in Haldimand's photo contest.  Her tree with mushrooms won Honorable Mention.  Beautiful, Krista!

The exhibit will be on display in Haldimand County Museum, Cayuga, for the holidays and on into January.  Congratulation to all the entrants.

Smile for Today ~

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."
~ Thomas La Mance

"It takes a long time to become young."
~ Pablo Picasso


"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.  But we can understand the Universe.  That makes us something very special."
~ Stephen Hawking

Check us out.  Value Books like new ~ Categories:  Science, Discovery, Exploration, Military, History, Classics, Poetry, Philosophy, Cultural, Inspirational, Nature, Hobbies, Travel, Humour, Health & fitness, Canadiana, Children's & Youth.  Our back room is filled with fiction, shelved alphabetically by author.  Each book is checked and cleaned.  No musty, smoky or chewed books!  Yes, we do take books for a credit toward half of your purchase; however, they must be resalable and recent (within the last couple years.)  With a few exceptions, we do not give credit for hardcover fiction or most large coffee-table books.

The Neat Little Bookshop is proud to feature books by local authors.  These books are new ~ Canadian retail prices.

 

"Don't speak unless you can improve the silence."

~ Spanish Proberb.

(From our friend, Elizabeth Barker.  Elizabeth always tended to be quiet.)

"A Christmas Carol is the most televised, filmed, recorded, radio-broadcast, animated, digitised, burlesqued and set-to-music work in Dickens's entire output (and almost certainly anyone else's), It is additionally by far the most often alluded to."

"Dickens chose A Christmas Carol for the first of his public readings, those bravura performances which so dominated his later career, kicking off in Birmingham on the day after Boxing Day of 1852.

"As a story, not only has A Christmas Carol never died, but it transcends national frontiers and artistic genres."  Dickens's story has inspired readings, movies, music, opera, strip cartoons, novels, plays.  There are annual performances by local theatre groups, puppet versions, T.V. films.  Dickens's characters live on in versions that the author could never have imagined.

~ Charles Dickens ~ A Celebration of his life and work by Charles Mosley.

December 1843 A Christmas Carol
December 1844 The Chimes
December 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth
December 1846 The Battle of Life
December 1848 The Haunted Man

1852 -66 The Christmas Stories

The Cricket on the Hearth

Photo: Wikipedia

A Christmas Carol

"One of the greatest successes of Dickens's career, and the only non-novel of his still widely read, A Christmas Carol started as a frankly commercial project to counterbalance the disappointing early sales of Martin Chuzzlewit.  Dickens conceived it in October 1843 and had finished it by early December.  Part of the time he had spent visiting his now married sister Fanny in Manchester, his chief purpose there being to raise funds for an educational institution to benefit working people.  He gave a speech (alongside the MPs Richard Cobden and Benjamin Disraeli, a future Prime Minister) in which he pointed to ignorance as the parent of misery and crime.  Ignorance and Want are the two feral children the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol."

~ Charles Dickens, A celebration of his life and work.  Charles Mosley, Worth Press Ltd. 2011

Tomorrow:  Charles Dicken's Christmas Books

New Release ~ "FINAL DESCENT The Loss of the Flagship Erie" by Robert D. Schweyer is a well-researched and well-written account of a DC-3 crash in Ontario near St. Thomas in 1941.
The aircraft was an American Airlines passenger plane that went down under mysterious circumstances leaving no survivors.  At the time, this was the worst air disaster occurring in Canada.  "Final Descent" casts light on the early days of air travel and how the basics of air safety we have today were formed.  This book is available in our shop at $18.95.

Trimming the Tree
 
Again we trim the Christmas tree
And gaily deck each bough,
A loving task of many years
As it was then, 'tis now.

[...]
When the task is done we reminisce,
About the trees of the past.
We loved each one, yet vow this one
Is nicer than the last.

And as we gather round the tree,
Remembering other years,
There is a glisten in our eyes,
Perhaps from joy, from tears.

And while reflections of the past
Set every tree apart,
'Tis the same old Christmas spirit
Reflected in each heart.

~ Wilma Willett Fuchs

"Get over it!"
~Ideas from LIFE'S Too SHORT to Fold FITTED SHEETS by Lisa Quinn

Is your house beginning to look like a Where's Waldo book?

• Choose quality over quantity.
• Keep sorting, eliminating, dumping and organizing.
• As you see results, you will be motivated to keep going.
• Traditional toy boxes are black holes.  The smaller toys settle at the bottom. Get the kids a few bins and sort by categories.
• Kitchens are notorious for having redundant appliances, gadgets and food items.  Unless you are Wolfgang Puck, there is no reason to have three food processors and eight spatulas.
• Are you hoarding items that you may need one day?
• Do certain items have sentimental value but you don't want them out in plain view?  Take photos for memory's sake.
• Place two large bins, baskets or bags in your home.  Label the containers "Throw Out" and "Give Away"  Take five minutes a day to find items you no longer need.  When containers are full, throw out or put in your car.
• Paid too much for something?  Embarrassed to admit you made a costly mistake?  Keeping that item is another mistake.  Get over it.

From  "LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO FOLD FITTED SHEETS" *

 "Tricks to Create the life you want without all the hard labor ~ and without compromising your style!"

• Facial tissues with lotion make awesome dust cloths.
• White vinegar will clean almost anything in a pinch.  Mix it with water, and keep it in a spray bottle under your sink.
• Replace all of your abrasive, powdered cleaners with baking soda.  Works great on sinks, tile and grout.
• Most deodorizers contain harmful chemicals.  Freshen up a room by putting a few drops of essential oil on a burning light bulb.
• Aluminum foil will remove dirty buildup on the face of your iron.  Simply lay out a piece of foil, and iron it.  Sharpen your scissors by cutting through six to eight layers of saved scraps of foil; your scissors will be like new.
• Shop with intent, not impulse. It is so easy to get carried away.  Things end up gathering dust and getting in the way.  Less stuff = a happier life.
• The media bombards us with images...
• "Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated." ~ Confucius

* Lisa Quinn, Chronicle Books, 2010

The Avro Arrow

The story of the great Canadian Cold War Combat Jet in Pictures and Documents by Lawrence Miller.

Lawrence's 2011 book, THE AVRO ARROW A PICTURE HISTORY / DRAMATIC IMAGES sold out -- it is out of print.

On order now -- and with our fingers crossed, -- Lawrence's 2014 book, The Avro Arrow.  We hope to make it available at The Neat Little Bookshop. Soft cover $19.95 no tax

~ Canadian Publisher, James Lorimer & Company Ltd.

 

25 1/2  x 20 cm, 111 pages

Update:  Available now in The Neat L'l Bookshop $19.95

In the early 1900s, children were given CHATTERBOX books.  "The acknowledged king of all Juvenile Books published in the English language.  The publishers wish again to emphasize the fact that 'Chatterbox' is not made up of 'rehashed' or old material, but that the stories and illustrations are especially written for the volume, and the aim is to get the best regardless of cost."

Contents include:  "The Bathing Machine,"  "The Muff," "A Christmas Night Adventure," "Grandpapa," "Great-Aunt Anthea's Money" and "The Sweet-Pea Hedge."

~ CHATTERBOX for 1920 Founded by J. Erskine Clarke, M.A.  The Page Company Boston, U.S.A.

Thought for Today ~

"When you've grown up, my dears, and are as old as I,
you'll often ponder on the years that roll so swiftly by, my dears,
that roll so swiftly by.
And of the many lands you have journeyed through,
you'll oft recall the best of all, the land your childhood knew,
Toy land!  Toyland!  Little girl and boy land!
While you dwell within it, you are ever happy then. 
Childhood's toyland,
mystic, merry toyland!
Once you pass its borders, you can ne'er return again.
You can ne'er return again."

~ TOYLAND, words by Glen MacDonough*.  Music by Victor Herbert.
*American lyricist, writer (1870 - 1924)

Smile for Today ~

"Engineering for boys of all ages..."

Christmas Morning has Changed since those days ~ The box says, "Made in England.  You can build HUNDREDS of fine models with this outfit."  George may not have one hundred but we know that he has more than one. Thank you for bringing this fine working model into the bookshop.  Click on the photo and look at those gears!

During the Holiday Season more than ever, our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made our little bookshop possible.

And in this spirit we say sincerely, Thank You.

 

 

"It's six pink peppermints to Christmas, and there's lots and lots of things for us to do!

You and I will bake a pumpkin pie and pick a purple tie for Uncle Lou.
It's five pink peppermints to Christmas, and there's lots and lots of things for us to do!
Make the cookies, Fill the punch bowl.  Light the candles.
Sing Christmas carols 'round the tree. ..
String the popcorn, Trim the pine tree, Hang the stocking, Hide the presents...."
It's six pink peppermints to Christmas.

~ Lines from "The Christmas Candy Calendar" by Robert Maxwell
THE CHRISTMAS TREE From a Painting by Albert Chevalier Tayler

Today Only his Nose Shows

The Neat L'l Bookshop has postponed the Third Thursday Reading.  "Ol' Dylan has been dead long enough that he isn't going anywhere -- he will still be around whenever we get back to him." ~ Laurie Miller

We look forward to rescheduling the Dylan Thomas reading.  Thank you, Laurie.

[Photo of Boy With Book taken before the big storm.  Today, only his nose shows.]




This is *before* the big storm

Smile for Today ~

"Once you've accumulated sufficient knowledge to get by, you're too old to remember it!"

~Unknown

"I don't want a flu jab.  I like getting flu.  It gives me something else to complain about."

~ David Letterman

"I was born in 1962.  True.  And the room next to me was 1963."

~ Joan Rivers

~Quotations from: Old Geezer Wit, Richard Benson, Summersdale Publishers Ltd., 2006.

 



Gizmo

Faye Farrance, volunteer and friend of the bookshop, is recovering well in West Haldimand Hospital, Hagersville.  Her wee dog, Gizmo, is missing her and wondering where her mother is.

 

Faye thanks everyone for their good wishes, kindnesses and support.  We are not sure when Faye will be getting home ~ Get well quickly, Faye.

 

Update:  Faye returned home in time for Christmas.  She welcomes visits, email, phone calls and can be contacted on Facebook:  Faye O'Handley Farrance.  Speedy recovery Faye.

 

 



"Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.  Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of content.  The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him"

~ John Keats (1795 - 1821) Letter to John Taylor, Feb. 27. 1818

"If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree it had better not come at all."

~ Letter to To Benjamin Bailey, March 13, 1818


Source:  THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS

[There are those who would disagree with Keats pronouncement!]

"When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature.  He becomes interesting to other people.  He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding.  Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible."
~ Robert Henri, The Art Spirit,

~ Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, The Putnam Publishing Group, 1989

Thought for Today ~

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large ~ this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone."

~ Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

White Horse Tavern ~ Greenwich Village / Where Thomas Drank Heavily Dying a Few Days Later 

Reading Dylan Thomas ~

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20 at 1:00 p.m. ~ "Third Thursday" in The Neat Little Bookshop

Laurie Miller will be reading and discussing the Welsh poet and writer, Dylan Thomas.  Everyone welcome. "Coffee Pot's Always On..."

Personally, we cannot think of a better introduction to Dylan Thomas than the brutally honest interview with Caitlin Thomas, widow of Dylan.  Find on YouTube: Dylan Thomas

"Kane on Friday ~ Leftover Wife"

The interview by Vincent Kane was originally broadcast in 1977 on BBC.

Lest We Forget

 



"No Road To Glory"

"The mad 4th.; the fighting 4th~ -- Ypes, St. Julienne, Regina Trench, Vimy, Hill 70 -- Where now?  Hell, if you like, bring on your Huns!
"A halt was called at Marie Qu'Appelle,  where a week or ten days was spent in further training and polishing up for the coming show;  bayonet and bombing practice, formation in attack, establishing communications, entrenching and marching.  It was now generally known that the corps was to participate in the big offensive on Passchendaele Ridge, and that the Canadians were to have a shot at the position which had proved a stumbling block since early in July."

by Major A. R. Thompson, late 4th
Battalion, C.E.F.

 

"No Road To Glory" by A.R. Thompson

     "Although many tons of wire were used...,and hundreds of miles of entanglements constructed, little was heard about the men who, night after night, toiled away at a job which, though dangerous enough, was not in the least spectular, and did not lead along the paths of glory.  Like many another useful branches of the Service, wiring parties were not concerned with matters of attack; their activities were confined to the construction and repair of barb-wire entanglements.
[...]
     "During the Summer of 1917, the 1st Brigade boasted a wiring party, consisting of two officers and forty men who were detailed for discipline and rations to the 1st Field Company, Canadian Engineers.  Their duty was to look after the entanglements on the Brigade front under the supervision of the Engineer Officer Commanding.
     "The standard obstruction was the South African double apron fence.  Iron stakes with corkscrew points were screwed into the ground by inserting the handle of an entrenching tool through a loop at the top end of the stake, and turning, as one would, a fence auger. [The author includes a detailed description of the entanglement.]
     "On fronts badly pitted with shell holes, or on ground where it was not practical to erect the standard type, frame works were woven in the trenches, or in craters, and rolled into position at intervals where they were secured by short stakes and connected up by a number of loose strands of wire which were fastened from one frame to the other.  This method was often used when working in close to an enemy position, as it was possible to do most of the work by crawling around on the belly, and so avoid, to some extent, the hazard of noise and the movement of ducking for flares.  If a flare broke before a man got down, his only chance was to stand stock-still and pray to be mistaken for a blasted tree stump.
     "At Hill 70, the Brigade wiring-party wired up a gap on the left flank of the 2nd Battalion which had been left in the air by a neighbouring unit.  It was a diagonal stretch of about 100 yards, and at the nearest point not more than fifty yards from the German front line trench.  This chore was finished without a casualty, but had to be done all over again next night.  Heinie had knocked everything to pieces;  wiring was like that -- at times it was damned annoying."

~ Excerpt from "No Road To Glory" by Major A.R. Thompson, son of Colonel Andrew T. Thompson.  Major Thompson served overseas with the famous 4th Battalion, C.E.F. and was for a time brigade wiring officer of the First Brigade.

[Note:  In order to read the excerpts chronologically, begin with Tuesday, November 4 post.]

www.studiobabette.ca

www.ruthvenpark.ca

"No Road To Glory" by A. R. Thompson

"Four hundred yards..."

     "Shells droned overhead, searching out dumps and batteries in the back areas; scout machines flew back and forth over the front.  The day wore on uneventfully, almost monotonously.  A machine gun spat intermittently; a sniper's bullet sang.  The air was filled with a medley of those humming, buzzing sounds like a chorus of insects in July.  The men in 'D' Company amused themselves in various ways.  Cards and Crown and Anchor boards had been pulled from pockets and packs, and several games were always in progress.  Others smoked and chatted about the things they missed and yearned for;  some slept, stretched full length in the sun.

     "With the coming of night, the Company bestirred itself, for under cover of darkness the bulk of the work was done.  The Deb., as Jones had been nick-named, was detailed with his platoon to act as a ration party and take supplies from the transport wagons, which came up to this reserve trench, to the front line company.  They moved over land as far as the support line where they dropped into a communication trench.  Here the going was slow, as it was still sticky from a recent rain.  Presently they reached the front line where all was as quiet as the grave.  Conversation with a 'A' Company officer disclosed the Hun as very quiet so far, and rather suspected of being up to something.
     ' How far from the German Lines?' asked Jones, staring into the darkness across that stretch of waste called No-Man's Land.
     ' About four hundred yards.  It's quite a respectable distance, and gives a chap a chance to breathe out loud.  If you've delivered your goods though, you'd better get away;  we're sending out a wiring party, and if Heinie gets wise he may send greetings."
     ' It was certain he had already got his nightly windup as flares were now popping all along the line.  The ration party was impatient to be off."

Tomorrow:  "Footslogger/ wiring-officer Jones and his "intimate association with barb wire."

[To the new Reader:  In order to follow Jones' story chronologically, you may want to begin with Tuesday, November 4th blog post.]

"No Road To Glory" by Major A.R. Thompson

    

 
"The 4th Battalion was at Neuville St. Vaast, dawdling until dusk when they would move off to take over their piece of the front.
      The newcomer was introduced to the Colonel and others of Headquarters staff, and was posted to "D" Company, No. 16 Platoon.  At the order to fall in, the Company Commander gave some brief instructions and the whole moved off at a slow, ambling gait in formation of Indian file.  Each platoon was headed by a guide, furnished from the out-coming battalion. Over the crest of the ridge past Farbus Wood they led.  The skeletons of trees - mere stumps and amputations - stood forth like ghostly sentinels, fantastic in the gathering gloom.

[That night, Jones had been tired and somewhat homesick.  He had fallen asleep thinking "a lot of things he couldn't tell to anyone, not even to the Colonel."]

By the side of the road a carrion horse lay where it fell.  The carcass, which was full blown out from putrid gases, stenched and stank most horribly.  Suddenly the column, trudging silently into the night, came under fire.  A rushing sound, that filled the air, screamed past and roared beyond, as shell after shell followed in quick succession.  Each one seemed closer than the last, and bursting rocked the grounds.  Jones rubbed his eyes and wondered - could they all be hit but he?  The whole platoon was stretched upon the ground.  The guide who, a moment before, had walked beside him, and all those following behind, were down.  By what miracle had he been saved?  Now, they were up again.  What did it all mean?
     'My God, Sir,' said a Non-Com, 'That last was a close one.  You'd better duck if we get another like that.'
     Then he understood.  'On the hands down,' which had always seemed a good deal of a bore before breakfast, had been particular training for the useful trick of ducking.
[...]
As the debutante subaltern became acquainted, his feeling of strangeness wore away.  Talk of Toronto, Hamilton, Brantford, and other familiar places in old Ontario brought the spirit of home to his unfamiliar surroundings.  He swapped yarns;  made friends with his Sergeants and Corporals, and took unto himself a batman, a red-haired, cheery-faced farm lad called Sowers."

Tomorrow: Four Hundred Yards From the German Lines.



"Drew" A. R. Thompson

[Map Source:  Neuville St. Vaast:  Wikipedia]