Margaret

I nearly ran Margaret down this morning, on a blind corner. The corner was OK but I was looking at the car that was going to mow me down. We first met many years ago when she was with her husband Barry at the allotments. Barry had been a miner and was, at the time, working with a drilling company. He was a huge stocky man, built for the front row. Barry taught us a lot about developing an allotment plot. Gradually a change occurred. His ability to hold a conversation and recognise people decreased. He was eventually diagnosed with Dementia. It’s the cruellest of diseases, a big strong man with a huge happy disposition he retained the smile but the light in his eyes gradually faded. Despite his difficulties Margaret took him everywhere, inevitably he died and a light also left the village. 
Margaret had agreed to allow me to photograph her, we were just getting to the part where we would do the nude portraits when Cecilia came along with “Reggie” her lovely fluffy dog. Now here’s the strange bit I have noticed over the recent months while doing these portraits; the two ladies live two doors apart, yet neither knew the other. Having introduced them they started chatting and discovered they had mutual friends and family in St Agnes, two miles away. Then I explained to them that it was odd that I always called Barry “George” for some inexplicable reason. It transpired that George was Cecilia’s brother, he went everywhere with Barry, hence the confusion. I do feel I’m helping people meet new friends and putting them in contact with folk they simply say “Hello” to. 

In Naval parlance there was a creature, working in the Sickbay, as a medical assistant, he was known by all as a “Scab-lifter.” In charge of 5 or 6 scab-lifters attached to 41 Commando (Pron. Four One) was a Chief Petty Officer Noble. A beast of a man, he hated ‘malingerers,’ those looking to go on light duties because they had a chill. CPO Noble had a huge red/black beard and was fearsome, oddly I liked him as he had his department running well and was forthright. 
41 were deposited in a river delta area of Turkey, we worked in rancid conditions for a week or two, then made our way uphill into low mountains. When we reached our objective my body and memory called a halt. I do not know what happened to me, I must have collapsed. I came to in the dark, I was in my sleeping bag, fully rigged, yet had no memory of how I got there. All I did know was that there was a huge helicopter, lights blazing, engines and blades roaring about to kill me. I broke out of my bag and ran, that’s when my mates tackled me, dragged me to the aircraft and hauled me onboard with a scab-lifter. I was being medivacced.
When we reached HMS Bulwark, known to one and all as the ‘Rusty B’ I was carried across the flight deck and placed in the bomb lift, a device for getting bombs up to the flight deck, in a previous incarnation the “B” had been an aircraft carrier. It was handy for lowering casualties to 4 deck where the Sickbay was located; that’s a scary ride for somebody who is hallucinating. Chief Noble examined me, ordered his minion to help by getting a bowl of boiling water, placing some menthol crystals in it and positioning my head, under a towel, over the steam. He then left the room. When he returned he nearly hit the medic. The idiot had poured most of a bottle of crystals into the bowl. I had been dying, now I was for certain. 
I had never seen Chief Noble’s compassionate side before. It was days before I was able to move but he ensured that I was safe and recovering.