The Past!

0°C  -  2 mph WSW Wind Speed  -  7 mph Gusts  -  Fog expected later.  A bit too cold to venture out so I spent most of the day reading ‘Let Me Go’ by Helga Schneider  -  I have rows of books that I’ve bought over the years meaning to read  -  I chose this one at random today.  It must be the saddest autobiography I’ve ever read!  Helga was four when her mother left her husband and children to join Hitler’s SS.  The story tells of the last time she saw her mother who was then ninety and living in an old peoples home in Vienna.  The constant referral to the fascist beliefs of the SS reminded me of my experience with Oswald Mosley’s Fascist movement in London in the 1930s.  Before we moved to Scotland in 1936 we lived in Evelyn Gardens, Chelsea, London which was just down the road from Mosley’s BUF (British Union of Fascists) headquarters where the members (known as Blackshirts) did their training.  I can remember several times while out shopping with my mother seeing the Blackshirts marching though the street.  I was five at the time  -  always amazes me how at that age they stay in my memory  -  probably because it was such an unusually sight.  It would’ve meant no more to me than that!