Dates – for rememberance.

(Amended 20^thSeptember 2019)

By dates I do not refer to the palm fruit variety or those arrangements to meet someone. No. I refer to those dates in time – referring to events in life that are important to us individually and to the world. The Portuguese sailor, Bartolomeu Diaz – who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, the “First Fleet” that arrived in Botany Bay (Sydney, Australia) in 1788 are but two that immediately spring to my mind.

Dates are significant for a variety of reasons and each are important in their own way. Birthdays, anniversaries, and important historical occurrence – any date that marks an event on the journey of one’s life. They are reminders of wayfarers we have met, of things we have done. 

For me certain dates have a special meaning. Being a “war baby” – (Second World War) I have the dates of the beginning and end of that tumultuous time firmly set (generally accepted as 1 September 1939 -2 September 1945). And also the First World War (the War to end all wars!) because both my grandfathers were combatants in that one (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918). 

When a child I was taught to always remember “Armistice Day”, or “Poppy Day” as it is sometimes called – 11^thNovember. 

Nearer home, as it were, are the dates of my retirement – 19^thOctober 2012. Now another date – a date recording a death, 21^stJanuary 2016 as is 1^stJune. Every 21^stis for me both a time of celebration (in October, it is my birthday) and every 1^stJune, a time of reflection, of remembrance and of great sadness. The 21^stJanuary is the date of the death of my best friend – my wife, Magucha, and 1^stJune is the date my first wife Frances, died (in 1977).

As anyone who reads these rambling posts well knows that poetry has a special meaning for me. There is a poet my late bother, Bruce, enjoyed – a Canadian by the name of Robert Service, and a poem he wrote:

 “Unforgotten” 

I know the garden where the lilies gleam,

  And one who lingers in the sunshine there;

  She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,

And, oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream!

I know the garret, cold and dark and drear,

  And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,

  Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary – then

He seeks the stars pale, silent as a seer.

And ah, it’s strange; for, desolate and dim,

  Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;

  Yet he is in the garden by her side

And she is in the garret there with him.