The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
It was only a picture of a soldier husband in a newspaper but it set me thinking. He was kissing his wife good-bye. This Egyptian business, you know. The picture set me thinking of a girl I know well.
The room was full of roses the day she first opened unseeing eyes on the strange new world. It was June, 1918, almost five months before the end of the First World War. Her name was Agues, and many a time I dawdled her on my knee. Born in a world at war, she afterwards fell in love and married a soldier in a world once more at war - it was a blustery day in March, 1942. There were no roses then.
Her first child was born almost a year later. In the uncertainties of war at least she had that. It was a boy. Born in a world at war, would he too come to maturity in another world conflict?
Agues was one of the ‘lucky’ ones. The end of World War Two saw her husband still safe. Then began the inevitable search for a job and a house. Since she was married she had known no home of her own. She was fortunate to have a sister with whom she could live, but even that was far from the ideal of a corner of one’s own.
I had the pleasure of bringing the news to Agues that, after six years, she was to have a home of her own. I shall never forget the incredulous joy in her eyes as I claimed my reward for bringing the good news. Later on I saw her in her own home and then, one day, she sat down and wrote a letter to a friend. I had the privilege of reading it. The letter was written in the midst of an uncertain world situation. What thoughts and feelings, what fears, what memories were racing through her mind as she wrote, I can but dimly guess. I give to you, as I read them, the words she wrote.
‘It is lovely now when the long nights are coming in, having a house that we can call our own . . . I am appreciating it as much as I can now, because sometimes when I listen to, and read, the news, I begin to wonder just how long it will last. We were having a quiet evening, both sitting reading; I looked across at Edward and wondered if in a few years I’ll look back on these days and wish I had made more of them, and somehow it has made me more conscious of just how happy we are.
‘I don’t know how all this talk of war affects other people, but in one way it has done me good. It is making me take things not so much for granted and although there are a few things I still want for the house, they don’t matter so much. I just feel glad of what I have.
‘I suppose most people have their days when they feel depressed and out of sorts, usually for no reason at all. Now when I feel depressed I try always to be in good form when Edward comes home. If he ever does have to go away again I don’t want to have any regrets.’
The pathos in the last sentence will never stop ringing in my ears -‘If he ever does have to go away . . .‘ It is the women who bear the cruel hurt of war. I am not a Pacifist in the accepted sense of the word, but we can all at least pray for peace in our time.
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