While I walk down the middle of the icy road by the park in the snow, I wonder how many hearts were broken on that Baltic night. 9k dead, each a family member, husband, wife, son, daughter.

In my minds eye, I see the Captain standing on the tilting side of his ship, the Gustloff. Fire axe in hand, he tries in vain to shatter safety glass on the viewing deck. Many people are...

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http://www.lulu.com/shop/andy-n-and-nick-armbrister/europa-in-the-dark-valley-between-the-world-wars/paperback/product-21540523.html

I'm sat idly on the train, going to Manchester, having a beer.                                                

I see a poster on the wall of a cop, safety.                                                                        ...

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A Memory of Schooldays                                                                                                       

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,                                                                                                                                          

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,                                    ...

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GLIMPSE OF OLD THINGS

Think of old things, of people at ease,

lovers relaxing and life being lived.

If you could go back where would you go?

Would you go to an old Roman bath

and listen to idle talk?

Me, I’d go to the dawn of time

to see what was before.

I’d like to work in an old library

and read new manuscripts.

This is a journey back in time,

yours and mine...

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SOVIET BOMBERS

Silver-plated mothertruckers! Yey. The Russians have bombed Georgia targets inc a Black Sea port, oil pipeline, military targets, civilians, etc. 2 jets have been shot down, 1 pilot/aircrew killed I no of. I’m not sure of Georgian air force strength. They got 29 Su-27 flankers back in 92 when they left the Soviet block. Any jets since? All will be Russian kit. Russian t...

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OLD

Take the lid off the old wooden box and peer inside, what is there? What do you see? An old bullet from the Korean war, a discoloured gemstone from a broken lover’s necklace.

A curling yellow photo of lost teenage friends, now no more, one lost to drugs.

Some ancient coin from a faraway land, unreadable language.

Now put back the lid and pause for thought. If you were to have ...

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OUT OVER THE FIELDS

Out over the fields a pair of crows circle and dive amongst the hedgerows and green grass.

A watery sun casts its watery face through the spring clouds as the birds disappear from view.

Eighty years ago it was a similar story as two manmade hawks of the air battle to the death; the fields aren’t green but a shell-holed hell with muddy trenches filled with wretched...

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The soldiers of Nippon descended upon Asia in a vast horde of death.                               

Fighting anyone who dared oppose them, killing their enemies without mercy. Destroying everything from isolated houses to entire cities.                                        

Decades of looking inwards bred an evil military dictatorship.                                 ...

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