By the way and in a bigger picture – every Saint should thoughtfully read the ‘Open Letter to Governor Mark Capes’, published in the ‘Your Opinion Counts’ section, Pages 7 and 8, of the ST.HELENA INDEPENDENT 24 May 2013 issue. Excellent observations and very good points by a visiting Swiss tourist !

It was my pleasure to be able to make a comment on such a well run site. Online news is, I’m afraid, slowly but surely supplanting paper editions. As with everything, it hurts to see such a hallowed tradition as the daily paper passing into history, but the world has a way of moving on whether we like it or not, and being able to talk to people anywhere on the planet, letting them know that we are all one people, and all share the same concerns and beliefs makes up for the loss. I could not, for example, read the article to which I added a comment without feeling genuine concern for the rights of the people involved.

If the years I spent traveling the world in the military taught me anything it was that we are all pretty much the same. I saw the same concerns in Iceland, Japan, India, Pakistan, and England that I saw in the daily paper in my home town in the States. What a marvelous thing it is that the nations of today, though still at times sorely divided, meet together in the United Nations to talk things over instead of meeting on some battlefield.

Changes like that bode well for our future. How much better it is to talk than to chop men and women to pieces with our war machines. And what nonsense it is in the long run. I have spent years in Japan, and months in Germany and Italy, among what was once the “enemy.” What good came of all those dead on both sides? Here we are, 6 decades later, the best of friends and occupying no more and no less territory than we did when I was a lad. What was it all for?

Lolly and I used to drive to Adderbury for some reason or other, to go to an antique shop, I believe. Lolly’s sister Betty and her husband Peter had emigrated to the UK by that time, and those two just loved shopping. There was a place in Shipton Under Witchwood called (what else?) Ye Olde Antique Shoppe where I suspect I spent a measureable portion of my tour. We bought some beautiful small things there.

We were lucky too because our time in England (1969-1973) coincided with one of the reenactments of the Battle of Cropredy Bridge which you mention. Ah, England, England, England! What fond memories we have of those far too short four years.

I wish you and all the “Saints” well. Fight hard for your natural rights, folks. A great American named Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1776, once called them “inalienable.” He was correct.

Tom

I know Cropredy quite well – the festival was a good source of stories when I was the local BBC reporter, and I’ve even performed on the big stage. We lived at Adderbury.

**American English treats collective nouns as singular, rather than plural. You would say the “board were voting” and we would say the “board was voting.” Some of my comments may sound a bit odd. Sorry. I’d make a mess of it if I tried to transliterate what I am saying.

While in the American Air Force I spent four years in England with my beloved wife, who is British. We almost decided to retire right there in Oxfordshire, but didn’t because we felt our two children should have a chance to grow up in the country where they were born. We all make mistakes.

Simon, thank you for the chance to “blow off a little steam.” While we were in England, Loretta and I lived not too far from where you are located, in Cropredy, a lovely village filled with great-hearted people if I ever saw one, and quite a historic place too, as I am sure you know. Loretta was born on her grandfather’s tea and coffee plantation in southern India. We met while I was stationed in the American Embassy in Karachi as part of the U-2 Program (a very minor part), and were married in a magnificent cathedral there (it may surprise you to know that Karachi in Muslim Pakistan has 11 active churches). All of her friends and family have long since left India, of course.

As a reward for reading my ramblings I’ll leave you with a happy thought which reminds me of how our politicians work:

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Tom