Tuesday 6th June 2023:
Seven years ago Celia and I were in the Cotentin, Peninsula, France in the town of L’Etang Bertrand. We woke up to the news on the 24th June 2016 that the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union. It was a disastrous day. Seventy-Nine years ago today, Operation Overlord was launched. Celia and I visited the various beaches. Standing on Omaha Beach one can look across the bay all the way to Le Havre which is 50 miles away, however one need only look towards Ouisterham to see the full landing area which was a mere 30 miles wide. It may sound a good distance, but when standing on the beach and looking east it is remarkable how close it all seems.
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| The view from Omaha Beach landing looking east |
There were no ghosts whilst walking along the sand, but then I was not there in 1944. I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who had been there then to walk along the beach now. Looking from the water’s edge towards the land, one can see not an inkling of what might have been there on that day.
Wednesday 7th June 2023
On that day, my father was 36, my mother was 31 and I was one year and nine months. The impact of the events of that day, and the subsequent year to May 1945, resonated throughout my parents’ lives and consequently on my own upbringing. Their teenage journey to America around 1920, from a war-torn Hungary to New York, effectively coming of age in the crash of 1929. The next twenty years were probably the most eventful years of their lives. Indeed, by the time they got married in 1949, age 41 and 36 they had three kids aged 10, 8 and 6.
The seeds of their political views were sown in the 1920’s, fully grown by 1929, reinforced by the 1930 depression era, and practically carved in stone by the aftermath of the second world war. The revelation of the holocaust and yes, the sacrifices of the citizens of the Soviet Union with nearly 27 million people dead, both civilian and military, from all war-related causes, were not to be ignored. They worked exceedingly hard so that their children would not go through any of the difficulties they faced, all the while supporting the political left, and somehow, behaving like gypsies dragging their kids all over the United States and Western Europe, with a brief flurry in the Middle East.
I still have no idea how they managed it all the while exhorting us to support the proletariat. I grew up eating in restaurants and Hotels across Europe, in Paris, Basle, Zurich, Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Rome, Venice, Naples, Capri, Madrid, Seville, Amsterdam, Brussels, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Cannes, Nice, Biarritz, Zagreb, Belgrade, London, Guildford, Llandudno, Haifa, and many other places and places in between. Quite apart from New York, Miami, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and yet more places in between. I cannot count the number of churches, cathedrals, monuments, museums, castles, galleries, theatres, etc I was taken to. I even went to school, or rather several schools.
As you can see, we travelled a lot. I also believe we were the only house on South Rodeo Drive to have jars of cucumbers pickling in the sun on the front windowsills. I should add that my parents were not the only leftists in Beverly Hills, nor indeed the only nomads. All that travel had taken place in the seven years between 1949 and 1956 when my brother Ted and I enrolled at Beverly Hills High School. I was 14 in September of that year, only twelve years on from the events of the 6th June 1944.
On that day, my father was 36, my mother was 31 and I was one year and nine months. The impact of the events of that day, and the subsequent year to May 1945, resonated throughout my parents’ lives and consequently on my own upbringing. Their teenage journey to America around 1920, from a war-torn Hungary to New York, effectively coming of age in the crash of 1929. The next twenty years were probably the most eventful years of their lives. Indeed, by the time they got married in 1949, age 41 and 36 they had three kids aged 10, 8 and 6.
The seeds of their political views were sown in the 1920’s, fully grown by 1929, reinforced by the 1930 depression era, and practically carved in stone by the aftermath of the second world war. The revelation of the holocaust and yes, the sacrifices of the citizens of the Soviet Union with nearly 27 million people dead, both civilian and military, from all war-related causes, were not to be ignored. They worked exceedingly hard so that their children would not go through any of the difficulties they faced, all the while supporting the political left, and somehow, behaving like gypsies dragging their kids all over the United States and Western Europe, with a brief flurry in the Middle East.
I still have no idea how they managed it all the while exhorting us to support the proletariat. I grew up eating in restaurants and Hotels across Europe, in Paris, Basle, Zurich, Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Rome, Venice, Naples, Capri, Madrid, Seville, Amsterdam, Brussels, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Cannes, Nice, Biarritz, Zagreb, Belgrade, London, Guildford, Llandudno, Haifa, and many other places and places in between. Quite apart from New York, Miami, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, and yet more places in between. I cannot count the number of churches, cathedrals, monuments, museums, castles, galleries, theatres, etc I was taken to. I even went to school, or rather several schools.
As you can see, we travelled a lot. I also believe we were the only house on South Rodeo Drive to have jars of cucumbers pickling in the sun on the front windowsills. I should add that my parents were not the only leftists in Beverly Hills, nor indeed the only nomads. All that travel had taken place in the seven years between 1949 and 1956 when my brother Ted and I enrolled at Beverly Hills High School. I was 14 in September of that year, only twelve years on from the events of the 6th June 1944.
It should be noted that 1956 was a momentous year in itself. The Suez crisis, the Hungarian revolt, John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger opens at the Royal Court, Nikita Khrushchev denounces Stalin, Fidel Castro and followers land in Cuba, Burgess and MacLean surface in Moscow, and John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, and Nathaniel Rochester assemble the first coordinated research meeting on the topic of Artificial Intelligence. These are but a few of the events which will have many repercussions in later years.
Another 12 years later is a whole other story. By this time I am in London. 1968 is something else again. The months of May and June have a lot to say for themselves. Indeed, 12 year cycles from 1944 seem to engender dramatic events, 2016 being an instance in point. But what about the proletariat ?
Another 12 years later is a whole other story. By this time I am in London. 1968 is something else again. The months of May and June have a lot to say for themselves. Indeed, 12 year cycles from 1944 seem to engender dramatic events, 2016 being an instance in point. But what about the proletariat ?
As I am at present in Stratford-upon-Avon, that will have to do for the nonce, so more of this anon.
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