tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post5293483858396043591..comments2024-03-26T23:41:10.319+00:00Comments on Authors Electric: Cold War Child: hearing what wasn't said by Julia JonesKatherine Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17196712319655603442noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-48688523166889010802019-06-10T13:23:30.311+01:002019-06-10T13:23:30.311+01:00I really loved reading your blog. It was very well...<br />I really loved reading your blog. It was very well authored and easy to undertand. Unlike additional blogs I have read which are really not tht good. I also found your posts very interesting. In fact after reading, I had to go show it to my friend and he ejoyed it as well!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fivergroup.com/4-20mA-Good-Quality-UV-Sensor-for-UV-Water-Sterilizer-398.htm" rel="nofollow">Quality UV Sensor</a>FIVER Environment Group Co.,Ltdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06065646674644720790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-40279327444549953812019-06-10T11:16:15.048+01:002019-06-10T11:16:15.048+01:00Far more bunkers that you'd ever guess. For in...Far more bunkers that you'd ever guess. For instance I discovered recently that the bungalow past which I drove as I trepassed unwittingly onto that site has one underneath. There was a standard building format for the post WW2 ROTOR (radar) stations. Subterraenica Britannica is a good site. Can't make generalisation re decor as I don't know enough and the photos show such dilapidation. Cream? Your research in the Baltics sounds utterly fascinating. Have you written about it?<br />julia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-15204717320581008762019-06-10T08:27:04.038+01:002019-06-10T08:27:04.038+01:00I spent a strange month exploring old Tsarist, Naz...I spent a strange month exploring old Tsarist, Nazi and Soviet bunkers in the Baltics some years ago. They felt as eerie as this does, but I never imagined we had more than a few pillboxes back home. I must investigate Suffolk more. Incidentally, the Soviets favoured institutional pale green as their internal bunker wall colour whereas the Nazis went for pale peach - Fascist peach. What did the Brits have, I wonder? fiona flynnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05085621782845329091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-53613093886587395962019-06-09T22:35:20.938+01:002019-06-09T22:35:20.938+01:00I never went to the base at Wattisham, remember fe...I never went to the base at Wattisham, remember feeling no curiosity about it (having seen plenty of other air bases around the world they were viewed by my young eyes as benign, boring and rather noisy). And as a meteorologist, my father was rather peripheral to the business of flying aeroplanes. He was stationed there from around 1968 to '73ish when he was then moved out of the RAF and accepted a post at Heathrow airport ... arriving in Suffolk was a shock for us having travelled back from Singapore by ship in the middle of winter and finding ourselves in Stowmarket with no warm clothes! (I'll be flying into Brize Norton next January on an RAF plane so wonder how that will change my perception).Claudia Myatthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09391963980412215298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-31613483152236811102019-06-09T22:25:16.270+01:002019-06-09T22:25:16.270+01:00That's fascinating -- my friend Diana (also yo...That's fascinating -- my friend Diana (also younger then me) was also a Wattisham child and remembers the base as a safe and rather fun place to be. I wonder whether you were there are the same time. Her father flew the Lightning aircraft - what years were yo there? They have produced a good DVD about the history of the base. Would you like to watch?julia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-38054217095440525442019-06-09T22:15:39.127+01:002019-06-09T22:15:39.127+01:00A fellow baby boomer, we came to Suffolk when my f...A fellow baby boomer, we came to Suffolk when my father was posted to RAF Wattisham. We never questioned what role all those abundant RAF stations played in those peaceful times, just accepted them as 'keeping an eye on things' and grateful for the fact they gave us an interesting itinerant lifestyle all over the world. My father later became an active peace campaigner - I think we all felt the vague shadow of 'the bomb' that we waved placards to ban.Claudia Myatthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09391963980412215298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-75805273399465328392019-06-09T22:12:42.918+01:002019-06-09T22:12:42.918+01:00Thank you all -- both for the fabulous compliment ...Thank you all -- both for the fabulous compliment (coming from you, Sue, wow!) and very much for the other personal memories. I'm glad I wrote this -- I wasn't sure how it was going to be receivedjulia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-18849015978849646352019-06-09T19:39:51.440+01:002019-06-09T19:39:51.440+01:00Fabulous read - every bit as gripping as a fiction...Fabulous read - every bit as gripping as a fictional thriller, plus it bring up my own WW2 and early Cold War childhood. The juxtaposition of apocaplyptic war icons with childhood innocence is particularly moving.Umberto Tosihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04939504157464234443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-77866164993201480722019-06-09T17:20:07.356+01:002019-06-09T17:20:07.356+01:00Love your opening, Julia, and wanted it to turn in...Love your opening, Julia, and wanted it to turn into a creepy short story (maybe it will one day?)<br /><br />I was a wartime child living in a South Wales dockland town which was a magnet for bombing raid. Mercilessly teased at school, one night I asked God to arrange a bomb to be dropped on my house, and when the raid came, spent half the night saying "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it!" How do people cope in Syria? The world should have grown wise, but didn't.Enid Richemonthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17218197995089241666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-35506240382995978092019-06-09T14:26:06.060+01:002019-06-09T14:26:06.060+01:00Julia, you write so beautifully, you just can'...Julia, you write so beautifully, you just can't help yourself! Thank you.Susan Pricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738737493756183909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-42589346917136183802019-06-09T12:45:37.298+01:002019-06-09T12:45:37.298+01:00That ios fascinating Bill. Thank you so much. (I f...That ios fascinating Bill. Thank you so much. (I feel I might want to collect these comments)julia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-72054443036374699722019-06-09T12:33:15.137+01:002019-06-09T12:33:15.137+01:00Wow! I second everything Sandra’s said, and yet fo...Wow! I second everything Sandra’s said, and yet for me (as for Jan) it brought specifically personal (and, from the way I reacted when reading, deeply buried) responses. I’ve always insisted that our generation (forgive me, I’m older than you but we did share the sirens, rationing, NHS, student fees, and all the rest) was the luckiest of all those which preceded (and now, I recognise) will be succeeding it.<br />I didn’t click the links to the sirens because if/when I hear one in some TV documentary or news item, they still shock and scare me. As a kid, hearing them, nearly always at night, meant running to the shelter, sitting in near-darkness listening to the rumblings, and waiting for the balm of the ‘all-clear’. This was in Plymouth, whose dockyards, like Jan’s in Portsmouth, took some heavy hits. The walk to primary school frequently had new bomb-sites along the route, (miraculous playgrounds, indeed, Jan, but dotted with hazardous detritus). But they were soon covered with what I now know to be Buddleia bushes crawling with caterpillars and butterflies, the only beneficiaries.<br />Loss and destruction were everyday events and it’s astonishing that warfare is still considered a ‘diplomatic’ option.<br />Thanks for such a beautiful, poignant piece, Julia.<br />Bill Kirtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16345949773423764808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-40091325392829932492019-06-09T12:24:10.814+01:002019-06-09T12:24:10.814+01:00I remember singing about Peter Rabbit as I explore...I remember singing about Peter Rabbit as I explored the bomb crater on the farm in Essex. I learn now that all the windows of the house had been blown out there too. It's in the middle of nowhere - not like Portsmouth!) So clearly not traumatised by that souvenir. Lots of smelly spooky pill boxes along the coast to be approached in fascinated horror. You'd have been much more robust I expectjulia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-76494060664530398412019-06-09T11:09:39.257+01:002019-06-09T11:09:39.257+01:00Bloody ell, Ms Jones, you ought to be a writer!
I&...Bloody ell, Ms Jones, you ought to be a writer!<br />I'm older than you, from another war haunted place, Portsmouth. My two biggest shake-ups came similarly mysteriously (as you can see, I'm NOT a writer!). One, when I was about twelve, some ammunition barges moored high up in the harbour exploded and almost shattered my eardrums as they removed most of the shop windows in Landport. And two, when I was a reporter in 1963, driving to Gosport, in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis. There was an enormous, terrifying bang, which damn near frightened me and the photographer who was driving the Mini into early graves. Turns out the navy, in its wisdom, had decided to test fire a 14-inch naval gun at HMS Excellent. Clever chaps, eh? My father reckoned it was a government plot to reduce the old-age pensioner population at a stroke. Having said all that, ween't bomb-sites just the most miraculous playgrounds...Jan Needlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15823078224282953782noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-27016643306243089092019-06-09T09:52:13.766+01:002019-06-09T09:52:13.766+01:00Thank you Sandra for such a very generous comment....Thank you Sandra for such a very generous comment. Writing this (and thinking about it) has been quite a profound experience in an unexpected way. I am so very glad that it made some sense. Thank you again.julia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-55259835176929147522019-06-09T09:35:36.414+01:002019-06-09T09:35:36.414+01:00There is such poetry, such tension, in the opening...There is such poetry, such tension, in the opening paragraphs that I thought it could be the start of a thriller, but it became a short story and then an evocative memoir. What a post! Thank you, Julia, for a great read!Sandra Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01761260568729338471noreply@blogger.com