Anton's Ideas

Anton Wills-Eve on world news & random ideas

Category: autobiography

17/03/2015

HOW DID THEY UNDERSTAND?


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/i-have-confidence-in-me/”>I Have Confidence in Me</a>

March 7th’s prompt.

HOW DID THEY  UNDERSTAND?

I once told my readers, at least I hope they are plural, about the inability of my five year old  son, Edgardo, to master four languages at such a tender age. It really was a shame because his four sisters and two brothers were all promising linguists and I am sure Eddie was merely attention seeking egged on by his nine year old sister Lucia. Let me tell you of his latest prank.

My wife, Francesca, and I were going out for the evening to see an opera that she particularly enjoyed, Don Giovanni one of Mozart’s greatest works. At lunch that day, we were in England for the summer holidays, he asked his mother.”Now you have got your libretto, haven’t you, Mama? Lucia tells me you need to thumb through one when you go to operas, whatever that involves, but I expect you know”. My adorable Francesca had long since given up trying to understand anything her seven children said to her. Within seven years she had given birth to Maria, eleven months later Giovanni, sometimes known as John or even Jean depending on which member of the family was talking to him. Two years after that came the twins Lucia and Violetta, a year later Dido and six years after Maria came Aeneas.  Finally a year later the seventh addition to our beautiful collection, little Edgardo was born in late 2009.

You will notice their names all had strong Operatic connections. Also they were born in different countries, France, Italy, England (the twins), Switzerland, Spain and America, this last appropriately for Eddie who was a typical Chicago gansgter. But after his arrival the doctors told us that no more children could be conceived by Francesca following surgery that was necessary at the time of Eddie’s very difficult birth. Tears were shed at first but soon my lovely wife realised she had more than she could cope with already. How she ever got a masters degree as well in two languages I will never know. But she was now lecturing at an on line  distance learning university which suited my peripatetic work and our over populated family perfectly.  I  took her on holiday to Salzburg shortly after Eddie’s birth,  a much needed holiday for both of us and a very necessary period of clinging onto each other for a while as our first love returned to us in all it’s wonderful tenderness. If anything, by the time of this story I loved Francesca more than when we met at university in Pisa in 2000 at a second milenium celebration student dance. We married in April 2001 and Maria was born in May 2002. Eddie came along in the early winter of 2009.  But to return to our opera night out.

When we took our seats in Covent Garden Francesca smiled at me and sighed with contentment as she relaxed to enjoy her favourite music. She knew the score and the main arias backwards but always liked to follow them when at an opera. If it gave her more pleasure so much the better, as long as she did not try to sing along with the performers. I got her out of this habit at a performance of Tosca at Verona where she was blushing puce with remorse as people sitting near us tut-tutted. But this night she was on her best behaviour.  I hoped everything was fine, but then I did not know what Lucia had planned for Eddie. Famous aria after famous aria had little notes scribbled in the margin.

Take two examples. “La ci da rem la mano”, ‘Put your pretty hand in mine’, a seduction scene, had the annotation , “Mama, what a naughty man! Don’t let daddy see you reading this!” Then the famous aria where don Giovanni’s romantic conquests all over Europe are recited to discourage Donna Elvira, had the notes, ‘ he had 1,003 lovers in Spain? How did he keep it up?’ That was the first time Francesca had ever stuffed a hankey in her mouth in public much to my horror. I thought she was ill. In the interval she showed me the libretto and score.

“Lucia! But Francesca, it is funny. But she couldn’t know all that by herself and none of the older children would have told her!” My wife nodded and started to look worried. she asked me,

“David, isn’t it more worrying to try to work out what Edgardo was thinking as Lucia wrote this for him? He must have been curious”. We both left the opera house very concerned.

The next day we summoned Lucia and Eddie and asked why they had written all over mummy’s lovely libretto. Lucia tried to look innocently puzzled and not understanding what we were talking about, but not Eddie. “Oh, it is easy. Don Giovanni was a dirty old man, you know he never had a wash, or so our Giovanni told me, and Violetta said he held Elvira’s hand up in the air as they walked off at the end of that scene, but so many encores were called for on the first night that everyone wondered why her arm muscles did not give way she held it up so long.”

It was Maria who solved the whole mystery for us. It was just the three of us now. “Well, Mama and Papa, you see we did not think this was a suitable opera for a good Catholic family to be allowing their mother to see, so we decided to distract Mama by making her laugh and in such a way that the very youngest members of the family would not be corrupted.” I couldn’t believe her at first, but I did when she added,

“It was our embassy chaplain who told us what to write as he thought all of us were too young to understand the story, but was very pleased at how pious we were in wanting to preserve our parents’ moral standards.” Francesca wanted to talk to Father Richard but I stopped her. Darling, they are all seven of them in this far too deeply already. We are the ones who would be making our children lie even more by taking the matter any further. Let it drop. ” She nodded but sighed as she concluded,

“I’m still worried about Eddie, though. If he made up that explanation he could become a really accomplished liar, but if he undertstood the joke, who told him?”

I kissed her as we left the sitting room and said, isn’t it fun having seven children to worry about all at once! Are you sure you once wanted another pair of twins?”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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16/03/2015

OKAY, PERHAPS IT MAY BE. BUT LOOK AT IT THIS WAY.


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/a-house-divided/”>A House Divided</a>

 

OKAY, PERHAPS IT MAY BE. BUT LOOK AT IT THIS WAY.

 

“Have you heard, Dad, Lewis Hamilton has just won the Australian formula one Grand Prix. What a way to start the new motor racing season, eh? The best driver in the best car getting off to the best start. And he’s British! What more could you ask?” My father looked at me and replied,

“You may have forgotten, but I am an Australian and that was my home Grand Prix. No Australian has ever won it and I really thought that Daniel Ricciardo was going to do it for us. But his Red Bull car is not up to it this year. In fact the whole sport could really take a turn for the worse unless somebody designs an engine to challenge the Mercedes. Otherwise it will be a procession like it was last year.”

Actually, I agreed with him. The Ferrari and Williams teams were looking very good but were a full second a lap slower than the Mercedes and the great hopes everyone had for the British MaClaren team were lost as their new Japanese Honda engine was hopeless. Also their top driver, Alonso was injured and did not race in Australia and their other former world champion, England’s Jenson Button, could only drag his MaClaren home eleventh which also happened to be last.

Now you would expect father and son being very keen on a sport was enough for one family but at this point my mother broke in on the conversation and said ” It’s all money, money, money! Four of the best drivers in the world can’t get a race because they don’t have rich personal sponsors prepared to buy them a place on the grid. It’s all that eighty five year old ‘cash mad’ Bernie Ecclestone’s fault for selling our beloved motor sport down the drain.” Then, turning to my father she added wistfully,”Oh Fred do you remember our teenage days when we scraped up all we could save to watch your hero Sir Jack Brabham, winning his third world championship in 1966? One of the greatest Australian sportsmen of all time.” Dad nodded and added,

“Yes my love and I remember cheering on your native Scottish heroes Jackie Stewart and Jim Clarke at their greatest. Oh no, they raced for fun and to get the adrenalin moving, not like the modern computer simulated robots they stick in cars nowadays.” But our family being what it is my sister was not having this. She was quick to point out, “Okay, when Jenson won the world title in 2009 he had by far the best car, so that supports your argument, but I remember sitting on this very sofa watching the Canadian Grand Prix in 2011 and watching him come from last, after three pit stops, to carve through the field in the last ten laps and take  Vettel on the very last bend of the last lap to win the greatest GP I’ve ever seen. And don’t say your ’60s and ’70s heroes could have bettered that, I don’t believe it.” Dad smiled,

“My main memory of that race was you leaping five foot in the air as your heart throb Jenson took the lead and punching the the air and exchanging high fives with your brother as he crossed the line and won the race. But you can’t delete sports fanatics’ memories, and I’m prepared to concede that you will recount every minute of that race to your great grandchildren when you’re eighty five.”

This lively chat went on for another quarter of an hour or so before we gradually broke up to do those important things that members of families do. You know, like washing up and going to the pub. But the whole episode did do something to me which I hope I will never forget, especially with kids of my own. Family bonding is not just about being lovey-dovey and being nice to each other. No, above all it is sharing those things we are really passionate about, and invariably they are matters which evoke discussions which in turn lead to exchanging dissenting and agreement in equal measure. I’m so glad our family has several things about which they feel so strongly.

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

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12/03/2015

SANE AND CONTENT


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/study-abroad/”>Study Abroad</a>

 

                           SANE AND CONTENT

 

Seriously, was this prompt written especially for me or did my wicked fairy godmother have a word in word press’s  ear before it was chosen? Let me tell you you the history of my learning locations and see what you can make of it.

From my birth in 1942 in England, on the Thames in Buckinghamshire, I was press ganged into learning everything there was to know about the world in fluent Scottish, Australian, American and English as viewed by the world’s journalists. I came from a long line of journalists on my father’s side, four generations, and they had all considered  their vocations were to instruct the ignorant by means of the media. So by the age of three years and two months I had a party piece that I  was often forced to recite to show my relatives and their friends that my father’s ancestry of writers, and my mother’s four generations of actors and singers, could easily be reflected in their offspring  and to a genuinely useful purpose.

My sister and I did not agree. She was fifteen months older than I and was blessed with a naturally beautiful voice but hated public performing. So when she was asked she always clammed up and in my mercy I would spring to her rescue and do my showing off piece before anyone had time to castigate her for letting the family down. Do you know what I had been taught? I could recite all the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Truman, then the incumbent, and for an encore name all the states, their state capitals and, to really leave my audience gob-smacked, tell them I could name every US ambassador to Britain. They never made me do this last task, just assumed I had been really thoroughly brain washed. Lucky for them, too, because Walter Page became the first Ambassador with full diplomatic ambassadorial rank in 1916 to justify hauling the cousins into WW1! Actually Thomas Jefferson was in charge of diplomatic relations with Britain back in Washington’s time, but only as consul to Napoleon in Paris. Hardly a good start! 

But I digress. My education went roughly like this. English Catholic public school (that’s very posh not lowest level as over the pond) from seven to eighteen. Then Sorbonne university in Paris aged 18 to 21 and eight months.(History) Geneva University 21-22 (Italian history, Middle Ages), then BA at the OU in Britain, specialising in philosophy and logic, finally a doctorate at Pisa University in 1966 for a year (Papal history). All this was in five languages and by the time I retired from journalism, following  being lucky to survive a helicopter crash in 1970 and its gradual breaking up of my spine over the next eight years, I had reached masters level in four more subjects: world sports in Tokyo, a full knowledge of anxiety neurosis and phobias which I studied in Asia and The States , and finally another doctorate recently conferred by an Australian University for my life’s contribution to teaching people in most of the world the salient points of world history during my lifetime. 

But which location would I choose to retire to out of all the cities and countries where I have picked up the mass of trivia which I specialise in showering on the unsuspecting  readers of my idle bloggings and twitterings, as they are called today? Without any question Italy. It is the only country, especially around Tuscany, roughly Florence to Pisa, where I can still dream up essays and humerous stories to keep the uninstructed happy in their peaceful  and quiet towns. And, as the greatest music in the world is still sung on every Italian street corner, where else on earth would anyone wish to live and remain sane and content?

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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10/03/2015

THE PROMPT SAYS IT ALL


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/too-big-to-fail/”>Too Big To Fail</a

 

                THE PROMPT SAYS IT ALL

I have been asked, and I quote, to ” Tell us about something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail (and tell us why you haven’t tried it yet).”

Answer: I would try to be elected prime minister. But I haven’t tried it yet because it isn’t guaranteed!! 

 

AWE

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09/03/2015

“UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM …….”


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/id-like-to-thank-my-cats/”>I’d Like to Thank My Cats</a>

“UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM …….”

 

I was standing on the balustrade of the gardens of the villa Borghese overlooking the dome of Saint Peter’s in the distance  in Rome when I was given the news that the Nobel Peace prize for that year, 1961, had been awarded to Dag Hammerskjoeld the recently deceased secretary general of the  United Nations.

I immediately thought back to the plane crash in the Congo in which he died while on a peace mission earlier that year. That was one price I would never pay for being given one of the highest awards in the world. The price was far too high.  But over the years since then I have wondered which Nobel prize I would like to receive and how high a price I would be prepared to pay to get it. In all honesty when thinking about being given really important recognition for something I have done in my life I have always bordered on fantasy, not least because I can think of no field in  which I might ever merit a really high honour. I suppose the first thing most people do is review the Nobel options.

I could just about reach a high enough level of medical research to qualify for the physiology laureate because the amount of original work I have done on mental  illness, and the various ideas I have put forward for treating any form of anxiety neurosis, could certainly reach the top level when viewed from the question of ‘do I have a broad enough and original enough knowledge of the subject?’ while obviously being mentally unbalanced, where I might fall down is on convincing people that I could cure  many of the illnesses covered by this field. You see the price I would have to pay would be suffering from the anxiety levels myself and thus being able to empathise fully when treating them. Well in this case I do, but I doubt if I could  bring myself to think them through again while writing up a thesis and still remaining sane.

The physics prize is one I have always believed I could put in my pocket any day of the week, but only because I can prove that atomic physics can never be subjected to an auto-logical series of tests that would leave no question that quantum physics is a load of rubbish. I know that it is, as put forward by most leading physicists, but I would have to learn how to speak the language of physics in which scientists couch the lunacy of their ideas. Pity, because that one would have been a cert, but the price would have been learning something I thought was valueless. No, I could never do that.

Now chemistry is really up my street when considered from the point of view of the invention or discovery of new elements which can be unearthed through phenomenological tinkering with archaeological sites which may yet reveal new aspects of  the chemical make up of our world. However the price I would have to pay for that would be personal exposure to the natural climate of our planet,  which in snow or high winds I would not enjoy at all.

This brings me to the literature prize. This is the one prize that the laureate can never manufacture for themselves on purpose. This prize has to be the whim of others so all I can say is that I would put in as much research as I needed to write a definitive history of thirteenth century Western Europe. The price, the work load, would be enormous but I would embrace it whole heartedly.  However, there is no way I could ever guarantee ultimate success.

Now when it comes to economics I would have a very good chance if I were to win the prize jointly with my wife. Together we have an unequaled knowledge of the machinations of world financiers and financial procedures but to prove just how clever we are at manipulating global fortunes we would need to be given at least one billion US dollars cash up front to start with. There are many ways this can be acquired, but when I started to contemplate the options I realised that neither my wife nor I would stoop so low, or jump so high,  in the realms of chicanery to kick start our financial dealings.

So we are left with the peace prize. Well I would like to win it for setting up a world wide charity devoted to feeding the starving, sheltering the homeless and comforting all the bereaved people who make up some forty percent of the population of the world. There would be no price involved, all I would need to do would be to raise my level of oratory in each of the five languages I speak and, with golden tongued eloquence, convince the rich of this world that they should shower me and my charity with their geldt. Now that is fantasy, but you must admit it is also really nice, isn’t it?

So my acceptance speech would begin as follows,

“Unaccustomed as I am to doing, saying or writing anything worthwhile………..”

 

AWE

 

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03/03/2015

NO CAN DO


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/in-loving-memory/”>In Loving Memory</a>

 

NO CAN DO

An obituary is the the only thing one cannot write about oneself. You see you have to be dead first and, speaking purely personally, I’d rather remain as I am for as long as possible.

Sorry Word Press you’ve lost again. Now had you asked for an autobiography that would have been fine. I am already on chapter forty three and have written some six hundred thousand odd words. In about another four hundred thousand words time it will be finished and I shall cheerfully sell you a copy. The title? Sorry, that’s still under wraps.

 

AWE

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01/03/2015

BUT WE CAN’T DO THAT NOW


in reply to ‘me time’ prompt

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/me-time/”>Me Time</a>

BUT WE CAN’T DO THAT NOW

How I loved my bracing early morning run

Along the golden beach in the dawning sun.

Then a cup of chocolate and a croissant, piping hot,

At the little cafe where I once forgot

To bring any money so I couldn’t pay

But they laughed and left it to the next Saturday.

Followed an hour dong this on my new i-pad;

Telling all the world if I was happy or sad.

Then round the shops for our weekend food,

Including a treat if I thought I’d been good

At school that week. But the bit I  loved best

Was choosing my clothes as I got dressed

To meet Sandra for lunch. Next off to the game,

How her loving, cheeky smile was always the same,

Each week  we held hands cheering as our team lost or won:

And oh, that kiss, going home when the day was done.

But we can’t do that now. Why, oh why am I so young,

As cancer strikes me? My Sandra’s life has hardly begun.

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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25/02/2015

A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/three-perfect-shots/”>Three Perfect Shots</a>

 

                                       A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’

 

The top players all agree, golf is a game you play in your head. It’s all psychological.I’m so lucky. My study window just overlooks, if you lean out and use a pair of binoculars, the tenth hole at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at the Wirral seaside town of Hoylake in North West England. It has staged the British Open golf championship twelve times, one of the world’s four ‘majors’, and so also more often than any other course in England. We had it again this year. The whole place was packed for a week with foreigners and it was all great fun.

But try playing Hoylake in mid winter. Gary Player, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus all rate it the most difficult course in England and it probably also holds the world record for the most number of swear words uttered within a radius of 500 metres of any one spot in a year. I have probably contributed a high per centage.

But oh the short 13th (depending on how the course is set up) is a golf maniac’s dream. The only way you can do it in par three is to hit all three shots incorrectly. Play it as advised by the professionals and you will end up in a bird sanctuary, on a sandy shore with ten foot waves at the wrong time of day, or simply in a bunker in which you cannot even see your feet let alone the rest of the course.

Well if I MUST tell a ‘golfie’, let me take you back 28 years to that wonderful April day when I hooked my drive so badly it struck the pin on a neighbouring green and ricocheted  back onto the fairway, missing the dreaded bunker. This left me a delicate pitch into the wind, only 30 yards from the pin. I smacked it so hard it finished up 30 yards the other side of the green. My playing partner put his bag of clubs on the ground, we carried our own bags in those days. It was to the right of the flag, off the green of course, but towards my ball. He played a decent chip to within 15 feet from the hole and looked happy at the thought of a four. I decided to cut under the ball and try running it across the green and hope it went towards the flag. It didn’t. I tweaked it so badly it shot like a bullet into the the side of my friend’s bag, shot back onto the green and sped like lightening towards the hole. 

Oh wonder of wonders! I’d cracked it so hard it wedged between the flag stick and the side of the hole. I Knew I was allowed to remove the flag stick as long as I did not move my ball. I very carefully lifted the fluttering number 13 high into air and stood in stupor as my ball dropped into the cup for an unprecedented three. I really was on cloud nine.

Now if you wonder how I remember the details of that exploit so well imagine trying to perfect something and succeeding only once in 46 years. Anything at all, believe me you don’t forget a second of it. And every time you recount the feat the exaggerations get just that little bit more unbelievably brilliant. Ah  yes, the only way to play the greatest game really is in your head!

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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23/02/2015

WHENCE I CAME


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/local-flavor/”>Local Flavor</a>

on ‘word prompt’ about where I came from.

WHENCE I CAME

 

My father and mother were fourteen thousand miles apart, give or take the odd furlong, when they first heard about each other. He was eight years younger and she was reputed to be looking for a third husband, preferably a toy boy, and was impatient that she should captivate someone suitable before the war broke out, as all expected. This was in September 1938. She happened to be lounging by the pool of her Thames side mansion in Buckinghamshire opposite Windsor, give or take the odd furlong.

She was very attractive, one of the highest paid female entertainers in Britain, and her colleagues and cronies, one did not have friends in the theatre and film world in England in those days, all placed bets on which current up and coming matinee idol  would suit her taste. She was reading the back page of an Australian newspaper, which a fellow thespian had dropped in her lap out of spite, and she was intrigued by the photograph of a young dentist who had recently qualified to practise his science, and even won a scholarship to go to England and  start his career there. She drew a red circle round his name and dropped the paper on the outdoor coffee table  where she envisaged alleviating her boredom later that evening.

By chance that same day a young, newly qualified dentist, in Brisbane, Australia, happened to see an advertisement for a new film about to take Australia by storm, or tornado or whatever things take Australia by, and was overcome at once by an attack of paroxsyzmal atrial fibrulation  which continued throughout the voyage to England, six weeks on a boat via the Suez Canal.

As happy fate would have it he was walking down Piccadilly shortly after his arrival in London, one never walks up  this thoroughfare though for the life of me I have no idea why not, when who should he bump into but the film star of his dreams.

“You!” She heart throbbed at him,  –  you know like mad; really hammed it up.

“You,”he replied, for Australians are a race of few words and soon, he hoped, to be of fewer teeth.

Well a week later before the glitter of Fleet Street cameramen and columnists they were wed amid unalloyed joy and the whole of the west End was in raptures. Thirteen months later they had a daughter, an absolute cherub who was just a weeny bit too young to star in a war picture, but fifteen months after that they had a son. He was a child of immense charisma and obvious talent, even at that age, so I am told. And who am I to dispute this tribute for that little boy was I.

THE END

Anton Wills-Eve

 

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14/02/2015

ODE TO MY WIFE


word prompt for Feb 14. St.Valentine’s day

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cupids-arrow/”>Cupid’s Arrow</a>

 

              ODE TO MY WIFE

 

To thee, my wife, my love, my life

I own all pleasure I have known.

My guardian through all harm and strife

Whose heart beats always with my own.

I offer you everything that is mine

And pray each day in gratitude

To God who made you so divine.

Adopting no hypocritical attitude

In praising your eyes, your hair, your face

Without which I’ll die each morn and night

When thou art taken to a higher place

To dwell forever in God’s loving sight.

 

But, my darling I well can see

T’is better mourning fall to me,

Than thou remain, thy tears to shed,

Each night without me in thy bed’

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 10/02/2015

THE BRIDGE


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”

THE BRIDGE

“Stop! Stop!” But it didn’t hear me. At the age of only just five I didn’t know that big, red, double decker London buses couldn’t hear, but they could abduct your mother and sister and drive off with them leaving you on your own without another soul in sight. It was so terrifying I was too scared even to cry.

Think what it must have been like. The bus stop was on the Surrey side of the Thames at the start of Hammersmith bridge with its never ending open air tunnel of iron arches. I knew I couldn’t swim, so I couldn’t step onto the bridge in case I fell off and was drowned. I turned round to put the bridge behind me but that was worse. A mile long, so it seemed, dead straight road of private houses on both sides. We weren’t allowed to go into strangers’ houses.

I was trapped! I wanted to wait for the next bus, but I had no money. If you tried to dodge paying the fare you went to jail. They locked you up and left you alone to starve. I was begining to shake and then felt I needed to go to the toilet. But if you took your willey out in public horrible perverted men would jump out of the bushes and do dreadful things to you  At least there were no bushes by the bridge, but no toilets either!

I was really worried now and finally had to edge back to the bridge and pee up against the iron stanchion. As I went on looking at the huge bridge I could not understand how people could cross it on foot. I must have been on the point of full blown panic when a bus pulled up on the other side of the road and my mother and sister rushed over to make sure I was okay. On seeing I was alright they treated the whole episode as a very good joke.

A few days later my mother had one of her posh friends round to tea. I heard her say, “Dorothy, we’ve always made a point of making sure the children understand why they should behave correctly, especially in public. The last thing either of them would do is appear rude, afraid or upset in front of other people.”

That was sixty seven years ago and on really bad days I can still barely cross the road outside my house. As for bridges I have still never walked across one anywhere in my life. Just the sight of one brings on a panic attack. But I could never tell anybody like a neighbour or doctor this at that age. They might think me very odd and try to do something about it.

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 08/02/2015

THE INFERNAL MACHINE


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Proud.”

I have always had a tendancy to dislike being confined or in a small space, but not full blown claustrophobia. So when the specialist said I needed an MRI scan I must admit I was scared.

My wife and I attended a long explanatory session with the radiologist who showed me the long, narrow tube in which I would be confined, motionless for about an hour. At least there was no ban on alcohol and they promised me some tranquilisers. But come the day I was shaking like mad.

They wanted to examine my chest and my lower stomach so I was totally trapped in the ghastly magnetic resonance imaging machine. As it started the whole thing made a terrible noise and I was petrified not knowing how I was going to last an hour in it.

When it was all over and I was restored to the real world, my darling wife hugged me and said,

“How on earth did you manage it, I’m so proud of you!” How was I going to tell her the machine broke down and we had to go back the following week!

Anton Wills-Eve

2 Comments
07/02/2015

Now listen to this!


Take a complicated subject you know more about than most people, and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-prompt-2/”>(Your Thing) for Dummies</a>

 

NOW LISTEN TO THIS!

 

“That was a very good meal, Wally, beautifully done steak and the wine was superb.  You comfy Mate? Good; this brandy’s not bad either. What were we talking about?

“Cricket, are you sure I could have sworn it was magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short. You ever been in a tube, Wal? No not the underground the radio active x-ray thingy that rips all the metal off you to show up the bits of you that aren’t working properly. Sure you’ve never had one?”Here have another glass of this Armagnac , Wally, great little drop of stuff, ole, boy just the ticket after a meal like that. But you were telling me about your radio active television set. You weren’t? Oh no I’m the one who’s having one tomorrow, you’re playing baseball. Right?

“Cricket? Really, didn’t know they played it in Australia, Wal. You any good? You are. How interesting, but I was saying about this NM, that’s nuclear medicine to the thickies like you mate, or you can have a CT scan if you’re in the mood. Which would you prefer?

“Another of these Army knackered  drinks? Well why not, good drop of stuff. Always said the Poms knew their gin. I mean Aussies knew their brandy. Well, anyway Wal, you must hear this one. Stop me if you’ve heard it, as Bennet Cerf used to say. Cerf, ole man, Yankee story teller! Well they all are aren’t they? Ha ha ha. Well there was this scantily clad nurse, no nurse clad to do a scan, of an unclear medicine bottle full of iron magnets. Got the picture? You haven’t? Well look, just wake up a little and have another of these throat burners, and you’ll learn a thing or two about Cat Scans.

“No not pussey cats, these are radio active kittens scanning each other for bits that have gone wrong with the TV or the radio or something? Got the picture? Well the nurse hadn’t, she was still twiddling with the dials when the patient in the tube sat up and asked if we’d passed Piccadily yet, and I told him it was twelve o’clock which set him off a bit I can tell you.

“I say look, wake up old Wally, or you’ll miss the best bit where the scanner has another glass of some French drink or other and  … Wake up Wally.

“I say, where’s the fellow gone? Infernally rude to walk off like that in the middle of a match. I think I’ll just have another small one before the nuclear explosion tomorrow.”

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

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06/01/2015

The Night my Mother met a Saint in her Pyjamas.


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-prompt-3/”>For Posterity</a>

in reply to  “which post would I most like to be remembered by.”

The date is forever engraved in my memory. It was the 18th of October 1961 and our family was enjoying probably the best holiday we ever had together. My father had spent the summer covering the Franco-Algerian peace talks in Evian on the banks of Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman as the French call it, and he and mum deserved their three week break. My sister managed to bunk off university in London for a few weeks and I did the same from the Sorbonne in Paris. Mum was terminally ill and we all knew it could well be the last time the four of us would get a proper vacation together. We planned a drive down to Rome, via Switzerland, Milan and Florence and were returning, first south to Positano for a week’s stay and returning via Pompeii and up the Mediterranean coast to take in Pisa, Genoa, Monaco,  Nice and the Rhone valley. Five days were to be spent in the Italian capital. The third of these was the most memorable day in my life.

Although an Australian, dad was the chief correspondent in Paris of a major American news organisation and my mother was a retired entertainer of considerable fame in Britain whose health had cut short her career when she was thirty five, just after the start of the second world  war. Indeed my birth in 1942 was the last normal act on her part in her life. Being born and brought up a staunch Catholic in Glasgow in Scotland she made sure that my sister and I were educated at the best Catholic schools we could be. My agnostic father always kept his promise to bring us up as Catholics, making sure we never missed Mass on Sundays, but then as often as possible none of us missed a couple of hours at our local pub on a Sunday lunch time either. Mum was often bed ridden and had to spend her drinking hours with friends at home in our thirty seven room mansion near Richmond Park. You can see we were a rather unusual quartet. But the greatest thing about my formative years was that all the family had terrific senses of humour and, I can honestly say, really loved each other.

I grew up a Catholic who was wonderfully close to their  Faith and served Mass as often as I could. I quite shocked the monks at the Abbey which ran our school when I turned up at the sixth form ball in 1959, I would have been seventeen I suppose, with Teresa, the most stunningly beautiful girl, on my arm. She is still one of my closest friends although we were never sweethearts, but she did enough to dispel the certainty amongst many of the school staff that I was going to become a priest. Indeed she singled out the headmaster, she knew him because her brother was at the school, and said to him in a little louder voice than was necessary, “Yes, Father, Anton really loves God more than any boy I have met. But boy, Father, does he also love me. I think God’s got a battle on his hands with us!”

My mother was told of this story a few days later and phoned Teresa to thank her.  It was with this type of background, both religious and public, that the four of us set out for Italy in the autumn of 1961. When we drove off from the family home on the Ile Saint Louis in Paris we were all determined to have a really good time. I was nineteen and a half and my sister not quite twenty one. The drive down was wonderful as we went both over and under various Alps, attended a concert at La Scala in Milan and swooned at just about everything we saw in Florence. But my sister and I could see the journey was starting to take its toll on mum. She had seriously advanced emphysema and used an inhaler most of the day. As the weather became hotter and the air less pleasant she began to find walking any distance at all very difficult. Indeed she had to miss the meal we had out on the first night in Rome with dad’s counter part there an American journalist who had known him for several years in London. He was a Catholic and told us that he had been keeping a really super surprise up his sleeve for us all. He turned to dad during the meal and said,

“Paul, you’ll all love this. Did you know that in two days it is the fiftieth anniversary of the overseas press club in the Vatican and a very select number of correspondents have been invited to meet Pope John and have an informal audience with him that evening? They desperately wanted a Catholic family to be part of this and I told the Bishop organising the audience that you, as an Australian journalist of note, your two English Catholic children and your well known Scottish Catholic wife were all in town and thanks to your job could represent the international media family. What do you think?”

In all honesty I thought he was joking. He knew how I would react and was quite right. We all said yes but asked if we could not tell anyone about mum because there was no way she would want to miss what would be one of the greatest days of her life. We were right. She said she would go if it killed her and the three of us genuinely feared that it could.  As the time to leave the hotel got nearer mum was getting worse, She donned a black evening coat and black lace veil saying she could hide her inhaler up her sleeve and not be seen as she used it. My sister also wore a black head scarf but refused to cover her face, not that anyone asked her to. Dad just wore a grey suit. Then came the real penance of the night.

Our taxi dropped us by the papal gate entrance to the Vatican palace just by the colonnade, but we were told we had to walk up to the ante room where the Holy Father was receiving the foreign press. Mum had got ready in extremely quick time and we were only concerned in helping her manage the stairs to the small hall and room where we were invited to wait for Pope John to arrive. How mum made it I will never know, but she did. Then came the high point of the evening, indeed for me, of my life.

A jovial, smiling octogenarian literally beamed his way into the room and the fifty or so papal guests were astounded at the informality and good fun that pervaded the whole forty five minutes we were with Pope John. But just as he was scheduled to leave the Holy Father cast all four of us into a state of almost disbelieving happiness. He did the most wonderful thing. Speaking in fluent French he asked if he could meet Paul, Sarah, Michele and Anton the Catholic family from all round the world who had come to see him. He approached us and in a few brief words told us all how glad he was to meet us. HE was glad to meet US! If he only knew. As he blessed us and let us kiss his ring I cast a glance at mum, the tears streaming down her face, and realised she would have climbed Mount Everest to go through that moment in her life.

Then came a lovely scene of real humour. The apostolic delegate to the media asked if any of us needed the lifts as the stairs often proved too much for elderly or sick people. Mum turned to dad and my sister and me and said, “It may have half killed me but I’m glad I walked. It was worth it just to be able to say that I had met a Saint in my pyjamas. I was so ill I didn’t have time to dress tonight, that’s all I’m wearing under this coat.”

Dad and Michele laughed and she said, “Mum you mean the Pope, not a saint.” All mum replied was,

“I know what I said.” And the proof that she did is that on the 27th of April last year, on the 108th anniversary of mum’s birth, Pope Francis Canonized Pope John XXIII, officially raising him to the highest dignity possible for a human being to attain. I will never know how mum knew!

Anton Wills-Eve

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05/01/2015

It’s all in the voice.


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daring-do/”>Daring Do</a>

in response to a prompt to write a rescue story.

 

It was late in April 1970 when, on a balmy summer’s evening in a jungle clearing in Cambodia , Mike and I sat down to enjoy a bottle of really good Australian wine. Somehow being a war correspondent did not really matter much to either of us. We were still alive  and grateful to be. Our salaries were mounting up at a great rate in bank accounts back home, and everything in  the garden was lovely.

“What do you miss most about not being back in Oz, Mikey?” I asked him as I downed my second glass. His reply was instant.

“Easy mate. Cricket. More than a year without seeing a single ball bowled or hit. It’s getting depressing.” Just how depressing he demonstrated by finishing his third glass and starting to open a second bottle. “Gee, life’s hard in this place. Only enough wine for six glasses each and then we have to  get back to Pnom Penh to stock up again. How have you put up with it for so long ?” I smiled and explained that the seven years I spent in Paris from 1960 had made it possible for me to add a bottle of Pernod a day to my diet and this helped to create an unreal world in which nothing scared me any more.

I reckoned my body could take another couple of years of this without hinting I might be making myself ill. I was still only twenty eight and had the constitution of a water buffalo. I had been shot twice, in the lower leg and the upper arm, been blown up three times, survived a helicopter crash and, luckiest of all, actually caught a knife just as it was about to enter my rib cage. I swear I could never have done that sober. But  booze sharpened rather than slowed down my reactions. Life was not that bad as Mike said. We were really quite lucky but agreed that if we missed one thing  more than anything else it was female companionship. He put it very well when he mused,

“You know, fellah, it’s just not worth the risk of serious illness buying sex in the local knocking shops. So what else is there? I hope my Sheila back home will still love me when I return, but her letters are arriving much less frequently and if I lose her I’ll have to start looking around all over again. Gee, life can be a pig at times. What a pain to look forward to!”

I loved listening to his raw but realistic view of life. But when the second bottle ran out we got up and returned to our saloon car which we had hired at vast expense, to our newspapers not ourselves,  and started to drive back to the Cambodian capital. It was the second bullet that made us flinch. It went through the windscreen and  my delightful companion remarked, “I can’t even see if the bastard is on their side or the Americans.” He was Australian but did not support his country’s stance in the war. Like me he thought wars were just shows put on by world powers to make young journalists like us rich and nothing else. At least we could not think up a better reason for starting one.

The third and fourth bullets were more subtly aimed and punctured the two back tyres. This really infuriated Mike as he stopped the car, leaped out and threw the empty wine bottles in the direction of the shots. “Wish there was some petrol in them”, he shouted. But as a salvo of shots then sent us both diving for cover in the bushes by the roadside I began to wonder if we had drunk a bit too much or maybe the soldiers were actually trying to hit us. That is not something a journalist ever thinks in a war zone. Bullets are things shot by other people at other groups of people, but never at the press. Heavens, without us there would be no reason to have a war because nobody would ever hear about it. No question about it, bullets were never aimed at journalists.

That is, until they were. Three large American riflemen suddenly appeared before us and were definitely aiming at us. I could hardly believe it. Two troopers and a sergeant. Who the hell did they think they were? I was not having this. So I got to my  feet, very obviously white skinned, very obviously casually dressed in a dark blue beach shirt and white slacks, and with no arms of any sort any where near me. I think what froze those gunmen into stunned, rigid silence was when I spoke.”Look, I say you chaps. Don’t you think all this is a bit thick. Eh?What? Here are we, a Colonel and a Lieutenant Colonel in your army, observing this fascinating punch up between you three and the rest of Asia, and all you can do is pick on two fellows who are very obviously on your side. Do you think you could put your weapons down, change the back wheels on our motor car, and speed us on our way. Please?”

My English Public school accent astounded even Mike who had never heard me talk like that before. And as we drove away, waving gratefully to our saviours, I explained. “Well on my first assignment after university in Paris, and six years in all in France, I pulled the same stunt in fluent Parisian slang to a bunch of foreign legionaries in Algeria. And as you can see I am still here!”

Anton Wills-Eve

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14/12/2014

The real reason why not.


Answer to word press prompt challenge, kick the bucket, set on December 14/2014.

“I loved pulling Freddie’s leg, he took things so seriously. Now today’s prompt gave me a lovely opportunity to really have fun with him. We were relaxing with a coffee after lunch when a propos of nothing in particular I asked him, “Of all the books you’ve heard of but not read which would you least like to read?”

“That’s a bit of a daft question, old boy. I mean if I hadn’t read a book how would I know if I wanted to? Okay, by repute I may assume I wouldn’t want to, but I couldn’t be certain. Where do you get these ideas? Probably a Barbara Cartland Romance. I hate that sort of book. But that’s only a suppose.”

Being a professor of logic at Harvard Freddie could never see further than his subject permitted. There was no scope for the unaccountable in his world so I realised I was going to enjoy myself. I next asked him “Alright I see your point, Freddie, but tell me, of all the places you’ve heard of but never visited which would you least like to go to?”

He smiled his most educated vacant smile and said,”Now that is more sensible. I Am sure I would never ever want to visit the south pole. I hate the cold and that is the coldest place I can think of that one can get to. Yes, the extreme cold would definitely stop me from going to the Antarctic.”

This was better I was now ready to ask him the one I was sure he could not answer at all. “Okay, third and final question for today, Freddie, of all the things you’ve never done which would you least like to do? Take your time.”

“Well die, kick the bucket, of course. No sane man wants to die.” I had him at last.

“But you don’t believe in any sort of life after death, so to you dying would be something which would be a non experience. Yes, you could cease your life on earth, but we all do that eventually. Why would it matter to you when you died if that was the end of everything and it was just something inevitable over which you had no control? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh yes it does. My atheism just makes me want to prolong my life as far into the future as I can.” This was too much as I pointed out to him. Surely he wouldn’t want to become a dribbling, doddering old vegetable of 150 unable to speak, hear, eat or do anything for himself. He agreed with me if taken to that extreme. So I asked him to put a time limit on his earthly life. Half an hour later, as he grew more and more irate, we finally settled on a mentally fit 96 year-old who died a sudden and painless death. I rose from my armchair and was about to say good bye to him when I added,

“Lord,Freddie! You’ve only got 37 years, 216 days, 10 hours, 14 minutes and 12 seconds left to finish your book on ancient Greek epistemology. But God’s given me eternity to never actually finish anything at all while thoroughly enjoying myself. All I have to do is be a good boy while I’m on earth.”

My all knowing friend laughed out loud at this. “When are you starting?” he asked. “Immediately, or tomorrow morning after your date with Priscilla tonight?”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

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07/12/2014

A wiser man.


http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/recently-acquired/

Let me think. A month ago. Yes, that would be the seventh of November 2014. Now what really new, stunning, surprising and instructive aspect of blogging do I know now that I did not know then?

Strewth! Of course. November the sixth was my wife’s birthday and I did not remember until the next day. So what did I do? You’ve guessed it. I emailed her an unctious and cloying plea for forgiveness and included it in that day’s blog as well . What I learned she explained to me in some short and very pithy, forthright words.

“Well if you want the whole world to know you’re married to an old hag of 6- [no I can’t repeat it again :)] then go ahead. I don’t care if all our friends now realise how many lies I’ve told about my age for the last thirty odd years. But at least I’ll always be five years younger than you!”

The interesting novelty that entered my blogging world that day? Easy. If you must blog for heaven’s sake never tell the truth about your wife. Or if you do never let her find out !!

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05/12/2014

Sorry Smart Phone


Sorry Smart Phone

“I am so sorry, Smarty. It was all supposed to go so well too. Waiting for days for you to arrive, and then in you walked with your shiny silver suit on and smiling at me as you were all ready to set me on the way to months of good fun. But you had not been warned about my total lack of expertise.

“Firstly I found I couldn’t send any of the texts I wanted. My shorthand text spelling was totally unintelligible to anyone but me, and then with difficulty. But the really unfair bit was the way my friends blamed you. ‘Not much of a phone you’ve got there if you can’t even text with it!’ Honestly I really did try.

“Then there was the farce of my photography. Bent into extraordinary postures while holding you at all the wrong angles I produced fuzzy images of the river at sunset near our home. The zoom was too close or too far, the shakiness of my hand made the street lamps wave, and some pictures were even upside down or sideways. I felt I was letting you down because your manual promised you’d make an ace photographer of me in a week. I’m sure you tried.

“Then there were the straight forward calls. At first I could  call people okay but my economics were all wrong. After a couple of weeks I signed up to a stupid plan and a fortnight later I found I had to phone ten hours a day up to the end of the month!  Well nobody has that many friends or contacts. Yes, I know YOU have now, but I haven’t! Who were half those people I didn’t know and still don’t?

“But you never gave up. You told me I could email using you and you were right. But I have three email addresses and I got them mixed up and nearly choked to death on a diet of spam until I binned the lot!

“Dear Smarty . Thank you for playing your part so well and trying to make life easier, faster, happier and full of more friends for me. I know how hard you tried. It was my fault you failed. But I can still get a lot of enjoyment out of just looking at you as I take you out of my pocket and you glint in the sunlight.

But I’m afraid dear friend, that your mission will never be accomplished. I am well into my seventies and by the time I have mastered even half the things you can do you’ll be out of date and I’ll be six foot underground. But I have one consolation to look forward to. When my time does come, instead of hearing the last trump I shall just be soothed by the beautiful dulcet sound of your soft ring tone calling me home to my maker. Thanks a million, Smarty, and I do apologise.”

Anton Wills-Eve

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27/11/2014

A Premature Dad


November 27th

The story for today is both true and in verse. I have published it before. But it is a tale worth far more than twice the telling. November 17th, was world Premature baby day and as my youngest son was born at only 23 weeks and four days , he asked me to write a poem about what it had been like being a Premature Dad. Many people don’t believe that my wife and I can know so exactly the length of Ben’s gestation, but actually it was easy.

Ill health had prevented us from making love for some eight weeks before the day of his conception so we are in no doubt at all. The only possible doubt is that he might have been  even earlier!

The Life and Love of a Premature dad

On the seventeenth day of October in nineteen ninety

Our baby son was born, but gave mummy no pain.

The birth of a baby, what’s so unusual about that?

Well our Benedict had travelled on an earlier train

Than the one the doctors had forecast for his nativity.

He gestated for only 23 weeks and four days, before

His mummy’s appendix was infected and burst.

I was told they’d both die. Not the future I saw!

As they both were rushed to the operating theatre

I asked the chaplain to be present at Ben’s natal bed.

He was baptised within seconds of living,

And prayers For my darling wife were simultaneously said.

Paediatricians and surgeons worked for four hours

Keeping both of them alive, while expecting their loss.

I had to wait, all alone, for news of my family with only

Hope and faith to sustain me ‘neath the weight of my cross.

After three hours the chief paediatrician told me

“I hope your son will make it, but alas not your wife”.

A nurse sat beside me and then offered to take me

To see my little Ben, less than two pounds of life.

I prayed at his incubator, wired up from head to toe.

Then news of his mother,now in her own private bed.

As I looked at her face, deathly white but still breathing,

Emotion took over, an hour of tears I must have shed.

The hospital was wonderful giving me a bed in her room

So I could flit between both of them just watching how.

They battled their way through our frightening ordeal,

For I knew I could not live without both of them now.

That night I thanked God for each breath they took and

Knew saving both of them was the greatest love I’d ever felt.

From an act of pure loving, with the wife I loved so deeply,

I’d been given a second love overpowering me as I knelt

And blessed all who’d worked so hard and so long

To help deliver another child to our house and our home.

How on earth can anyone believe tiny miracles like mine

Can be left to die, by dry words in a sick legal tome?

For thirteen weeks Ben fought for each breath, and his

Mother had more operations, but who counted the cost

Of saving our son? Visiting him each day was well worth it,

For to be without him now, we knew we’d both be lost.

Last month at the age of twenty four,with two top degrees,

And his heart full of love as they walked down the aisle.

Ben married his Samantha, and I proudly rejoiced as

I saw my love shared by him. It was all in his smile.

Anton Wills-Eve

2 Comments
22/11/2013

“Where were you when you heard …..?”


   

There are many events in our lives that are not merely etched in our own memories but also those of most of the world. But I am sure that the one that most regularly elicits the question, “Where were you when …” is that to which the answer is prefixed by the next words “…. you heard that President Kennedy was assassinated?” In my own case it was the most unlikely place I can think of given my personal circumstances at the time. 

 

On the 22nd of November, 1963, I was working for United Press International in their Paris office where I had recently been taken on as a full time staff journalist after gaining my first degree at the Sorbonne University. I had worked through the first three years of my academic life as a part time sports writer for UPI as they had no one on the Paris staff who knew anything about European Sports and I knew them backwards.I was lucky enough to be available to do a lot of sports reporting for them. It was a dream scenario, being paid a lot of money to do something I would normally have paid for a ticket to watch, and still managing to immerse myself in my favourite subject, mediaeval ecclesiastical history. But to return to the question “Where was I …etc?”

 

Well I was just taking my seat on the lower deck of a red London Transport bus when the ticket conductor nudged me and said “ ‘ere, mate you ‘erd? President Kennedy’s been killed! No joke, that passenger in front of you just told me!’ The bus was half way along the City Road, the only time in my life that I have ever been in that road. I had been visiting my mother who had just undergone major abdominal surgery and I had only flown in from Paris that afternoon to see her. The bus conductor told me at 7.27 pm, when I was on my way back to the airport. I was back in our flat in Paris by 9.45pm. But the shock did not wear off for several days. Apart from being blown up by a land mine, not too badly hurt, in Vietnam and later being the sole survivor of a helicopter crash in Cambodia, I cannot think of any other events in my life which are still as vividly embedded in my mind. Oddly 9/11, had me riveted to the TV for four hours watching it live, but not taking it in at all. It was just an over the top, badly made horror movie for at least a fortnight before I could fully believe what I had seen. Perhaps it was the immediate acceptance of the truth of the news of JFK’s demise that moved me so much.That really is some tribute to the greatest American whose life coincided with mine. But to everybody who might read this I would love to hear the answer to the question, if it applies, “Where were you when…?”

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