Army Dreamers

Evening all,

backblip again today as i just didn't have the energy to get it done before midnight...well after all, i'm on my jollys, can't work too hard can i !

I stumbled across this long since abandoned and neglected WW2 pill box and coastal defence battery whilst out walking ...in the rain...on my own...awww... this evening.

It was surrounded by a deep moat which was full of nettles and nasty prickly things designed to keep the curious, the amorous and the vandals away, but it was soooo intriguing and challenging and such a little piece of history i had to investigate.

So, a big jump (for a middle aged man), a banged knee and scraped shin later, and i was in.......

the darkness was eerie, and my mind created vague ghosts and monsters at the shadows of my maglite's weak beam, the sense of its solidness was somewhat comforting, and it was spacious enough to keep claustrophobia at bay...

but i'm writing this from a distance of decades, in a mainly peaceful world, where the view of the sea and the shore offered up images of families playing in the sand, and boats bobbing up and down fishing...

I can't imagine what it would've been like in war time, anxiously scanning the coastline for signs of an enemy invasion fleet on the horizon,knowing that you and your mates were the last line of defence..

or conversely..being in the German Pillboxes at Normandy and actually seeing an enemy force arrive on the beaches, and having to fight and die in these concrete tombs...

its amazing and always slightly maddening to think that these buildings survive while the people perish...




Kate