Illuminating

We paid a visit to the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum today and pictured is a World War II landing light.

Large

It's a great museum with lots of interesting stuff but my favourite bit by far was the display on the Special Operations Executive. A couple of years ago I remember being fascinated by an exhibition on the SOE at Beaulieu House, where SOE agents were trained, and then, as today, it was the extraordinary bravery of women like Violette Szabo that captured my imagination.

This is the lovely little poem written by cryptographer Leo Marks of the SOE that Violette had to learn and use as the basis for coded messages to and from London:

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours, and yours, and yours

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours, and yours, and yours