Very sad Ali. I still have books I was given as a boy, and a few won as school prizes.
Sarge, I am indeed a published writer ! How did you know ? Do you read the Hampshire Chronicle ?
When I was 12, my English teacher at school, submitted one of my homework essays, without my knowledge to the County Paper, and they published it.
I'm surprised you remember it !
Since then, my career in the print medium has really taken off. A few years ago I had a letter published in the "Radio Times".
Both of my literary efforts were of a humourous nature, in keeping with my love of written humour.
Sadly, I was not paid for either, so I'm not planning to take it up as a new career.
On your love of poetry Sarge, I'm not a great fan myself, though I did dutifully wade through the poetry as well as the novels and plays when I read "The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde", but I occasionally come across a piece that grabs hold of the emotions.
In reading pilot biographies last year I came across, and now own, that of John Magee. He was an American, educated at Rugby School in England, who joined the RAF late in 1940, and died, aged 19, not in combat, but in a training accident.
He only went on a very few combat missions, and his most exciting moment came when he mistook enemy Bf 109s for Spitfires, and was chased back across the channel, running out of fuel over the sea, and forced landing just as he reached the cliffs of home.
Not a distinguished flying career then, but he's still remembered today despite that, because of an enduring poetic legacy.
One lovely day, whilst flying his Spitfire at 30,000 ft over the (momentarily) peaceful countryside, he was inspired by the beauty of the whole experience and formed in his mind whilst aloft, a complete sonnet.
When he landed, he jotted it down and sent it to his family (he was a poetry prize winner at Rugby School, I should mention), and they published it along with his other works posthumously.
He was also a very religious boy, so the final sentiment is mere poetic imagery to an old atheist like me, but as a pilot, and an envious Spitfire pilot wanabee, the rest of the poem captures the sheer magic of flight, particularly in that aeroplane.
I'll reproduce it here and mention that it's Copyright 1942 Hermann Hagedorn, and hope they don't sue me for not seeking permission to put it here.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
