Reflection in a Darkening Mirror

My mother was a child, albeit a babe-in-arms, in the First World War. Similarly, I was a babe-in-arms in the Second World War. Both unnecessary wars that left England and its global status doomed, and its indigenous people depleted with so many young lives needlessly sacrificed. Britain, once Great Britain, was thence destined to become Little Britain; slipping into a seemingly bottomless chasm of decadence and degeneracy from which so far there has been no recovery. How wonderful for me as a young man to become acquainted with those who still clung to an albeit fast disappearing moral and social code, subsequently swamped by a tide of hedonists who believe in nothing.

The exigencies of life, therefore, might be deemed more urgent a struggle as I grew older. Yet oddly they were not. There comes that point where one returns to the dreams of early childhood. Where the former self we once were but are no longer becomes a ghostly reflection in ever-darkening mirrors. The passing of years sees it all evaporate like the morning mist without any sadness.

For the past year I have been the same age as that of my mother when she suddenly left the world in which I still dwell. It has not been an easy time, and I have not been in the best of health over the past thirteen months due to ailments that can beset those approaching three-quarters of a century. Nonetheless, I sense a new dawn and feel to be on the mend. So many folk have passed away recently; those known to me personally, and more familiar faces known to many. Hence it seems apposite to linger awhile on a trip down memory lane as I reach my ¾ centennial ...