Number 92
Mike Sykes corrected my calling him an RAF pilot. He was in the RAF, but was not a pilot. I should have known better than to make that mistake, as my father was in the USAF, but also was not a pilot. Here are some excerpts from Mike's letter, with more on Henry Reed's poem "Naming of Parts" as well as some interesting history:
Hey, steady on Rhonda! "former RAF pilot"?There are more trades in the RAF than pilot, or even aircrew. Me, I not only never got the chance to volunteer for aircrew, I never, in my two years three months of RAF service, got close to an airworthy aircraft, let alone off the ground! I had to wait until I got to Cambridge and joined the University Gliding Club (I must have been one of the last to learn solo, but that's another story). . . .
To return to the basic training, since you express an interest, it took place in the spring of 1947, following a winter so cold that, although it was two years since VE-day, there was a serious shortage of coal, and hence of electrical power. So much so that RAF recruits were sent home shortly after being issued with their kit, because there was no fuel to heat their accommodation.
The basic training, when we got to it, was exactly as described by Henry Reed in his poems, with the notable exception of Returning of Issue, for the simple reason that there was no interest in retaining any personnel who were due for release, and even less interest on the part of any of them for remaining in the service.
Mind you, so strongly did the first four poems, especially the best known Naming of Parts, evoke that basic training, when I first heard (rather than read) them several years after the experience, on the BBC Third Programme in February, 1966 or thereabouts, that I probably should be disqualified from offering a view as to their authenticity ~ all my memories have been displaced by the content of the poems themselves, leaving me believing almost that they tell the literal truth. Not that I remember any japonica, or even neighbouring gardens, but I remember the sense of utter disorientation ~ I'm still amazed by the force of: The point of balance, which in our case we have not got. As to the recording, I don't know what inspired me to make it, but it was first onto a half-inch reel-to-reel tape recorder, later transcribed to a cassette and eventually played onto hard disk as a wav file about four years ago, before being edited into pieces and converted to mp3. . . .
Having unburdened myself thus far, I can't resist the temptation to offer my views on at least some of the literary criticism to which Naming of Parts has been subjected. I have in mind particularly www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/masterplots.html. I shudder to think what Reed would have thought of this, when all I believe he was trying to convey was the disorientation resulting from utterly unfamiliar circumstances, and the more interesting, but essentially innocent images evoked by the tedious instruction. If there are any sexual connotations they're subconscious, at least until we get to Judging Distances, with its poignant last line. (Note that "one year and a half" is much longer than the speaker would have been in the service.)
But to say that "Naming of Parts" addresses an issue philosophers and military historians have long termed "the problem of war" is laughable ~ at the time of undergoing basic training, the serviceman (not necessarily a soldier, still less an "infantry recruit") is hardly aware of what war is, and I don't see any evidence that Reed does here. Later, of course, in Unarmed Combat, we get more philosophical.
I'm also somewhat surprised that an ex-USMC should think that, of "easing the spring", he says "In an effort to demonstrate how the rifle operates, the instructor is mimicking the firing process". Easing the spring is a standard operation whose purpose is both to ensure the bolt is moving freely and to keep the spring springy. Whether it is necessary for the second purpose is doubtful, but, as I recall, that is the idea.
I'll say no more, except that, just to show I'm not above being corrected, until I read the fascinating [explanation of piling swivel, with diagram], I had quite the wrong idea of what a piling swivel was. And, to be honest, I can't remember whether our rifles (reputedly ex WWI, and not to be fired under any circumstances) had them or not, but I suspect not.
You may write me off as not being an English scholar, but I am a big fan of World Wide Words.
I'm also a big fan of Flanders and Swann ~ I saw their first show on the stage ~ and it was only in the last few days that I discovered that Donald Swann wrote the music for Henry Reed's Hilda Bracket. Does that mean my taste in verse is similar to Swann's? Probably.
Mike
Many interesting points for discussion here, especially during war; what we need is worlds of time to sit together and sort it all out. Which in our case we have not got. But I think, for instance, that the parts about the bees and flowers are definitely erotic, in the best sense, likewise "easing the spring"; however, I've never trained in the military.
I was reading a large-print edition of the September 2004 Reader's Digest while on a treadmill at Bally's ~ it seems RD now has two humor editions a year, great for those who read it "only for the jokes" ~ and found this:
Attempting to locate a copy of the popular children's book Archy and Mehitabel , my wife called a bookstore. "What's it about?" asked the clerk."Well," my wife said, "it's about this cockroach named Archy who types stories about the adventures of his friend, a cat named Mehitabel."
As the clerk looked in his computer, he asked, "Is that fiction or nonfiction?"
My point in passing this anecdote along to you is not that it's hard to get good help anymore. My point is, when did Archy and Mehitabel become a "children's book"? It's mostly OK for children, but it was written for adults. Just one example, "Mehitabel and Her Kittens", illustrates why this wouldn't be ideal bedtime reading for the kids.
By the way, it's hard to do much reading on the treadmill, and after the treadmill, I tend to gravitate toward the weight machines I can use while continuing to read the magazines ~ more leg work than upper body work. A friend tells me her gym has a big movie screen, and she's watched entire movies while doing the aerobics machines. That's how I want to exercise, reading or watching movies: let the body do what it has to do, and think of England (or Archy and Mehitabel, or The Matrix).
Another joke from the September Reader's Digest had Osama bin Laden being thoroughly thrashed in heaven by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and 70 other Virginians. As you may know, Muslim martyrs (i.e. those who kill others and themselves for the sake of Islam) expect to enjoy 72 virgins in heaven as a reward. At least the men do; I don't know that the women martyrs are promised 72 virginal boys. In The Trouble with Islam, Canadian journalist Irshad Manji explains that it's not quite clear whether the word "hur" in the Koran should be translated as "white raisins" or "dark-eyed virgins".
Another word she discusses is "ijtihad", an apparently lost Islamic tradition of independent thinking, lost because Mohammed said, "Beware of new things, for every new thing is an innovation and every innovation a mistake." Asks Manji, "Europe, are you so smitten by the complexities of culture that you've lost sight of the certainties of civilization?"
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