Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey fame plays a British soldier by the name of Donald Jeffries in the film. Jeffries gets shot by a German soldier in a church whilst trying to protect a piece of art, which is kind of the point of the film. But, the main thing for me is the letter that Jeffries writes to his father, whom it appears he never got on with. It was one of those moments, which I know is only a script but the writing was for me just utterly powerful, evocative and quite simply beautiful. It touched me quite emotionally. I would quite simply love to be able to write like that.
I brought the subject up because I was reminded of the passion in the letter tonight. It started on my walk to the Sea Cadets centre for the monthly presentation for the Gosport Society (the topic by the way was the secrets of Bury House, and is completely irrelevant to tonight’s post).
I looked up to the sky to see whether it looked like rain. It didn’t, there were patches between the clouds where the occasional star peeled through, but the most striking things were the large clouds that were scudding along at no mean rate, behind them was a full moon that would jump from behind a cloud only to be consumed by another as it hurried by. But even that is not the point of this evenings post.
Tonight, I had cause to go out and put rubbish in our bins, as simple as that. I went out in shirt sleeve order, no coat. The wind was chilled, the earlier small clumps of cloud had turned into a large bank, with breaks. The moon was still there, appearing and disappearing in the breaks. There was something about the chilled wind, the moving clouds, the moon bright but playing hide and seek behind the clouds. I felt what it was like to be outside, in the chill, so much so that I was finding reasons to go outside. There was a pleasure in being out, watching clouds scoot along, the moon blinking, feeling the chill of the wind and then going back into our nice warm, comforting home.
It’s times like that when I really feel for rough sleepers, and wish they would all find a warm dry place to sleep.
See, it’s nothing like the Monuments men, is it? I hope you had a pleasant day.
Bills Posts 