Friday, August 8

 There's not a lot to write about today.  Sandra, our cleaning lady arrived a little while ago and Coles has promised to be here between 10 and 11; otherwise the day is shaping up to be uneventful.  

I've been looking around for decent stuff to watch on TV.  In the past, we've had Acorn and Britbox. Stan and Netflix, at various times but I really object to paying for something that we might get for free, so one by one they've been cancelled.  I've tried downloading with varied success and still persevere with that even though it's a pain in the neck.  Jamie says we should forget everything else and stick to free-to-air, using things like SBS On Demand, and that might be the next move.

However, I enjoy the thrill of the chase, the delight in finding some overlooked program which has never been shown in Australia, ... not that there are many of those around.  But having got that anxiety off my chest, I feel better.

Here's another story inspired by a song:

THE FIVE O’CLOCK WHISTLE                                                         March 10, 2023                                                                  

The five o'clock whistle's on the blink
The whistle won't blow and whadd'ya think?
My pop is still in the factory 'cause he don't know
What time it happens to be ….

The familiar words always give me pleasure when I hear them.  It’s the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, of course, and I still often turn to Youtube to find the original recording.  I know I heard the song first on an old wind-up gramophone belonging to my grandmother who lived next door to us when I was very young.  The words also dredge up a memory of a time in my life when the world was very different to how it is now.

I’m an old man now and have lots of time to sit with my memories and, more and more, I find myself back in those days when I was just a boy.  It’s back in the Old Country and it’s wartime, 1943 or 1944; I’m just a kid who has never experienced anything different.  I go to school in the daytime and everything is normal and the air raid sirens and searchlights at night are just part of our existence. We don’t even bother going to the shelter anymore.  “What use would it be?” says my mother.  “If a bomb has our names on it, no shelter will stop it.”

My dad works at the munitions factory just around the corner.  He goes off to work in the morning before I get up and comes home after the whistle blows in the afternoon: at five o’clock sharp, he tells me.  He makes shells for big artillery guns which will help us win the war.  Every day, lines of trucks drive out of the factory gates with load of shells which will find their way to the front line in Europe.

Dad tells me that all the shells they make in one day will only last a couple of hours on the battlefield.  But there are other factories making shells, so the army won’t run out.

One day, I don’t hear the whistle.  But I don’t know what time it is so it makes no difference to me.  Mum is worried, though.

The five o’clock whistle didn’t blow

The whistle is broke and whadda’ya know

If somebody don’t find out what’s wrong

Oh, my pop’ll be workin’ all night long.

“Your Dad should be home,” Mum tells me, “But I didn’t hear the whistle.  I hope everything’s all right.  I suppose they’re having to work a longer shift.  We’ll have our tea and he can have his when he gets here.”

After we’ve had our dinner, Mum reads me a poem from A Child’s Garden of Verses, a book I was given for my last birthday.  My favourite poem is The Lamplighter and I can almost say it off by heart.  It’s not dark yet but Mum tells me that it’s past my bedtime and tucks me in and goes off to sit in her chair by the fire, waiting for some news about my Dad.

I think she is starting to get a little bit worried, so I start to worry too.  Why haven’t we heard what is keeping him?  Mum is sure he’s just working a bit longer shift but I can tell she worries that something might be wrong.  I think the whistle is broken and nobody has noticed so they’ve just kept working.

Oh, who’s gonna fix the whistle?

Won’t somebody fix the whistle?

Oh, who’s gonna fix the whistle?

So my poor old pop will know it’s time for him to stop.

I don’t remember going to sleep, but you never do, do you?  One minute you’re awake, and the next you’re asleep.  When I finally wake up, my first thought is, “Did Dad come home?” and I listen to see whether anyone else is awake.  I sneak out of bed and look around and my heart gives a jump when I see Dad’s cap and lunch bag on the kitchen bench.  He must have come home after I had gone to sleep.  Mum would have been relieved.

I check the kitchen clock and it’s still early.  Even though he worked late, I know Dad will still have to be at the factory gate by 7 o’clock ready to start his next shift.  Mum is always telling me, if we want to win this war, everybody has to make sacrifices.  At least he’s not over in France.  Some of my friends from school have fathers who are in the army or are sailors in ships and they never see them.  I suppose I’m really one of the lucky ones.