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< St Kilda Opera
22 June 2007
Saturday notes >
23 June 2007
June 2007
Glasgow and London attacks
HIV / AIDS
Callanish Stones
Attack in Glasgow
Glasgow Airport on fire
Saturday notes
Friday pictures
Bath toys galore
Smell-less - useless
Friday notes
Close of day
Electricity in action
Last week in June
Spot the difference
Tropical cyclones blog
Hurricane update - 28 June
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Call for support
Spot the man
Flooding
Change of PM
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Nunnery
Funnies: an attribution
After the honeymoon
The unfinished story
Hurricane update - 26 June
Hurricane Audrey - 50 years on
Bad weather in Europe
Off the back of a lorry
Yorkshire flooding
Sheffield flooding
Call for support II
Call for support
Flooding
Hurricane update - 25 June
Monday notes
Call for support
Hurricane update 24 June
Roadsigns
Genealogy
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Feline funnies
Another funny
A year on the Internet
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Saturday notes
Perspective
St Kilda Opera
Friday afternoon
Recovered
St Kilda - a European Opera
Missing presumed dead
Thursday images
Boscastle flooded again
Cervical cancer
Busy port
Osprey breeding season ends in failure
Hurricane update - 21 June
Thursday notes
UK visa applications rejected - for wanting to come on holiday
Hurricane forecast - down on previous
Wednesday notes
Alan Johnston
Solstice Sunsets
Hidden talent and the wrecking bra
Tuesday notes
Graphic
Second week of June
Monday notes
Jim Halliday
Picture problems
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Faces from the War Memorial
Do not drink and drive
Male - chauvinism?
Flooding
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Food for thought
Call for support
St Kilda - a European Opera
Friday notes
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Hackers
Call for support
Flag Day
Are you a zombie?
Falklands 1982-2007
Thursday notes
Ill grace and Lockerbie
Ships' info
Clever by half
Seasmart campaign
Call for support
Buzzing port
Madeleine McCann
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First week of June
Eigg buy-out
Dolphin video
Lost at sea
Tuesday notes
Interior of the island
Laxay
In flight
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The Bishop's Isles
Oman and the cyclone
Drive round the West Side
1967 vs 2007
Thursday 26/04/07
Wednesday 25/04/07
Tuesday 24/04/07
Monday 23/04/07
Sunday 22/04/07
Saturday 21/04/07
Gas crisis
Sunday notes
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Gas crisis
Friday 20/04/07
Thursday 19/04/07
Wednesday 18/04/07
Tuesday 17/04/07
Gas crisis (more)
Overnight school exams
Celebrity trash
Australian storm
Gas crisis
Saturday notes
Evening notes
Friday notes
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Local Mod
Canoe tragedy - update
Thursday notes
Newsreports on Gonu
An golden oldie
Update on Cyclone Gonu
Monday 16/04/07
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Princess Diana and the photographers
Hurricane update II - 6 June
Call for support
Local Mod
D-day - 63 years on
Hurricane update - 6 June
Sunday 15/04/07
London 2012 logo
News report on canoe incident
Canoe tragedy
Hurricane update II - 5 June
Oman affected by Gonu
Search scaled down
Tuesday notes
Hurricane update - 5 June
Midnight hour
Can you do better?
Close of day
Hurricane advice - Oman
Further updates on Gonu
Hurricane update - 4 June
Missing BBC man turns up
Monday notes
Tropical cyclone Gonu
A few more Sunday notes
Sunday notes
Meez
Hurricane information
Hurricane update 2 - 2 June
Metcheck
Saturday notes
Hurricane update - 2 June
Hurricane update - 1 June (2)
Viewpoint
Yahoo's invasion of privacy
Stats - corrected
Hurricane update - 1 June
Stats
Long days / long nights
Friday notes
Jumping ship
Late night light
« June 2007 Archive
23 June 2007
00:11:00 o'clock BST

Perspective


It was an entry by Indigo [rdautumnsage] that prompted me to tell this story, which has only the most tenuous of bearing on her painful story.

In August 1914, a young woman in the island here got married. Immediately afterwards, her new husband went out to sea for the fishing. He would be back after a week or two. History intervened, and war was declared. The hubby was a naval reservist and when he reached port, orders were there for him to proceed to the Depot in England for training and deployment.

It is late 1918. The Armistice has been signed, and the boys are coming home. The young man in our story has been through years in the trenches, and has witnessed horrors beyond description. It has aged him decades. He returns to Stornoway and goes to see his bride. Who gives him a tongue-lashing for leaving her in the lurch for 4 years, without so much as a word on being called up. He stares at her blankly, numbly. He looks gaunt and pale, a shadow from the handsome young man that wed the young woman four long years ago. She is angry, at being cheated out of a wedded life of bliss for 4 years. She is angry, that he doesn't understand.

Fast forward to the 1970s. The young woman is now ancient in years, and her husband has passed away. The woman is wracked by guilt, over the way she treated her other half when he returned from the Great War. She now understands, having seen boys return from the Second War in 1945, what had happened. And she feels dreadful over her own erstwhile selfishness.


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