The Long and Winding Road

Another short-short story based on a memory from over 50 years ago, a time when I was only 17 and just beginning to step out on a life away from home and a job where I lived in residence with other women. At that time, when I was leaving the proverbial nest and beginning on a nursing career. I had thought I would go into teaching but found that the pre-university courses at high school were too much for me. I left school abruptly and didn't know what to do with my life. My sister-in-law was a nurse and she suggested that I might like to try nursing and with her help I entered into life as a nurse with the thought of going on to train as a registered nurse when I was 18. The Sanatorium was a T.B. hospital where all the patients had tuberculosis in some form or other. As I was under 18 I worked in the children's ward where there were no infectious cases--the children had bone or glandular T.B. I had suffered from T.B. of the neck glands when I was younger caused by drinking unpasteurized milk so I already had resistance to T.B. anyway. The Sanatorium was out in the country, at least a mile away from where the bus that brought me from my days off with my brother and sister-in-law dropped me. This particular story tells of a day in late fall when I had miscalculated the hours of daylight. I arrived at the end of the road when it was getting dark with no lights on this country road. Susan's young imagination takes over and the snort and great shape of a cow in a farmer's field becomes a monster in her mind. "The final curve of the road came at last and, beneath the shining light, the Sanatorium's iron gates stood open in welcome. The path to the nurses' residence was well lit by tall lamps hovering over the walkway." This story does not end here but one more paragraph takes the reader into pure fiction giving a surprise and not so pleasant ending.

The Boat Ride

The background to this story in part one of Welsh Cakes: Book of Short Stories is a ride in one of the vessels that launched the British soldiers onto the shores of Normandy, France in an offensive against the Germans in the Second World War. The ocean going vessels were nosed onto the beach and the end of each vessel then dropped to form a ramp from which the soldiers disembarked and rushed on shore where they engaged in battle with the enemy. Years later, ordinary people were given a chance to see and experience some of what the soldiers went through by taking a ride on one of these vessels. My father took my brother and me on this vessel. I couldn't swim and was afraid of the water so I was very nervous about the boat ride. This story gives honour to our solders who went through this dreadful war experience in which their courage, bravery and desire to save their country overcame the fear that they must have had during these dreadful times.