WWII - Sounds like wish

29 February, 2012

Indulge

After reading that Shepheard’s Hotel welcomed British Army Officers but not ordinary troops, I thought of this poem that my father wrote. These are his thoughts after an attempt to indulge in a few drinks in a cabaret. The poem is several pages long; here are three of the verses. My transcriptions appear below the images.

Seven Days’ Leave

The digger grinned as he heard his name
They were dishing out the pays,
Next thing, he gave a hearty shout,
He’d got leave for seven days.
That night for him was sleepless,
He couldn’t help but think
If he’d see the sights of Egypt,
Get in a game or drink.

*****

About the town of Tel Aviv
He wandered for a while,
Looking for a lair-up pub
Where he could spend his pile.
He came across a cabaret
But ’twas “For Officers Only”,
He felt a little homesick then,
Almost a little lonely.

A man’s got a ton of bloody dough
And can’t get a bloody drink.
“For bloody officers only” thought he,
Wouldn’t it strike you bloody pink.
After hours of solid searching
And of pests all out to sell
He came across a cobber,
“With him”, he’d been thru hell.

Ron Bruce, 1941, © Patricia Worth, 2012

27 February, 2012

February photo challenge: 28th Feb, Money

Two sides of the same coin.

My father brought some coins back from the Middle East in 1942. I like this one with its Art Nouveau flourishes and the hole in the middle. I hang it by a chain on a wrought iron bedstead.

26 February, 201225 August, 2018

February photo challenge: 26th Feb, Night

The “English Bridge” at night: the bridge itself is partly visible if you click to enlarge the photo. The lamppost is on the bridge but the buildings are to its left.

The “English Bridge” in Cairo was also known by its French name, Pont des Anglais. A few decades later it was nicknamed Kobri Badi’a after Madame Badi’a who taught belly dancing in a cabaret near the bridge, and then in the 1950s it was known as Evacuation Bridge for the British who were being chased out of Egypt. Its Egyptian name is Kobri Al Gala’a, or El Gala’a. In the middle of the day, it opened to let the feluccas pass through. See my post of 7th January for a photo of graceful feluccas on the Nile.

25 February, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Indulge

Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo was apparently the first hotel of the kind that become fashionable and famous for their opulence, like Raffles of Singapore. It was built and owned by Samuel Shepheard, an Englishman, and was the place to stay for European travellers to Egypt or to India and the east. It was built in the 1840s, replaced at the turn of the century with the structure you see in the photo, and destroyed by fire and riots against the British in 1952. During the war, British Officers on leave (including Australians) could relax in the wicker chairs on the terrace, though I’ve read that ordinary troops would not have been welcome. In the film The English Patient, the hotel was the setting in some scenes, but since it no longer existed, another hotel (in Venice) and a set were used. While some early 20th-century travellers boasted of staying there, a few writers complained of mosquitoes, lice, and other unpleasantness. Edward Lear said it was like a ‘horribly noisy railway station’.

In 1957, a new Shepheard’s Hotel was built a short distance from this one.

In this photo, the car amuses me, the driver out in the weather while the passengers are covered, imitating a horse and carriage arrangement.

18 February, 2012

February photo challenge: 18th Feb, Drink

A bit of research on Google revealed that this ad for Abbots Lager was painted near Tobruk, Libya, in January 1941 by the 6th Division of the Australian Army. (‘Journey to Tobruk: John Murray – Bushman, Soldier, Survivor’ by Louise Austin).

My father wrote under the photo: ‘Australian beer is best’.

Abbots Lager sign painted by 6th Division, AIF, 1941

18 February, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Down

I looked through the album for anything that triggered the thought ‘down’. There are resting camels, soldiers downing grog, sinking ships, broken planes, a fallen propeller, and this one, a skeleton picked clean. The seat can still hold a pilot!

The caption in the album is ‘Wrecked Bomber’.

17 February, 2012

February photo challenge: 17th Feb, Time

This clock tower is in Beirut. The caption my father wrote under the photo gave the town of Tripoli as the tower’s home, but a search for it on Google images showed me where it really is. It was built in 1934 and survived the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s. Four new clock faces with Roman numerals have replaced the faces you see here. The tower is no longer encircled by concrete, but flower beds.

The Australian troops trained in Palestine on their way to Egypt and Libya. In the war album there are a number of photographs from Lebanon, indicating they must have had rec leave in Beirut.

14 February, 2012

February photo challenge: 15th Feb, Phone

In the old sketchbooks there are four drawings of reclining women on the phone. They all resemble women from Vargas’s calendars. This one is influenced by Orientalism and is the best of the four.

Drawing by Ron Bruce, 1942/43, © Patricia Worth, 2012

13 February, 2012

February photo challenge: 14th Feb, Heart

This drawing is from one of my father’s sketch books. You’ll see that the woman in his heart thought bubble is not my mother (see entry for 7th February). Perhaps she’s the woman who was posing in the art class. Perhaps she’s the generic woman that every soldier thinks about in the desert, standing next to a cactus, holding a very big gun.

Pencil sketch by Ron Bruce, c 1942, ©Patricia Worth, 2012

10 February, 2012

Weekly photo challenge: Regret

This week’s theme has me questioning what are appropriate photos for a blog. My submissions for this weekly photo challenge are all coming from my father’s war album, and this morning I had to choose between a number of photos that tell a story of regret. In the end, I couldn’t put them on my blog. It’s enough to say that my father regretted volunteering to defend Australia in the Middle East. It’s also true, though, that those who were defended didn’t regret his contribution and were very thankful for the servicemen and women of the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces).

This photo, however, makes me wonder what the driver was thinking.