And then on holiday
Well, life’s not all a tedious round of invention, research and desperate, furious typing. After some weeks of strenuous effort, we all went away to a camp site in Cornwall in late May, and there we relaxed. A lovely camp site near Mevagissy, with one of the best activity centres for kids I’ve ever seen, and several beautiful beaches.
I’m not only a medievalist. Any little castle or fortress will interest me. This was a tiny pill box on the south coast. During the Second World War these thing sprung up like a nasty rash all over the south of England, at any site where it was felt Germans could attempt an invasion, as well as along all main lines of communication to deny the land to the enemy. It’s rather sad to see them just rotting. None, to my knowledge, has any of the original equipment inside. All the guns have been melted down, the sighting equipment trashed. Yet it’s touching to look at them and investigate them. In the late 1930s and early 1940s boys and old men stood guard in them, prepared to die in the defence of the realm. These little fortresses should be treasured in their memory.