Friday, April 8, 2011

An Older Star Twinkles

Last week my 20th Century History class was treated to a visit from a wonderful historic relic—a man who lived through World War II as a young man. Abdullah, surely you have heard me speak about this young man over the last four years—he is the one his friend Faisal has dubbed “The Mayor of Awesomeville”, has a British grandfather, and he had asked him to come and speak to our class.

In the last couple weeks we have studied the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and how in that incredible display of promise of the “World of Tomorrow,” fair organizers indeed pinned their hopes on the Fair as a means to stave off what many knew by 1938 was an inevitable tumble back into a sequel of the Great War. We studied the Fair, and who came, and how the events and activities at the Fair provided a backdrop for the declaration of war that September. As we studied this new world war we looked at various artifacts from the British homefront, during that long time when the Brits fought alone heroically against the Nazi machine. On one of those days Abdullah, my student every day for four years now, suggested he invite his grandfather to come to class and speak.

I may never have explained Abdullah’s background, but it is an interesting one. As I remember the story, Abdullah’s father, a man from Jordan, studied engineering in the UK in the 1980s, fell in love with a British lass (Bridget) whose father was also an engineer. They married, lived awhile in England, and then moved back to Jordan and have raised their seven sons in Jordan. When Abdullah was a little boy in England he was chided as “the Arab kid,” and then when he moved to Jordan, they teased him as “the British kid.” In the first few days of KA fellow 9th grader Jude met Abdullah, sized him up and said, “You don’t look like an Abdullah; you look like a James.” And so Jude has called Abdullah ‘James’ throughout our four years (and by the way, Jude is another of the elite four-year club of exciting students I have taught every day here). Anyway, I digress. A few years ago Mr. Morrison, Abdullah’s grandfather, moved to Jordan to join his daughter’s family here. That is how we came to have a valuable cultural artifact from World War II Britain here in Jordan.

Abdullah called his granddad and asked him. Mr. Morrison first said, “Oh, I don’t remember anything about those days. But I will think about it and let you know.” This past Tuesday Mr. Morrison treated our class to a presentation about his high school and college years in war-torn Britain.

The man was prepared! He came with a power-point presentation, a laser pointer, a script, cues for when Abdullah should change the slides, a hand-out on dates and helpful historical facts, a youtube clip from a British comedy show looking back at the war, and my favorite—sound effects! He had included a sound effect of an air raid siren for us to hear.

Mr. Morrison began by telling us that he was 16 when Britain declared war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939. He digressed—a wonderful and helpful digression, unlike some blog writers I know who seem to drift onto situation comedy tangents at the drop of a hat—and explained his school and how he was chosen to attend his public school. He joked about how strange it is that British public schools are actually “private” schools—I knew about the strange twisting of public and private—but he then explained the historic derivation of such a practice. I had never ever heard the reason for the strange twist. He explained about how an ecclesiastical York school in 627 opened its doors to the public, and then, oh, I knew I was in for a good presentation since he provided such good context in the first five minutes!

He explained about how important the radio was as announcements about the war and rationing schedules were made; he explained how as a 16-year old he and his family “bomb-proofed” their suburban London home; he explained how all the young lads his age joined up in the OTC (Officer Training Corps) and the LDV (Local Defense Volunteers—a group so shabby that the real soldiers nicknamed the LDV the “Look, Duck, and Vanish” group). Mr. Morison recounted the story of Dunkirk, one of those seminal moments in the British defense in the spring of 1940, a moment of surrender and retreat, but also a moment as new Prime Minister Churchill claimed was a moment when “so many owed so few.”

It had been a long while since I have gotten to teach World War II with a little bit of time. In world history courses the goal is to give more of a global perspective, and I have not gotten to trot out some of the things I enjoy, the film clips and the documents and the Vera Lynn songs. Yes, I sang for them “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover,” and made sure they knew how much former headmaster Eric Widmer loves Vera Lynn and her “We’ll Meet Again” anthem. But it was also wonderful to have a guest speaker to come and recount his memories of the war time years. I remember that around the year 2000 at Hackley it seemed for the first year in my teaching career none of my students had had a grandfather who fought in World War II—it just felt the world had gotten a pinch older and farther away from those years. Another interesting point is how adept with 21st century technology Mr. Morison is in planning his presentation. It was just 10 years ago that I was showing slides in class about the homefront of WWII, and he had created a zippy presentation with all the power-point bells and whistles!

So our 87-year old guest explained how as the blitz in England continued, how it affected daily life: taking street signs down (I assume to confuse any German bombers who landed??) and the ration books—oh, my he showed us the weekly rations for sugar, butter, meat, etc. and I think I eat a whole week’s worth of rations in a day easily! He explained about black-outs and sentry duty at school and sleeping in the library awaiting the air raid sirens, how the lads were taught to defuse bombs. The new German bombs of 1941 were even more intense and the shrieking sound was horrendous he explained. With an air of someone who had lived through such tension, Mr. Morrison almost off-handedly remarked, “Very disconcerting, those bombs.”

He discussed about driving in the black-outs, the reduction of trains, and the rationing of clothes and everything else—he also provided a table as to when the rations ended, and some of them went on years after the conclusion of the war. He explained about the evacuations for children so that fewer young persons were in the London area during the war. He explained how important the WOSB—War Office Selection Board—was in shaping decisions for people’s lives. At the age of 18 Mr. Morrison’s eyesight was deemed too poor for military service, but the WOSB directed him as to which kind of engineering he should study. His job was to test the new pre-fabricated houses—the houses that would quickly go up to replace the homes destroyed by bombs.

I am a sucker for this kind of presentation—I just love hearing the veterans of life describe what they have seen and how they reacted. Of course Mr. Morrison’s presentation made me think of my own grandfather and his service in WWII. Somehow I never heard any of those stories in my childhood from him, and only after studying abroad in Austria in 1985 did all the war stories tumble out of him. I met friends of his in England, friends that he had made and kept over the decades. The men in the English family were off fighting the Nazis in Africa, and my grandfather was in Bristol, England, awaiting deployment for the invasion of France. In the time he was there he visited this family almost every week, bringing them treats from the GI store, and they providing him a family environment while he was away from his Cincinnati family. I loved the stories and how it took meeting these “strangers” for me to learn so much more about my grandfather.

Anyway, Mr. Morrison concluded his presentation explaining how the Brits were encouraged to dig up their flower beds and plant vegetable gardens—“Dig for Victory Gardens.” As he came towards the end of the class time, I wondered if he planned to touch on the theme of death at all. In the end he did, albeit briefly. He explained about two good friends of his, two lads who had gone off for military service, and while in training, they died, from what we would now call “friendly fire.” It was a brief reminder that this war business was more than just defense and sacrifices of food and gasoline etc. but as he said, “There wasn’t a family I knew who was not touched by the sadness of grief in the war.”

I joked with Mr. Morrison at the end that he had at first told Abdullah he couldn’t remember anything—but then look at what a little reflection had created! It was a delightful talk, a reminder of bonds I once shared with more students, when we had all had grandfathers who served or endured the privations of World War II. I think of my dad’s friends he sees regularly, Chris who fought in the Pacific, Ruby and Harry who met and fell in love during the war in France, and the German couple, Hans and Annelise, obviously from the other side of the war, who join the group at the Imperial Diner every week.


“There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow, when the world is free,”
promises the end of the “White Cliffs of Dover” song. How poignant, how helpful to be reminded of the many factors and promises and hopes and fears and joys that shape us as we go. Mr. Morrison, a man the same age as my students when that war started, thank you for sharing your memories and reflections.

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