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Mr Sooty - an excerpt from the Stillwart Chronicles

5/28/2015

“Who.”

Still’s head jerked up. She was alone in the bush. There were animals in the bush, and some of them ate fairies. “But not me,” Still blurted.

“Not me, who?” the voice came.

Her pixie eyes turned toward the voice; there was a dark shadow, and two rather large eyes.

“I’m Still, Stillwart, who are you?”

“Stillwart? That is a strange name, are you a fairy? Stillwart doesn’t sound like a fairy name.”

“No, I’m not a fairy.” Stillwart had almost shouted, but then in a very much smaller voice she added, “Do you eat fairies?”

“Yes, fairies are very tasty. Are you sure you’re not a fairy?”

“Very sure. Stillwarts don’t taste nice at all. What are you? Who are you? I can’t see you very well.”

“I can see you quite well, you sort of look like a fairy but you don’t have the same glow. Hmmm. I’m an owl. A Sooty owl. I don’t have a name. Are you sure you don’t taste good?”

“With a name like Stillwart?” Still stood with her hands on her hips, and looked the owl in the eye. “Have you ever tasted a wart, Mr. Sooty?”

“Hmmm, warts don’t taste good. Sometimes possums have them, I leave the warts.”

“Why do you eat fairies?” Still asked with interest.

“Taste good, nice feeling when they go down.”

“Do fairies taste the best, then?”

“No, no, mice are best. I’ll hunt them tonight.”

“Why not fairies?”

“Hard to catch, they have magic too – the strong ones. Sometimes they send me away with a salt taste in my mouth. Yuck. Easier to catch mice, nicer tasting anyway.”

“Hmmm. You’re an owl, and owl’s fly. I can fly too. Do you want some company, Mr. Sooty?”

“Who?”

“Me.”

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World War 2 – what really happened? Did America win the war? Or did Britain and its Commonwealth save America’s sorry isolationist ass.

5/22/2015

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A day or so ago I was reminded by an American friend about how their entering world war 2 saved Britain, who were apparently weeks away from collapse, and eventually won that war. I thought to myself, well, that’s a very American view. But what other view is there? I’ll come to that.

It’s Memorial day in the US soon. I wanted to show a picture of my Grandfather. He had been a British soldier between the wars, but was living in the US when the war in Europe started. He went back to fight for Britain. I’ve been trying to find the role he played, but very hard to do. One day perhaps I’ll go to Britain and try and track down his war records. Two other family members went back with him to fight for Britain and both died in the Battle of Britain. They were in the US, which was a neutral country for about 2 and a half years. They needn’t have gone back, but they did. There’s no memorial to them in the US for this Memorial day, but perhaps there should be.

So did America win the war? Well this is the state of play when the US entered. The Battle of Britain had already been won by Britain and her Commonwealth. It was an air battle. Hitler wanted to crush the RAF (Royal Air Force) before invading Britain, as air superiority was seen as being critical to German victory. The battle went on for many months, but the Germans changed tactics – instead of destroying planes and airfields they decided to bomb the cities, London in particular. This gave Britain a chance to rebuild its air defences, and with her Commonwealth and free European allies (a goodly number of whom died piloting fighters) they eventually won the battle and claimed air superiority.

At that stage, Britain had both air superiority and superiority at sea. Being an island, this made it relatively safe from invasion. The only chance the German’s really had to beat Britain beyond the Battle of Britain was to starve the country of food and supplies using its submarine fleets. Large amounts of war time supplies were coming from North America by convoy. Canada sent over 500 convoys to supply Britain, and the Canadian navy suffered terribly in the protection of the convoys. America played a peace time part in helping supply the convoys. They were critical. But with those supplies continuing to arrive, Britain was safe. A stalemate had occurred in that theatre of war.

In North Africa, the German blitzkrieg had been frustrated by Australian and British troops who had held Tobruk behind the German lines for many months. Eventually British, Australian and other Commonwealth forces overcame the Germans at a decisive battle at El Alamein, Egypt, and forced the Germans to retreat from Egypt and Libya to Tunsia. This was largely ahead of the American arrival.

In Russia, the Germans had failed to take Moscow, and the Russians had held their ground at Stalingrad and Leningrad with terrible losses on both sides. So when America entered the war, the Germans were actually stalemated on two fronts, and were losing severely on a third. America’s entry tipped the scales to a timely victory.

But what would have happened if Britain and her Commonwealth had failed to hold before that day? What if America had remained isolationist, just concentrating on war with Japan perhaps? Well time would have been lost, and time was critical for everyone if Germany was to be defeated at all.

At the end of the war Germany had almost perfected its V3 rockets, they had already launched the V1s and V2s against Britain. The Germans nicknamed the V3s the New York rockets. That’s right, rockets that could be used to attack the American east coast. What’s scarier than that? The German’s had an advanced nuclear program.

Few American’s would know this, but the Manhatten Project – the project that helped develop America’s own nuclear capability – wasn’t initiated by Americans. It was suggested to the Americans by the British, who thought it unwise to develop such a program in Britain where it might be attacked by German bombers. Members of the British Cavendish labs were sent to the US to help start the program. Without the British (and actually Commonwealth scientists such as Sir Mark Oliphant were also critical) America would not have started the program to develop its own nuclear capability.

With a little more time the German’s would have beaten everyone to developing the first nuclear weapons, and with their New York rockets, they could, and would, have leveled the East Coast of America, as well as Russia. So it’s pretty safe to say that without Britain and its Commonwealth, who didn’t surrender before America entered the war, but instead held the Germans at bay, and actually beat them in North Africa, the US would eventually have lost the war. Another year may have been all it took for Germany to have rained nuclear terror from across the Atlantic.

Where were we? Oh, yes. From one perspective, America can claim to have won the war, by breaking the stalemate that then existed. But they didn’t do it alone. Britain, with its Commonwealth, had held their own. Russia was there too. From another perspective, Britain and its Commonwealth, who had been on the front line two and a half years earlier than the US, can rightly claim to have saved America’s sorry ass, because if they hadn’t held (and actually begun to turn the tide against Germany) Germany would almost certainly have had enough time to develop its nuclear weaponry, and then it was game over for everyone.

It seems that all the allies were needed, even the Russians (though we really don’t talk about them any more).

Oh, and on a personal note, my grandfather survived the war, I know that he was in North Africa and Normandy, but he survived and returned to the US, eventually dying there. I visit where he lived when I can, a beautiful part of Virginia.

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I’m a Feminist? Me? And, apparently a Humanist too?

5/5/2015

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When did that happen? Mind you I had high hopes for the latter, but a feminist? I write a whole bunch of books with female leads and downtrodden heros (check out Stillwart!). Does that qualify me as a feminist for the former, and a humanist for the latter? If so, cool.

I hadn’t really thought about it before , but then a friend, Cas Meadowfield, posted this:

“Now has anyone heard, about this…. sometime ago I was told by an educator that our prejudices were more or less fixed by the time we're eleven. I've tried searching ‘child development’, but no joy…

It seems, (if this is true) that to get women (and others) to have confidence to be themselves, and find the job they love, children's writers have to write inclusive stories.

I know Scott does this…

I try and do this myself…”

Well, after she posted that, I had to think to myself, well gee. I guess I am.

I grew up with that generation that saw Star Trek a lot on the TV, the old multicultural, multiracial show that had the thumbs up from Dr Martin Luther King Jr. But there were other like shows and movies that I grew up with that also influenced me. To Kill a Mockingbird type movies. Books too, the Tales of Narnia (surprisingly good books for cross-species relations and inclusive plot lines), Dr Seuss (yep, think about it), Tom Brown’s school days (anti-bullying book), A Wrinkle in Time (strong female heros), and many others.

And perhaps being at the tail end of other people’s prejudices influenced me as well. It’s funny though, being a white anglo-saxon-irish protestant (not quite a WASP), you’d think I’d be pretty high up on that non-pecking order, but it turns out that it doesn’t really matter. Being a funny, little, sickly, Australian asthmatic in Canada is enough to get you kicked pretty heavily. To escape I started creating my own worlds, where everyone got along – fantasy, yes. Could have gone for hate, and there were times I did feel that, but I couldn’t maintain it for very long, so I went the other way. Oh,I overcame the asthma in my late teens too, I started running. My best time for the mile was 4 minute 17 sec, pretty good for someone who had to go to hospital if he ran a 100 feet as a 12 year old.

Those bad old days are gone. Now it’s my turn to be an adult. I have this picture of my daughter, to show. I insisted that both she and her sister learn how to change the tyre on a car. She changes tires for her less well taught friends now, both male and female. I don’t have to worry about her being stranded anywhere with a flat tyre. It’s the little things that matter, practicality aces traditional roles anytime.

Nothing wrong with girls playing soccer either. Even if they were the only girls on the team – they had a ball, literally. They’ll come and watch the next Star Trek movie with me too, and I’ll watch Cinderella with them. It’s the little things. Both my daughters have their own minds, and then there’s my son the chef, who always loved cooking. They were all brought up to find their own way, stand on their own feet and to respect others. They all chop wood too. I think I’ve seen many families like ours.

And yet, there’s always a dark side to people. Two sides of the coin. For me it’s not so much a dark side as a stupid side. I have chronic foot in mouth disease. The filters are often on holiday. The worst one I can remember was when my company bought a piece of equipment, I was halfway back to Canada from California with it, when the person we’d bought it from asked for me to ship it back by courier. I thought it was an emergency, went way out of the way to get it back as quickly as possible. I later found out they didn’t even use it. It sat on a shelf. Well… the term from my youth, which I never mentally ascribed to any ethnic group, it was just a term to me…was ‘Indian giver’. Not the best thing to say to someone whose actually from sub-continental India. Culturally insensitive. Of course I didn’t think of that until after it came out of my mouth, my mind didn't make the pre-clunker association. Worst thing I’ve ever said …well, maybe not, but it’s up there… and what could I say? No apology is great enough. I’ll never use that term again. But at least I realise that it wasn’t acceptable. I wonder if we all say stupid things, or is it only me?

So not a saint. I just try my best. Little wonder I’m still surprised by those two tags that I was given. I’m not sure I deserve them, though I won’t reject them either. I just am who I am.

You can only try. Maybe you're a feminist and a humanist too, and didn't even know it.

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Mr Sooty - an excerpt from the Stillwart Chronicles

World War 2 – what really happened? Did America win the war? Or did Britain and its Commonwealth save America’s sorry isolationist ass.

I’m a Feminist? Me? And, apparently a Humanist too?

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