DRESDEN etc

I've just finished reading 'Rifleman', the auto-biography of Victor Gregg. Old soldiers in particular will find this fascinating. He was at Alamein, and then crossed the Med to fight his way up Italy. After that he went through parachute training and participated in the disaster of Market Garden. (The paras went in virtually un-supported. A fight between paras and tanks inevitably leads to a victory for the tanks.)  He managed to escape from his Prisoner of War camp, and decided that it was better to be in a busy town than in the countryside, so he went to Dresden, arriving a few days before that city was severely bombed. Victor was a Londoner, so he knew about the bombing of London, but he still fumes about the in-humanity of the bombing of Dresden. The rest of the book is OK, but not, for me, nearly as fascinating. He was a keen motor-cyclist, and attended several rallies in Germany. Like many of us, he hated the Nazi regime, but holds no grudge against the German people.

I am planning to return 'Rosy' to French waters next year, and I doubt that I will head east. However, when I was last in Europe with 'Rosy', one of the highlights was the time we spent in Germany, and especially Berlin. The Germans were welcoming and friendly - I was whisked off to a disco at one point and invited to a party where 90% of those present spoke good English. At another mooring, a passing person insisted on taking me to their house (not too far away) for lunch. Would that happen in London? I think not.

However, the French canals can keep my interest and enthusiasm for several years, even if one stays north of Lyon. (South of Lyon leads, eventually, to the Midi etc where one can spend many years cruising East-West one year and West-East the next).