War Damage to "War Torn Dreams" Janine's family was thrown into turbulence by upheaval caused by the 2nd. World War, never to follow a smooth course again. Alice Collier, Charles' mother insisted that her family was torn apart.
War - and Worldwide skirmishes do a lot of damage to families. Fathers, sons and grandfathers, are taken away and put into the various forces, armies and navies throughout the world. I ought to know, because mine was one of it’s victims.
War - not the various Airforces, Armies and Navies, is responsible for the chaos upon this Earth. War rampages across and ravages this beautiful Earth. Like a dreaded Wild Beast, it feasts upon the souls of many.
War- is the undisciplined forces, not the above various Forces. The discipline of the various Forces is good for men. Training the mind and body for the complexities encountered throughout life. After all, Christians are likened to "soldiers".
A poem by
Janine Collier
Janine's family was ravaged by war,
Her father, for years, she never saw,
When he did come home, demobbed,
She confessed she never knew him.
She would stutter “Go away, Baggor, Angor!”?,
From her hiding place under the dining room table.
When the wheel of his bike showed,
Janine would kick it, bellow, and guffaw.
At three years of age she could barely make sounds
A cerebral palsy victim of the War,
Janine was often called "spastic",
By the children of the ignorant.
Part 2
War time - My father, while in service during this wretched war, in Cyprus, Cairo, and Egypt, while waiting for the Japanese war, at Rangoon, sustained a permanent back injury after being knocked off his bicycle. He was preparing for the cycle races out there.
This war time - My father, a keen cyclist, found himself in an Egyptian hospital, laid out for two and a half weeks. Six weeks he was laid off from the Airforce. An aircraft engine fitter, and Sergeant, he became war's latest victim.
War sores - My father was very young, newly married, and now had a great scar to carry. The rest of his life would now be blemished by a back injury that could have easily been avoided, if there had been no war.
Charles Leonard Collier married Ivy Ethel Melinda,
Getting compassionate leave for that special occasion,
Charles met, four years before,
Met the girl of his dreams just before the war.
Charles was a young Airforce cadet,
Their principle cavalry trumpeter he became,
He played, from memory, all the principle solo parts,
Sundown he knew well. 0n music he did not dwell.
Charles stood his ground, as another asked for her hand,
His firmness won her over, "Me or him" he ejaculated,
Pushing the front wheel of his bike between them.
Ivy Ethel Melinda knew Charles was the one for her.
Peace Time - At the time of my writing this, my father is lying in a hospital bed, after having an huge operation on his oesophagus; cancer had set in. He could not eat properly. They took his spleen and part of his pancreas. My mother had to take up driving again to visit him in hospital. My brother, who has been ill for years, sat beside her. Brian had been the best driver in the family. He told her to put L plates on.! My mother had got over a stroke a few years back.
As an indirect Cause of war,
Now at 75 year, Charles had diabetes,
Taking, by injection, measured doses of insulin.
Ivy now had to look after Brian and him.
Part 3
War time - I was born in Felmersham, Bedford, nearly two years after my father and mother married. It was the 20th. of November 1944 and, while pregnant , my mother had no hospital care. In fact, nobody out there cared. For all the care had gone into that “Bloody" war!
War born - MY mother had been told by one visit to the Bedford Hospital “You have a month to go, Mrs. Collier, the head is nicely engaged. Go home assured." My mother was far from assured. She had always felt a lump high in her abdomen - her babies head. I had obviously not turned, and was in breach position.
War strewn - When my mother reached the cottage - the evacuation home for the whole family of my father, his parent's, his two sisters and their children resided there throughout the war - she fell into labour. Luckily, my father was on leave, and he ran down the lane to phone the midwife. The midwife called Doctor Stuart, as she could see problems. He could not handle the birth on his own and wanted his partner to assist him. My father, again, had to run hard down that lonely country lane for the nearest phone. In the meantime Dr. Stuart had delivered me. Thankfully, he was good gynaecologist.
An half an hour passed,
Before Janine was born, A leg had got caught,
The damage was now done,
The baby never turned.
The war had claimed,
Another silent victim,
This baby would have,
A fight all of her own,
Through this life like a ship
At sea she would be blown.
A third world war,
An offshoot of the second,
Poor Janine would now fight,
War damaged spastic,
She would be known.
Some thing else would come to light,
During her life's never ending night,
At the age of ten, well into her young years,
She would be proclaimed deaf,
At her disabled school her hearing was not tested.
Mr. Lyon , her mentor and music teacher,
Wanted her to play her violin in tune!
He made an appointment with a local hearing clinic
When they gave her an hideous affair,
Bags and batteries they tied to her,
He took her to Ardente Hearing showrooms,
And they gave her a neat affair,
Just a little box on a chord,
Now Janine could play a tuneful chord!
Although classmates teased her and said;
"Your head is tied on with string!"
This did not deter Janine from school life,
In their end of term concert she played her violin,
Gaining the respect of her schoolmates there-in!
War homes - Water had to be pumped from that Bedford cottage well. Sticks had to be collected for fire during that terribly cold November winter. Hitler, at this time, was blitzing London and the South of England. V1 (Buzz Bombs) and V.2 rockets were now passing overhead.
War Dreams - My mother and father now had had a child who would have to fight her way throughout life, finding nothing at all easy. I would Struggle to walk, Struggle to talk and Struggle to learn - in fact struggle to make friendships work and Struggle to get married. A Struggle for all the things others take for granted. Hitler was an evil wretch.
Skies blacked out at night,
Fire watchers wait all night on roof tops,
(Ivy Ethel Melinda`s aging father was one),
Hitler's bombs and rockers hit the skies,
Their fires would light the way.
Hitler was the greedy one,
Hell bent on power.
An evil war machine he had created.
Blasting families apart,
In a blitz of bombs and rockets.
Jew and gentile, alike, continue to suffer,
Sacrifices to the “Gog of Magog" are offered,
The funeral pyres were piled high,
The flames producing an obnoxious stench -
Before "Gog" is blotted out completely.
Oh, Great Creator and Heavenly Father,
When will this be.
When will we see it.
Jehovah of armies is what most call you,
Abraham did not
Know you by this name,
For war had not reared it's beastly head.
When, Jehovah of Armies,
Will you clear the debt,
Made by such ones as Hitler, Nero, Stalin , and Mussolini,
When will you free the poor souls of war?
Part 4
Peace time - My brother, Brian was born not long after the war, A war cradle he inherited, his mother’s womb blitzed by that war, A bonny baby at birth, though a month premature; theafter birth had come before him. Again, there had been a mistake on the hospital's part. The surgeon had just taken off his gloves, after wheeling my mother out onto the ward, telling her she had a month to go. My brother Brian was born there and then, giving the surgeon no time to put his gloves back on.
"Mrs. Collier you have a month to go,
Everything is great you know,"
That familiar ring, rang in Ethel's ears.
Again, fate was playing an awful tune.
The "echo of war" was to ring through the generations.
Bonny Brian's digestive system was damaged,
Fate had struck a fateful blow,
At the age of ten, he was occupying a hospital bed,
Fighting for survival, bleeding from the bowel,
He had ulcerated colitis the doctors said,
We can do nothing for your son.
The Hospital - I, at 18, had to go to Dalston park with Patch, our dog, when my mother and father visited their war torn son. Nothing was normal again. They had worked hard on me, to get me right, Peritonitis I had had, and been in that same hospital bed.
Queen Elizabeth hospital - When my mum said “No blood transfusion, the bible does not allow it”, the hospital got nasty. These were the days of disenlightenment. Aids, HIV, and CJD were not know then.
“No blood !" Consultant Jacoby interjected, “Get on your hands and knees and pray, for your Son will die, if he has no blood”
Ivy and Charles could not the consultant confound,
To their daughter, Janine, they did not utter a sound. Silently, they got Little Brian dressed,
And took him out of that hospital at his behest,
Not before a nurse, in frustration, had hit
Poor Brian with his blood stained towel,
Poor Brian was bleeding from the bowel,
Consultant Jacoby had given him a very high dose
Of cortisone, which could damage the brain,
Little did they know, then, of the effects of "wonder drugs.
Poor Brian continued to bleed from his bowel,
A skeleton he became,
When given the high dose of cortisone;
Billy Bunter ” Moon face” he became,
By that hospital's hand,
Against the blood, whom Brian himself did stand,
.
We must stop the bleeding, the hospital had said,
So Ivy and Charles took their son to another,
Whipps Cross Hospital, near The Rising Sun, Walthamstow,
Ivy and Charles made their way.
A Jewish doctor there said he was not worried about the blood,
"But I must stop the diarrhoea” that kind doctor said,
Brian never looked back from that day on.
Afterwards - My brother, Brian, went through secondary school, winning a prize, for courage and extreme bravery. He had to cycle quite a distance to that school, because my parents did not want him to have co-ed education. Every morning he travelled, not missing a day that year. His Christian faith he kept strong preaching to others from that day on. A strong example to all he became.
Ivy Ethel Melinda and Charles Twice had to move house,
The war had damaged the area where they lived,
Bomb damages were everywhere,
Once in Walthamstow, poor Charles
Had just finished vast modern improvements
To ‘the “Nice little house" he had bought.
Ivy Ethel Melinda had put £5 deposit as down payment
In l946 her inheritance from her mother's death
Had just come through. One room with baby Janine
She could now leave. She had come to London
Due to sad events in the cottage caused by the American
Airforce occupation, in Bedford nearby.
They were after our women. Hence the saying;
"Overpaid, oversexed, and over here!"
It all happened to a friend who came to stay.
Ivy could not stand the arguments
Between the husband, when he was recalled from Egypt
That inevitably ensued.
New windows, to replace the sash,
In that little Walthamstow house
Ivy Ethel Melinda's husband Charles did implant.
A bathroom, by council grant, had been built as an extension,
It certainly looked the "best" in Richmond Road,
Two new house, semis with a garage at the side of each,
Had been built privately, on the bomb damage site,
That had blighted the middle of that road,
A foreign family had taken over one
Did not keep it well. The husband was put in prison
For sleeping with his wife's two young under aged sisters,
An allotment was the view from their front room window. The council wanted to replace
These "strong little houses" with, what has become today,
An huge and ugly “Concrete Slum”.
School Time - My brother Brian had to change schools, leaving all his friends behind, Our parent's, owing to the council's clearance scheme, had bought another house in Woodford; a lovely long garden this had, and organic vegetables we all began to grow down the bottom of that huge plot. The River Rhoding flowed close by.
.
Woodford - Thus my brother, Brian, continued to improve, making new Christian friends. He went to a new school nearby, and passed his G.C.S.Es. Our next door neighbour, Enid, recommended we should get some herbal medicine from Catheline Hunter in Scotland. This we did. Fwnogreke tea improved Brian further. He obtained an office job in Chappel's music publishers in London (Brian played the trombone and piano well) on leaving school. He cherished his job up in London's famous Oxford Street in the West End of London. He, Brian, had left school a "shining" pupil.
Marriage - a few years on Brian saw me married from that house. Brian had now to put up with Janine's temperamental spouse. Then suddenly news broke again of another potential move, The M11 motorway was to be built, taking all but 30 feet of Brian's parents beloved garden,
The Move - My parents, Ethel and Charles, moved up the road to a little picturesque Village called Abridge; After selling their once again finished house, "Every time I finish a house we are forced to move." my father, Charles complained sadly to his wife after a family’ conference.
Move again Ethel and Charles did,
Their sadness they both expertly hid,
Poor Brian tried to travel to work form there,
But the buses were few
No trains existed at all,
It was at this point in time,
Brian decided to throw the people around him a life line,
The Bible he wished to preach from door to door
Brian was able to obtain,
Part time employment,
"Must not be a burden on my dear parents."
Mused Brian as he cleaned windows and repaired his car
He also worked in the building, fur, and chauffeuring trade All this was about to tell on poor Brian,
His underlying weakness proved to become a third world war.
Down, down he went,
No one heard the warning sounds
A siren was blaring, "Mayday, Mayday"
Flairs were appearing everywhere.
No one, including Brian heard the SOS.
His soul did everything but drown,
Even his sister Janine had moved out of town,
The very one who recognised the symptoms,
And told him to stop the missionary work. "Slow down," she had said
"Something dire is happening to you",
Janine had done the same missionary work,
She had stopped, when confronted with the obvious fact,
That this work was only for the fit and strong,
Certainly not for anyone disabled,
They would never survive an assignment abroad,
Especially in places that resembled the African Congo.
"One has to be realistic," Janine thought.
"The goal,sadly, could never be ours."
NO one could Brian now lean on,
No body understood what was happening to him.
They called him lazy, a malingerer,
He was not helped by Janine's awful natured hubby,
Who thought he knew Brian through an through,
Giving him books on mental illness to read,
Brian was sure if it had not been for the 2nd. World War
His sister would have had better choices in life,
Thus saving him and the family a lot of strife.
Brian was reduced to one of the Worlds Zombies,
Couldn't speak, Couldn't move, Could'nt eat.
A war zone he had again become.
The pain that was once in his stomach,
Had now, unfortunately, gone to his head.
All that cortisone one he had had Janine sadly said.
Not long after Janine had moved into her new house,
Brian really became ill.
Claybury hospital sent a “Paddy Wagon”,
Whisking his away in a strait jacket.
His actions Brian could not control,
This was to happen three times before poor Brian
Could be sorted out.
Janine's heart was now broken,
Knowing full well that the “Errant" populace
Had not helped, when she was not there to guide him.
They goaded and pushed him on,
Brian was the last to admit to this at the time.
He saw good in everyone.
Claybury treated him like a malingerer.
“Glassnickers ” the top psychiatrist,
Left Brian lying on the floor trapped in his wheelchair,
While, he, Glasnikers looked on.
Janine happened to come to visit her brother that day,
Ananounced, she just walked in; nobody was about.
She did not know her parents were told by Glasnickers:
"Three Weeks leave your son to us. No visitors he is to have."
This was how Janine found him, trapped,with "Glassnickers
Looking on. She thought the top one of Claybury hospital was A patient! A scruffy suit he had on. His frizzy curls,
Knurled hair, was tied back with a ribbon. He must have
Started the pony tale trend in men, Janine thinks, looking
Back, years later, on this "ken".
Author's view point - Janine moved way out of London, south east or west, Perhaps it was to escape this awful charade, where people did not understand, did not know how to help. Did not seemingly care. Her husband was rapidly becoming an obnoxious brute, though a Christian he called himself, and did help Brian. Or did she move in order to own her own house. The houses in London were, price wise, out of their range. Janine had worked in the West End, before she had her daughter, Rachel - but could not do full time work now.
That moving day - On the day they moved, Desmond, Janine's husband, had thrown an encyclopaedia at Janine while she, Janine, was resting on the settee, after a hard days graft of packing to alleviate the strain on him. She sustained a big black bruise to her right thigh, which was her "bad side". She had suffered some paralyses, as a result of a hospital mistake when her mother given birth to her. The bruised thigh turned into permanent scarred tissue, that gave constant pain. All Janine had left Desmond to pack, was a few of his teaching books. A "right teacher" he was, Janine thought.
The move - Where Janine now lived, in Felchester, some miles outside north East London, the views were splendid. The countryside agreed with her,and her husband continued his teaching in London.
Desmond's story - Desmond created a story all of his own. He knocked Janine's hearing out of her ear one evening. So Janine's father had to provide the train fare to White Chapel Hospital, London, in or for her to get her hearing aid repaired. He often struck out at her when he felt discontented, especially when she had made the house nice for him, made herself presentable, and put little Rachel to bed. He changed his job and was then round her all the time. At one point he was unemployed and became even more unbearable. He did not like anybody for long.
Brian comes to Felchester - A lady came to Janine's door, one day. A good Catholic Voluntary worker, she said she was. "See, they are not all Catholic's are bad toward's us." thought Janine, remembering the one who had hit her poor ailing brother in Queen Elizabeth hospital, all those years back.
This kind lady had an earful of Janine's shocking news about Brian and, then, promised her she would get him out of that awful Claybury Hospital.
Next day “Kath” as she was called,
Comunicated with Janine's parents,
Together, they went to Claybury to rescue
Brian from his far from human situation.
What Kath saw in that ward, made her blood curdle,
What she heard made her ears ring with indignation.
Brian had not a stitch of clothing on,
He was lying in his own urine on a bare mattress.
Brian was blue and obviously at death's door.
What a plight for such a devout Christian.
It was reminiscent of the suffering martyrs,
Mentioned in the bible before him.
Nurse Kath took immediate action,
Gave an urgent command:
“Get this patient cleaned up and dressed,
He will catch pneumonia and he is in a coma.
And you are doing nothing about it.
I shall report you if you do not hurry!"
Clean sheets were now brought out. with
Ivy and Charles could only look on.
Aghast at what was happening to their son.
This was the third time Claybury had messed him up.
Twice before, the family saw Brian taken away,
Twice they willed him with all their might,
For him to get out of his sick bed,
Get well, come home and return to normal.
Twice, their good and likable Brian
Looked as if he was at death’s door.
Claybury had given him electric shock
Treatment, to revive him once before.
Kath's voice could now be heard:
"Get an ambulance and take him to another hospital,
Close to where Janine lives.
It is one of the best hospitals in the country;
They will treat him like a human being there,
Not like some degraded animal!"
What happened next - It came to pass that Brian was moved to another Hospital; the nurses oat Claybury were so frightened of who Kath was .and Kath could swear she had heard a nurse whack Brian with a sheet. She had intervened and told that nurse off. When Brian eventually began to talk he told a tale of horror treatment at the hands of those nurses.
Brian's treatment at Claybury - The hospital at Felchester, where Janine lived, treated Brian well. He had his own room, and eventually emerged out of his coma. Although he could not talk or walk, and was confined to a wheelchair, his eyes were bright and he was able to write. He wrote down what had happened to him in Claybury; he wrote:
"Gestapo. They treated me like the Nazis
Did their prisoners during the war.
Chinese torture they played on me.
A game for their sadistic ways I became."
From that day on - Brian began to improve improve. Ivy and Charles had to move to Felchester selling their lovely Semi in Unbridge, for a terraced one. They had had to let their lovely home go cheap, as the hospital was threatening to send Brian back to Claybury if they did not have a Felchester address. Brian had been using Janine's address, but Janine's husband had told the top one of Felchester Holspital that Brian's address was really in Unbridge. Janine could never forget what her husband had done; when he,himself, was at death's door with pericarditis, (a teacher from his school,who was in the same ward as he, died of the same illness the week Desmond left hospital) Janine and her parents had nursed him, Desmond, back to health.
Charle's sad comment - “Whenever I finish decorating a house I am forced to move. This time he would have to give up his job in London and obtain another, starting his promotion prospects all over again. Charles remembered he had had a teaching job at the London School of Printing, and had to give this up when Brian first became ill at 10 years of age, while he had been living in Walthamatow. He had been offered a full time post, which he was looking forward to starting that summer. Everybody like Charles. Charles was well disciplined and could well take a class of mature students. after all he had had good training in the Air force, and had been in a war. Charles had to turn the offer down point blank Not long after he left his part time teaching post, because he could not cope with his son's illness.
His daughter, Janine, had overcome her cerebral palsy to a great extent with the help of some kind people. She had learnt many things and had herself worked up the West End of London, and in the City. She also wrote music and did many other things that others only dream of doing. Yes he was proud of his Janine, but very sad for his son.
War blown, and "War Torn Dreams;
His family he, Charles held together.
He remained a Lithographic printer
For the rest of his working life.
That wonderful opportunity of remaining
A fully fledged college lecturer,
Had sadly passed him by,
Through no fault of his own.
An offshoot of war carnage;
War damage to war blown dreams".
Epilogue - Many years later, in his sick bed, in Felchester General Hospital, Charles Leonard Collier was looking forward to a visit from his dearwife, Ivy Ethel Melinda, and daughter Janine. Even Brian might feel like visiting him. Charles was clinging to every thread of life now, and was beginning to reflect on the past events that had governed and controlled his life. Most things he could remember and many events have not been told here. Brian was as well as he could ever be. Felchester had sent Brian to a top London teaching hospital where a top dietician from America had found out, by doing a series of tests, that he was suffering from food intolerance. She named his condition Cerebral allergies, as he could not control his movements ("Nothing to do with Janines complaint," she had said). All she had to do, was put him on a special wheat, cereal, grain, and dairy product free diet.
Brian became near normal, but the diet could not repair the damage he had suffered, in being wrongly diagnosed throughout his life. One doctor had even given him drugs for schizophrenics, which made his condition worse, and Claybury Hospital had given him highly dangerous water injections.
Vicky Rippeer first took him off cows milk. When she noticed a mark improvement in Brian, the milk machine in the sub-kitchen attached to Brian's ward, disappeared.
Charles would now have to be careful,
Yes, Charles himself would have to watch
What things he now ate, as,
Due to his cancer operation,
He had no spleen and only
Part of his pancreas.
Sadly, Charles nearly died on leaving hospital,
Because his water had not been tested,
For sugar levels that would show diabetes.
Ivy was feeding him up on high sugar foods.
That night Charles was in a coma
And rushed back to hospital by ambulance.
Ivy, who had taken up the driving again,
Is now given a diet sheet,
Which she gingerly puts in her handbag.
An insulin pen she has now got to buy,
Through the post she will try,
Charles had been sent home
Far too early a week back,
She had not been warned
That he might go inadvertently,
Into a diabetic coma.
Because they had split his pancreas,
And done away with his spleen.
This saga will carry on,
Until there is sung another song,
In a world not as grim or dim as this,
Christ came to teach us ,
How we were to bear,
A torture stake like he,
War torn dreams will blast lives apart
Untlil man learns to discipline himself,
Much like those soldiers in the various
Armies, Navies and Airforces,
Throught the whole universe,
They discipline for the good .
Therefore become Christian soldiers,
And do battle for Christ,
Not humiliate and terrorise.
Your fellow humble fellow man.