Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

the mysterious nazi watering can...

I'm on a visit down south, I'm returning to work at last, and for various reasons came down a bit early to visit the A.P. and see some prospective employers in Oxford. The latter trip was a tad disastrous as I contrived to leave my new mobile 'phone on the bus, and despite calling it in to the bus company within ten minutes of getting off the bus, it appears to have gone for ever.

I am staying in the ancestral pile, and indeed, sleeping in what used to be my bedroom, and when I woke up this morning I had one of those weird recollections of the past. To set the scene; when I was little, I went to a local prep school (not by any stretch of the imagination as posh as you might think!). I wasn't there for very long and loathed it, they did, however, possess surprisingly well equipped playing fields, a matter of considerable indifference to me. However, there were many opportunities for a devious child to skive and to explore, and there were plenty of things that were much more interesting to do than play football, or cricket.

All around the perimeter of the fields, which felt enormous to an eight year old, but were probably quite small (they've long since succumbed to the pressure of the property speculator, and no doubt they are wall to wall luxury appartments by now), was a selection of thick hedging, into and within which a small boy could insert himself with little effort. It was possible to traverse three sides of the playing area without becoming visible, something that was very attractive to me. Not only that, but treasures could be found or observed, whether it be bumble bee nests, colonies of moths, or lost cricket balls, there was plenty to keep one occupied and well away from the action.

On one such traverse, in early summer I think, I came across an old, abandoned zinc watering can. Unremarkable, save in one respect, impressed into its base, and clearly part of the manufacturing process, was a swastika. Whilst this was the 1960's and the war had long been over, the random selection of ex-military deadbeats that masqueraded as our teachers worked long and hard to ensure that it was kept alive in our memories (apart from the french teacher; Major W***, who mostly rhapsodised about calvados). Thus, my arrival back at the compost heap behind the pavilion (base camp for skivers), bearing an authentic war relic, created a deal of speculation. I couldn't, even when my imagination was at its most fertile, think of any compelling reason why the luftwaffe would choose to bomb West-London with garden implements, pitchforks and scythes might have had their uses for the inevitable popular uprising maybe, but watering cans? Anyway, if you threw a watering can out of a plane it would be all dented, my suggestion of little parachutes was dismissed as being entirely fanciful. The alternate theory, that the groundskeeper was part of a secret nazi sleeper cell, also had little credence, for a start, to my juvenile eye, he was way too old to be able to do anything, and anyway, he was clearly not the sharpest tool in the box. There the mystery stands, and why it sprang unbidden into my mind this morning is another one.

As for the swastika, I suspect that there is an entirely mundane explanation: the watering can was almost certainly manufactured in India, and the swastika was an emblem of entirely different significance before the nazis polluted it.

posted by Lampy @ 3/01/2009 02:38:00 pm