This post may be seen as entirely irrelevant to many on this list -
but I thought I'd submit it and I make no apology for doing so.
As I write this, it is 20.30 local time and we are one and a half
hours and sixty years down the track from the blitzkrieg that wiped
out Coventry on the night of Nov 14, 1940. At that time, a by then
bankrupt Triumph Motor Company sustained severe damage in Holbrooks
Lane and the former site at Priory Street and Clay Lane soon became a
heap of rubble. In the morning, Coventry lacked a Cathedral, its city
centre had vanished and more than 500 citizens were dead, together
with an untold additional number who had vanished without trace.
This post is not a glorification of that tragic event, nor indeed
should it be seen as a condemnation to listers of that former
aggressor who may read this. Today, a German Count was presented with
a Peace Token in the ruins of the old Cathedral at which time both
former enemies were able to talk freely and without rancour or hatred
of the horrors we inflicted on one another. For Coventry read Hamburg,
for London read Dresden, for Liverpool read Nurnberg.
Gentlemen of that former opposition, we have lived in peace for fifty
five years since those tragic times - let's do our best to ensure we
do not fail in the future but also that we should never forget what we
did to one another.
Jonmac
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