"Survival" drabbles by Neville Hunt
Survival - or not
Survival #8
Today they would call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. Help would be at hand. People would understand. Maybe they did then, but the sheer volume of returners with harrowing tales to tell... or in most cases, not tell, prevented any one serviceperson being singled out as having special needs.
The world has learned, the country has learned, but maybe not everyone has learned that adjustment-making goes two ways.
Romantic novels would give comfortable resolution to this story. Real life is different. His diabetes was under control until... a simple NHS prescription error did what Changi hadn't. Killed him.
Survival - on his terms
Survival #7
The way it was was the way it was. To most he would be difficult, very difficult. That was sad.
My sister-in-law though gave as good as she got. And she really liked him and he her, both in an eye-twinkling way.
"You for coffee?" he once asked, cheekily.
Quick as a flash she replied "You fuckoffee yourself!"
I knew him well too. To me he was always very engaging, sometimes challenging, but always interesting. He liked me because I liked him. It was as simple as that. We shared jokes, ideas and homebrew. I was privileged.
Survival - physical but not emotional
Survival #6
To love and for it not to be returned as it's given is the stuff of romantic novels. That doesn't make it any easier to bear. Anger, resentment and resignation in equal measure take their toll. Like the years in a savage oriental jail, it changes people, and not always for the better. Disapproval from her wealthy family, who patronised and criticised, drove the wedge deeper. The gulf between them widened, increasingly isolating this needy man.
His career never amounted to much, brilliant though he was. He grew argumentative and antisocial as the bottle gave him the love he needed...
Survival - readjustment, love, life
Survival #5
His mother died a year before, but news didn't reach Changi. He discovered at Suez, returning home, from a difficult letter from England. Older and from a different age, the written word was his father’s preferred medium of expression.
In time though, adjusting to post-war Britain, he got on with life, searching for someone to love him. To restore his former self.
He found someone, fell in love, married, but very soon discovered she didn't love him enough. She loved him enough to bear him two children, but then enough was enough.
From then on, the loveless endurance test....
Survival - bad reception, bad news
Survival #4
He'd gone east a very handsome young man. He arrived back that day in Liverpool very much changed, a shadow of his former self, but a shadow that looked hunted, drained, needy.
A sensitive, emotional person, the moment he stepped ashore all he wanted was someone to put their arms around him. Someone to love him. The trouble was, his family members weren't the demonstrative kind. His little sister was equally sensitive, but too inexperienced to know what to do. She still carries the guilt.
And where was his mother? Where was his grandmother? Where was his house?
All gone!
Survival - return
Survival #3
Liverpool docks. All the ships painted grey. Suddenly, a mass of greyness appeared, solid with former Japanese POWs, including him. All yellow bodies and yellow faces, emaciated, drained. How would you recognise your man, your son?
One couple had forward-planned. She held aloft one half of a yellow handkerchief and husband waved the other half.
His father had a plan too. He looked so strange holding up an umbrella so his son would see the family in a sea of welcoming faces waiting on the dock. But it worked.
But the reception he got was not what he needed...
Survival - skill
Survival #2
A graduate in architecture, he let it be known. Well you have to talk about something to staunch the boredom, the hunger and the pain. And so doing, he became the architect of his own survival.
The Commandant heard of his skill. And the Commandant wanted a new clubhouse by the beach. So he designed him one, taking great care, and time, because time would be his best friend. This would be a wonderful clubhouse. A building fit for an oriental king.
He suffered with other prisoners, but whilst suffering can inspire creative excellence, incapacity couldn't. He was kept fit.
Survival - deceit
Survival #1
Completing his degree, he'd just joined the army when he was shipped out to Singapore with the others. 'Gibraltar of the East' they called it, but he found himself between a rock and a hard place. That hard place was Changi.
And it was hard. To eat a rat was survival, even a delicacy. But his survival was more to do with skill and deceit than rats.
The Japanese are family people and showing guards a photo of his nephew, pretending it to be his own son, slightly lessened his harsh treatment.
But he was the architect of his survival....
