I'm friends with a man named John, who was a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot--a genuine war hero who appears in history books and everything. He's 85 now and not in the best of health. It's actually very sad to go see him at his home in Southport. He's outlived two wives, his friends and enemies (and he had plenty of enemies) and lives a rather lonely existence, desperate for company.
He's also quite a spiky character, which makes him hard to take for long, but that hard-nosed fighting attitude may have been what has preserved him for so long. His faculties are failing but he's battling it every inch of the way. I kind of hope I keep my wits until I'm old, but I'm not so sure I'd want to do so against a background of physical decline and decrepitude.
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chiming
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Date: September 4th, 2005 07:37 pm (UTC)From:He's also quite a spiky character, which makes him hard to take for long, but that hard-nosed fighting attitude may have been what has preserved him for so long. His faculties are failing but he's battling it every inch of the way. I kind of hope I keep my wits until I'm old, but I'm not so sure I'd want to do so against a background of physical decline and decrepitude.