future.
He was unaware of the main cause of his isolation amongst his fellows, though it should have been obvious to him. They did not blame him for releasing Mattâs name to the police, accepting that he had had little option when under such pressure. What compelled a mixture of fear and respect was his performance in that fight which had been forced upon him at the end of the evening. Any man who not only possessed knuckledusters but took them on an innocent night out warranted caution. Any man who inflicted the damage which Fraser had inflicted upon the opposition merited a certain awe.
Unlike the other apprentices, Alex read each night as he collapsed with a pleasant lassitude upon his bed. He was reading a book about the Battle of Britain, about those young men of his age who had saved the nation in 1940 and 1941. He was excited by the descriptions of those dogfights against blue summer skies, with the fate of a nation at stake. But it was the first time he had read about the âphoney warâ, those strange months before the dogfights, when everyone waited for carnage and invasion and very little in fact happened.
The quiet week between his night in the cells and the defining event at Westbourne seemed afterwards to Alex Fraser to have been his own âphoney warâ.
Like many young men in crisis, he thought himself much more the focus of other menâs thoughts than was in fact the case. The other people around him were busy with their own lives. The Westbourne workers struggled with their own problems, which were unknown to the young man from Glasgow with the fiery red hair and the fiery red temper. In some cases, their dilemmas were even more serious and life-changing than those confronting Alex Fraser.
It was at the end of this strange hiatus that the weather broke. After four weeks of warm, dry nights and long, sunny days, the rain came late in the afternoon on Sunday, July the third. The gardens were packed with visitors and all the facilities of Westbourne Park were strained. The man giving his talks about the history of the gardens found that he had his biggest ever audience, so that those on the fringes missed much of what he said. Sales were high in the plant shop and in the National Trust shop by the courtyard. There were patient queues throughout the day outside the toilets.
It was heavy and humid, and by noon the sun had disappeared behind menacing grey clouds. The atmosphere grew increasingly airless and sticky during the afternoon. As the skies darkened, children grew fractious and tearful, the ceiling fans in the restaurant seemed scarcely to move the air, and visitors began to hurry back to their cars, casting anxious eyes at the sky in anticipation of the downpour everyone now knew was inevitable.
The thunderstorm was impressive. Lightning forked vividly down black clouds and the thunder cracked loud on its heels, rumbling impressively away into the distance. Then an eerie, expectant silence stretched for a few seconds before the next and even fiercer outburst. The deluge when it came fell in vertical rods, forming swiftly into rivulets over the parched earth. The heavy spattering of the downpour eliminated all other noise save the Wagnerian bursts of thunder.
The storm lasted in all for some six hours. The rain became intermittent, but each time that it seemed it was over there was a renewed short, heavy burst, as if nature was rebuking those who chose to venture forth before the drama was concluded. Eventually the lightning ceased to dazzle the sky and the thunder growled away to the east. By the time the rumbling ceased, natural darkness had fallen over Westbourne Park.
Its residents looked out of their opened windows and smelt the fresh green of vegetation as the great garden offered its gratitude for the rain. They settled down thankfully for a good nightâs sleep in this newly buoyant atmosphere. Only the occasional note of a screech owl disturbed the warm silence
He was unaware of the main cause of his isolation amongst his fellows, though it should have been obvious to him. They did not blame him for releasing Mattâs name to the police, accepting that he had had little option when under such pressure. What compelled a mixture of fear and respect was his performance in that fight which had been forced upon him at the end of the evening. Any man who not only possessed knuckledusters but took them on an innocent night out warranted caution. Any man who inflicted the damage which Fraser had inflicted upon the opposition merited a certain awe.
Unlike the other apprentices, Alex read each night as he collapsed with a pleasant lassitude upon his bed. He was reading a book about the Battle of Britain, about those young men of his age who had saved the nation in 1940 and 1941. He was excited by the descriptions of those dogfights against blue summer skies, with the fate of a nation at stake. But it was the first time he had read about the âphoney warâ, those strange months before the dogfights, when everyone waited for carnage and invasion and very little in fact happened.
The quiet week between his night in the cells and the defining event at Westbourne seemed afterwards to Alex Fraser to have been his own âphoney warâ.
Like many young men in crisis, he thought himself much more the focus of other menâs thoughts than was in fact the case. The other people around him were busy with their own lives. The Westbourne workers struggled with their own problems, which were unknown to the young man from Glasgow with the fiery red hair and the fiery red temper. In some cases, their dilemmas were even more serious and life-changing than those confronting Alex Fraser.
It was at the end of this strange hiatus that the weather broke. After four weeks of warm, dry nights and long, sunny days, the rain came late in the afternoon on Sunday, July the third. The gardens were packed with visitors and all the facilities of Westbourne Park were strained. The man giving his talks about the history of the gardens found that he had his biggest ever audience, so that those on the fringes missed much of what he said. Sales were high in the plant shop and in the National Trust shop by the courtyard. There were patient queues throughout the day outside the toilets.
It was heavy and humid, and by noon the sun had disappeared behind menacing grey clouds. The atmosphere grew increasingly airless and sticky during the afternoon. As the skies darkened, children grew fractious and tearful, the ceiling fans in the restaurant seemed scarcely to move the air, and visitors began to hurry back to their cars, casting anxious eyes at the sky in anticipation of the downpour everyone now knew was inevitable.
The thunderstorm was impressive. Lightning forked vividly down black clouds and the thunder cracked loud on its heels, rumbling impressively away into the distance. Then an eerie, expectant silence stretched for a few seconds before the next and even fiercer outburst. The deluge when it came fell in vertical rods, forming swiftly into rivulets over the parched earth. The heavy spattering of the downpour eliminated all other noise save the Wagnerian bursts of thunder.
The storm lasted in all for some six hours. The rain became intermittent, but each time that it seemed it was over there was a renewed short, heavy burst, as if nature was rebuking those who chose to venture forth before the drama was concluded. Eventually the lightning ceased to dazzle the sky and the thunder growled away to the east. By the time the rumbling ceased, natural darkness had fallen over Westbourne Park.
Its residents looked out of their opened windows and smelt the fresh green of vegetation as the great garden offered its gratitude for the rain. They settled down thankfully for a good nightâs sleep in this newly buoyant atmosphere. Only the occasional note of a screech owl disturbed the warm silence
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