by Keith Evans
These Americans will be the death of me. The other an ancient pair asked me ' Where's the John?' John, I thought, we've got a Jon-athan, THE Jonathan up on the first floor. 'Is there a Powder Room too?' he asked. Powder Room, I thought, he wants to blow the place up. 'Arrr, you want the toilet' I said. That was a near-miss. Jonathan would have run me out of town. He can probably run faster than me too.
Whilst we're on the subject of Americans, another ancient vintage came out of the lift into Lookout. He viewed a couple of racing machines tied up to the pontoon. 'You can't call them yachts, they look like something out of Star Wars.' One was flying a white pennant with a red disc. 'Is that a Japanese boat?' He growled. 'No,' I said 'that's an international numerical signal, probably being used as a racing pennant.' 'Huh!' he growled, looking at me in disbelief as he ambled off. I thought I was the grumpy one around here.
Another ghost from the St Nazaire raid in 1942 appeared recently. I just finished my talk in the Lookout when an old lady came over and said she was in the WRNS, serving as a cipher clerk decoding messages. They knew something was going on but it was only later did they find out what it was.
