w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

Colleagues are visiting my home town, Portsmouth, today and I'll be visiting me Ma tomorrow, so "Today's Lyrics" prompted some memories of home.

As a kid, I always harboured a desire to join the Royal Navy, called the "Senior Service" because it was the first of the three military formations.

I was in the Sea Cadets when a friend's dad died very prematurely. He was in the Navy and apparently had expressed his wish to be buried at sea, when the time came. The poor b@stard just didn't expect it to happen quite that soon.

So we took his body out on our harbour launch and dropped his flag-draped coffin into a pitching sea, complete with padre intoning the requiem service.

That was possibly one of the most moving moments of my life, yet I'd forgotten completely about it until today. In retrospect, it's not a bad way to be seen off, though I expect there are all sorts of regulations forbidding it nowadays.

But it'd do for me.

/Sombreness

Enjoy your weekends.