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localfreakEssay submitted! *Quivers in terror*. It was deeply enjoyable, just on my final check-through, to find myself sitting reading aloud from it and envisaging myself engaging in lively academic discussion with bright-eyed bushy-tailed things who found the MANY concepts that I did not have the time nor the wordcount to explore, fascinating. Ended up pondering the origin of humankinds' penchant for fiction and storytelling and wishing I was a bit better at history, particularly ancient history, than I am. It would be interesting to explore further.
Anyway, due to the whole I HAVE AN ESSAYDEADLINEMUSTWRITEMUSTFOCUSORWILLDIEADEATHOFDEATHS, I was very bollocks at 12 days of Christmas this year so have spent the beginning of the evening reading all the wonderful fics available on there.
I only managed to complete one fic for the challenge, and is as follows:
Title: Homesickness
Fandom: Hollis Family Series by Michelle Magorian (Mostly Cuckoo In The Nest)
Ship: Gen
Disclaimer: I don't own either of the two main characters in this tale, although I do own all the extras.
Summary: : Written for 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2011-12. Commiserations. John ‘Digger’ Hollis and Basil ‘Toff’ Duke served in the same regiment. When they meet again, they embrace, laugh, and talk for hours, and Basil’s influence challenges John’s inborn prejudices concerning theatre and the upper classes. This is a short moment from the beginning of an unlikely friendship
It was foul and damp in the dug out, even Digger, who prided himself on being the sort of bloke who would stand unflinching before any smell or sight, felt shaky and worn to a thread. The constant sound of gunfire made him jittery and homesick. He hunched on a bunk, trying not to listen to the noises around him. Some lads were laughing and joking and he knew soon enough this wave would pass and he’d be right alongside with them pissing about. Tonight, though, he didn’t feel like doing much of anything. He squinted furtively around the room, feeling that he didn’t want anyone to notice him being, as Squatter Harris would say “like a mardy auld woman”, for one thing, if they did, and said anything, he’d be obliged to smash their teeth in and it just wasn’t worth the trouble.
It had been years- fucking years- since he’d seen his girl, his kiddies. She couldn’t send him much in the way of letters- and half the time it was her Win who’d write them for her so all their messages were stilted and intercepted on both sides- by his COs and her nosy sister, when she wasn’t out pretending to be a man that was.
Anyway, it was like a distant world, going dancing, the kids- who were all broken up around the country.
Could be worse. He told himself. Could be like Frankie Hall whose wife would, any day now, be receiving the news of his death. Or like Dodger in the last place they’d stayed- his mates told him he hardly spoke to anyone now, not since he’d heard his Mam and kid brother had died in a raid. Nothing to go home for, if they ever made it.
Toff sat next to him, creeping up so he didn’t notice in time to slink off, so Digger just didn’t look at him.
“Christmas soon,” he said in his plummy, elocution lesson tones.
“Aye. Another fucking one here.”
“You’re looking a bit down in the mouth Digger. We’re moving back soon, you know. At least it might be drier for a time.”
“And why shouldn’t a man be down in the mouth once in a bit, with all this – “ he waved an expansive arm, “-bollocks goin’ on. Should be at ‘ome now. “
Toff looked at him funny, out the corner of his eye, and handed him a bit of a cig.
“Ta”
Toff shrugged. They smoked a bit in silence.
“I don’t have much of a family any more,” Toff said suddenly, staring into middle distance (or perhaps at Charlie Smith who was currently performing some kind of stupid trick with a jug of rainwater). “A couple of friends of mine used to occasionally all have dinner together but that’s always been about it. I’ve got a sister somewhere about but she doesn’t visit really. Too busy, she says.”
“First Christmas when we moved in to the last place,” Digger found himself saying, “Ralphie would’ve been on’y a spit of a lad but he was damn determined we should make a bower for Elsie- never mind she was hardly a baby and wouldn’t have known what Christmas was if it sat on ‘er. But that lad- ‘e had me gathing scraps of cloths and greenery every bloody step we took. Once I’d took ‘im out from under ‘is mother’s feet for a bit and ‘e picks up all this holly and insists it’s just what we need for Christmas decorations. Course I took ‘em off ‘im and puts them in my pocket out the way.”
He snorts at the memory, “Clean forgot didn’t I, till I sits down at table and jumps up with a start.”
Toff laughed too, and Digger finds the memory less pale that it’d seemed before. He can remember Ralphie’s alarmed, thin little face and his wife’s hair shining in the candle light and her wide grin as she laughed at him. ‘What am I to do with you John?’ she’d exclaimed at him.
“She sounds a real find, your girl, you know.”
“She is. When I get back, I’ll take her out dancing like we used to. She works too hard- too busy worrying about everyone else all the time.”
“Just think.” Toff said clapping a hand to his shoulder as he stood, “We might be home by next Christmas.”
“Aye.” Digger was unaccustomed to showing gratitude, but he also knew when it was deserved.
“Thanks, Toff. You’re not so bad.”
“Neither are you, Digger. See you later.”
Anyway, due to the whole I HAVE AN ESSAYDEADLINEMUSTWRITEMUSTFOCUSORWILLDIEADEATHOFDEATHS, I was very bollocks at 12 days of Christmas this year so have spent the beginning of the evening reading all the wonderful fics available on there.
I only managed to complete one fic for the challenge, and is as follows:
Title: Homesickness
Fandom: Hollis Family Series by Michelle Magorian (Mostly Cuckoo In The Nest)
Ship: Gen
Disclaimer: I don't own either of the two main characters in this tale, although I do own all the extras.
Summary: : Written for 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2011-12. Commiserations. John ‘Digger’ Hollis and Basil ‘Toff’ Duke served in the same regiment. When they meet again, they embrace, laugh, and talk for hours, and Basil’s influence challenges John’s inborn prejudices concerning theatre and the upper classes. This is a short moment from the beginning of an unlikely friendship
It was foul and damp in the dug out, even Digger, who prided himself on being the sort of bloke who would stand unflinching before any smell or sight, felt shaky and worn to a thread. The constant sound of gunfire made him jittery and homesick. He hunched on a bunk, trying not to listen to the noises around him. Some lads were laughing and joking and he knew soon enough this wave would pass and he’d be right alongside with them pissing about. Tonight, though, he didn’t feel like doing much of anything. He squinted furtively around the room, feeling that he didn’t want anyone to notice him being, as Squatter Harris would say “like a mardy auld woman”, for one thing, if they did, and said anything, he’d be obliged to smash their teeth in and it just wasn’t worth the trouble.
It had been years- fucking years- since he’d seen his girl, his kiddies. She couldn’t send him much in the way of letters- and half the time it was her Win who’d write them for her so all their messages were stilted and intercepted on both sides- by his COs and her nosy sister, when she wasn’t out pretending to be a man that was.
Anyway, it was like a distant world, going dancing, the kids- who were all broken up around the country.
Could be worse. He told himself. Could be like Frankie Hall whose wife would, any day now, be receiving the news of his death. Or like Dodger in the last place they’d stayed- his mates told him he hardly spoke to anyone now, not since he’d heard his Mam and kid brother had died in a raid. Nothing to go home for, if they ever made it.
Toff sat next to him, creeping up so he didn’t notice in time to slink off, so Digger just didn’t look at him.
“Christmas soon,” he said in his plummy, elocution lesson tones.
“Aye. Another fucking one here.”
“You’re looking a bit down in the mouth Digger. We’re moving back soon, you know. At least it might be drier for a time.”
“And why shouldn’t a man be down in the mouth once in a bit, with all this – “ he waved an expansive arm, “-bollocks goin’ on. Should be at ‘ome now. “
Toff looked at him funny, out the corner of his eye, and handed him a bit of a cig.
“Ta”
Toff shrugged. They smoked a bit in silence.
“I don’t have much of a family any more,” Toff said suddenly, staring into middle distance (or perhaps at Charlie Smith who was currently performing some kind of stupid trick with a jug of rainwater). “A couple of friends of mine used to occasionally all have dinner together but that’s always been about it. I’ve got a sister somewhere about but she doesn’t visit really. Too busy, she says.”
“First Christmas when we moved in to the last place,” Digger found himself saying, “Ralphie would’ve been on’y a spit of a lad but he was damn determined we should make a bower for Elsie- never mind she was hardly a baby and wouldn’t have known what Christmas was if it sat on ‘er. But that lad- ‘e had me gathing scraps of cloths and greenery every bloody step we took. Once I’d took ‘im out from under ‘is mother’s feet for a bit and ‘e picks up all this holly and insists it’s just what we need for Christmas decorations. Course I took ‘em off ‘im and puts them in my pocket out the way.”
He snorts at the memory, “Clean forgot didn’t I, till I sits down at table and jumps up with a start.”
Toff laughed too, and Digger finds the memory less pale that it’d seemed before. He can remember Ralphie’s alarmed, thin little face and his wife’s hair shining in the candle light and her wide grin as she laughed at him. ‘What am I to do with you John?’ she’d exclaimed at him.
“She sounds a real find, your girl, you know.”
“She is. When I get back, I’ll take her out dancing like we used to. She works too hard- too busy worrying about everyone else all the time.”
“Just think.” Toff said clapping a hand to his shoulder as he stood, “We might be home by next Christmas.”
“Aye.” Digger was unaccustomed to showing gratitude, but he also knew when it was deserved.
“Thanks, Toff. You’re not so bad.”
“Neither are you, Digger. See you later.”
