8th May 1950 a delivery is made

This is a picture of the street I was born in, not sure which number, or whether the Milkman is significant, Aldbridge street off the old Kent road, Bermondsey, south London.
The story goes that the "accommodation" comprised two rooms, a shared kitchen and toilet, and the bare minimum of furniture, with some tea chests for seats. My "crib" was one draw in a chest of drawers, not sure if it was top, middle, or the bottom drawer, maybe there was more than three draws who knows,
 I do know, I still have a fear of sleeping in drawers ( no carry on type joke intended) and sincerely hope, if I end up in the Morgue the drawers slide in feet first and not sideways, although starting and ending life in a drawer probably has some profound significance that escapes me right now. Whilst on the subject of Morgues and drawers, it brings to mind a true story ( all of my stories are true, honest!) a story both tragic and humorous at the same time ( the best ones generally are).

Whilst working in Libya, way out in the desert, in fact some 500 miles from any major cities or towns,    I ( as in the air conditioning refrigeration department) was responsible for the portable Morgue, portable in the sense it was on wheels and need to be plugged in to use it ( try getting one of those from the hire shop ) anyway about 2.am one morning a call came in to plug in the Morgue, now we kept "old Betsy" in a corner of the warehouse ( alright we didn't call her old Betsy, good name though) so we rolled her out and plugged it in, the idea is to get it down to temperature before the "customer"  arrives. Well after a couple of hours the poor deceased arrived, victim of a pick up crash out near camp 29 Charlie, before you ask I don't know why it was called 29 charlie. It turned out the victim was a young Somali lad, now if you have ever met Somali's you will know they are some of the most handsome people, and very tall, very very tall, and herein lay the problem, the drawers ( six of them) of the portable Morgue are designed for your average height person, six foot max, this poor lad was six foot eight if he was an inch. With the camp doctor's encouragement we attempted to place the poor lad into a drawer, in fact we attempted several positions, including some limb bending a contortionist would be proud of, but to no avail, the poor lad would not fit in, and to our shame we started to get the giggles. Finally we admitted defeat and covered what would not fit in with cardboard. We stayed up all night with the poor lad, "turning" him every hour on the doc's orders to try and keep all of him cool, even in the desert at night, the temperature can be near 30 degrees. Finally in the morning we managed to get him onto a flight into Tripoli.
That's all I have to say about drawers.

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.


From The Te - Tao Ching
Lao - Tzu