Viva Brighton Issue #58 December 2017

COLUMN
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John Helmer
Silent
Illustration by Chris Riddell
“What do you want for Christmas, Poppy?”
“A saxophone.”
“Alto or tenor?”
“Like the one Lisa Simpson plays.”
“That’s a baritone.”
“No, it’s a tenor.”
“It’s a barry…” We bicker about this for a while,
then Poppy pulls out her phone and checks on
Google. “OK, it’s a baritone. But I want an alto.”
It’s Saturday and I’m in Lewes, dropping Poppy off
for her 11am flute lesson. I’ve completely forgotten
the house number, but I needn’t have worried: the
sound of two flutes locked in mortal combat guides
us to the door. Poppy’s flute teacher, Marielle, lets
us in. “Just finishing up.” Poppy and I sit and
listen as Marielle and her friend run through
the duet again. Then suddenly there is a
loud explosion from outside.
“Honestly,” says Marielle, “the fireworks
go on for ever in this town…”
“I think it’s the two-minute silence,”
I say, checking my watch. Words die
on our lips.
In the silence I think of my
grandfather, who died in 1974.
We didn’t get on, clashing over
a number of things, but mainly
over our different tastes in
music. I had no time for the
military brass band tunes that
were the only sounds he seemed
to like, and he was no fan of Led
Zeppelin. Mostly we kept away
from each other – but there was
one occasion when he required my
company.
He was incensed that day because
some ‘long-haired lefty’ in the Times had written
an article saying that the famous Christmas truce –
when the two warring sides in the First World War
put aside their differences and played football in
no-man’s land – never happened.
Summoning me to the dining room, he took out
letters that he’d written home from the trenches
in Northern France. The letters were pretty
boring, mostly: requests for warm socks, a lot of
terminology I didn’t understand; including one
term, ‘breastworks’, that I would have tittered
at had the atmosphere in the room not been so
serious. And then in one of the letters there it was:
a description of the game they had played, and
a request to be sent a football just in case
it ever happened again. He showed me
photographs he had taken of his fellow
soldiers in the trenches, most of whom
had never come home, and of the
German troops they met and mingled
with that day. I felt moved, not just
by the gravity of what he was telling
me, but because he clearly felt it
mattered what I thought and
believed. No adult had ever
given any sign of that being
important before.
While Poppy has her flute
lesson I get a coffee in the
High Street, watching rain
falling on the Ouse. Then I
walk across the road to WH
Smith and buy a paper. “Would
you like a Terry’s Chocolate
Orange with that for one pound?” says
the sales assistant.
“I’ll settle for a poppy.”
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