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Our Eternal Curse #3
Another War
Julija, the trusting daughter of the chief of Sarajevo police, becomes the unwitting accomplice of the man who sparks the First World War by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
As more and more nations join the conflict Julija must face the part she played in causing the ever-increasing loss of human life.
Searching for redemption Julija dedicates herself to the care of wounded soldiers and, in a wretched field hospital on the Gallipoli peninsular, meets the one man who can finally help her understand why she has been eternally cursed for the sins of her past.
As more and more nations join the conflict Julija must face the part she played in causing the ever-increasing loss of human life.
Searching for redemption Julija dedicates herself to the care of wounded soldiers and, in a wretched field hospital on the Gallipoli peninsular, meets the one man who can finally help her understand why she has been eternally cursed for the sins of her past.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 3, 2016
3 people want to read
About the author
Simon Rumney
8 books8 followersI was born into England's idyllic countryside in 1955, just ten years after The Second World War. A time when people were still living with the terrible trauma of nightly bombing raids and the unimaginable suffering of losing loved ones to a violent death. Many were gripped by what we now call ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ at a time when no-one felt comfortable talking about their feelings.
Rationing had only just ended and I remember my anxious mother keeping draws stuffed full with used paper bags because surviving acute shortages made it impossible for her to throw anything away. Almost everyone's mother was hording completely worn-out shoes or tiny bits of material to patch clothes long after they should have been thrown away. Even though food was now freely available many mothers couldn't help skimping on portions of basic things like sugar, flour and butter.
Had I been born into my working-class family fifty years earlier I imagine the mood in my household may well have been a lot less tense. I would also have avoided going to school by becoming a junior apprentice to my accomplished cabinet making father. Conversely, had I been born today I would be learning in an enlightened school system while using computers with some kind of commonly available spellcheck program.
Unfortunately for me, being born in 1955 meant compulsorily attending a tiny village school whose teachers believed education was still something that should be beaten into their pupils. Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) were things of the distant future and any interruption to ask for clarity was considered deliberately disruptive.
Much to my teacher’s constant frustration, I could actually read words. I could even write words. I simply couldn't understand them. Sometimes I would copy things down from the blackboard and the very same word would be spelled in three different ways in the same paragraph. When I read the 'Janet and John' books I could read the words, I could even read them out loud, but I simply couldn't follow the story.
I know this sounds ridiculous but, to give you some idea of what I experience when I read, it's like relearning every word every time I see it. Imagine translating every word into French, then back into English all the time. I truly envy those people who talk about becoming 'lost in a good book' because for me reading is like completing an obstacle course without gravity to hold me down.
As for abstract things like punctuation, or the meaning of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs etc. My teachers may just as well have been speaking Swahili!
Even as I write this explanation it makes absolutely no sense to me, so how could it possibly have made sense to the frustrated teachers who punished me for being 'lazy and stupid’. When those same teachers informed my parents of, what they believed to be, my ‘unwillingness’ to learn, my poorly educated Mum and Dad also punished me for my apparent rebelliousness.
Like many children who find themselves in this predicament I compensated for my academic failings by becoming an athlete. I sought approval as the fastest swimmer in my junior school. I was a good soccer player. Tall for my age, I was handy for the rugby team and ideal as a fast cricket bowler. I was all set for the macho existence of a ‘Jock’ until the age of 8 when I became a chronic asthmatic and could no longer compete.
It didn’t help when the Doctor who diagnosed my asthma said. 'In my opinion asthma is a psychosomatic illness.’ After that little bomb shell my teachers; my parents, even I believed that I was not only too ‘lazy and stupid’ to read, I was also too ‘lazy and stupid’ to breathe!
I should point out, that most of my teachers were well meaning and not deliberately malicious. They were people born into a very different England. Some had survived two brutal World Wars while living in a society that didn't guarantee education for all until a hard won act of Parliament in
Rationing had only just ended and I remember my anxious mother keeping draws stuffed full with used paper bags because surviving acute shortages made it impossible for her to throw anything away. Almost everyone's mother was hording completely worn-out shoes or tiny bits of material to patch clothes long after they should have been thrown away. Even though food was now freely available many mothers couldn't help skimping on portions of basic things like sugar, flour and butter.
Had I been born into my working-class family fifty years earlier I imagine the mood in my household may well have been a lot less tense. I would also have avoided going to school by becoming a junior apprentice to my accomplished cabinet making father. Conversely, had I been born today I would be learning in an enlightened school system while using computers with some kind of commonly available spellcheck program.
Unfortunately for me, being born in 1955 meant compulsorily attending a tiny village school whose teachers believed education was still something that should be beaten into their pupils. Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) were things of the distant future and any interruption to ask for clarity was considered deliberately disruptive.
Much to my teacher’s constant frustration, I could actually read words. I could even write words. I simply couldn't understand them. Sometimes I would copy things down from the blackboard and the very same word would be spelled in three different ways in the same paragraph. When I read the 'Janet and John' books I could read the words, I could even read them out loud, but I simply couldn't follow the story.
I know this sounds ridiculous but, to give you some idea of what I experience when I read, it's like relearning every word every time I see it. Imagine translating every word into French, then back into English all the time. I truly envy those people who talk about becoming 'lost in a good book' because for me reading is like completing an obstacle course without gravity to hold me down.
As for abstract things like punctuation, or the meaning of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs etc. My teachers may just as well have been speaking Swahili!
Even as I write this explanation it makes absolutely no sense to me, so how could it possibly have made sense to the frustrated teachers who punished me for being 'lazy and stupid’. When those same teachers informed my parents of, what they believed to be, my ‘unwillingness’ to learn, my poorly educated Mum and Dad also punished me for my apparent rebelliousness.
Like many children who find themselves in this predicament I compensated for my academic failings by becoming an athlete. I sought approval as the fastest swimmer in my junior school. I was a good soccer player. Tall for my age, I was handy for the rugby team and ideal as a fast cricket bowler. I was all set for the macho existence of a ‘Jock’ until the age of 8 when I became a chronic asthmatic and could no longer compete.
It didn’t help when the Doctor who diagnosed my asthma said. 'In my opinion asthma is a psychosomatic illness.’ After that little bomb shell my teachers; my parents, even I believed that I was not only too ‘lazy and stupid’ to read, I was also too ‘lazy and stupid’ to breathe!
I should point out, that most of my teachers were well meaning and not deliberately malicious. They were people born into a very different England. Some had survived two brutal World Wars while living in a society that didn't guarantee education for all until a hard won act of Parliament in
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 6, 2017
I was blessed with a free copy of this book, and have chosen of my own volition to provide this review.
Ever experience deju vue? The main characters of this story are stuck in a perpetual sense of deju vue. Julija keeps experiencing flashbacks to another lifetime. She is somehow connected to a bracelet called the Lions, and once she finds it the visions increase. These visions drive her to the battlefront of WWI, where she serves as a nurse (even though she has no knowledge of nursing). Nursing comes to her almost like second nature. She continues to follow her destiny. Will she escape the eternal reincarnations?
Ever experience deju vue? The main characters of this story are stuck in a perpetual sense of deju vue. Julija keeps experiencing flashbacks to another lifetime. She is somehow connected to a bracelet called the Lions, and once she finds it the visions increase. These visions drive her to the battlefront of WWI, where she serves as a nurse (even though she has no knowledge of nursing). Nursing comes to her almost like second nature. She continues to follow her destiny. Will she escape the eternal reincarnations?
Displaying 1 of 1 review