Woke up on Thursday
feeling like a million bucks! Went to
breakfast and ate the same cheese, ham, and croissant that I’ve have every
morning since I arrived minus the traditional English breakfast in London last
Saturday morning. Upon our arrival back
at the Duxford museum, we began debating the effectiveness of the Allied
bombing strategies at the beginning of the war and why it changed midway
through the war in Europe. Afterwards,
we had the privilege of listening to a presentation from a surviving member of
the British Royal Air Force – Harry Irons, tailgunner from a Lancaster bomber
who flew 60 combat missions during WWII and was involved on the bombing of
Dresden, Germany in February 1945. He
told us his war stories, excitement & fear during the war, and
anger/frustration after the war due to the fact that the British government
still doesn’t recognize the actions of him and the other members of the RAF who
participated in the Dresden bombing due to the high number of civilian
casualties that occurred – over 25,000. Also,
he told us how he and other surviving member s worked on their own to establish
and create a memorial for the RAF – he currently sits on the board, which now
sits in Hyde Park in London, England.
Once his presentation
was over, he stayed around during the tea and biscuits session to continue
talking to us and we all thanked him for his service to the Allied cause during
WWII. Next, we broke up into different
groups from the other day and worked on the second set of lessons that we will
be teaching next week to the UK students during our summer camp.
On Friday, we had 2
different lectures when we first arrived; the first was from the Prisoner of
War Collections Manager from Duxford, and the second was from a criminology lecturer
who presented to us the studies and effects of Incarceration. The POW collections manager brought some
primary source artifacts to his presentation, both Allied and German, to show
us and explain to us. The criminology
lecturer talked to us about both the incarcerations of both POWs and criminals
and the effects that being locked up has on the mental psyche. Ironically, the presenter himself was
actually sentenced to jail for committing a murder in 1992 and after spending
13 years in prison he was released; after his release, he decided to dedicate
his life to teaching others about the effects on being locked up both from the
past and present, and he is working on completing his doctorate degree from
Cambridge. Then, once we were finished
with our lectures, we were broken up into our final group parings to finish our
last lesson for the summer camp next week.
Everyone thought that
the day drug on and on; mainly because we were excited for our free weekend and
everyone had different plans, but we couldn’t get out of Duxford soon
enough. The Brits were taking the train
from Cambridge and going home for the long weekend (I wish I would have had
that option, but if I did, I probably wouldn’t have come back for the last week
– Hahaha), some people were headed to Edinburgh, Paris, London, and Bath, while
others chose to stay in Cambridge for the weekend. As for me, I took it easy Friday evening and
went to see the Dark Knight Rises at the movie (cinema in the British
vocabulary). The movie was awesome but
there were 35 minutes worth of advertisements and previews; remind me not to
complain about that when I get home because it isn’t nearly that long back in
the US. Also, movies hear are freaking
expensive – it cost me 9 pounds and 50 pence (convert that to US dollars and I
spent $19 to watch a…ridiculous)! I’m
not going to complain about US movie prices either when I get home.
No comments:
Post a Comment