Radio has been making me laugh over the last six months.  In the middle of conversations she’ll drop in the line “Sounds onimous.”

I initially pointed out to her that she’d mispronounced the word, only to get back “That’s what I said: Onimous.”

“Yes, but the word is ‘ominous’.”

“‘Onimous.’  That’s what I said.  ‘Onimous.’”

Well this went on for months, every time Radio brought up the word.

She argued that if she had it wrong, a teacher would’ve corrected her.  They hadn’t, ergo she was correct.  It seemed to escape her notice that my teachers, by that logic, would also have corrected my long-time use of ‘ominous’ in that case, and that these are the same teachers who never corrected her use of ‘could of’.

Six months later things came to a head when we were walking through Biedenkopf in Germany.  The regular discussion arose when she again said that something ‘sounds onimous’.

I happened to have an English-Esperanto dictionary back at the base, so I proposed that we bet over the result.  The loser was to buy a book for the winner.

When we got back we rushed to the dictionary.  “Oh look”, said I.  “There’s no word ‘onimous’ in here.”

“Maybe the dictionary isn’t detailed enough to include the word.”

“I would agree … if it weren’t for the fact that it contains the word ‘ominous’.  Look: malbone aŭgura.”

Cue stupefied look from Radio … followed by a desperate claim that the dictionary’s author might have made a mistake.

Cue Google and a dictionary check.  Everything that came up had the word ‘ominous’ but not ‘onimous’ (for the obvious reason that the word doesn’t exist).

“Maybe … maybe they’re American spellings and they do it differently.”

This line of thinking also invalidated the pretty clear indicator that my way (and that of the dictionaries) generated over 5 million hits whilst Radio’s was a pathetic 20,000 (and a comment Did you mean: ominous).

It took me to take her to an online etymological site which explained that the word shares the common root with omen for her to admit defeat.  After a long and bloody battle, she admitted what she must have known all along: I was right and she was wrong

I made a point of telling her several times a day since then “You owe me a book” in a bid to be deliberately grating.  Radio, a graceless loser, tried to extricate herself from her responsibilities by chastising me for betting “when you knew you would win”.  Apparently one is only supposed to bet when one is unsure of the result.  Of course, Radio also ‘knew’ that she would win at the time she made the bet, so that kind of lets that argument down too.

A couple of weeks later, we went into Birmingham to go book-hunting.  Radio had cheerfully assumed her responsibility.  We visited a couple of book stores without success; the books that I had targeted weren’t in them.

We got lucky in our second Waterstone’s of the day, however.  A book that I had recently spotted on Amazon and added to my wishlist was on display at half price.  It being the first book my eyes set upon, that was the one we were going to buy.

Kitchener’s Last Volunteer: The Life of Henry Allingham, Britain’s Oldest Man and the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Great War

by Henry Allingham and Dennis Goodwin
I had seen Henry on television on several occasions over the last few years and quickly became charmed by his wit and modesty, and by fact that he looked to be in such good shape for a chap aged over 110.

When I saw that a book had been released documenting his life, I immediately decided that I wanted to know more.  I’m always curious about the passage of time, and the chance to read what someone who was actually born in the 19^th century and is still around today has to say was too enticing to avoid.

In a sense it’s quite a sad book.  His father died when he was tiny, and his mother before he was out of his teens.  He found love whilst serving during the Great War but now has been a widower since the death of his Dorothy in 1970.  That means he’s been in mourning longer than most people manage to be married.  His daughters emigrated to the USA and Canada, and for years Henry led an unassuming life in a residential home waiting for death to take him.

Past the age of 100 he was befriended by the co-author, Dennis Goodwin, who had spent years running the World War I Veterans’ Association.

Naturally shy, Henry had no intention of being an ambassador of any sort.  Over time he came to realise that he would soon be the only one of his generation left, the only link to those who died in service.  He eventually acquiesced to Dennis’s suggestions and has now become something of a celebrity, having met members of the Royal Family and appeared on television at numerous reprises.

The book is great, a whole lot of fun.  I read it over two days.  There are anecdotes that Henry passes that illustrate how the world has changed from that which he knew.  The chapters are relatively short, written in two fonts, to distinguish between Henry and Dennis.

Dennis’s contributions are immense.  He provides the historical context to flavour Henry’s narration, concisely and eloquently.

There is surprisingly little about the war in this story, which makes it that better a read.  There’s no gory chapters that detail what happened on which day, and who planned what.  The main mentions are from Dennis, and these are covered in his customary readable manner.

This was a fun book about a man who had his ‘reincarnation’ (his words) when living in his third century.  Great stuff from a wonderful man

Tags: Henry Allingham, World War I

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