We went for a walk on Hankley where they're filming scenes from the new Bond film 'Skyfall'. The set is in the early stages, but seems to consist of a mansion house and two other buildings of indeterminate type. It sits in a large natural basin the army use for practising parachute jumps. At present it is fairly underwhelming. Presumably they'll put the background in with CGI.
My son found 19 brass shell casings on the common.Some were dull, dark brown but most were newly spent and still polished with a gold lustre. He coveted them as I remembered doing at his age. He brought them home and I didn't tell his mother straightaway.
As we walked back with his illicit treasure I remembered a special place. Another eruption of the martial into the groomed Surrey countryside, just off the edge of the golf course. In amongst the silver birches and covered in moss stood the Atlantic Wall. Built to mimic German coastal defences but now a sanctuary for rare lichens and a climbable destination for exuberant children.
Once we got back to my parents' home, where we were staying, he spent hours arranging them into armies. He used bird feathers, also found on the walk, to designate the armies nationality. The shells were arranged in rows like parading troops and different feathers were stuck into fired openings.
For greater accuracy he demanded to know how many soldiers each army had. Using Wikipedia, his grandfather was able to supply him with apparently accurate figures. Accurate information meant that we had to go back onto Hankley Common to find more shell casings to get it right.
Sadly lunch intervened and then we had to go home. The bright shells remain in black plastic bag on his table. I got rid of mine years ago.
'Dem no like me, me no like dem,
Dem de enemy, me am no der friend'
