Lost, one crutch

I was thrown right back into it, because I had been brought to Ottawa to handle questioning of some of the troops who had been, who had escaped from the shooting in the, in the First Army Field Unit. I was partly through my legal training and they said we can get you some credits for this, we want you to, to talk to these guys. So I arrived in Ottawa on VE Day, believe it or not, and first thing was that, I had, I carried it with me for years but I had an advertisement from the Ottawa Journal and it said, "Lost; one crutch. Vicinity of Belle Clare Hotel Ottawa, Ontario. Please phone Cliff Chadderton." I'll tell you, and it wasn't a joke, I, I was on crutches and I'd lost one crutch. I'd gone over to Belle Clare with some guys that got plodded , you see and ... but I reported to work two days later. But no, VE Day was, my feeling was, it angered me. It angered me to see people celebrating and I said "They don't know what the hell they're talking about. They don't know what they're celebrating." I mean here they are out there, you know whoopty-do and dancing with girls and all that sort of stuff. And just a minute now, it really bothered me because I thought, they don't know what it's all about. What I felt was they should, they shouldn't be celebrating as if it's somebody's birthday, I mean that's just totally wrong. I mean they should be grateful and thankful, that guys gave their lives to, to bring this day about. That was my thought on it. And as I say, it's not a religious feeling or anything like that and it's it's not a feeling, it's a feeling of, they should feel some gratitude for the people who made this day possible. You don't show gratitude when your out... well in the Belle Clare, losing your crutch.