The Sky, The Sea, and Something in My Eye

(a very British emotional overload)

I didn’t plan to get emotional in Cowes.

We were just having a wander — the sort of aimless meander that usually ends in a sandwich and a mild disagreement about where the toilets are.

Then I saw her.

A fully restored Royal Navy gunboat, floating there on a pontoon like history had stopped by for a cuppa. I used to read about those boats when I was a lad — stories of night raids and narrow escapes, bravery in small wooden spaces. I stood there like I was ten again, breath held, eyes full.

And then, as if the day hadn’t done enough already… a Spitfire.

A real one.

Low and loud, engine snarling through the air like a war cry. That sound — that impossible, bone-deep, Merlin-engine roar — sent something straight through me. I looked up, mouth open, and for a moment I wasn’t in Cowes. I was in the middle of every story I ever loved.

A gunboat below. A Spitfire above.

It felt like meeting my heroes in stereo.

I didn’t cry. Not properly. But something happened behind the sunglasses.

And I reckon that’s what history does when you least expect it:

it reminds you who you were, and who you still are.