Martens' Diary by Roxanne

Dear Diary,

                  Today I’m going to tell you one of the best, or maybe AMAZING, stories I know! Honestly – it’s sort of one of my favourites, but maybe that’s because my Grandpa tells them…?

Anyway, let’s get started!

This story was held in 2004 – On Christmas Day – when I was just a tiny baby (Meaning that I didn’t have a clue what was going on!) Apparently, my Papa had gone out for a walk, out beyond the Poppy-Field. – Grandpa always tells me how my Papa LOVED it there….it was his favourite place to go.

So, my Grandpa and Mama were waiting for my Papa – sipping and drinking their tea, and all that ‘posh’ stuff – but when he got back, he looked like he had just seen a ghost! His cane was gripped tight in his left hand, whilst his grey hat was swerved around the back of his head! (He was also breathing quite heavy, so I think he ran home.)

He sat down, near the edge of the table – next to Mama – whilst he took his coat and hat off – he also put his cane away at the exact same time. Since he was shivering out of his right mind, my Mama gave him a toasty mug of water to heat him up. (Well, we don’t want to waste the logs for the fire do we? That was valuable back then!)

After a couple of sips, he began to tell us what had happened, his story was in great detail – each sentence was about 10 breaths long, as his lips were quivering as-well.

He told them both that he had gone to the Poppy-Field, but the thing is that he had no exact clue why – he thinks that he was just suddenly drawn there – but the most important thing he said that he’d saw figures, and that they were talking, shaking hand, and even smoking!

He managed to figure out that they were army soldiers. –By their uniform, but they both looked like darker shades from one another, so he knew that they were on opposite sides.

He stared at them for a couple of minutes – and even watched them walk away from one another – at this point, he obviously knew that this clear of fog he saw was on Christmas Day… or was it the Christmas Truce…?

But just to finish off this story, my Grandpa always likes to imitate my Papa when said this;

“It happened, honest to God! – Right before my eyes….’’