One of the items of our recent Independence day celebration was a play on Gandhi’s salt march. The play had five British
soldiers cast in it. We needed costumes for them. We thought best to go to one of the costume rental places and asked for British soldier uniforms. The man said he would get them for us in a day or two. We were quite confident that they would be appropriate.
Imagine my surprise when I saw our four lads all dressed up on D day. They looked like the tin soldiers of my childhood. I wonder which British officer ever wore such an accoutrement! I could barely contain my smile, if not my laugh, as I saw my five boys proudly displaying their regalia. I could not for the life of me understand where this came from! Ottoman soldiers? Prussian ones with the wrong coloured hat or a very strange interpretation of the Royal Guards of Buckingham Palace. Any one’s guess!
As I said to me they looked like the little tin men of my childhood, the ones we kept in tin boxes and took out to play with. Whatever they were, on that morning they looked adorable and won many hearts! God bless them!
