Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

48 The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) It was a Saturday morning and I had made my mum and dad a cup of tea. I then went downstairs to retrieve the Daily Express newspaper. It was a sunny day with the paper lying in the vestibule between the front glass doors and the main house door, which also had a glass panel. This did not seem like a day to worry about the end of the world. My father looked at the main headlines and read some of the story. “Bloody Hell” he said. His words and expression was slightly alarmist, but mainly he seemed to be a man resigning himself to his fate. I guess the article was sharing the intensity about fingers on the button and the stare down between Khrushchev and Kennedy. My father had worried about the balance of power between the East and West since the end of the war. There is a five and one half year age gap between my elder sister and me. My dad explained that they held off having another child over concerns about lack of stability on the world stage. I am sure there were