Leonard Mann: A Profile

Abstract

Without warning Leonard Mann stops walking. The beach, quiet and windless on this grey day, seems to stop with him. The tussocks wait, seagulls trot off and launch themselves over the water.

'You know, it's a strange thing', he says, and his blue eyes burn. 'It's a strange thing. In the Battle of Passchendaele, when that shell came over and I was suddenly buried alive under the mud, I thought, "You're going to die, now. You're going to die." And then I blacked out.'