BROTHERS UNITED

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

BROTHERS UNITED

TWO STRANGERS AT A STATION. 16 YEARS AFTER THE WAR. One of the amazing things about life is its mixture of deadly sameness and the unexpected. For two brothers the unexpected has made life wonderful after the humdrum of 16 years. They are Mr. William and Mr. Bert Auton, and at the beginning of the story their home was at Middleham in the North Riding, England. In 1919, after sharing the upheaval and horror of the Great War, they said goodbye to each other and went their own ways. They were going to meet very soon, they vowed, and keep green the memories they shared. The uppermost thought in their minds. was that they had left behind with many of their friends the fields of death, and life was beginning all over again. They went their own ways. The absorbing business of daily work, existence in a changed England, swallowed them up. Years passed by. It happened, that, after all, the brothers did not meet. William took to the south country and travelled considerably, then settled in Worksop. Bert began his new life in and near Thornaby, and stayed there. Both brothers visited their parents at Middleham from time to time, but never met. Recently their father died, and both set out for the funeral. Arriving from different points, they had to change at a junction. There was time to spare. They began to walk the platform and on some trifling subject got into conversation. Neither had the faintest notion that he was addressing his brother whom he had last seen in uniform, battered and thinned after war experiences. Talking together and finding they were both looking for the same train, they entered a compartment together. There was a good deal of conversation on general matters. Then one said, “I am going now to my father’s funeral.” “So am I!” said the other. An uncanny instinct set them staring at each other. “Where is your father to be buried?” Said one. “At Middleham!” Suddenly their hands shot out. In laughter dangerously near to tears they realised that fate had arranged for them to meet in a little train bound for the same town to which they had so gladly returned after the war 16 years ago.