Today my family watched
to Remembrance Service and as always observed the two minutes
silence. One Hundred years ago The Great War had begun and young men
in their tens of thousands has been shipped over to Belgium to fight
the Hun, both of my grandfathers were among them.
They,like all the rest
marched cheerfully in to the mouth of hell with shouts of “It'll all
be over by Christmas.” But it was not so.
Unlike millions of
young soldiers both of my Grandfathers survived,but like many they
returned to their families damaged beyond help. My Paternal
Grandfather had changed from a jolly loving young man,a good husband
and father into a cruel bully who beat both his wife and children.
Two years in a prison camp where he was starved and brutalised left
him unable to control his rage.
He was unable to hold
down a job and his family suffered the consequences.
Not until the out break
of the Second World War did he show and improvement. When the young
men in the Territorial Army were called up at the outbreak of war
their allotments became vacant and overgrown. My Grand father,with
the help of some local children took over all of the allotments and
worked on them from dawn until dark,growing mountains of vegetables
which he distributed free of charge to local people whose husbands,
fathers or sons were away fighting.
He became something of
a local hero but once the war ended,and with it his usefulness he became violent and embittered
once again.
My maternal Grandfather
entered one of the remaining cavalry regiments,he loved horsed and
could ride like a circus performer. Always the life and soul of the
party eighteen months at the front changed his personality for ever.
He watched as his comrades and the horses he loved were blown to
bits,finally receiving a severe injury to his stomach from which he
never truly recovered.
This however was not
the worst of his troubles. He spent the rest of his life wondering
why he among all the men who marched with him to war had survived the
conflict. He suffered a number of mental breakdowns and attempted
suicide twice.
I knew him as a quiet
sensitive man who played cards with me for hours on end when I was a
child.
A kind generous man
with a brilliant mind,which would have taken him far ,had not the war
intervened.
He seldom smiled and
could not be persuaded to talk much about his experiences,but as he
grew old and inclined to fall asleep before the fire he would often
cry out in his sleep, and when he woke his eyes would fill with
tears. I loved him so much and to see him suffering so hurt me more
than I can say.
My own father fought in
the Second World War in Egypt and was away from home for several
years. He married my mother during two weeks leave and the was posted
back to the Middle East where he remained for two years,not returning
home until January 1947.
These men made huge
sacrifices for their country, they and many many others endured
unimaginable hardships for the sake of freedom for their county and
the liberation of others.
To any one who thinks
that after a hundred years we should discontinue the Armistice
ceremony I have only this to say. For their great sacrifice do you
really believe that a two minutes silence is too much to ask of us
today. We own them our freedom, quite possibly our lives and we must
never,ever forget them,or the young men who are fighting and dying in
foreign lands to this day.
They are heroes, our
heroes, let us be proud of them,always.
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