Mine will be out from 10 - 11 !! We owe them a lot ! God knows where we would be without them, some as young as 16 years old FFS !! Makes me sad but very proud !
My lights are out, a solitary candle burning. They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old, Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. In the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.
Just made it to our hotel, in Mumbles, in time to light a candle ....... my Grandad was in Belgium. Good thread mate.
Can't imagine what he went through Smug. My respects are a duty. Had the kids out and we let a lantern of to remember those who served . It's also a duty to make sure our kids remember.
My Grandad came back from Canada to join up but they wouldnt let him fight because he failed the eye exam! They dumped him in stores instead, doing the laundry etc! All the old photos i have seen of him he is wearing big bottle rimmed glasses so i suppose he must be believed!! haha! So if it wasnt his dodgy peepers i probably wont be alive today!
**** me, I've seen some **** but nowt like what those lads would have went through. My granda fought in WW1 at the Somme. 20,000 men killed in the first day. From July to November 1916 almost 1 million men died. Trench warfare, total slaughter, utter carnage. My granda came back from France & went straight back down the pit. I'm so proud of him, it's men like him who are the true heroes. Ive never heard of this before but I too will put my lights out.
He must have gone through some turmoil, your granddad Billy. The lights out is a reference to the then british foreign secretary Edward Grey who said on the outbreak of the war..."The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time"
He rarely talked about the war mate. I remember once as a young boy asking him about it & all he said about it was 'son, it was hell on earth'.
There are some wonderful poems from the First World War, this is one of the most popular...In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori (which translates as how sweet and right it is to die for one's country.....or rather Wilfred Owen didn't think so maybe not in the manner above?). Powerful stuff about the victim of a chlorine attack.
Again, very touching. It's incomprehensible what those men went through. [video=youtube;ntt3wy-L8Ok]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok[/video]
The opening lines of The Soldier by Rupert Brooke If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. Gives me goosepimples, that.
Both of my granddads were gassed, I think 1 in Ypres the other in Paschendale. Neither worked again for the rest of their lives. It hideously disabled them for many years. Died before I knew them.
