There was a phone-in on R5 today asking 'who will you remember on Sunday?' I recently found out, through ancestry research, that my Welsh grandmother's brother died at Passchendaele. I'll commemorate him.
I’ll be remembering my grandfather, who died in 1971. He volunteered as a 17 year old but didn’t see combat because a Lewis gun blew up in his face during training, and he spent a lot of the next couple of years in hospital as a result. Quite possibly an accident which is responsible for my existence, who knows if he would have survived the front.
£150,000 worth of fake poppy items from China seized at Tilbury Docks, obviously destined to be sold for profit rather than the benefit of veterans, defrauding both the British Legion and Poppy Scotland as well as the people would would have bought them. An organised large scale criminal business. Sometimes I just despair. Not just this, it’s the sheer number of people who spend their lives trying to rip other people off. Disgusting.
As I believe I’ve said much earlier in this thread my (recently) late father’s own father was gassed on the Somme and subsequently invalided out of the army. As with your grandfather, who knows whether he would have survived the Great War had he recovered sufficiently to have been sent back to the front. I often think of this at this time of the year but, having just lost my own Dad, my grandfather seems strangely further away now.
We will return next year, for the centenary of 11/11/1918 By which time these guys from the fire service in Ypres will have played this another 364 times adding to the total of over 30,000 since 1928.
between 60-70 locals paid their respect at the Rousdon memorial, including 20+ Axe Valley Pedallers, a local cycling club who passed by a few years ago, stopped and returned to join the service. They have attended every year since. Next year's will be very emotional I guess
I actually thought today about a man who I’ll never know, but if he didn’t act out one immense act of bravery I would never of existed. My grandfather fought in Burma late on in the war against the Japanese and one day on patrol, his unit got into a firefight and he found himself wounded, shot in the leg, right in the middle of it. I’ve been told that his friend, an officer crawled over to him and half dragged, half carried him to safety but just as they got back his friend was shot in the head and was killed instantly. Sad to know that I owe my life, and a lot of my my families lives, to a man I can never thank for that one act of bravery.
Stroller, they do a special 100 year Passchendaele poppy badge if you are interested. Check out ebay, if you can't get one they have them in the legion I drink in. Let me know if you want any.
I was on the march yesterday in Harrow. Remembering my Nan and auntie who were killed in the bomb that hit Blaxland house in WW2. I ended up living their in about 1960.
