Friday, November 10, 2006

Thinking about the dead

It's time for another maudlin post from me.

Well, no, actually when I'm thinking about this subject, it's not painful really. I enjoy my memories. It's sort of bittersweet.

As it's coming up to Remembrance Day there's a lot of talk about white and red poppies, and the subject makes me think about my granddad. He was a radio-operator in WW2. He was at Dunkirk and he had to leave his section to get a signal. He got the famous come home message and went back to his regiment to tell them, only they had already been evacuated! I can't imagine what he must have felt. He and four other guys commandeered a motorbike and sidecar and somehow managed to ride it along the coast until a boat (I think it was a Dutch or Belgian fishing boat) picked them up and took them home to Britain.

I think he got a very little leave to see Gran and then he went into training again in Scotland. He was sent up from Africa fighting all the way up to Italy after that.

My great-uncle was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance at the front. It must have been incredibly hard to take a stand like that too.

I'm proud of all this family history.

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