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Remembrance Sunday

I was privileged to be part of the village Remembrance Service in the County Park this morning. I sang a memorial prayer in Hebrew and read the prayer in English.

During the silent contemplation I thought, as always, of my grandpa Sam who survived the hell of the Battle of the Somme.

Grandpa with my dad on his knee

I’ve no doubt that grandpa was damaged by his wartime experiences. He told my brother about the rats that ran over the soldiers as they slept in the muddy trenches. Not for those soldiers the label PTSD or any counselling. They came home and tried to put their experiences away in a largely unopened box.

Grandpa working as a clerk in later life. He was uneducated but had a good brain but he never used this in a tangible way. He bet a small amount on the horses every day, smoked Senior Service cigarettes and occasionally made up advertising slogans for PG Tips which they never used.

Grandpa had one failed marriage with a daughter he never saw and who died young, then a second unhappy marriage with grandma Katy. Sam at least came home from the Great War. Katy’s first love sent her embroidered postcards from “somewhere in France” but never returned. That Great War blighted so many lives and all for what?

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