I have always had a fascination with the First World. I think it was reading about the First World War poets like Wilfred Owen when I was a teenager. Not forgetting the coach trip to London to the Imperial War Museum and I saw 'Big Bertha' that used to fire across the English Channel. It was also the former site of Bedlam.
Wilfred Owen and JRR Tolkien both fought at the Battle of the Somme. Remarkably Tokien still believed in God even after witnessing the carnage of the theatre of war on that fateful day in July and the following months in 2016. Somebody died every eight seconds. The historians say it was lions lead by donkeys.
I remember in about 1981 when my mother's uncle came to my Eighteenth birthday celebration. He was about eighty and insisted that he bought me a pint of bitter. Then he said he was going to have a dance with all the "young lasses." He was a remarkable man and my mother told me later he had fought at the battle of the Somme but he never ever talked about it. He also lost two cousins there.
They are heroes who we will never forget for giving us our freedom. Motorhead sum it all up for me in the following song: 1916.
Wilfred Owen and JRR Tolkien both fought at the Battle of the Somme. Remarkably Tokien still believed in God even after witnessing the carnage of the theatre of war on that fateful day in July and the following months in 2016. Somebody died every eight seconds. The historians say it was lions lead by donkeys.
I remember in about 1981 when my mother's uncle came to my Eighteenth birthday celebration. He was about eighty and insisted that he bought me a pint of bitter. Then he said he was going to have a dance with all the "young lasses." He was a remarkable man and my mother told me later he had fought at the battle of the Somme but he never ever talked about it. He also lost two cousins there.
They are heroes who we will never forget for giving us our freedom. Motorhead sum it all up for me in the following song: 1916.
Thanks Dave for posting this. My grandfather died in the Battle of the Somme and my father never knew him. Never talked about but never forgotten in our house. That Motorhead song really does sum it up.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rachel. We are so lucky to not to have lived through the two world wars. They gave us our freedom with their lives. It's amazing how every family has got a story to tell of their ancestors involvement in the battle of the Somme.
ReplyDeleteGood post Dave, we should never forget what others did, so that we may be free.
ReplyDeleteWe have a copy of the diary of Posh Boy's Great Grandfather. It is harrowing to read.
Thanks Sol. Posh Boy's Great Grandfather sounds like he was an hero and like you say we should never forget them.
DeleteBoth of my grandads were at the Somme, and both came home wounded. One of my grandads was doubly lucky. They wanted to amputate his leg and he refused to let them do it. Preferred the pain of gangrene. He evntually got better - sort of. Then in the second world war a bomb fell on the house next door to his and killed the two occupants outright. I'm lucky to be here.
ReplyDeleteWow Gwil. We don't know we are born compared to what our ancestor's went through. I hope and pray we never see another war in Europe.
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