Lest we forget

Irish Guardsman Terry Flanagan, was in the same platoon as Joe Wilson, my Dad, during the Second World War. Joe’s platoon was in Normandy being shelled and they were pinned down in shallow trenches.

This is part of a transcript of an interview with Terry:

"I had just got 200 Gallaher Blues from my mother [in Belfast] in the post the day before. I opened them up and I was going to have a smoke but I had no matches. A few shells went over, a couple landed a way down a bit.
"Hey Joe, have you got any matches?" Joe was a helluva nice bloke, didn't curse, didn't smoke and a lovely boxer.
And Joe shouts back, "Yes I've got a box."

"Could you bring them over?  I've cigarettes and no matches."  

Joe says, "Well that's tough luck! If you have no matches you can come over here for them."
"Ach Joe, we're gettin' shelled!"

"I know, that's why I'm not going over there to your trench. Bring your smokes over here."
I says, "Well you don't smoke."
He said, "I never did, but I feel like one today with these shells!”
The Germans were shelling, oh aye and the odd one was thumping into the front bank.
So I needed a smoke badly. So I said “Alright.” And I got out, crawled over to Joe’s trench; I got into it. I’d a 20 packet with me, opened it up got a cigarette out and I gave him one and he says, “How do you smoke it?”
So we got the box of matches and we lit up. We’d smoked maybe half a cigarette and then we heard this thing coming. The sound of it, the scream of it. We hit the deck. There was an awful explosion right near us. It must have been a 120mm shell. And we looked up and looked out then and there was a big pall of smoke covering my trench.
And [stammering in disbelief] I said, "Joe … it went into my trench ... thank goodness I came over…"
"YES, and I didn’t go over there, or the two of us would have been mincemeat!!”

This must be a rare occasion when smoking proved good for the health.

The Irish Guards were often in the thick of it and only a handful of the original Normandy men survived the war. 

 

1920 - 2011

 

Sussex Forests and Skeletons in Cupboards

Dipping into my Dad’s library, I was surprised to find a book “Closing Ranks” by Dirk Bogarde. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. The man was a film star during my Pa’s formative years and they’d both seen action during the Second World War. My immediate reaction was that it would be celeb eye-wash. Intriguingly though the dust jacket told me Bogarde had three honorary literary doctorates including one from France. Perhaps he could write as well as look glamorous on the big screen.

I started to read a tale set in the familiar and fine Sussex countryside. The story caught me up. It centres around a gentrified family with skeletons in their cupboards who gather to see off a dying nanny. There is reference to some under-reported messy British history: when Cossacks were forcibly repatriated into Russia at the end of the war.

Yet there were lovely descriptions of rural England...

“A dragonfly looped around her head, dipped low, soared up, a whispering crackle of papery wings..”

And

“every shadow of a thought or doubt.. crossed his face with the clarity of cloud shadows racing across the fields..”

And

“A moorhen hurried though the rushes on the stream bank and launched itself into the water, flicking its tail with fussy anxiety.”

And

“The first crack of true dawn split the greyness, and as the sun rose above the brim of the silent earth, the first birds started, calling and scolding, the light grew stronger, drenching the still-damp fields. A golden haze grew in brilliance.... the valley was all at once glowing with sunlight, rang to the sound of the birds in copse and wood.”

Describing the dog as draggled made me smile and reminded me of all those words we use without thinking - like dishevelled - that we wouldn't normally shorten to their original root. The book was a thoroughly enjoyable, well-crafted, skilfully observed read, made all the more fun for me for being sited in beautiful Sussex woodlands.

Is it my perception or is there a dearth of novels set in southern England??