Today's a good day to say "Hello" to the spirit of my Grandad. He was a top bloke, I like to think his lack of ambition lives on in me.
He wasn't an ANZAC, but found himself in the British Royal Corp of Transport driving a truck. You're not likely to find the myopic Boarking clan on the frontline, but we'll do our non-medal winning bit.
Grandad landed in Normandy on the 7th of June '44, carrying a portable surgical operating table in the back. He carried on across the continent for the next year or so. He told us grandkids that the closest he brushed death was the discharged .303 that came from the should-have-been-unloaded rifle his mate was cleaning. He claimed his only encounter with the German military was a low flying fighter whizzing overhead during the Battle of the Bulge, gone in the blink of an eye. He would devour the Commando War Comics as avidly as we did.
Later, reading enough military history, I realized what he must have seen, such as the carnage of the Falaise Gap, to site the most obvious one, and not told us. Driving supplies would take you to a lot of places; did he see concentration camps I wonder? Maybe it's just as well I'll never know.
It's certainly well that I've never had to experience it myself.
I don't agree with families of veterans marching. Let only the veterans march, and let their dwindling numbers indicate a victory of peace over war. But if it ever got that there was no-one left to march, that'll be the time that remembering will be more important than ever.
Lest we forget.
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It's a good thing to think about, and write about, Ernst, but today is International Labour Day - how 'bout a tale of your radical roots, such as Old Uncle Ted, and his down-tools-ing in Bethnal Green during the great workers' strike of 1965, or perhaps your saggy old, aunt Mildred, and her bra-burning escapades of the early 70s?
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