Saturday
Armistice Day
In honour of the day, one of my 'pomes'
To my Grandfather, photographed in uniform, WWI.
Written in Armistice week 1998
What did you remember? The clutch
of Flanders mud?
Shattered trees? Ruined farmsteads?
Blasted villages? Or
Was your memory filled with the Dead?
Friends from the Valley? Those you nursed
back from the mud to Dressing Stations,
to hospitals, and even back to Blighty? Or
were they always with you?
And that was why you never smiled
for photographs? Yet -
you laughed again. That
I remember.
That grandfather, Mum's Dad, thought it right to 'join up' during the First World War, but not right to kill. So he became a medical orderly. Strange thing was that, twenty-five or so years later, my Dad thought the same - he joined the Navy & became a Sick Berth Orderly. Pardon? Oh, his father had been a Marine, I think.
In the event of there being another general war, & I pray that there won't be, I wouldn't want any of mine to 'join up'. Not because they might be injured or killed, but because they'd have to kill. Me? I'm too old, I'd just end up a civilian casualty! Maybe I'd join the WVS & serve tea & buns, or something!
Meanwhile, from the News this morning - "Online Scams Target the Wealthy". The Scammers may be daft enough to Scam, but they aren't so daft as to try it on people who don't have money.
Has anyone ever thought, maybe Robin Hood didn't rob the rich just to give to the poor, but because only the rich had money. Hmmmm, now there's a novel thought for Revenue Generation!
Y'all have a good day now!
In honour of the day, one of my 'pomes'
To my Grandfather, photographed in uniform, WWI.
Written in Armistice week 1998
What did you remember? The clutch
of Flanders mud?
Shattered trees? Ruined farmsteads?
Blasted villages? Or
Was your memory filled with the Dead?
Friends from the Valley? Those you nursed
back from the mud to Dressing Stations,
to hospitals, and even back to Blighty? Or
were they always with you?
And that was why you never smiled
for photographs? Yet -
you laughed again. That
I remember.
That grandfather, Mum's Dad, thought it right to 'join up' during the First World War, but not right to kill. So he became a medical orderly. Strange thing was that, twenty-five or so years later, my Dad thought the same - he joined the Navy & became a Sick Berth Orderly. Pardon? Oh, his father had been a Marine, I think.
In the event of there being another general war, & I pray that there won't be, I wouldn't want any of mine to 'join up'. Not because they might be injured or killed, but because they'd have to kill. Me? I'm too old, I'd just end up a civilian casualty! Maybe I'd join the WVS & serve tea & buns, or something!
Meanwhile, from the News this morning - "Online Scams Target the Wealthy". The Scammers may be daft enough to Scam, but they aren't so daft as to try it on people who don't have money.
Has anyone ever thought, maybe Robin Hood didn't rob the rich just to give to the poor, but because only the rich had money. Hmmmm, now there's a novel thought for Revenue Generation!
Y'all have a good day now!