Penguins not poppies : a memory for remembrance day
This is a somewhat unusual Remembrance Day piece but is partly brought to mind because of watching the amazing new David Attenborough narrated Frozen Planet earlier in the week which featured Adelie penguins and seals and other creatures in the Antarctic inter alia.
In the middle of the 1939 -1945 war my father wsa stationed on the Falkland Islands where his task along with all the other squaddies was to mount guard everyehre round the coastlines and in between build the airport (subsequently the runway destroyed in the 1980s Falklands War)
It was a tedious often lonely time for dad when they had a brief leave or even two days ( not a lot of dens of vice in Port Stanley in 1943) and he and a friend managned to scrounge a camera from their host and later on a trip to South Georgia dad, a lifelong lover of creatures and countryisde of any kind, took these wonderful pictures = they may be less sophisticated than tha current BBC but to me they are amazing in their own way.
A lad from South Wales only at school till 14 dad always knew the irony that- had the wolrd not been at war - he would never evr have set foot on South Georiga and photgraphed Adelie Penguin chicks and parents over 60 years before Attenborough and co. he and his mate nonetheless lamented that life was too quiet.
Here are two of dad's pictures and one which was chosen by the regiment to be the picture of the official force Christmas card for 1943.
Some months later dad and the same friend were in body filled trenches getting through in the afteramth of D Day and it was then that as I related last year at this time,a shell hit the trench where dad with his field radio and his colleagues were and blew his friend apart in front of him. That story took him 48 years to tell in full and came with these souvenirs of that strange other side to war - which was the great privilelge of knowing soemwhere the far side of the globe.
I am grateful to dad for always recognising and helping me to learn early on that war and the pity of war was a complex business and that politicians were epsceially to be treated with scepticism on the subject.
SO this year I am posting these because I know that dads heart went there in the 2 minutes silence as well as to the trenches and the mud. In memory of one young photogaprher who did not come home and one who did - and the countless others like them.
Adelie penguins on South Georgia and the official Falkland Islands Force card for 1943.
In the middle of the 1939 -1945 war my father wsa stationed on the Falkland Islands where his task along with all the other squaddies was to mount guard everyehre round the coastlines and in between build the airport (subsequently the runway destroyed in the 1980s Falklands War)
It was a tedious often lonely time for dad when they had a brief leave or even two days ( not a lot of dens of vice in Port Stanley in 1943) and he and a friend managned to scrounge a camera from their host and later on a trip to South Georgia dad, a lifelong lover of creatures and countryisde of any kind, took these wonderful pictures = they may be less sophisticated than tha current BBC but to me they are amazing in their own way.
A lad from South Wales only at school till 14 dad always knew the irony that- had the wolrd not been at war - he would never evr have set foot on South Georiga and photgraphed Adelie Penguin chicks and parents over 60 years before Attenborough and co. he and his mate nonetheless lamented that life was too quiet.
Here are two of dad's pictures and one which was chosen by the regiment to be the picture of the official force Christmas card for 1943.
Some months later dad and the same friend were in body filled trenches getting through in the afteramth of D Day and it was then that as I related last year at this time,a shell hit the trench where dad with his field radio and his colleagues were and blew his friend apart in front of him. That story took him 48 years to tell in full and came with these souvenirs of that strange other side to war - which was the great privilelge of knowing soemwhere the far side of the globe.
I am grateful to dad for always recognising and helping me to learn early on that war and the pity of war was a complex business and that politicians were epsceially to be treated with scepticism on the subject.
SO this year I am posting these because I know that dads heart went there in the 2 minutes silence as well as to the trenches and the mud. In memory of one young photogaprher who did not come home and one who did - and the countless others like them.
Adelie penguins on South Georgia and the official Falkland Islands Force card for 1943.