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TridentTested

Member
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1,819
I was born only 22 years after WW2, but to most was generations ago.
Then you remember the Falklands war in my teens, that was 36 years ago!

My dad bought me the Corgi die-cast Spitfire. Gorgeous it was, I loved it. We were on holiday at the time staying with an aunt and uncle near Preston, the uncle had been in the RAF, we got to talking about the war and whatever it was I said provoked him to reply sharply 'it was only thirty years ago!'.

At the time I knew I'd touched a nerve and shut up; but I remember thinking 'that's my point, thirty years ago is forever'.

I think of that conversation now whenever the Falklands War is mentioned. On that day his memories of the war were as close and as vivid to him as my clear memory of following the Falklands conflict is to me.
 

D Walker

Member
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9,827
My only comment is, if you have ever been to war, it lives with you forever, you never forget.
 

Wanderer

Member
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5,791
My only comment is, if you have ever been to war, it lives with you forever, you never forget.
I remember when I was at BNFL we had this ex-Marine who came in to do our DEC VMS hardware fixes, and he told me he was in the first gulf war and my mate got wind of it. He pestered him for ages and ages about it and what he did there and it was obvious the guy didn't want to talk about it...

He went on and on over several visits and eventually the Marine guy said "I picked up body parts, alright?'.

End of convo....
 

TridentTested

Member
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1,819
My other half's grandfather was invalided out of Verdun 1916.

By all accounts he was a shadow of his former self and just sat silently in a corner staring at the floor. When my partner was a little girl, she was refusing to eat something her grandmother had cooked. In exasperation the grandmother sneered "ungrateful children these days, you kids need to experience war".

The grandfather just quietly said: "oh no they don't".

The emotion contained in that unusual interruption has lived with my partner ever since.
 

Wanderer

Member
Messages
5,791
Some memories coming back now, at BNFL (again) one of the guys there, ex-Scots Guards, served in the Falklands and knew Denis Neilsen but thats another story, told me on one of the ships that had been hit but not totally sunk (HMS Sheffield I think) they turned it into a hospital ship and put injured soldiers there, right nest to black shadows on the steel walls where seamen had been blasted into shadows on the wall, dunno if that's even possible. He said too they had to go out to the Argie defences (after the end of hostilities) and move the bodies of the Argie troops in the frozen trenches, and sent the new lads to do that, know ing the bodies would snap in half cos they were frozen. Kinda think that was a bit of embellishment, but even now after nearly 25 years I remember his name and password on the local network, TamC/sitrep123.....

Also remember I guy local to me in Bolton in tears telling me as a tank commander in the Balkans War, driving his tank over dead women and kids, that broke him that did and made me as total pacifist....

These tragedies shape us, hopefully we'll not see it again but while Trump and Putin are around.....
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
I’m 57, and I remember back in the early 70’s, the old bloke opposite, Ned, was gassed in WW1, now I;d loved to have chatted with him if he wanted to talk about it but back then he was just an old bloke we shyed away from.

All those memories, gone because of ignorance...
my neighbour was a quiet old man , pleasant enough but kept to himself , when I was 14-15 in 1975-76 I mentioned we were covering WW2 at school , I've got something that might interest you , he gave me a box of rice paper, a hand written diary of his time in a Japanese POW camp , to the day he died there was nothing Japanese in his house , he despised them.
 

Wanderer

Member
Messages
5,791
Also remember Jack Rodgers, two doors down, native of Hull which is not his fault, told me he was an Ack-Ack Gunner at Hull Docks during the entirity of the whole conflict, and I'll never forget what he told me after telling me night after night repelling German bombers, firing into the night sky....

"And, you know Stephen (cos that's my actual name), I never hit a fücking thing". I was 12, never heard an adult swear!!!

For me it's funny, poignant and just shows how pointless it was for 99% of people involved risking their lives on both sides....
 

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,759
my neighbour was a quiet old man , pleasant enough but kept to himself , when I was 14-15 in 1975-76 I mentioned we were covering WW2 at school , I've got something that might interest you , he gave me a box of rice paper, a hand written diary of his time in a Japanese POW camp , to the day he died there was nothing Japanese in his house , he despised them.

Same era, we had a deputy head who was in the navy and spent time in a Japanese POW camp, his views were almost the same
 

2b1ask1

Special case
Messages
20,220
What's gonna happen
When the sky turns back?
What will you do
When the sea comes back?
 
Messages
6,001
My dad was no left winger but as a lad (14 ish - a bit hazy) he volunteered for the International Brigade (the fight for Spanish Democracy and Civil War 1936) because he said he could see what was coming around the corner (Adolf). Anyway he had a couple of stories one was to blow up a bridge and they were found and chased by cavalry and airplanes. He managed to escape. Towards the end of the conflict (1938) they gathered in Northern France to be repatriated to Blighty and then off to WW2.
He struck up a friendship with Jack Jones the union man and Labour supporter and often argued over politics. The last bit is Churchill would not let any of the Brigade back in because they were lefties - that is until he needed them. He never really spoke about the conflict other than that.
 

Wanderer

Member
Messages
5,791
My dad was no left winger but as a lad (14 ish - a bit hazy) he volunteered for the International Brigade (the fight for Spanish Democracy and Civil War 1936) because he said he could see what was coming around the corner (Adolf). Anyway he had a couple of stories one was to blow up a bridge and they were found and chased by cavalry and airplanes. He managed to escape. Towards the end of the conflict (1938) they gathered in Northern France to be repatriated to Blighty and then off to WW2.
He struck up a friendship with Jack Jones the union man and Labour supporter and often argued over politics. The last bit is Churchill would not let any of the Brigade back in because they were lefties - that is until he needed them. He never really spoke about the conflict other than that.
Didn’t Orwell do that? On Halliwell Rd in Bolton in 80’s rather incongruously there was Pedro’s Spanish Taverna, what a man, he had massive scar under his neck, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s men captured him and said they’d cut his throat. They didn’t, just cut into skin and muscle to give him the willies.

If you caused any fuss in the Taverna he’d put laxative in your sangria, and let nature take it’s course. Imagine the treehuggers in uproar if that was now, and I’m a socialist!
 

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
Messages
9,033
9 year old son has being doing 'bikeability' (as it is now called) at school today.
Still have my West Yorkshire Cycling Proficiency enamel badge from when I did it over 40 years ago.
Remember it well, got the highest score in the school 98/100 ...I lost the 2 points for putting my wrong foot down at a stop!
 

DavidL

Member
Messages
214
I didn't think I had anything to add here but the recollections come back don't they, after a while. My grandfather was on fire watch the night of the Blitz in Coventry. He came down in the morning and spent half an hour trying to work out where he was and how to get home. There was very little still standing after the Luftwaffe had been through. He lived there all his life.