Everyday Heroes (Part 1)

Written by James Hammond

I think it was Roger Turner who mentioned the blog Lily of St Leonards in a comment earlier this year referring to Scottish politics, and I have read all the articles from that blog since. If you like a good thoughtful, SNP-critical site, this could be for you.

What prompted me to write this was a recent article Caught on the Boundary where she reflects on the deaths of Captain Tom Moore and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. It starts:

“There are no longer very many people who served in World War Two like Prince Philip and Captain Tom. We are getting to the stage when soon there will be none at all.”

It got me to thinking that soon there won’t be many left who remember directly those who served in the war, and in my case what I do know/remember is very scant indeed. The obvious source of this kind of knowledge is your own immediate predecessors: my generation, the horribly labelled Baby Boomers (as if we lived a life of luxury, when the reality is very different for most). The reason for this scant knowledge may be that many of them did not want to talk about it. Perhaps the families of professional soldiers, sailors and airmen are better equipped with knowledge that their predecessors were happier to impart, but my family as a whole detested war and all it entailed. Nevertheless those that were called to duty did their duty.

As soon as I started thinking about this, something very curious struck me which I should have realised a long time ago but didn’t. Before the war when my father was about fifteen years old and working in a paper mill he had an industrial accident. A knife folded while he was cutting the paper in still rotating/operating machinery, severing his right index finger below the top knuckle.

What is curious to me is that he was conscripted into the Army as a Cameronian Rifleman. I would have thought that missing the part of the finger that pulls the trigger (he was right handed) would have been quite an impediment, but I guess the Army knows best. At any rate his service was very short. He was invalided out of the Army before any active service abroad. Nothing to do with the finger or any intensive training injury; from what I was told he was larking about with some others and fell out of an upstairs window at the barracks and broke his back. He made a full recovery, but had he suffered any lasting ill effects he would not have complained about it. He did mention that many of his comrades fell in action, and there was something in the silence that followed. He spent the rest of the war in factories initially as (from my parents’ marriage certificate) an engineer’s labourer, and later as a turner. He mentioned working in Barr and Stroud making submarine periscopes and at various times he worked in quite a few of the shipyards in Glasgow.

My Uncle Bill on the other hand, also conscripted, did service in the Far East and Burma, not with weapons of any kind – I believe he was a cartographer or some such. Had he had a weapon the only ones at risk would have been his immediate comrades. I recall seeing a photograph of him in jungle fatigues, shorts and the bush-type hat similar to that worn by Aussies, resembling a character in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. While there he developed a liking for Tiger beer that never left him. It’s almost as if the war in the Far East was worth it just for that.

Uncle Bob, a quarry manager in civilian life, saw service in Europe as a tank commander involved in the early assaults on Berlin. That is the only detail I know. I just remember a very peaceful, calm and kindly person, and I only knew about his wartime experience because in his bedroom I saw a large red flag with a Swastika in the centre laid out on his bed. I asked what it was and that is what I was told. I don’t know why the flag was displayed there; my parents certainly wouldn’t have accepted any sympathies in that direction. It is the only occasion that I have ever seen any kind of memento on show relating to the war.

Uncle Jim was too young to take part in the war but I sometimes wonder what he would have been like if he had, for as soon as hostilities ceased he set out to hitch hike across war-ravaged Europe and ended up in Moscow for a while. He always struck me as fearless, judging by some of his antics on his return. He would have a go at anything. As an amusing aside, one Hogmanay he travelled up from Brighton where he settled for a while, to First Foot us in Glasgow with  a towel wrapped round his head, a big bushy beard, a convincing Indian accent and a selection of scrubbing brushes for sale, not taking no for an answer. It was getting quite fractious before he revealed his identity.

It may be natural for me to know something of my family members’ wartime past, but there are others I have met whose experiences I know a little about, and I think it is worthwhile relating these in Part 2.

(To be continued with Part 2 tomorrow)