Private EV Shirt - Hertfordshire Regiment
Watching the television tonight as they "commemorated" the start of the 1st World War, but I struggled to associate with the sentiments - especially as the "even handed" BBC were giving equal billing to the Germans. Did they really die for that? My grandmother would be turning in her grave - 70 years a widow with a child to bring up after her husband was killed in the final month of the war. Robert Fisk, the journalist, wrote that it was all unnecessary now that all the combatants were dead, therefore the "fallen" would all be dead anyway if they hand´t been immortalized by being killed at a young age. I disagree. I have always said it takes at least 3 generations to forgive - and I am only the third, so still remember my grandmother´s first-hand recollection and attitude. In fact I am still second generation in some ways, as my father had sisters the same age as my mother´s mother - and they were all spinsters as "there weren´t many men of their age around after the war".
My mother never knew (or remembered) her father, which was one of the cruellest things. She was taken to his grave in France when she was 3 or 4 (I think there were some specially organized trips for that sort of thing), but it was still just a small wooden cross when she went. I guess I will see the standard white tombstone when I do eventually make my promised trip to Awoingt cemetery.
For grandfather´s sake, here is another record. Somehow the local newspaper had a photo of him, but it isn´t one in our records - there is only the one seen here. The middle item is the data from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
The medal was a small gold football medal my grandfather won in 1914. My grandmother wore it all her life, then my mother afterwards. Now it is in my safe. I also have a small wooden box my grandmother kept all her life. Inside is the telegram from the war office, with the news of her husband´s death.
There are some postcards from France, plus a number from various places in the UK; a couple of handkerchiefs, some beads and the original photograph and copy of the article from the newspaper; some little buttons and lapel badges and a "peace" medal. I think the commemerative plaque was thrown in the local canal - along with the "action" medals. Imagine how incredibly sad it must have been for her as everyone was celebrating the end of the war, but her husband was killed 10 days before it ended. More poignant, that fact that it is quite possible she only got the news after the war was declared over.
They may have given their future for us, but I´m not sure this is the sort of world they hoped to bequeath to us.
I respect his memory, but mainly feel incredible sadness for my grandmother´s lifetime as a war-widow. When the pension finally gave her slightly more than a pittance, the government taxed her on it - and that after reneging on promise made as part of the war-loans. I always thought the saddest thing was that she was one of the people selling poppies for Remembrance Sunday - whilst she appreciated the company and support provided by the British Legion, I think that she had already contributed more than her share.
If you´ve never heard it, listen to the Fureys singing "The Green Fields of France" which is as good a commentary on the futility of it all as I can think of.
Politicians had (and have) a lot to answer for in the way they take the naivety, patriotism and lust for travel and excitement of young men and twist it all for their own futile ends.
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