posted by sooyup
on
Daily trivia
Today is Remembrance Sunday. Emma and I will join many others at the local cenotaph to pay our respects to those who died in wars to end all wars. Eight of my uncles saw active service in World War II - six in the army, fighting in France and Egypt, and two in Bomber Command. They all survived. My extended family all lived in a heavily industrialised square mile which lay between a busy airfield and the docks. Despite incessant air-raids, we all escaped the bombs. As a large family we were indeed fortunate. My grandfather fought in the trenches in World War I and lived to try to forget. Emma’s family, smaller in number, also came through the wars unscathed. So who do we think of to make our vigil personal? William Jenkins is the first name carved on the local cenotaph. All we know of him is that he was killed in action in the First World War - and that he lived in the cottage where Emma and I now live. I wonder what heart-ache lies behind that inscription? And a million others.
Today is Remembrance Sunday. Emma and I will join many others at the local cenotaph to pay our respects to those who died in wars to end all wars. Eight of my uncles saw active service in World War II - six in the army, fighting in France and Egypt, and two in Bomber Command. They all survived. My extended family all lived in a heavily industrialised square mile which lay between a busy airfield and the docks. Despite incessant air-raids, we all escaped the bombs. As a large family we were indeed fortunate. My grandfather fought in the trenches in World War I and lived to try to forget. Emma’s family, smaller in number, also came through the wars unscathed. So who do we think of to make our vigil personal? William Jenkins is the first name carved on the local cenotaph. All we know of him is that he was killed in action in the First World War - and that he lived in the cottage where Emma and I now live. I wonder what heart-ache lies behind that inscription? And a million others.
