Remembrance Sunday

Many thanks to the parents who joined us for Remembrance Sunday - it was good to see Adam and Alex in their House Colours ties as they places wreaths at the village War Memorial, and Jamie carrying the CCF standard.

A facebook friend asked me what I was remembering -
this is what I replied:

Dad's stories of battles in N Africa and Italy - the Sgt Major of the Guards sitting on a white horse as the infantry went past Dad's gun battery on the way to the front line at El Alamein; the tough time the infantry had at Anzio during a counterattack. His relief at being back with the guns. His meeting with the Pope in Rome.
My mum's aunts who tottered out of the house after it was gutted in the blitz, each with three hats on her head.
The food parcel from Australia with the rather gritty powdered soup, which turned out to be the ashes of great-uncle Wilf.
My grandfather who was captured at Kut al Amara in 1916 , and nursed many of his friends as they died of 'flu after the Armistice two and half years later, in Turkey.
My uncle who didn't come back from Cologne one night in 1942- Leslie Manser VC.
My (step) brother's father who didn't come back from Burma, where he died on the tennis court at Kohima in May 1944 - Jack Randle VC.
My Sapper friend Steve, 30 years in bomb disposal, who lost his heel clearing a minefield in the Falklands in 1983 - and ran a half marathon a little later, delighted that his new plastic foot didn't get blisters.
And others :)