I'm all for a bit of history, but this just seems insane?

They want to bring a Hull back to Hull

 

I've had this broom Man and Boy.

It's had 5 new heads and 3 new handles mind.

 

I have an original WW I Broom, in immaculate condition
it has only had twelve broom heads and six broom handles for maintenance

Jack McH Touch'e ZIGs

 

I can see your point FC but would you think differently if it was a car? The weekend before last I was admiring an Austin Healey 3000.....value around £100,000 restoration cost £70,000. My point being, that this sort of thing is usually done because of emotional attachment.

 

I think when it has some significant connection to war, it is important to keep. The point is to keep it in people's faces as much as possible. Don't let WW1 and WW2 become ancient history, which they rapidly are becoming as there are so few left that experienced it, and more and more people being born into families that have nobody in them that was there. If the stories can be somehow kept alive, and kept from becoming nothing more than words in a history book, then there is at least a slim chance that people might have the good sense to try to ensure it doesn't happen again.

 

The main thing is to TALK to your Grand parents
I know all about my parents and WWII, only never took up with my grandparents
for WWI
Oh I know Grandad (maternal) was a Med officer but know nothing of what he did
(never talked about it or even thought to ask)
Same with paternal Grandfather
So much rich history lost

Jack McH

 

I couldn't agree more. I was lucky in that I had both my grandads until I was a young man, so plenty of time to hear their stories, and see the tears in their eyes (despite somehow holding a straight face) at the many remembrance parades.

The problem is, and the point I was trying to make earlier, is that there are generations coming up behind us who don't have grand parents that were there. In our family, the last two members of the family that actually witnessed WW2 passed away this year. That means neither of my sons nor their cousin will have anyone to talk to that was actually there. WW2 finished nearly 70 years ago, that's a lifetime ago. The sad truth is there are simply not that many people left who can tell the current batch of youngsters what they experienced in WW2. So increasingly we will have to depend on conventional teachings, and artefacts, and if we can keep it as real as possible, then it might be worth something.

 

No, they won't .. c'est la vie! .. but, they have *you* - and you spoke to those who were there - now it is your responsibility to pass on that personal family history perspective as accurately as you can.

All my Grandparents were long gone before I was born, and my father when I reached 6yrs old. But, my mother lasted that bit longer and *she* experienced WWII and her father experienced WWI ... so, I learned my personal family experiences from her. I saw it as my responsibility to give those personal insights to each of my children when it was discussed through their curriculum.

Of course now ... well, now I'm pondering writing it down for posterity (?) They have become *my* memories now insofar as, the times I would sit on a soggy Sunday afternoon and my mother would be crocheting something and a song would come on the radio and it would spark off one of her memories. So, my memories of her recounting her memories

 

I agree, but me telling it can't possibly have the same effect as when my grandads, who lived it, told me.

For example, if I share a snippet of one of my grandad's tales, see how effective it is. It goes like this...

My grandad was an 'old soldier', being well into his 20s by the time WW2 broke out, and having been in the army since he walked out of his farm labouring job and lied about his age to get into the army at 15 or 16 (I can't quite remember). As an 'old solider', by the time he found himself at war he was already more experienced than his young comrades. He was in the Royal Artillery, and during one battle, someone shouted 'incoming'. Everyone quickly ducked below the top of the trench. There was a massive bang, mud and dust and smoke everywhere, and as it settled, my grandad stood up, and without turning he said to his mate, 'by lad, that one was close'. He turned to look at his mate. His young friend had not ducked quickly enough, and his head had been blown off.

Now, reading that coming from me, its just words. If I recite that story to my lads when they are a bit older, it will still be just words. But to me it wasn't just words, because those words were coming to me from the man that witnessed it. The man whose friend had been horrifically killed right next to him. The man who was miles away from home, living a life that involved standing in mud and doing hard physical work and attempting to take lives while others were doing their very best to kill him. It can never be the same.

 

Or another tale. This time from the old man that lived across the road when I was little. He's also long gone now. He was a lovely man. Everyone knew him. He used to invite all us kids in for a chat and gives us sweets and fruit, this was before every old man that dared to speak to a child in the street was automatically a peado. I'm glad he doesn't have to live in today's world, but anyway...

He was in the Royal Navy during the war. When he decided us kids were old enough to stand a chance of understanding, he told us about a sea battle he was in once. He'd been in several, but he said this one was different. This one was the reason he used to cry a lot. His ship had just defeated a German battle ship in the middle of the Atlantic, at night. The German ship was ablaze and sinking, and the surviving crew had abandoned ship and were swimming towards the old man's ship to be rescued/captured. The old man and his crew mates had lowered ropes and were preparing to take on the survivors. Apparently some of them actually made it too our ship and some even started to haul themselves up the ropes that had been lowered. The old man said he saw their faces, young boys, not German or Japanese or anything else, just boys, terrified, some crying out loud like babies wanting their mothers. Then came the order. The were to pull the ropes up, 'take up light arms' and shoot survivors in the water.

The old chap was somewhere past 90 when he died. Right up to the end, he was known to start randomly crying. His experience haunted him forever, and if you spoke to him, you got some tiny hint of that feeling and emotion yourself because you could hear his voice starting to quiver and his breath getting short when he told it. Again, me relaying it, just words.

 

And that is how you should pass it on.

No, you were not there; no, you did not experience it - but, that doesn't take away from how their life stories impacted upon *you*. It doesn't detract from how vital those life stories are in the re-telling. You did experience their retelling!

I don't *have* to be in a mud trench to get a feel for how profound the experience was to turn and find a friend's headless corpse. Anyone who has experienced grief will be able to relate (in part!) to the actual loss, if not to the actual horror (unless they too have witnessed a horror of sorts).

On the one hand, you appear to be diluting their experience/impact: to suggest that your words cannot convey the *meaning* and the strength of feeling of those moments. Their words clearly were enough to impact upon you. They could only give you words.

Those people entrusted you with their personal experiences (and feelings) in the hope that none of it was in vane. By passing those trusted memories on to you, surely there would have been a hope (however slight) that their experiences had not been in vane. That, through their experiences and the sharing of them, no one would rush willingly into the terrors they endured?

I know of more serving soldiers (past and present) who have experienced the horrors of battle who would *not* speak of their experiences than the ones who did. That is not to say that their silence speaks of any greater, or lesser, horrors - the fact is, because they will not speak of them, there is no genuine comparison to be had.

Those verbal hand-me-downs of real life experiences should be told - told to you in words and for you to pass on in words. You didn't experience the event - you experienced the consequences of those events; the life long impact.

 

Possibly in some cases because its still too recent? I don't know, I'm just speculating. I know that while one of my grandads told many stories, the other was far less open about his experiences. Neither of my grandads seemed able to say that they actually killed anyone. Instead they would dance round that point in such a way that it was obvious but without actually saying it. For example (here I go again, sorry), my grandad that was less open about his experiences once got captured. He had left his comrades to go and take a sneaky look at what was ahead. Seems a German soldier had done the same, and they met. The German was quicker with his gun than my grandad, and instantly had my grandad at gun point. The story goes that my grandad saw that the German was falling apart with nerves, and used this to his advantage. They agreed to have a cigarette before going off to wherever my grandad would be taken. In the lapse of concentration as the German momentarily forgot the situation, he lowered his gun as he fumbled for his cigarettes and matches. At this point, my grandad took the gun off him. Up to this point, the story was the same every time, but the ending changed a fair bit. A common ending was that my grandad, having disarmed his foe, kicked him up the bum and sent him back to his mates, but lets face it, that wont have happened. You wouldn't go letting the enemy go back to tell all his mates that you and your mates were hiding in the woods near by.