There was a photograph album with old photos of random people, some obviously from North Africa.  It was a thick album with a photo on each side of the page, postcard style, black and white.  It is about 3 inches thick, stuffed full of photos.

My dad passed 4 and a half years ago and this album had been left with all the family photos in the attic of the bungalow he and my mother had retired to in Broadstairs, Kent.  When the bungalow was sold 18 months after his passing – my mother had moved to a retirement apartment nearby – I had to clear the mountain of ‘junk’ from the attic, garage and shed.

I’d invited my siblings to come help and take anything they wanted as the rest would be left out in the drive for skip hoppers, save them hopping into the skip – although they still did, what I considered junk they obviously considered treasure – and the rest went into the skip.  I carefully chose what I would like to preserve but had to keep it to a minimum as I was returning to New Zealand imminently.

They didn’t come, they didn’t want anything.  I gave a load of the old photos to my aunt – my dad’s sister.  I took what I wanted, retrieved what my mum wanted, and, with a heavy heart, dumped the rest.  A lifetime of collecting relegated to the skip!  All the memories and stories attached to these items were gone as was the memory that held all the information, that of my dear departed father.

I knew that my Grandad had been a member of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, Welsh Horse and that there was a photo of him on his horse with an arrow pointing him out drawn onto the photograph.  It’s not a very clear photo and he is at the far end of the line of soldiers.

I packed the album away into my things to go to New Zealand and thought no more about it.  It travelled with me to NZ and back when my dear mother became very sick and asked me to come ’home’.

Unpacking my belongings, a year later, in Somerset, I came across the album.  I’d already asked my school friend in America if she could find out some information on a deceased family member for me and she suggested I join Ancestry.  I declined.  I’d get sucked in and I had no interest in the dead.  My mother had passed less than 2 months after I’d returned to the UK and my last link to the past had gone with her.

She set up the page and filled in a lot of detail about my darling maternal Granny’s family and sent me the link.  Of course, I was hooked within minutes and found out, amongst many other things, the details of my paternal Grandfather, limited as they were.  (It turns out that my Great Grandfather was born less than 20 minutes from where I am now living.)  His brother, my Great Uncle, George Seward was killed in action on 9^th April 1918 in Flanders.

This then lead me to dig out the old photos I’d kept, regret the ones I’d tossed into the skip and even the opportunity to go through the ones I’d given my aunt.  I found a lovely pair of photos one with my Grandmother, Ivy, in and one of my Grandfather – a Cagney style photo – outside the house in Harrow.

I then pulled out the ‘war album’ and took a closer look at that, searching for photos of him.  I found a head shot painting of a French woman with a beret on a postcard with the words (Prés de toi par la pensée) – ‘Not absent in thought’ he’d sent to my Grandmother, his girlfriend at the time – The card reads: Just a PC, it expresses my thoughts, I will write to-morrow.  I am in a hurry for parade. Love From Charlie – dated 18/9/17;

and a short letter from the Camp of Prisoners of War Manheim:  I have just had a letter from home, the first since I was taken and it has made me happy, they told me that they had send my letter on to you, but I hope you received my letter first.  Well Dear I am keeping fit and well but this is dull life.  A letter next time.  Remember me to all.  Fondest Love, Ever Yours Charlie – dated 8/7/18 – post stamped 13/8/18

I remember my father had told me stories of the Grandfather’s state of mind, it being due to the effects of the war.  PTSD?  I’m sure it was but it wasn’t recognised in those days.  Shell shock I think they called it.  He had strange behaviours, somewhat explained by this revelation.  When they got their rations, after the war ended, he would store the butter in a box and it would end up rancid – he was storing the food because he’d been starving in the POW camp.

I didn’t know the man, it’s a shame but even if I had met him, he was dead by the time I was 5 years old.

The bigger shame is that I didn’t pay greater attention to my dad with regard to his dad and his own upbringing.  I knew he’d lived through the blitz and then been sent to Wales to his paternal grandmother toward the end of the Second World War.  That he was one of the cheeky London boys hanging out at the fence surrounding the American base asking the soldiers ‘got any gum chum?’  That he had malnutrition marks on his teeth from going hungry when he lived with his dad – his mum had died when he was only 3 years old, following the birth of his younger sister.  How he used to bunk the train to get from ‘up the Valley’ into Cardiff to visit his dad when he was in hospital with no money – only a young boy, possibly even pre-teen.  I do know he loved his dad tho.

I can’t really remember so it’s hard to forget what I don’t really know.  But what I do know, I will remember.  Through this journey, I’ve met the man who was my Grandpa, my father’s father.

I never got to meet my Grandpa Charlie.  I don’t know why.  I’d assumed he died shortly after my birth, I knew my older brother had met him and my cousin (4 months younger) had.  I know very little about him and this makes me sad, now as I attempt to remember.

My uncle on my mother’s side died over 10 years ago and with him went the family history of that side of the family – John was the family oracle.

In order to remember, we first have to know, we have to pay attention, listen and absorb.  Then we can remember.  Then we can honour the saying ‘Lest we Forget’.  It isn’t just to do with my family or your family or random people.  It’s the whole event.  The misery and futility of war.  The Great War that was to end wars.  And not just the service people who died, but also those who came back changed, those who had to stay behind and struggle on supporting the war effort.  Everyone was affected.  Homage is paid to those who made the ultimate sacrifice but there were others, like my grandfather, who continued to pay the price for many years after – until he left this earth.

I don’t agree with war.  I am a conscious objector.  If war were the answer there would be no war.

We need to remember that War is not the Answer. Remember and offer gratitude to the fallen souls who gave their lives in pursuit of what they perceived to be a noble cause.  We need to remember the futility and misery of war.  We need to keep it personal or we will be dumbed down and desensitised to the pain and suffering of war – as if it were an online game where you can get up and start again or switch it off!

We need to know, to be able to remember, Lest We Forget!

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them

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I’d stay for an hour or 2 or 3, depending on how he was, and catch the bus in the dark back to the silent apartment we’d recently bought, so I wouldn’t be isolated in our retirement bungalow.  The bungalow was at the beach end of a long road, 20 minutes walk for an able bodied person to the bus.  A gorgeous bungalow, in a stunning location, but a prison for me had we stayed.

So after the flurry of activity surrounding his funeral I sat alone in my apartment contemplating a lonely future without my soulmate.

Until my daughter popped in that is.  Right, she said, you have a choice.  You can give into your grief and follow Pa now or you can choose life.  As much as I was missing him, I had had months to prepare – although nothing really prepares you – I chose life.

Ok, she said smiling at me, what’s on the list?  What list, I asked.  Your bucket list, she replied.  We’d discussed things I’d wanted to do many times and had tried to get us to take a cruise up the Norwegian Fjords to see the Northern Lights but my husband wouldn’t go because we couldn’t get travel insurance.

She’d always wanted to go to Iceland and bathe in the Blue Lagoon so she decided we’d go to Iceland to see the Northern Lights and bathe in the thermal waters.  Our tickets and hotel was book and 2 weeks before Christmas we flew to Reykjavik.  There was drama about the blizzard that ‘closed’ Iceland but we made it to the Blue Lagoon and it was gorgeous.  It was like being in a hot bath that never goes cold, all steamy hot with a -10ºC air temperature.  That night we went out chasing the Northern Lights and boy did we find them. Better than I remembered them when I was a child in Wales standing on our back step.

Our guide for the Northern Lights took us on a trip around the Golden Circle and while I couldn’t get out of the mini bus because of the snow and my mobility issues I had a great view of everything and didn’t feel I missed a thing.  We stopped to see the Geyser and had our lunch.  My daughter was in raptures.  The lamb stew a friend had recommended sent her into a time warp back to her childhood and the stew I used to make them.  She wolfed it down.  It was delicious.

Too soon our week was over and we flew back to our first Christmas without my husband, her dad.

Not one to leave me to mope she moved onto the next item on my list and our planning started.  We were going to France to the bridge over the Milau Viaduct .  Our flights to Carcassone were booked.

My son and his soon to be wife were in the process of buy a property in Caunes Minervois and we hoped to stay with them but if not, she’d just take me with her to her friend in Pamplona, Spain and we’d have a jaunt.  It lifted my spirits no end, the anticipation of adventure.

As it turned out the property purchase went through and we stayed in Caunes Minervois and my son took us out for the day to see the bridge.  It was magnificent, as I knew it would be.

Years before my husband and I had driven through the valley, up the winding roads, while they were visiting and it had always been my ambition to drive over the bridge.

This week I’ve met the Grandson I haven’t seen for 30 years since his mother took him to live in America without his father and cut off all communication.  He brought with him his wife and my beautiful Great Grand Daughter, who is to be the flower girl at next weeks’ wedding, when my son, her Grandpa, finally marries his childhood sweetheart with his Son as his Best Man.

My heart is full again but my bucket is empty.  A year on, I feel happy again, I still talk to my husband and miss him every day, but the pain is a dull ache now.

The bucket list gave me something to plan for, look forward to and do.  Now that it’s empty we’re all looking around for new things to go in it.  My daughter says I need something to aim for, to live for, to achieve.  Just because he’s gone, doesn’t mean my life is over and I had the choice of to give in to grief or choose life.  I choose life.  Let’s start filling this bucket!

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I loved my Grandmother and lived in the comfort of her bosom with my two sisters until she got sick when I was 11 years old and we were unceremoniously torn away from her and sent to live with our other Grandmother in Wales.  A Grandmother who hated boys but doted on my little sister.  I tried so hard to earn her love by being a good boy.

Bereft and feeling abandoned I just got on with it but deeply missed the love and security bestowed on me by my Grandmother.  Two years later, the war ended but I wasn’t allowed to go home.

I went to University where I met my wife and we were blessed to raise 4 of the 5 children born to us.

We moved to a big old house with a large garden full of fruit trees, in a comfortable suburb in North Kent.  The kids loved it and, although we’d stretched ourselves as far as we dared financially, we loved it.  Playing cricket in the back garden, climbing trees, digging a swimming pool which ended up as a pond with a hump bridge over, for which we had an opening ceremony with the dog, lots of children and cherryade. Our home became a mecca for children, especially at Sunday tea time when the table was laden with fresh baked rolls, cakes, jelly and ice cream, like a scene out of the Darling Buds of May.

I threw myself into fatherhood, loving every moment.  But behind that love was a terrifying fear.  A fear I shared with no-one.

I feared that I would be thrown in prison and wouldn’t be able to see my children.  The burden of that fear used to weigh me down and I would awaken with my heart pounding, sweating with fear in the middle of the night.

There was no rationale to this fear.  I had done nothing wrong, I didn’t plan on doing anything wrong.  I was a good boy!  I was an upright member of the community, a Company Director, a Sea Scout leader, an active member of my chosen political party, a school governor.

So I loved my children with all my heart.  I took them to every activity imaginable, I made things happen, I played with them in the garden, knew their friends, took them on holiday, played pranks and tricks, got them a dog, took them camping in north Wales in the rain, spending hours sitting around the small campfire cooking whatever was to hand and telling them stories.

I tried to spend every precious spare moment with them, eager to get home to them after short periods away with work.  I wanted them to know the security of a love that didn’t end, that wouldn’t be ripped away from them, that wasn’t conditional on them being or doing anything.  Love for love’s sake.  So easily lost.  The greatest treasure of all.  And my reward for all this… Grandchildren.

They gave me 6 wonderful grandchildren to love and play pranks and tricks with, to go rock pooling on the beach, to lie on the trampoline in the middle of the night looking at the meteor showers with.  To love unconditionally and without the fear of going to prison, but locked in love anyway!

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Knowledge – the beginning of it is bitter to the taste, but the end is sweeter than honey

Eleventh Century Samarkand Proverb

I could not help but apply that quote to me, so often in life I have fought and struggled against the lessons, but in the long run I’ve seen the value, and I have virtually no regrets.

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