I was at the park yesterday for the Rememberance Sunday memorial. The memorial has the names of the fallen from the Great War, and a small addition for the Second World War. They could not name the dead from that war - there were too many.
It is a sobering idea that no one is left now who fought alongside the men named. With the passing of Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, the First World War has truly passed into history, the words written down and the oral history passed down through families.
Now, slowly, the same thing is happening to the Second World War. As people age, and understandably do not want to be reminded of it, the details are fading. But it matters. Talk to your elders, the grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts who lived through it. Get the true stories, from the people who were there not the political spin and biased histories that reflect the time they were written rather than the times they were written about. And remember them.
On a personal note, a gentleman of my acquaintance passed away recently. He was a second World War veteran, well into his nineties. He had a few stories I'd grown up with and he had entertained the younger ones with for years - floating out under barrels in the dark, real boy's own stuff - loved by children and dismissed by the parents. He was a cook, we were always told. It was not until he passed away that we found out among his things and his notes, and people who turned up for the funeral, what he had actually been doing.
Lest we forget.
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