Sunday 9 November 2014

I will remember him. 🌺

Remembrance Sunday is upon us and it is 100% years since WW1 began.  For many of us alive today that really is another life time. For our children, it's history, a story about something that happened in the past made real by a few old photographs and the odd love letter between a young soldier and his lover back home. 

This year my daughter's homework was to prepare a timeline of events and people in our family over the past 100 years and gather any information about family that served in either war. 

We are lucky that my uncle is an historian and has the most amazing family archives I've ever seen, including my Grandpa's life story ( reading it was life changing).
So he happily gathered some information and together Madeline and I began to read it.
    My Grandpa in WW2

That's when it hit me. These men that we are reading about are young boys, their whole life is in front of them. They have dreams, they have a wife, a mother, a daughter. They really aren't just a single red poppy in a field or a name on a list. 


Close your eyes for a moment, think of the man closest to you in your life, the one you love with all your heart, there may be more than one. 
How old is your son? The boy you would lay your life down for? 

Think about them for a moment. 


So tomorrow they are told they have to leave, you don't know how long for and you don't really know where they are going but they HAVE to go - and no, it doesn't matter that their wife is pregnant, their mother is ill, their baby will be one next week or they are in the middle of building you a new garden shed. 

So off they go. Just like that..... Gone....... Only the void of emptiness left. The uncertainty of when you'll see them again. The fear of the unknown. Loosing a part of yourself. 

So here are the men I will remember today. 
James Joy, my great Grandfather was born in Ireland in 1885. When war broke out in 1914 he became a solider in the 1st Battalion of Irish Guards, an old and proud regiment.
In 1915 he went to France and served in the trenches. (aged 30) Although he never talked about it we do think he served for the first few months at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The cold, wet lonely trenches. At 30, he should have been out with his friends, enjoying life and dreaming big. He was lucky enough to survive the war, but what he didn't know as he served in the trenches was that he was almost half way through his life already. 
Toward the end of 1916 he transferred to the Royal Military Police. And the rest is another story. 

He died in 1951 aged 66.




So me and Finlay and Madeline are living legacies of this battle he fought. He saved us, gave us the life we live. Gave us freedom. 


My Grandpa.
Where do I begin with this man.
Without the war he was my hero. 
He was called Ronald Joy or Ron as he was mostly known. He was born 1925, and was at school,when the war began.  He was well over 6ft, so as a child he was very tall. People thought he was older than he actually was and thought he was opting out if going to war, this used to insult him terribly. 
    Grandpa in 1940, aged 15. 

In 1943 ( aged 18) he joined the Royal Navy where be eventually became a petty officer. 

He served in some scientific research places before joining HMS Devonshire. During this time he  traveled to the Far East and Australia. His ship's job as a minesweeper was to clear old mines from the sea to make it safe for other ships. 
After the war he never liked to travel far. He never talked much about that time either. In those days there was no councilling, no charities set up to support returning service men, help them with the traumatic experiences. They simply came home and carried on, at least on the outside but who knows the battles they fought inside their head for the rest of thier lives.

He died 2000 aged 75. Always a hero. 

Writing this post, really remembering people who fought for us, has left me with a heavy heart, a sadness for those young men who really gave their lives for us, family they didn't even know yet. Such a selfless act. And pride, pride in family ties, the human spirit and mostly in love. 
 Today we remember their greatness, the great ones. The ones who saved us. We also remember those who continue to do just that.
Our troops around the world fighting for us and sacrificing their lives. 


    X🌺