Still worth remembering

Buying a poppy cross to remember ones helps those in still in need

The Royal British Legion had various launches of its 2006 annual Poppy Appeal at the end of October. In my own area of Cumbria, the RBL involved local schoolchildren as well as British Legion collectors, civic dignitaries and former service veterans. Below are a few personal views about this.

Although a proportion of the general people have the idea that the Poppy Appeal is largely about WW1 and WW2 it is more than that. The funds that are raised provide much good - often unseen – help to former servicemen and their families from any period from the First World War to the present day. I know of several people who have been able to get some modest help that has made a big difference to their quality of life. At the launch of the 2006 Poppy Appeal I read in the newspaper some of the people who are being helped are young servicemen in their mid twenties. Servicemen and women can be in need at a young age as much as those who are not so young.

Encouraging younger people to take an interest in the ‘Annual Remembrance’ is surely the only way it will ever survive. In some respects it is more important that the younger generations learn and remember what the Remembrance Services are about. At the very least, the people who made such great sacrifices in their service for the country are still worth remembering.

Tank History

We have, this week, been regaled with various sessions of "Tank Week" wherein a programme sponsored by the Imp War Museum and others have been showing two hour sessions of Tanks and their History followed by sessions of Movies pertaining to same.As always we had "Patton" winning the war all by himself, plus the Desmond Young's version of the Desert Fox with James Mason portraying "Rommel"
I unfortunately missed the Monday showing but by Tuesday they showed a small outfit on the Isle of Wight stripping, sandblasting and rebuilding the Comet. This is the Tank which finally arrived in time for the Battle of the Bulge but no one had been trained on it so the had to revert to the ubiquitous Sherman - or "Ronson" or "Tommy Cooker" - depending on one's nationality.
Wednesday showed the same Isle of Wight outfit cannibalising three Sherman 4A's in order to rebuild one !
Thursday's sessions were on the saga of the Russian efforts to move the complete manufacturing facility - by plane - including a steel works to build the famous T34- which were very shortly producing 40 per day rising to 2000 per month, with a total of 50,000 for the remainder of the war which was more than the Americans produced Shermans in a lesser time frame.This culminated in the Batle of Kursk.
Friday's sessions were devoted to the French best Tank of the war unfortunately they were few in number and were hidebound by the same disease which affected the British desert army - Cavalry tactics of the first war !
We also had a fleeting glimpse of the Churchill complete with Bedford 350HP (!) engine with the comment that they had aquitted themselves well with a troop at El Alamein and thus the 21st TANK BRIGADE landed in North Africa to join the fight - with NO mention of 25TB !
The Japanese never really developed a Tank but merely a M/c gun carrier and thus the Sherman came into it's own.
Hopefully we shall see the developement of the German Panther and Tiger this evening from their version of the Kreigswagen PZ 1

Barefoot days.

Children in wartime were much the same as today with our street songs and games we made the best of the possibilities offered. One of our street songs which was sung often was called Barefoot Days.

Barefoot day's when we were just a couple of kids,
Barefoot day's oh boy the things we did,
We'd go down to a shady nook,
Take a bent pin for a hook,
We'd fish all day, fish all night,
But the darned old fish refused to bite,
Then off we'd go down some old cellar door,
Slide and slide till our pants were tore,
Then off we'd go home to bed,
While mother got busy with a needle and thread,
Oh boy what joy we had in barefoot days.

There were street variations of this and sometimes wartime verses with Hitlers one testimonial often mentioned.
Children can make the best of the worst times and we did just that.
Did we grow up traumatised I think not. Did we grow up thinking we had missed our childhood, certainly not.
We remember the fun and companionship, the joy of playing our games always outside, inside was for sleeping and eating.
I am trying to pass on some of this joy to my grandchildren and am happy to see they like the outdoors as much as I did. Never give up on the young.

Jet, the ‘Blitz’ Recovery dog

1. The William Pit memorial, Whitehaven
(Remembering coal miners who died working here)
["Jet of lana" a WW2 rescue dog was brought here in 1947] 

2. Tribute to "Jet" at Whitehaven's Haig Mining Museum
(Showing "Jet" with his owner, Mrs Babcock Cleaver)
Jet's medals include the rarely awarded Dickin Medal

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BBC People's War Messageboard

I've added a link to the BBC People's War Messageboard. It seems to be doing very well. If you do take part in any threads could you give us a mention?