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I love to read, and what I love to read is fairly eclectic. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy reminded me that I used to read a lot of what might loosely be called ‘boy’s’ fiction. I started with Ian Fleming falling in love with everything Bond. I moved on through Alistair MacLean, Geoffrey Jenkins, Clive Cussler and Leslie Thomas to John Le Carré, Len Deighton, Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum. When I find a ‘new’ author I look out for them at the library and work my way through their oeuvre. But tastes and interests sometimes move on before this has happened. So, while I think I’ve read every James Bond book, as well as the Charlie Higson Young Bond stories, for instance, I find on looking back that my Le Carré reading has been patchy. I have started again at the beginning! His first book, Call for the Dead, introduces us to George Smiley. I plan to work my way through the Smiley stories.
Another knock on my door came in the form of the schedule for BBC Radio 4 Extra. They are rebroadcasting Len Deighton’s Bomber on Friday. This was a heart wrenching but fictional account of a bombing raid on Germany on 31st June 1943, a day that has never happened in that or any other year, and told from every angle and in minute detail. So we hear the aircrew being briefed about their task, meet the civilian population in a small town in Germany, follow the flight, watch the bombs fall, are bombed on the ground, shot at in the sky and hope to get out of the book alive. It is a standout novel. But so is the BBC production: it is striped over the day’s drama slots in ‘real’ time. It will be a poignant listen for Remembrance Day.
It's that time of year when we will go once more to the village war memorial on Sunday and remember people we have lost. Husband no longer attends in uniform, but the Gunner tie will be there as code, and I shall wear my poppy pinned with my Gunner brooch. And the girls will be there on parade with their Guide unit.
If you'd like to read the post I wrote last year about my family ties you can do so here.
There has always been a soldier in my life. When I left home, and before I was married, I was not strictly dependant upon one, but my ‘escape’ was relatively brief.
I was born in a British Military Hospital in Münster when my parents were in Germany with the Royal Artillery (the Gunners). At the time they were living in a caravan because they were considered too young to be married (they were 22) and so the Army wouldn’t provide them with a married quarter. My imminent arrival resulted in two house-sitting arrangements until a quarter could be found. We later moved to Hanover and then Hildesheim, before moving to Larkhill on Salisbury Plain in time for me to go to school. We moved again as Father’s career took him through further training at Staff College, first at Shrivenham, then Camberley and on to Barton Stacey. I went to 4 schools before becoming a boarder in Kent when I was 10. I stayed at that school for 6 years, moving to another for the 6th form. My parents and ‘home’ continued to move, including another posting to Germany and one to Northern Ireland. By the time my parents bought a home of their own I had lived in 15 quarters, 2 schools (at 4 addresses) and 4 student addresses in London and Leeds. I was 21. This is not unusual in the services.
Husband was a soldier for 30 years; he left the Army last month. We were married as the first of the recent Gulf Wars came to an end in 1991; I was very glad he was in a desk job, as he has been during the current conflicts. We were separated soon after Eldest was born when he did a tour in Northern Ireland, and again when he served in Bosnia (he missed her first two Christmases). As a 'dependant' you have to expect this, it is their job after all, but none of us like it. Lucky Youngest has never been without him. Since we married we have lived at 9 addresses and this we plan will be our last.
My uncle and one of my brothers both missed our wedding as they were in the Gulf, one an RAF navigator and the other a Gunner, like Husband. Father did three tours in Northern Ireland in the 1970s when I was away at boarding school. I got all my friends to write to him!
Paternal Grandfather was in the Army Education Corps. He and his family were in Singapore when the Japanese attacked in WW2, and his wife and children were evacuated on the last ship out. He died in Changi. On my mother’s side, Great-Grandfather, commanded the 1st Battalion The Black Watch and was killed in early September 1914 at the Battle of The Aisne. He left a wife and four children. His only son was also in The Black Watch, and was killed in France in 1940.
I will count my blessings on Remembrance Sunday once again.
