The last post

I don't know why, but I always feel a connection with the first World War. Perhaps it was because I was told about my grandfather's MC at a very young age. He won it on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. And it just so happens that July 1st is my birthday, so perhaps that is why the link feels so vivid. More likely it's because I had his Sam Browne belt for ages. My granny gave it to me when I was a young teenager and had taken to wearing old military clothes: there was an army great coat, and a flying jacket, that I remember well.

The belt used to live in my clothes cupboard on a shelf among my socks and pants. So I used to touch it every day when I was home (from school). Quite often I would take it out and wear it. Less often I would take it out and polish it. It didn't need much polishing. It had a deep chestnut hue and a rich lustre, as if it had been varnished. It was old, and a bit inflexible which I suppose comes to us all as we reach our sixties. More than once I remember giving it a good going over with saddle soap. I don't know where it is now, but I would like to see it again.

I have tried to find out more about that awful day on the simple agicultural fields of the Somme. I've read a couple of the dozens of books about it: there are books just about that one day, on which 19, 240 men died. Total losses, including those deaths, were 57,470. All on a single summer's day. But the records are not very enlightening about what happened to the now long gone West Riding Regiment, which was part of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, or my grandfather on that, or any other, day.

I wrote to the regiment to ask for a copy of his citation and whether they had any more details. His citation is not very enlightening either. It just says for 'gallantry on the field of battle'. And the regiment has no more information.

On the medal it says "for gallantry" and has the date, 1/7/16. Grandpa's had an oak leaf on the ribbon. He was a brave man, my own dear grandfather. I had the medals for a while and took them to an expert for identification. There were several campaign medals as well as the MC and the Croix de Guerre. But I still don't know what he did to win either of the medals that mark exceptional bravery, and possibly never will. He was a Captain so, like Blackadder, would have been first over the top of the trench, blowing his whistle. But the West Riding were mortar specialists, and the mortar bombardment started early because General Haig's plan was to destroy the barbed wire so allowing the infantry to march slowly over to victory. Perhaps my grandpa went into no-mans-land and spotted for the mortars. Who knows? Even the army don't seem very clear on it. The medals have gone back to my uncle now. It is right that he should have them, but I would have hung on to them gladly given half a chance.

He never talked about the war, not to my mum anyway, or her sister or brother. Nor did he talk about WW2, for he served in and survived both, and then went on to an illustrious career reforming the postwar prison service. Just a few months after he was knighted, he learned he had cancer. He died when I was six and I think I can remember him, but maybe it is just old photographs that I recall. By all accounts he was a warm and gentle man, dedicated to his work and his family. I was his first born grandson and I'm told I was very special to him. He was the last significant male in my immediate family. From then on I was destined to live almost exclusively in the company of women; my mother and my grandmothers.

Of course I probably missed growing up without a father, but of all of them Grandpa (did I call him that? Perhaps it was Grandad. I don't even know that) is perhaps the one I most miss. And the one I wish I could have asked 'what did you do in the war?'