As you get older things grow on you. I don’t mean as you age, you grow fond of
things. I mean they actually take root
and grow on you. For example, hair will
suddenly sprout with unexpectedly luxuriousness from your nose and other areas
where it never usually appears. It is
not an endemic phenomena as normal head hair becomes fragile, thin and
sparse. It is as if a gardener formally
ordered and careful with his borders has suddenly decided to fertilise
everywhere but the flower gardens. He
seems to have developed a sense of humour about where he finds to place
seeds. “This will be good for a laugh!”
seems to be his overall horticultural intent.
If it were only hair, things would not be so bad. But other skin growths seem to have caught
the gardener’s sense of humour. They
appear willy-nilly on a shoulder, forearm, under an eye or the back of a hand
etc. You examine them with poor
eyesight wondering what is the punch line here? Late at night if unable to sleep, they become harbingers of death
and your thoughts run amok fear filled.
Perhaps these two jokers will combine against you – the hair and the
growths? So you wage a war against the
hair so that you will be able to see the other enemy. Clear away the undergrowth so that these lumps cannot sneak up
under cover so to speak. It’s quite
exhausting and becomes a war of attrition with daily battles fought to stay on
top of things. At times, eyesight
failing, you want to throw in the towel it is easy to succumb to the
inevitable. This taking care of oneself
requires such continual effort.
My grandfather said it was vital during the war. Coming back from the Somme and other horrors
he rarely spoke of what went on in those fields of horror. We knew he had been mentioned in dispatches,
that he had been wounded in the arm but these did not come from him. They were either said of him or done to
him. The only thing I remember him
telling me about the war was the importance of looking after your feet in the
trenches. He told of trenches filled
with muddy dirty water. Of boots and
socks soaked through. The rats were as
big as cats. He said they had to be
meticulous with cleaning your feet, washing and drying them as you would a new
born babe. Being careful of creases,
drying them thoroughly. Then using only
clean dry socks cover them and lace on your boots. Any small sore spotted required immediate action. In those damp conditions ‘foot rot’ could
easily set in. The first sign would be
a numbness followed by redness and blueness.
Gangrene would follow and amputation the only solution.
As my grandfather told of his feet care in
the trenches he said how his life depended on good foot care. This extended to his boots which were
polished and heated with candles to dry and let the shoe polish penetrate
properly. Then elbow grease did the
rest. I remember how his arm flew as he
beat upon the shoe to demonstrate the technique. “You have to see your face in it”, he explained. Of course those boots would be sodden and
caked in mud again soon enough but it seemed this ritual of feet cleaning and
caring for this boots were his defense against the war and the elements. His army tunic hung in the garage for years,
stiff and bloodstained with the hole in the arm where he had been wounded.
Today, I tried to find out exactly what he was mentioned in
dispatches for. I know it was on the 16 March 1919 from Sir Douglas Haig. Loads of websites offered me information, if
I paid, but I refused to pay. I
eventually found Douglas Haig’s entire collection of dispatches in book form
and begin to download the huge file. I
am hoping to solve this mystery that occurred almost one hundred years ago,
once and for all. I am downloading
the file as I write this.
Reading of the battle of the Somme on 1st of July
1916 there were 60,000 casualties on the first day. The battle raged until 18 Nov 1916 and at its end neither side
had advanced any further from where they had started on day 1. But, in that short period 1.5 million were
lying in the mud dead, wounded or missing.
Perversely, I learn, that the British soldiers were ordered to go over
the top and walk (not run) to the German lines, so convinced were the generals
that their earlier bombardment had taken out German artillery. They were wrong and so 60,000 men simply
walked into live rounds of ammunition and got mown down. Anyone who refused to clamber out of the
trenches was usually shot by their own officers for cowardice. In this mindless battlefield the suffering
cannot be imagined nor described. The
fear and horror hard to grasp.
My grandfather never spoke of it, perhaps because there were no
words. But focused instead on the one
thing, care of his feet, that sustained him through it. After the war he returned to his quiet
village corner shop. He was a different man. Whatever had happened on those dreadful dying grounds had made
him lose all fear. Nothing
life sent changed that. Two customers
entered his shop with guns threatening to shoot each other. He vaulted over the counter and threw both
of them out off his shop, after cuffing them both, without a seconds
thought. He had crossed a line that
most of us will not cross until our deathbeds.
It’s been said by Shakespeare that
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."
I am curious to know what happened that had caused the
mention in dispatches from the front line on the 16 March 1919. I search the file and there is no mention of
my grandfather’s name. I check the
London Gazzette that records most of the names of those mentioned but not
all. Again no success, I read that
regiment diaries often contain such details and check out his regiment’s
account. How thrilling to find Benjamin
Stringer mentioned in an account in Spanbroekmolen on the 4 June 1917 were he
is mentioned heading of with others to attack a trench of Germans. They killed twenty and took prisoner a
German officer and 31 prisoners. My
grandfather is wounded in the fight and I realise this is the bullet hole in
the arm of his jacket. It is as if the
past is here again and my grandfather is polishing his shoes to a military
shine and explaining the importance of caring for feet. Today has been epic and moving in a strange
way. As if things have come full circle
and I was meant to find this today.
Life threw horrors and difficulties his way but his answer was to focus
on what he could do on a daily basis to strengthen himself. So, perhaps all of us need to find those small
precious rituals that will sustain us when we face the impossible. May you find yours!
