Notes of Life

I’ve got back into reading books again lately. I’ve read more books in the past few months than I’ve read in a long time. It’s been mainly autobiographies and factual/history books, but there’s been the odd fiction one too.

I’d like to recommend a great little website for buying books (UK based), but first I must recommend a book I’ve read recently. It’s not for the faint-hearted and is certainly moving, but I think it’s a book everyone should read if only to remind people of what really happened and so that the attrocities don’t happen again.

Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz by Olga Lengyel is just that… her true story about what happened at Auschwitz. She was there and this book was written shortly after, so it was all very much fresh in her mind (not that I think those memories would have ever left her).

This book wasn’t the easiest book to read, due to it’s subject matter, and it had me in tears by the end of the first chapter. I had to put the book down half way through the next chapter too, that’s how moving I found it. Olga unknowingly sent her mother and eldest son to the gas chambers along with her youngest son. She had thought she was saving them from hard work, not knowing what would actually happen. She must have felt such guilt, despite it not being her fault. After all, who could have believed that human beings were capable of such attrocities on such a mass scale.

This book is Olga’s personal story, but she has also tried to include any detail she could remember and the stories of other people she met in the camp.

I did history in school and we learnt of what happened during World War 2, but that barely touched on what these poor people experienced.

If there’s one book you should read in your life, then I think it should be this one. It’s not an easy read, emotionally, but it’s certainly unforgettable.

Now to the website I’d like to recommend…

Bananas.co.uk is a division of The Book People (who you’re more likely to have heard of). The Book People might sell books cheap, but Bananas sells them even cheaper! How? Well, Bananas is The Book People’s online clearance shop. The books that are on the Bananas website are only available in limited stock, so I recommend that if you see a book on their website that you want, then you should buy it there and then as it may not be there next time you visit.

An example of just how cheap some of the Bananas books are is U2 by U2. This book has a RRP (Recommended Retail Price) of £30 (not a price that I’d easily pay for a book), however Bananas are currently selling it for the grand price of £1. Yes, you read that correctly… ONE BRITISH POUND!

As Bananas is a clearance website, they don’t have a huge amount of books on offer, but it is still worth having a browse. After all, you might find a right bargain!

In the past couple of months I’ve made 2 orders with Bananas and purchased a total of 11 books for £24.50 (plus postage). I would like to point out that the books weren’t just for me… I’m not reading books quite that quickly… some of the books were for Mum. The most we paid for 1 book was £3.50 and the least we paid for a book was £1.

You get free postage if you spend over £25, but that’s a lot of books at Bananas prices! They’ve also currently got an offer on for 10 £1 books for just £7.50, saving even more!

Honestly, it’s madness!

I found this photo of soliders in our big box of photos (which I am slowly sorting out), however we don’t know much about it.

My Granddad Charlie is in the back row, 2nd from the right. That’s all we know for sure!

Apart from that, Dad believes it could have been taken at Wrexham Barracks and sometime after the Great War (early 1920’s).

Notes:

1. The soldiers have varying cap badges, indicating they were from different regiments (Granddad was in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers).
2. It seems like quite a relaxed photo, rather than an official one.
3. Soldier 2nd from the right in the 1st row is holding a dog!
4. Soldier in the middle of the 1st row is holding a pipe.
5. Soldier 2nd on the left in the 1st row is holding a cigarette.
6. Soldier 1st on the left in the 1st row looks to have a cigarette in his mouth.
7. Soldier 1st on the left in the 2nd row has his hands in his pockets… certainly not something done in an official photo!

Each year when Remembrance Sunday comes around, I always think of my Granddad Charlie. He fought on the Western Front in the Great War. He made it home, but only after being wounded and captured as a Prisoner of War. I can only imagine what he went through. He also served in the Home Guard in World War Two.

Dearly missed.

—————

And my thoughts go to all those who fought and never came home.

This afternoon Sarah invited me down to her place for a drink and a chat.

I’ve known Sarah all my life, from being tiny tots, through our teens and now we’re nearly at the end of our twenties. Even our families go way back… Sarah’s Great Great Grandmother was my Great Granddad’s 2nd wife – I guess you could say she was my Great Step-Grandmother! That would make Sarah a step-cousin somewhere along the line!

Anyway, we got talking about family history and Sarah produced a folder full of photos. She looked at one, looked at its back and passed it to me.

I didn’t need to see the back of the photo, I knew the face. There, a young man dressed in a soldier’s uniform looked out from the photo with a slight smile on his face. His face tells me he’d not yet endured WW1. He’d not yet trudged through the mud in Europe, been wounded & captured or seen the hell that they call a battlefield. His face tells me it was yet to come.

I’d never seen a photo of Granddad Charlie looking young. He always seemed to look old in photos taken after the war. Even Dad says Granddad Charlie always looked old. It may be just his facial expression, but to me Granddad looks older than his years in the photo below, taken after WW1. He would have been in his mid twenties.

Sarah had one or two other photos I would like to borrow, so I’ll ask her about them when I return Granddad’s photo.

Photo 1 courtesy of Sarah. Photo 2 is from my collection.

As today is Remembrance Sunday, it’s only fitting that I remember men who fought during the Great War. These men did not die during war, but they survived a hell and had to live with the memories for the rest of their lives.

Granddad Charlie was called up for service with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 5th March 1917. He served as a Lewis Gunner on the Western Front, I believe in the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres). We have been told he was rescued by another man in the field, but I don’t know any details (I can only be eternally grateful). Sometime in 1918 Granddad was reported as missing, but in October of that year the family received a postcard from the British Red Cross stating that though wounded he was reported as a Prisoner of War (Camp not stated). Granddad was repatriated on 4th December 1918 and transfered to Army Reserve on 22nd October 1919. He was given the British War Medal and the Victory Medal for his service in the Great War.

During World War II, Granddad Charlie served his country once again, this time in The Home Guard. Granddad was certified as having attended a practical examination at a Bombing Range and was qualified to assist in the throwing of live grenades (although I would have thought his time in the Great War trenches would have qualified him for something like that). During this time, my Grandparents also took in a number of evacuees.

As with most Great War veterans, Granddad never said much about his time on the Western Front. I can’t imagine what he’d been through and he probably didn’t want to think about it either. Granddad Charlie died at the grand old age of 86.

Joseph Groom wasn’t family, but he was close enough. I’ve been told my Great Grandfather Alfred took him in at a young age.

As far as I’m aware, Joe had joined the Army before the Great War. He certainly saw battle by November 1914. Joe was in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and by August 1915 was fighting near Hooge, Belgium. While there, he earned himself a Distinguished Conduct Medal. The London Gazette announced people who had won this prestigious medal and on 15th September 1915 they listed Joe and an account of why he’d been awarded the DCM. It says:

For conspicuous gallantry on the 9th August, 1915, during the attack on the Hooge trenches, when he was ordered to reinforce the captured trenches with a machine gun. In the advance he came under heavy shell fire, the gun was damaged and several of the gun team wounded. Although wounded himself, he bound up his comrades’ wounds, returned to Headquarters and reported, and successfully took another gun and team to the firing line.

A well deserved medal, in my opinion. I also know that he won the British War Medal, Victory Medal and the 1914 Star Medal. He also served in the Nigeria Regiment in West Africa during the Great War.

Joe achieved so much at such a young age, but sadly didn’t live much beyond the Great War. Regimental Sergeant Major Joseph Groom D.C.M. died on 7th April 1919 of “Acute bellow atrophy of the liver”, aged just 23 years old.

May they rest in peace.