Incredible to contemplate that today would have been my Dad’s 110th birthday.
He was a good bloke, very dapper and understated, one of those fellows who didn’t go on, if you know what I mean. Take a look at his service record as a Staff Sergeant, mainly with the Middlesex Regiment and as a Desert Rat (a member of the 8th Army).
He gave us snippets, a recurrent Swahili phrase, the claim that he could ask the question “Would you like to come out dancing?” in a dozen languages, memories of the “shitehawks” swooping to grab food from soldier’s plates in the desert, the lush beauty of Bangalore, being bitten by a rabid dog in the shadow of the pyramids.
But we didn’t have enough time together in my maturity for me to glean what living in India for six years in the 20s was really like, or the experience of China and Singapore in the 30s or the detail of his part in the Africa Campaign.
The Old Man would far rather laugh over one of his favourite books Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall.
I have his copy, so shall make a cup of tea and laugh with him, wherever he is (PD Gorman that is, not Milligan).
Here’s to you Staff.
Ian Harris
April 27, 2013 at 1:29 pmLovely Paul. I have very similar memories of my father who would have been 100 this year. My dad was in the Royal Engineers in France and Belgium in 1943-5. Their generation didn’t talk about the war, I think they were so relieved they survived active service! ( Amazing your dad was in the ‘Desert Rats’ ). I was an Army cadet in the Middlesex Regiment in North London, 1961-63 and my dad really encouraged me to join the regular Army, but I became a Mod instead! I got most of my sense of style from dad, watching him getting ready to go out to his British Legion club, with his sharp suit, shiny shoes and ‘Brylcreem’ hair he would turn to me and say “who’s the kiddy” !
Paul Gorman Author
April 28, 2013 at 11:57 amThanks Ian
I am sure their insistence on smartness – he taught me the correct way to polish shoes, iron shirts, etc at a young age – had an impact; it certainly did on you, one of the most dapper people I know, Bomber!
Ian Harris
April 29, 2013 at 8:54 amThankyou Paul, it’s in the genes. You’re pretty dapper yourself! Angels one five, bandits at one o’clock.