Title source: line from final stanza of 'There's No Silver Lining' in Aftermath (2014) - see blogs 21 & 22 May How are the above items connected? During World War 2, while Dad was in the British Liberation Army, Mum and I lived in Lancaster. Aged between 3 and 7 then, I used to wonder why there were so many men, with one trouser leg pinned up, sitting on the pavement outside the town centre shops. I don't remember ever asking why. Maybe I guessed that, hearing the adults' constant preoccupation with their own wartime problems, the answer would have been: 'Mind your own business and don't stare, it's very rude.'
Those men must have been some of the 28,000 British soldiers who had lost a leg in World War 1, their livelihood and more besides. They would have arrived by ambulance train from a south coast port. Well over 100 soldiers lost a limb in Afghanistan. This week, 20-26 May, is BLESMA, the Limbless Veterans (charity founded 1931) week. Follow this link to Joanna Bourke's history of the development of limb prostheses for war amputees in 'The Wounds of War': www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/wounds-war/ The British Legion, a charity, was founded in 1921 to meet the range of desperate needs of service people, war veterans and their families which the nation could not provide after such a costly war. My father joined in 1946 after he was demobbed from WW2. His badge is on the right of the image. I joined after visiting the Normandy beaches in 2000 when it had become the Royal British Legion (see badge on left of image). The Legion is still needed today because, as I once heard the late Avril Fearns, fellow Legion member and tireless poppy collector, put it: 'Politicians make war.'
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AuthorIt's almost two years since I published In Our Fathers' Footsteps (see under BOOKS). My latest book, One Dog and His Cop, about my cousin's police dog,was published 30 November this year (see under BOOKS). Archives
September 2021
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