Perhaps the title is a little misleading, as I didn’t actually fight in World War I, nor do I feel any nostalgia towards the event. But my grandfather was involved in the war, and seeing as yesterday’s post seemed to expect a sequel…
I never knew my grandfather that well. He came to live with us for a few months before he died, when I was 12. I was always a little wary of him, found him gruff and frightening. I cried when he died, mainly because my mother told me he was in heaven, and I couldn’t imagine him ever being let in the door.
At my mother’s birthday yesterday, I found out a little more about him, and it made him seem more human.
I imagine him filled with youthful patriotism at the start of the war. Most ordinary citizens marched in favour of the war, and politicians were proud to send their sons to the front, unlike today. He was too young to enlist, but faked his age in order to get in.
Once at the front, in France, he saw his friend die before his eyes, and in turn got shot through the mouth, and was sent to hospital The experience gave him nightmares right until his death.
His naivety about war probably shattered, he tried all he could to avoid being sent back to the front. In hospital, he put his thermometer into his tea to fake a raging temperature. Healthy again, he found the energy to woo a French nurse. One day, while on the job in her apartment, her husband unexpectedly returned, and my grandfather had to flee from the understandably irate man. I imagine him running down the street with his pants around his feet.
As a child I used to have scores of trump card packs, sports players, cars, ships etc. I had one with World War I guns. I remember asking him about some of the guns, and not being able to understand why he was so reluctant to speak about them.
He was apparently quite naughty throughout his life, which is probably why he’s remembered so fondly by those who knew him better. He ended up marrying my grandmother, a Dutch woman. This was one of the first mixed marriages (between Dutch and British) of the day, and apparently caused a scandal.