Thanks Enfield for that poignant reminder of those who didnt return ,my great grandad <Black Watch>on dads side and mum,s grandad <Yorks n Lancs regt survived if thats the right word.The horror,s they endured and so many friends they saw killed haunted them to the end .Lions led by sheep is an apt truth for that lost generation .Long may we remember them and never repeat this folly
1 July 1916
- Thread starter enfieldspares
- Start date
enfieldspares
Well-Known Member
It's odd really, in that, aged 58, I can remember the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and being of an age to talk to those who were of that war. Even to seeing, in my grandmother's village, an old man who was a victim of shell shock and still showed those symptoms after half a century..
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Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
Just did a bit of research which really puts this event into perspective!
Total British Serviceman lives lost per recent conflict:
Northern Ireland - 763
Falklands - 255
Iraq - 179
Afghanistan - 453
Total - 1650
Day one of the Somme - 19,240 British lives lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In one Day!!
How can we ever forget that?
MS
Total British Serviceman lives lost per recent conflict:
Northern Ireland - 763
Falklands - 255
Iraq - 179
Afghanistan - 453
Total - 1650
Day one of the Somme - 19,240 British lives lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In one Day!!
How can we ever forget that?
MS
Just did a bit of research which really puts this event into perspective!
Total British Serviceman lives lost per recent conflict:
Northern Ireland - 763
Falklands - 255
Iraq - 179
Afghanistan - 453
Total - 1650
Day one of the Somme - 19,240 British lives lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In one Day!!
How can we ever forget that?
MS
Horrific!
200,000 Scots were killed in WW 1 10% of the male population at that time
A similar number were permanently disabled.
No Nation lost so many of there young men in conflict.
Jagare
Well-Known Member
Many years ago I did a job at thre Long Gannet power Station and stayed in Cumbernauld. One evening i i walked pass the war memorial in Cumbernauld and thinking that Cumbernauld must have been a small place after the 1st war . I was taken aback by the number of fallen who's names were there. Truely moving. Another War memorial is in Port Sunlight That makes you stand and reflect for a while.
Absolutely no need for politicising this topic. The EEC/EU didn't exist at the tragic time of the 2 World wars. If you had any idea of history at all you would know that one of the primary drivers for forming the original EEC was to bring countries together to reduce the likelihood of future wars.
Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
Having seen numerous names as you suggest on small village memorials, it is not just the amount compared to the village population at that time, it is the fact that many of the names are the same!
Fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, all wiped out in some cases. How did those that remained get over that? No counselling back then either - just a telegram and they were left to pick up the pieces.
Shocking to think of what they went through.
MS
Get off your high horse chap. I have no interest in politics whatsoever - and little interest in economics. I'm toward the end of a long journey.
My only concerns/thoughts are for the considerable waste of young innocent lives for what was political gains.
These young lives were wasted so that this Country could remain self governing. I believe this ideal to have been given away over the years.
I don't think they ever truely got over it my Great Grandparents certainly never to loose one child is hard enough to deal with , but to watch
your son's who actually survived the war slowly die of the injuries they had received must have been extremely hard to bare.
I think thats enough - don't you?.
If you want to have more of a 'go' at me, please start another thread.
enfieldspares
Well-Known Member
In truth nobody knows how they would have voted had they had that choice.
A seventeen year old in 1916 would have been born at the cusp of the 19th Century. Britain was a different country then and the world a different place so their perceptions of Britain and what was good for Britain, if shaped by that alone, was most likely very different from that a seventeen year old born on the cusp of the 21st Century would think.
But what is certain is that Brexit or "Remain" Corporal Dobson and the rest...too many of them and too many of them of the generation that followed...they will always stay in France....as they have now for a hundred years just gone...
A seventeen year old in 1916 would have been born at the cusp of the 19th Century. Britain was a different country then and the world a different place so their perceptions of Britain and what was good for Britain, if shaped by that alone, was most likely very different from that a seventeen year old born on the cusp of the 21st Century would think.
But what is certain is that Brexit or "Remain" Corporal Dobson and the rest...too many of them and too many of them of the generation that followed...they will always stay in France....as they have now for a hundred years just gone...
Nobody else has mentioned the current issues in this thread and I don't think it was necessary for you to do either.
Those young men went over the top because senior people at the top got it wrong.
Just like senior people got it wrong before the Second World War started.
Just like senior people recently got it wrong about WMD.
Unfortunately these things will always happen no matter where the power lies.
This is the time to remember those that gave all they could, some that came back were never the same because of what they gave.
Others never got the chance to come back and for all their efforts I give thanks.
When I was in my early 30s, I belonged to a small Rotary Club, which had two WWI vets in it, one just an enlisted man, the other a Major, who was a bit stuffy. The jabs of these two was entertaining.
My oldest uncle was an officer in WWI. He was a self-made millionaire in his 20s, left his business in the care of employees, volunteered, and was an Captain at The Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Chateau T, etc. He had lots of stories, and had a little den in his home for his friends to sit around. It had the rifle and sword of his ancestor from 1780, the gun belts and swords of ancestors from the Mexican War and the Civil War. He tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor, at age 54.
He was cotton broker, who supplied mills in England, so he had a lot of friends all over the UK, and felt like an attack on them was an attack on him. His respect for those who did not return was contagious.
My oldest uncle was an officer in WWI. He was a self-made millionaire in his 20s, left his business in the care of employees, volunteered, and was an Captain at The Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Chateau T, etc. He had lots of stories, and had a little den in his home for his friends to sit around. It had the rifle and sword of his ancestor from 1780, the gun belts and swords of ancestors from the Mexican War and the Civil War. He tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor, at age 54.
He was cotton broker, who supplied mills in England, so he had a lot of friends all over the UK, and felt like an attack on them was an attack on him. His respect for those who did not return was contagious.
Certainly enough for me. I don't want to disrespect the subject anymore.
Highlandsjohn
Well-Known Member
In the years after the second war, we as children in Erskine Primary School, on the week of remembrance, we made and sold poppies, collected clothes and food to take to the Erskine Hospital, for war disabled.
There were young men from the second war and older from the first, who were the recipients of our cloths and food.
Little did I know then that my father served in the Cameronians, second Battalion, Scottish Rifles. His campaign medals were for post 1915, before that they got the 'star',he didn't,just the two..
.
He of course survived the Somme or my sister and I would not be here. He served with three of his brothers, my uncles, two who got invalided out. My uncle Willie was not so fortunate, he lies in Abbeville Military Cemetery.
When I was in France a few years ago, I visited, Verdun, The Somme and Flanders Fields. I met dozens of folk from all corners of the world looking for relatives. I felt quite old, as most were looking for grand and great grand parents/uncles.
For those who do the sums, I was born in 1947, Dad was 54, seventeen years older than mum, who was a strident socialist.
She told me Dad always voted Tory (he was a poor gardener) Probably came from all that digging practice they had on the Somme, poor buggers.
He came home with white hair and malaria (aged 25) which he contracted when he was transferred further east...
Yes god rest their souls indeed...
There were young men from the second war and older from the first, who were the recipients of our cloths and food.
Little did I know then that my father served in the Cameronians, second Battalion, Scottish Rifles. His campaign medals were for post 1915, before that they got the 'star',he didn't,just the two..
.
He of course survived the Somme or my sister and I would not be here. He served with three of his brothers, my uncles, two who got invalided out. My uncle Willie was not so fortunate, he lies in Abbeville Military Cemetery.
When I was in France a few years ago, I visited, Verdun, The Somme and Flanders Fields. I met dozens of folk from all corners of the world looking for relatives. I felt quite old, as most were looking for grand and great grand parents/uncles.
For those who do the sums, I was born in 1947, Dad was 54, seventeen years older than mum, who was a strident socialist.
She told me Dad always voted Tory (he was a poor gardener) Probably came from all that digging practice they had on the Somme, poor buggers.
He came home with white hair and malaria (aged 25) which he contracted when he was transferred further east...
Yes god rest their souls indeed...
When they aren't being conducted and two or more are playing instruments, the 'rotation' seems to be used as a means to end the note in unison - bottom of the circle the note stops. Usually only one 'rotates', unless he cant be seen by all playing.
The world needs more men like that, proud, honest, respecting family and its history and completely at ease with themselves.
Sadly, there are far fewer than once there were.
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