The White. The Silver, and the Grey

As usual, I attended the Remembrance Day service, held around the War Memorial which stands some twenty feet back from the pavement in a small village just north-east of Durham City proper. I stood in memory of my Dad, who served in the Army after signing up the day after War was declared. I stood in memory of my Uncle Pete, who served as a gunner in an Artillery Regiment, and who died in early June 1944. 

There were no obscenities present, such as the scum waving Hamas-Palestine flags, of the symbols of hatred of Jewish identity, or of Israel, for this was my England, the England, the Great Britain which still exists, quietly going about our business.

The colours mentioned in this post’s heading refers to the colour of the hair for most of those who stood, wrapped well up against a chilly November wind. True, there were children present, together with their parents, but I doubt very much if the words, the trumpet sounding those immortal notes, meant very much to those young ears. 

The Kohima Epitaph, which says:- When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, We gave our today; was spoken: but I doubt very much if one or two even knew where Kohima is, or rather was. Some speak of the ten-week battle as Britain’s Stalingrad, but even Stalingrad did not feature a pitched battle between an army of thousands and a besieged defence across the width of a tennis court. 

That was Kohima. General Bill Slim’s campaign, which included the dropping of ammunition by parachute to the besieged Allied forces. If Kohima had fallen, the 11-mile long supply dumps at Dimapur would have fallen to the Japs, and the whole of India would be then at stake. But, as history tells, Kohima did not fall, due to the courage and bloody-mindedness of British, Indian and Gurkha soldiers who would not give in, and thus saved India.

I do not know how many more Remembrance Services I shall see, for I am now in my eighth decade, I am slowing down, and I cannot now do many things which once came naturally to me. But I shall persevere, in the faint hope that I will see MY country purged of the Fifth Column which our political masters have engineered and encouraged.