Britain is no longer a country for old war veterans : Part Two

A Second World War hero has been banned from selling 'Remembrance Day' poppies after raising £140,000 over 50 years, because he is too old and needs insurance.
D-Day veteran Harry Billinge, 84, has been collecting money for military charities every year for five decades.

Harry, president of a Normandy Veterans' Association and a Royal British Legion branch chairman, has been told this year must be his last, because he will be 'uninsurable' when he turns 85. Apparently, the British Legion have told him it would 'not be able to afford the cost of the insurance'.

Like a true Brit, Harry claimed he would like to "stick a bayonet up" whoever made the decision. "I fought the Germans on D-Day and many of my friends died protecting this country".

Sad.

Also sad, is the fact that on 'Remembrance Day', this year, hundreds of D-Day veterans are to marched past the Cenotaph in London for the last time.

With the average age of survivors of the Second World War Normandy landings in 1944, now in the mid-80s, organisers said it would not be possible to stage the mass event for future anniversaries.

Before the parade, Peter Hodge, 'Honorary General Secretary' of the Normandy Veterans Association, said : "We hope to have in the region of 600 veterans and family members there. It's going to be tremendously emotional, it's the end of an era. It's the final parade for the Normandy Veterans Association in Whitehall in London."

He praised the veterans, adding: " We would like to see as many people as possible in Whitehall to give these guys a final clap. They are such an illustrious, gallant group of men."


And lastly sader still,was the anger of a First World War veteran's family, after binge-drinking student was photographed urinating on poppy wreathes on a war memorial.

John Ievers, the Grandson of a First World War soldier who died at the age of 32 in 1917, said of the the 19 year old student who pissed on the wooden cross he had laid in memory of his grandfather : "I am annoyed - he's a drunken idiot. He should be made to clean the streets of Sheffield or do some kind of community service."

So, in some respects, Britain has become a sad old country.

Having said that, it is heartening to know that, it still a place where men like Harry Billinge live and for every 19 year student who has neither any concept of living in a 'wider society', nor any idea that their actions might cause offence, I acknowledge, that there are thousands of 'good kids', who do.

And from the wonderful T.V. Series about the 'Home Guard' in the Second World War called 'Dads Army' :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okqtSYGBXC4

Britain is no longer a country for old war veterans : Part One

 

At the 'Remembrance Service' in Westminster Abbey held to pay tribute to the those who gave their lives in the 2 World Wars, for the first time, there were no old soldiers from the 1914-18 War.

There were 3 there last year, but each has since died.

The last was Harry Patch. Here he is recalling the 'Battle of Passchendaele'.
While it raged for 90 days, each day 3,000 British soldiers died.
It was an ocean of blood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7peTBVprtY&feature=player_embedded#

Above, is the family photo taken, I think, in 1914. From left to right, it shows my wonderful Granny, with the twins, Cecil and Cecilia on her lap.
They died shortly after this from the measles.They were 6 months old.

Next, came my Mother holding the flowers which were, 'studio window dressing' and taken from her after the photo was taken.

Then we have my 4 uncles, in their Edwardian suits and on the right, my stern Victorian Grandfather.

Dominating the photo, and probably the reason why it was taken, was the tall man in army uniform with a riding crop under his arm. He was my Uncle George and he was 16 years old.

He'd joined the Army that year, when he was 16 and not 18.

He'd lied about his age and had signed up after a young woman had pinned a 'white feather', a sign of cowardice, in his button hole that year.

He'd immediately taken himself off to the local recruiting office, 'took the King's shilling' and entered his contract to join the British Army.

My Grandfather did not intervene.

At the time he was working with my Grandfather on a horse and cart, delivering jam jars for the Robinson Jam Company in Woolwich in South London. This explains why he joined a cavalry regiment.

Of course, with the use of 'trench warfare', he saw no action on horseback and spent the next 3 years in the trenches in Northern France.


I can't imagine what horrors he experienced.

He was crippled by German poison gas at the end of the War in 1918 and returned home as an invalid in 1918. He was 20 years old and my Mother said that, " he looked like an old man."

The only First War veteran I really knew was a remarkable Welshman called David Parsons. He was studying History at Oxford when War broke out in 1914. He signed up and became an officer, a 'first-lieutenant'.

He didn't know it at the time, but His life expectancy in the trenches was 3 weeks.

David and I used to meet and sip martinis together at his Conservative Club, me in my 20's and he in his 70's. He never once spoke about the War and I never asked.