Dad never told us he was a hero
HE was not the sort to blow his own trumpet or dwell on the past. Dad was quiet, gentle and caring. He liked to garden, read, wrestle with crosswords and care and protect others, particularly his family.
so for decades, although we knew he was a highly-skilled shoemaker, admired his light-footed dancing and cheered as he played village cricket as a terrifyingly fast bowler, we had no idea he had been a hero of the 6th Battalion Grenadier Guards in world war II.
Or that along with just a handful of others, he had survived the battle for Monte Camino, Italy — one of the bloodiest of the war. He certainly hadn’t told us how, on little sleep and barely any food, he’d endured the horror of five days of machinegunning and mortaring, witnessed the death of friend after friend after friend, and been told on the radio by HQ, ‘we can’t help you, you are in God’s hands’.
For 60 years, he kept it all to himself, protecting me and my sister, Gillian — but most of all our mum, his beloved wife Rosa, a war widow whose first husband had been a pathfinder in Bomber Command — from the horror of it all.
They met towards the end of the war, on a blind date. For my dad, the attraction was instant but it was not mutual. Rosa was still grieving. Dad convinced her she would grow to love him — and she did.
In 1948, they married, Rosa in snakeskin shoes handmade by my dad, and settled in his home village of Barwell, Leicestershire, where he resumed his shoemaking career, and they lived life to the full.
There were holidays in scotland, trips to the U.s. to visit friends. Gillian and I came along, and later two grandchildren and two great-granddaughters.
Together they enjoyed a gentle whirl of cricket, gardening and dancing. There was an invitation to the Queen’s garden party for Grenadier Day — 70 years after she, as a 15- year- old Princess, had inspected Dad in his uniform at windsor.
Then things became difficult — my mum fell ill with dementia. Dad cared for her with the utmost love for five years — cooking, cleaning, playing music for her, determined she would not end up in a home. It was only after she died, in 2003, that Dad told me and Gillian about his war — the horrors, the hopelessness and the fallen friends.
Finally, in 2006, the three of us returned to Camino, where he paid respect to his comrades and was feted by the mayor, who named a street after the regiment.
Dad wept on the journey back. He had made his farewell and, finally at peace with the past, returned home to resume his gentle life of gardening, cooking and spending time with his family.