And this year with the added anniversary of 2011 making it 11..11…11 ...11

Memorial Stone to the people who died while serving at the airfield close to our village

I was born just a few months before the end of WW2. It was a world none of you born after 1970 would recognise. I grew up living with my grandparents in a terraced house in a Midland’s industrial city, the kind of street that was replicated a thousand times across the industrial cities of Britain. It wasn’t exactly back to back as we had a yard and a small rear garden which I could play in. When you went out of the back door to the yard you first passed the window of the kitchen then came a coal house, after that a plain brick outside loo and I can tell you we didn’t sit around too long dreaming. In the winter we even had to leave a small paraffin lamp by the pipes to stop them freezing.  Nice soft toilet paper, on a toilet roll on the wall, forget it, it was ripped up squares of newspaper with a hole punched in the corner with a piece of string through and then hung on a nail in the brick wall. On top of the outside toilet was an enormous tank which all the house gutters ran into to catch rain water. Now I don’t know if this was the original water supply for the house (it was built around the 1890’s) but we still had a tap in the kitchen from it and my grandmother used it for washing because she said it was soft water unlike the mains water. However there was always a lady’s stocking over the end to catch any small creatures or dirt that came down the pipes!

We did have another tap in the kitchen it was one cold mains water tap, no hot water tap, and no bathroom or bath. Well there was the tin bath hanging on the wall and yes I did have baths in the kitchen in it! If you wanted hot water you boiled a pan on an old gas stove or for the bath or washing clothes we had a galvanised boiler in the kitchen corner. But there was always a kettle on the hob at the side of the open fire or actually hanging over the fire. It was a particularly black kettle! We still had the Victorian black steel range with an open coal fireplace with an oven at the side in the living/dining room, although my grandmother no longer did the cooking on it. This was the only heating in the house and in winter we would huddle around it with thick curtains across every door to keep out the drafts of cold air from the other rooms which were like fridges. There were fire places in the bedrooms but you only had a fire if you were ill, it was too expensive. We had a front parlour which was only used when guests arrived or for family parties. 

No television of course, well we did get TV when I was about 14, before that we all sat around the radio of an evening. I can still remember when I was young, and still hadn’t gone to school, cuddling up to my grandmother in afternoon and listening to the BBC, Listen with Mother story time. No Cbeebies then to stick the kids in front of while you go and do something else. 

Although times were hard, compared to the luxuries of today, in many ways, at least for children, times were absolutely great. The streets were empty of traffic we played football in the middle of the street and lots of chasing games and there were always loads of friends to play with. The alleys between the houses were a rabbit warren for chasing and hiding games, you could run from street to street for a mile. They were quick ways for everyone to cross streets without going around. The streets were full of kids in groups playing together with not an adult in sight. Today these same alleyways are gated and locked in fear.   In those days everyone knew each other and when it came to child care guess what, all the teenage girls in the street and some younger would just knock the door and say, ‘can we take your baby or youngster out, Mrs Jones?’ You would be popped in your pram and off they would go. Mum could get on with what she was doing without worry or fear.

We made trolleys (wooden go carts on old pram wheels) we made what you would now call mountain bikes. We would find old bike frames and wheels, make them up with one brake sometimes no brakes and take them out in the fields to off road on them. We even made dirt racing tracks in the woods because although it was a city and we were in terraced houses we were never far from wild parkland or open fields which we could bike to, bus to, or even walk to. In every street there was what we called bomb sites where houses or factories had been flattened in the war. These provided adventure playgrounds for us. We could do what we wanted, make dens smash bottles, play cowboys and Indians. No adults bothered us; we were free to do what we wanted. The only rule was to be in when it got dark.

Young people and children experienced a freedom to grow up.

Perhaps in some small way that’s why I cherish freedom so much. I think my two sons experienced something similar in their childhood because we always lived in the country. They experienced the same kind of childhood freedom of space and no adult supervision; the only rule was to be back by a certain time. I am sure they got up to tricks I still don’t know about. But one thing I do know was that Christian climbed to the top of some mature 60ft beech trees and pinned a flag to the top of each. They remained there for years.

I remember one night when they broke the rule of coming in on time they were about 10 and 7 years old.  I wasn’t too bothered at first (it wasn’t a rigid on the dot thing) but, as time went by, and it was dark, I first became annoyed, and then of course quite worried when suddenly the door opened and Christian, stuck his head around the door.

“Daniel won’t come in dad and I am getting cold” shouted Christian

“Do you know what time it is? Get in here “(relieved that they were okay I could return to chiding father mode)

“He won’t come in Dad he’s too scared”

“What do you mean” I shouted back as I walked to the door and looked out.

“He fell in the ditch Dad and he’s soaking wet and he’s scared you are going to tell him off.”

There was Daniel standing soaking wet in the dark looking very sheepish.

I felt bad that the poor boy was more scared of me than falling in a ditch and getting soaking wet!

Freedom they had but they also had to learn to do as they were told and how to behave themselves they were taught to be responsible for their actions.  Because with true freedom comes responsibility.

When they were 12 and 9 I decided we would take our bikes and go on a camping trip to France. How and why this came about is another story. The point was, I wanted to do it and it was easy to persuade them to come.

“Heh Christian would you like a brand new bike? Well let’s try it out in France”

Daniel being rather smaller was a problem but we found him a small second hand bike with gears and off we went

We never really do a great deal of planning for any adventure, we just kind of have an outline plan which was to take the ferry to Cherbourg and then bike down the Cherbourg Peninsula and into Brittany the rest we would make up as went along. 

It was 300 mile trip, its amazing how far you can travel on a bike in 2 weeks even when you are only 12 and 9. We camped wild most of the time and had some adventures that would fill a blog.

I knew of course about Normandy and the D-Day landings but as we sailed across to Cherbourg the boat was full of old soldiers with their war time berets. I didn’t know at first but it was the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day landings and they were going for some special parades. So our plans changed to include a visit to the D-Day beaches and Museums on the way back. I managed to pick up info along the way (no surfing the net in those days).

I remembered seeing the film The Longest Day and I remembered the story of the American 101^st Airborne Division landing at a place called St Mary Eglise. We decided to go and take a look as there was an American war museum there. As we rode towards the small town I told the boys the film starred John Wayne and in the film a guy parachutes down into the village and his parachute gets stuck on the church spire. You can imagine our surprise as we rode into the centre of the village and there was a parachute hanging form the tower with what appeared to be a soldier in uniform. It was a dummy of course but it sure impressed one 12 year old and his 9 year old brother. Later walking around the very impressive museum one small Daniel in a very loud voice, as only kids can do, said , “Heh dad where’s John Wayne?”

The parachute on the spire incident did actually happen by the way, it wasn’t just a bit of Hollywood theatricals.

We biked to some big German gun emplacements and we saw the Mulberry harbour which had been constructed in the UK and floated across the channel. Then we visited the War museum at Bayeux and all this made the whole thing far more real. 

There was an Allied war cemetery nearby so we all went across to pay our respects. But as I walked along the endless rows of perfectly aligned headstones which are kept immaculate and began to read the headstones I found it harder and harder to hold back the tears.

To our beloved father….left us so soon…  died in action aged 23

To our loving son we will never forget you … died in action aged 21

To my loving husband you will be in my heart forever….died in action aged 27

To our loving son who sacrificed so much for others.. died in action aged 19

They went, on row after row after row, hundreds of them and all over northern France there are millions of young men from all over the world who came to a foreign land to defend their right to freedom, who died defending the freedom of their friends, their relatives, their countries and us.

They willingly gave their today’s for our tomorrows.

Since then I have always remembered them at this time of year, because what they were really fighting for was freedom, their freedom and our freedom.

On the radio this morning I heard someone say her father was Polish and he managed to find his way to the UK in 1940 for one reason only, to fight for the freedom of his country.

Without their sacrifice I could never have grown up with the freedoms that I wrote of earlier, we would never have had the freedom to roam and think what we want, do what we want; to take an innocent bike ride across the channel with my children.  Instead we would have been living in a totalitarian state with secret police with no power of protection or redress for the common man. 

Llanbedr’s war memorial 

We always try to get down to our local war memorial in the village and join with the millions of people up and down the land remembering those who gave their lives. It’s extremely moving as the names of every single person in every world conflict since the First World War who came from our village and parish area and who gave their lives for us is slowly and solemnly read out.

The local army and air cadets parade through the village.  And we have the last post played by a bugler.

Memorial stone in Llanbedr to Corporal Barney Dylan Warburton who died trying to defuse bombs in Bosnia, he gave his life for others.

I don’t suppose we ever really understand the politics and policies of governments who go to war, but it seems right that we should spare a thought and pay our respects to those who lost their lives for their countries, our country and their fellow human kind.

It has taken thousands of years and the deaths of millions of men and women for power to be in the hands of the people. Cherish your freedom it’s not the default setting of the world. 

Further thoughts on this

http://baavet.posterous.com/baavet-blitz  Democracy and freedom are not the default settings of the world