VE Day ..with Gillies Jones

 A beautiful bowl created by Gillies Jones in the studio in Rosedale on the North York Moors. It is #ForgetMeNotBlue and I felt very apt to be part of my blog today as we look back on VE Day . We should never forget the men, women ,horses and dogs who gave so much for us all to have enjoyed life since then. Today in splendid sunshine ,as the birds sing and the skies are quiet we cannot begin to image how much they gave for us. Brave boys wanting to go to help fight the enemy ,under age some of them only 14 years old. Horses that had been working in the field..maybe the famers' favourite been taken out of the rural fields it had been born and bred in to then gone to war. So after all the flag waving and tea parties and celebrations today, we should remember them ..the ones who never grew old and the old that have the sad and haunting memories etched so deeply inside. My Dads cousins went to war , they could never talk about their days in the trenches and the terrible times they lived through it was too painful... Too painful to talk about ... So this blue bowl sums it up for me .. The serenity of the blue.. I truly hope they are all now in Peace those who fought to give us peace. We didn't celebrate but I sat in the sunshine on my Dad's lawn while he told me of how hard those days were. So anyone whinging about the lockdown needs to get some backbone just like those had years ago .They had it, they didn't need to get it. From this we should take example.

This was sent to me ,it is all so true, my Dad would endorse this too . When men were men .We must count our blessings and STAY AT HOME

I talked to a man today

I talked with a man today, an 80+ year old man. 

I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Coronavirus scare was gripping the world.

He simply smiled, looked away and said:

"Let me tell you what I need! I need to believe, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe this nation we handed safely to our children and their children...

I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for."

I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all. 

So, I sat there, quietly observing.

"You know, I was a little boy during WWII. Those were scary days. 

We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war. 

There was no certainty, no guarantees like we all  enjoy today.

And no home went without sacrifice or loss. Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way. 

Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle. 

Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles...

Having someone, you love, sent off to war...it wasn't less frightening than it is today. It was scary as Hell. If anything, it was more frightening. 

We didn't have battle front news. 

We didn't have email or mobile phones. You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed. You may not hear from them for months, if ever. 

Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death.

And we sacrificed. You couldn't buy things. 

Everything was rationed. You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper. 

EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort. 

And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort. 

My generation was the original recycling movement in the world.

And we had viruses back then...serious viruses. Things like polio, measles, and such. 

It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined. 

We didn't shut down our schools. We didn't shut down our cities. We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitiser. 

And do you know what? We persevered. We overcame. 

We didn't attack our Presidents, Prime Ministers or whoever, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war. 

Thick or thin, we were in it to win. 

And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today."

He slowly looked away again. Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye. Then he continued:

"Today's kids don't know sacrifice. 

They think a sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country. 

Today's kids are selfish and spoiled. 

In my generation, we looked out for our elders. We helped out with single moms who's husbands were either at war or dead from war. 

Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves. 

It's shameful the way kids behave these days. None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made.

So, no I don't need anything. I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus. 

But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you? 

Do you have enough to get through this, enough steak? 

Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?"

I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's. 

All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear.

I talked to a man today. A real man. A man from an era long gone and forgotten. 

We will never understand the sacrifices. 

We will never fully earn their sacrifices. 

But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them.

I saw this and it was too good not to share