History Lesson
*Ahem* Apologies in advance for lack of funnies.

Serious as cancer, this one.

There was one person I came to see as worthy of adulation, and quite possibly a national holiday in his honour.

My dear old grandad on my mum's side - a mentalist Geordie who I remember used to sit in a chair and swear like a fucking trooper when we went round. My mum would ask him politely to stop and he'd say:

"What the fuck did you say, ehh???" He was pretty deaf. Though he wasn't very pretty. He was, to put it technically, physically fucked. For a start he was missing the thumb on his left hand. He also walked with a stick on account of his leg being shattered in an accident when he was younger.

He had to use a catheter to piss - apparently that part of his body had been on full malfunction alert since he was in his early twenties. Its amazing he ever had kids at all.

As a youngun I'd leg it round his house pretending to be a Spitfire, as you do - and one day I felt this arm grab hold of me. It was my dear old grandad, Alan.

"Stoppit, son," he said. "Won't have any of that nonsense in this house."

And I did stop it. Why? Because my old grandad scared the living crap out of me.

Then, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, he died. And I recall at the funeral wondering why the hell everyone was so unhappy; I mean, he was fucking OLD. And he was also physically FUCKED.

Then my uncle Matteo took me to one side when I started pissing about at the after-putting-the-body-in-the-ground do.

"You need to grow up, you little shit," whispered my uncle Matteo. He could see this wasn't really having the desired effect. "Have some respect for that man!"

And, being a shit of a teenager I shot back: "Why? - What's he ever done for me?"

Matteo sat me down and explained: "Do you know how your Grandad lost his thumb? Well, he was paracuted into Normandy in the war. His paracute got caught up in some branches in a tree and he was dangling helplessly twenty feet above the ground. The only way he could get free before someone killed him was if he cut himself free. So, your Grandad took his knife and slit himself out of the harness." Matteo stopped for effect, seeing he had my attention. He had. Completely. He continued: "It wasn't until later that evening after lots of fighting that your Grandad looked down at his hand and noticed he'd actually cut his own thumb off in his hurry to get free of the parachute. He was on so much adrenalin he just didn't feel the pain."

"I didn't know any of this..."

"Well, he didn't like to talk about it. And a few days later he was shot in the leg, shattered all his bones. That's why he spent most of his time in a chair. And he did all that so little shits like you can do what you want to do in life."

And with that my uncle Matteo stalked off.

And I was incredibly well behaved for the rest of the evening.

Fuck your musicians and actors and all that bollocks - people like my Grandad and others like him deserve our devotion and hero-worship.
( SpankyHanky, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 14:51, 19 replies)

Excellent post.
My paternal grandfather won the military medal out at the Khyber Pass just before WW2 broke out and my maternal grandfather spent time interned in Spain during their civil war.
Sadly both of them died long before I was born.
An amazing generation.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 14:55, closed)

So glad someone did this post
Didn't expect it to be you, Spanky - but your absolutely right - *clicks*
(Hotty, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 14:58, closed)

Spanky deserves a click
simply for not actually posting a wanking or sex story.
(Banjax, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 15:02, closed)

Well said
click of the week from me
(Grrrrr Tigers, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 14:58, closed)

My grandfather died 2 years ago
he was in North Africa during WW2, some of the worst fighting in some of the most inhospitable places.

When we cleared his house I found his de-mob papers. He was 24 at demob and had been fighting for 5 years since he was 19.

I was 29 at the time and that bit of paper made me feel like a wet-nosed child.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 15:00, closed)

Your grandad was young but
mine ran away from home and joined up aged 15, lied about his age. By the age of 19, he'd spent 4 years in the trenches of World War I.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 23:43, closed)

Nice to see a serious
Post about this.

Pretty close to my heart too. My Grandfather died at Auschwitz.

He fell out of a guard-tower... Sorry.
( Cawl, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 15:06, closed)

I'll never forget what the german army did to my grandfather
Time and again he was denied promotion
(gentleman mongoose the Lion, the Witch & the Robot, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 15:17, closed)

*My* Grandad
...legged it out of Germany in 1938 with his family - his father claimed he was going to set up a branch of the company in England - and they told the Nazis to piss off when they called back all German citizens at the outbreak of wwii.
(he was too young to serve in either the british or german armies anyway)
( ejlflop errrrrgs. Regularly., Tue 21 Apr 2009, 2:15, closed)

My Grandad too
My Grandad died recently. When he was in the nursing home, my dad made up a picture of grandad as a young man, together with a photo of his military cross and his citation, to remind the nurses that this frail old man was a HERO.
(Mork, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 15:25, closed)

"Lest we Forget"
Thank you, Spanky, for reminding us all.

Thanks again, Grandad. Be at peace.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 16:22, closed)

well said sir
when younger i would ask my grandfather about the war; he told me he would talk about it when i was older. sadly he passed when i was twelve, so his experiences will never be known to me =(
(goorf, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 16:31, closed)

Nicely said -
click - forget sometimes the sacrifice these people made. Making jokes out of them just makes you look like a cunt. This however is a very nice post.
(Lizard King, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 16:59, closed)

highly clickworthy...

and poignant.

I have just returned from the funeral of The present Mrs Pooflake's Grandad. He too was a war hero.

After the war, he worked as a mechanic. There was a fire at the garage and two of his colleagues were trapped inside.

He went in after them...and saved them.

In the process, he burned one of his legs down to.the.bone. He never fully recovered.

I can't imagine or comprehend bravery of the magnitude of him and your Grandad.

Humbling...and puts a lot of shite that we think is serious into perspective.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 20 Apr 2009, 17:37, closed)

Despite my cheap joke earlier,
I have some serious respect for what they did.
My Grandad didn't actually make it past training, as there was an accident with live explosives. He got his face mangled, and a couple of his friends were killed in the blast.

So yeah, he was one of the lucky ones, other people lost a lot more than a bunch of face meat and their teeth.
( Cawl, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 17:55, closed)

needs more
wanking and bodily fluids. click
(knackerz is skinning up, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 5:31, closed)

My Grandad was an engineer..
.. and was in charge of the fleets of trucks/tracked vehicles that kept the supply chains running. As such he was on the leading truck in the convoys that went to one of the concentration camps.

He never spoke about the war. It disturbed him too much. he did once say that he saw some live action... but that's all he ever told me. What I do know is that he was a photographer. As the trucks rolled in to the camps, he was snapping away: looking though the viewfinder apparently made it seem less real, and therefore less horrific.

Many of his photos appear in books and museums about the war. Stacks of bodies, charred remains, gas chambers, the lot. The hollowed faces and fragile frames of the survivors, the dead look in the eyes of the living.

He died in a nursing home. 100% compos mentis, having been pre-deceased 5 years earlier by his wife. Sadly after a fall he had shatter his hip and had become bed-ridden, and then sneezed and cracked his ribs. For the next 2 years he was incapable of moving and totally depressed. Nothing could be done to cheer him up.. he was simply waiting to die.

And still he was a bigger man than the "Celebs" of today.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Tue 21 Apr 2009, 7:33, closed)

My old Granddad
was a World War 2 fighter ace: This is him here: www.nzfpm.co.nz/article.asp?id=mackenzie_jn

Now, I didn't know any of this until after he died. I knew he'd been something in the war, but really did not know what debt of gratitude I genuinely owed him. I still feel sorry that I didn't speak to him more about it, but it's too late now.

Shame his wife was such a bitch.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Tue 21 Apr 2009, 10:29, closed)

Click!
Excellent story. A mate of mine told a similar story about his stepfather's grandad who had a job on the eve of the Normandy landings to clear the beaches of landmines. Then the landings were postponed and they were ordered to put them all back to stop the Germans noticing. With no way off the beach until the troops arrived, this bloke and is mates had to bury themselves in the sand, with only a straw poked up through the sand to allow them to breathe. My mate's grandad, who hated enclosed spaces - thought he was going to get discovered when he felt German footsteps pass over his head.
Men like these are fucking heroes and should never be forgotten.
(Ghostlight, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 11:49, closed)