Sunday 8 November 2015

Remembrance Day Poem: Tribute to my dad: 'My Old Soldier'

My old soldier

(Originally written for the Bletchley Park Trust World War 11 Poetry reading March 2004)


My dad was an old soldier
Patriotic generations marched before him
And he carried the flag.
His army stories
Met my deaf ear -
I wish I’d listened.

Some comments I do remember:
Churchill: ‘The greatest Briton’, he said
Montgomery: ‘The greatest general’, he said
(He even had a good word for Rommel)
And surprisingly:
Ghandi: ‘The greatest Indian’, he said

He was in the regiment guarding him
And he admired him.
Ghandi waged pacifism
Like the Brits waged war.
Dad served seven years in India,
Dodging promotion as it flashed over his head.

A skinny, sallow shell of a man returned to Blighty
Demobbed for a brief stroll down Civvy Street
Before being recalled for the Big One.
He was one of the lucky lads rescued from Dunkirk.
He didn’t talk much about it.
If he did, I wasn’t listening.

Dad had by then become a stretcher bearer,
So some of Ghandi’s influence possibly rubbed off.
My old soldier’s war record
Marks time in a box in my loft.
It states: that a ‘steady, quiet, conscientious soldier,
Who is honest, and very reliable . . .
Hardworking and does his bit’ returned from India.
It also states after his return from Dunkirk:
That ‘His mobilised service has been very satisfactory . . .
And that he suffered from psychoneurosis’.


(I’m not surprised.)

Copyright Bob Harding-Jones 2016

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