My Grandfather

I never knew my grandfather. He died suddenly only a few months after I was born. According to grandma it was completely out of the blue; he hadn’t had an illness or anything that suggested his time in this world was drawing to a close. It was just one of those tragedies that occasionally befalls unknowing families. I later learned that as he got older, my grandfather slowly became more and more unhappy. He sunk into a sort of depression; days were spent hunched over in his over-sized armchair, staring moodily into the blackened fireplace. He refused to explain to anyone what was wrong, and no one could cheer him up. That is, until my parents informed him that his first grandchild was on the way. Grandma has told me many a time that this seemed to cheer him up immensely; he couldn’t wait to meet me, to hold me in his arms. I don’t know why she felt the need to point this out as often as she did. Perhaps she thought that it would stop me from feeling sad about the fact that he had died before I got a chance to know him. But to a child who doesn’t understand such adult concepts as depression though, it wasn’t much of a comfort.

The joy at having a granddaughter was short-lived, though. Just four months later he passed away in his sleep, having gone to bed early the night before. This was as much of a mystery to the family as the man in general was to me. When I was younger, childish curiosity led me to ask what granddad was like. They told me he was a brave man who had fought in “that awful war” – this I realised later was the First World War. Often I would gaze enraptured up at the dusty photographs on the sideboard during visits to see grandma. Amongst the less interesting pictures, showing things like day trips to castles and the like, were the ones that held me truly captivated.

The most interesting one, I thought, showed my grandfather as a young man – although to my youthful mind, he still seemed quite old. This probably stemmed from the fact that most children tend to be of the mindset that any person above the age of eighteen is ‘old’. Although even now, over twenty years later, I still find it hard to fully accept that the young man in that faded photograph was the same as the one wearing a fraying grey cardigan and socks with his sandals in a brighter snapshot of my grandparents at the beach. Of course I know that he would have aged, like everyone does, but maybe it was because for me he only existed in these photographs, so it was strange to see him looking so different.

Young, and with an odd expression on his face. I had never been able to work out why he wasn’t smiling, like the girl whom he had his arm around. This was apparently his younger sister, but even grandma did not know much about her, as she died of flu in 1919. Someone out of shot had obviously said something amusing, because she was laughing, her face upturned as she looked up at her brother. The story I told myself was taking place was that the person taking the picture wanted a nice photo of the siblings, but my grandfather wouldn’t smile for it. The photographer then made some comment about him being grumpy, which made the girl giggle and caused the put out expression on the young man’s face.

Yes, I decided that my grandfather did not like having his photo taken. It seemed the most plausible excuse, considering that I would have expected him to at least look proud. He was standing in a slouch, unlike the photographs I have seen of officers, standing tall and posing with neatly trimmed moustaches. I don’t know how things worked back then, but maybe it was only officers who had ‘official’ photographs taken of them. My grandfather was only a private. Perhaps if he had been a higher rank the photo of him in his uniform would have been more impressive.

The photo is sepia, of course, because they didn’t have colour photographs the same back then. But if it had been in colour, you might not notice. My grandfather the soldier was in the typical British army garb of brown/green uniform. I imagined him and his regiment going on all sorts of adventures, always effectively hiding from the Germans because of their camouflaged uniforms and thus successfully completing their mission. Partly because I was too young to understand that battles were not easily won, but also because my grandfather was a brave, amazing soldier who excelled at everything he did, my imagination was filled with victories. I would imagine them returning to their headquarters triumphantly and having lost not a single one of their own men. Everyone I knew heard about my wonderful grandad.

When I was in my early teens and had outgrown all my childish fancies on what my grandfather might have got up to during the war, my grandma allowed me access to a trunk of possessions that had belonged to my grandfather, which she had kept safely out of the way. The trunk had been abandoned in the attic since they had moved into the house however many years ago and she herself had no particular desire to go through what was in there. But knowing I was interested in finding out as much as I could about my grandfather, she said I was more then welcome to look through it.

Some of its contents I found rather strange. A torn and crumpled rectangle of paper, yellowed with age, was apparently a warning, informing my grandfather that he would be required to join for service with the Colours, which I assumed was something that was sent out to all men who signed up. That my grandad had been ordered to sign up didn’t fit in with vision of him being eager to “do his bit”.
The writing on it was slanted and barely legible, too, so this was one item I didn’t spend much time on.

There were other, more trivial things in the trunk too, including something that looked like a children’s card game – my grandfather must have been in charge of entertainment or something. There was also a hip flask; the bottom half silver-plated glass and the top half covered in dirty brown leather. The leather was worn down in places and the stitching was coming undone. Holding the stained glass in my hands almost reverently, I would imagine my grandfather stranded in No Man’s Land with some fellow soldiers. The Germans were keeping up a steady barrage of machine gun fire and there was no hope of returning safely to their own trenches for hours, yet my grandfather graciously offered the last drops of water from his flask to an injured comrade, giving no thought to his own comfort…

Tied with a scruffy piece of string was a bundle of papers, the corners curled and the handwriting so faded it was barely legible. Ah-ha! Finally I would have hard evidence of my grandfather’s personality, a link through which I could connect to him.

“Dear Mary,” one randomly chosen letter had begun, “I received your parcel and it was most satisfactory. the socks are very comfortable and keep my feet warm – damn this cold weather! I keep thinking of you back home with the fire roaring, and me here with nothing but mud and fleas and corpses. but I wont get into that. I hate it here cant wait to go on leave. One chaps gone mad and been sent down the line – am wondering if this isnt such a bad idea!
from your heavy-hearted brother”

Many of the letters seemed to read in the same way. My grandfather wrote in a despondent way, and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why his letters weren’t more upbeat; they didn’t fit my vision of him at all.

Most intriguing to me though was a tarnished silver watch, wrapped in some old tissue paper underneath all the papers. It didn’t seem to work anymore, but I was still fascinated by it. A watch fob in the shape of a cross was connected to it by a fancy chain, with words that weren’t English inscribed on it. Why was this foreign object in with my grandfather’s possessions? Where had he got it? The little French I remembered from school didn’t help, and I discovered that the three tiny words adorning the cross were German. Gott mit uns. A colleague of mine whose parents were Austrian informed me that it meant “God with us”. I’d read about some amazing things that happened during the war, like soldiers from both sides meeting together in No Man’s Land one Christmas and swapping souvenirs. My grandfather must have done that; a German soldier, perhaps the same age as him, had given him his watch in exchange for something equally exciting. Maybe they’d even exchanged addresses so they could write to each other after the war was over.

That’s what I convinced myself, anyway. My grandfather was a brave man who had done his best to serve his King and Country. Grandma sat through many of my youthful versions of this story, always with the same small smile and moist eyes. Of course, it is only in hindsight that I have come to realise that this was not simply because she missed her late husband. Looking back, it is strange to see how ignorant I was.

It has only been over the last decade or so that people have started taking an interest in the First World War. Books have been published with information on the various battles, not to mention the interviews with men who actually fought in them. It was quite by chance that I happened to end up reading the one that had an interview with someone who had known my grandfather...

We were right in the thick of it when the Germans launched Operation Michael. Manchester Hill, that’s where we were positioned. A terrible, terrible battle for us. Thousands of the enemy came at us. Some parts of the battalion managed to keep them back, but for the most part we were completely overwhelmed. We did our best though, holding our positions as best as we could. I don’t think I’ve ever done so much hand-to-hand fighting. It was brutal. There was one fellow, Bill Harwood – he used to get the wind up something terrible. Almost got court-martialled once, for faking an illness so he wouldn’t have to fight at Ypres. You’ve never seen a bigger coward. He was terrified of dying out there, but he was giving it his all, that day. He was like a thing possessed, sticking the Germans with his bayonet left, right and centre. The 16th Manchesters were practically annihilated, but old Bill survived. I saw him several days later at a casualty clearing station – I had received a rather nasty splinter wound to my right shoulder – and he was half mad. He kept retelling his tale of what he’d done; apparently one of the enemy had found him taking cover in a shell hole and tried to shoot him, but Bill managed to wrestle the pistol from him and shot him right between the eyes. He grabbed the German’s watch as a souvenir, too. Proudly kept it by his bedside all the while he was kept at the hospital. Funny how even the most cowardly of men can become so bloodthirsty when the need arises.

I never knew my grandfather. He only existed in the form of some photographs and long forgotten belongings, hidden away in a dusty old attic.