Today the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries mark the end of the First World War when millions of young men were killed in a particularly pointless conflict. Many wear poppies but I don’t need to, I simply remember my granddad.
He was a “Boy Soldier”, one of many who lied about their age in order to sign up. The legal age was eighteen – he was just fifteen. He was lucky. Taken prisoner-of-war in 1916 he spent the rest of the war in prison camp. I often asked him about his fighting experiences but he would never tell, except to relate funny camp stories about smoking dried out, used tea when there was no tobacco and, through the barbed wire, trading soap (from Red Cross parcels) for potatoes from local peasant women. He thought it hilarious that his fellow prisoners used to coat small blocks of wood with a thin layer of soap but that when they got the potatoes those in the bottom layer were often rotten! He never revealed the horrors of that war but even in his old age he would often wake at night, screaming.
This is one of the reasons my 1914 and 1916 Barlings are so precious to me. I don’t need to wear a poppy on one day of the year. I think of him whenever I smoke one; the warm, hard hand-feel of their ancient bowls remind me of his hand when he used to hold mine as we walked to the allotment where he kept his champion racing pigeons and grew prize-winning flowers and vegetables.
My WW1 Barlings are lined up; they will all be smoked today.
He was a “Boy Soldier”, one of many who lied about their age in order to sign up. The legal age was eighteen – he was just fifteen. He was lucky. Taken prisoner-of-war in 1916 he spent the rest of the war in prison camp. I often asked him about his fighting experiences but he would never tell, except to relate funny camp stories about smoking dried out, used tea when there was no tobacco and, through the barbed wire, trading soap (from Red Cross parcels) for potatoes from local peasant women. He thought it hilarious that his fellow prisoners used to coat small blocks of wood with a thin layer of soap but that when they got the potatoes those in the bottom layer were often rotten! He never revealed the horrors of that war but even in his old age he would often wake at night, screaming.
This is one of the reasons my 1914 and 1916 Barlings are so precious to me. I don’t need to wear a poppy on one day of the year. I think of him whenever I smoke one; the warm, hard hand-feel of their ancient bowls remind me of his hand when he used to hold mine as we walked to the allotment where he kept his champion racing pigeons and grew prize-winning flowers and vegetables.
My WW1 Barlings are lined up; they will all be smoked today.