A huge big fat Remembrance squeeze

Today (the 11th November) the country was silent for two minutes to remember all those totally amazing people who have and continue to lose their lives for our little island. In World War One around 703,000 men lost their lives in a war that was so terrible and in World War Two 298,950 died, not to mention over 64,000 people killed at home. There were also millions injured and sadly today we have lost 394 troops in Afghanistan and a 179 in Iraq killed in action, this doesn't even include the people left injured. These may seem just like numbers, but that is over one million six hundred families that have lost a loved one. Shockingly, there has only been one year since World War Two where a British Serviceman or woman has not been killed in conflict. Just a little bit of trivia from me to you. Actually it's my Dad's Trivia, his other snippet is just far too boring to even mention.

Sadly and I hate to admit that I am part of a generation of people that just see those numbers as useless facts to learn for our history GCSE exam and not lives lost. I'm not saying that everyone doesn't appreciate them, I just don't think they get enough recognition by us all sometimes.

Today I snuggled down in my monkey PJs, with my cat and some chocolate biscuits to watch the lovely David Dimbleby present the coverage on the Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. While wondering if the Duchess of Cambridge had a Philip Treacy hat on, (she did have by the way), I saw the line of the veteran troops walking proudly in their uniforms and every year the line sadly gets shorter and shorter. One day there will be no Great Uncle Albert left to tell us about what happened during the War.


Those veterans may not look like young nineteen year olds now, but they once were. Sadly unlike teenagers nowadays they spent their days fighting for us, not playing on an Xbox or downing a bottle of wine in 5 seconds. They didn't have the freedom to stay in bed till 2pm and doss around all day, they were out in the cold fighting a war not knowing when or whether they were going to see their family again.

Women were lucky if they saw their man once a year and now us girls moan and spend hours on the phone to our girlfriends debating why we haven't heard from a guy all day.

In World War One women felt helpless, but in the second war women went to work in factories doing dangerous jobs filling in for the men, helping the military and working on the land getting their manicured hands dirty.
With that bought shorter hemlines and trousers, so along with keeping the country together we have those women to thank for us being able to wear trousers and get away with not shaving for two weeks.


So on behalf of my generation may I offer all you men and women a great big fat cuddle and a huge thank you. Without you we may never have had The Only Way is Essex and the Spice Girls. I mean can you imagine a life without them?



Second Hand Rose
XxxX

 

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