When the Royal Welch Fusiliers took the field at last Sunday’s south Wales derby led by their regimental goat, to the strains of ‘Men of Harlech’ (sung by Bryn Terfel, I’m sure), I seemed to be the only one in the entire stadium not clapping along. Cardiff and Swansea fans – despite the Bluebirds’ Welsh dragons and St. David’s banners and Swansea’s several Union Jacks – clapped in unison.
If my friend and comrade Jack Gilbert – a true socialist from Derby – were still alive, he would have stood with us in our motionless protest. As would another absent friend, missing the game, who has been on many anti-war marches.
On Remembrance Sunday, I wonder who I should remember. Should it be my Pontypridd grandfather, who fought in the trenches of the 1st World War, was wounded and gassed, but never really criticized the futility of it all? Or my Somerset grandpa who, because of his deformed spine, was a stretcher-bearer there and, according to family lore, was changed forever by what he saw?
I knew this grandpa much better than the Welsh one, who died when I was young. He never spoke about his experiences; in fact, I only heard from my brother about how seriously he was affected. It was so profound that, a lay preacher before the war, he never returned to a chapel after it. His faith must have been considerably questioned.
I also remember clearly from my close associations with N. Ireland (my wife’s from the Falls Road) those who have been killed by the occupying forces there, the British army. There was the man up my wife’s street, shot dead because his exhaust backfired and many joy-riders executed because they drove through road-blocks. There was the innocent roadie of the well-known group Bananarama killed in west Belfast after a night out and a young boy shot dead because his paint-brush was mistaken for a gun! Worst of all , there was one of the most appalling atrocities carried out there in Dublin and Monaghan, perpetrated by the UVF, who could not have bombed and killed so many without close collusion from the SAS.
It is precisely because I have seen at first hand the terror deployed by the British army as an occupying power, that I cannot join in these celebrations of ‘our boys’.
Not only that, but my wife’s former brother-in-law was actually in the British army, even though he was a Catholic from the Ardoyne. Once, we visited his house in West Germany and stayed there a short while. I have never encountered such a violent society. Fights, wife-beatings and downright animosity to local people were widespread. Army life reflected the nature of that profession: these were men and women trained for violence, for killing. Whenever I hear bland talk of ‘heroes’, I think of one officer I talked to there who expressed great support for Hitler!
If remembrance is ever going to be meaningful, then it must include all the victims of war: soldiers on every side and above all, the innocents who had no choice in the matter. At present Remembrance Day is used as propaganda, suggesting that only the armed forces have suffered. We need fewer bugles and more Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’.
TARGET IN HER OWN HOME
She twitched and her arms shot up
into the air, because of the war.
At any sudden sound from a pan
or door slammed very loud
there was an explosion in her head.
She had known it for years:
evacuated from the shop in a scare,
the man shot dead because of the back-fire
of the exhaust of his car, the soldier
at her feet near her front door
who swivelled to face her, gun cocked.
It made no difference that no-one
actually called it by its name :
‘The Troubles’ sounded so domestic,
till she thought about road-blocks
and army with blacked-up faces
so easily driven through at night.
Her twitch wouldn’t go away.
It followed her across the sea,
in every room whatever her mood,
whatever the news, her jerking upward :
target in her own home.
If my friend and comrade Jack Gilbert – a true socialist from Derby – were still alive, he would have stood with us in our motionless protest. As would another absent friend, missing the game, who has been on many anti-war marches.
On Remembrance Sunday, I wonder who I should remember. Should it be my Pontypridd grandfather, who fought in the trenches of the 1st World War, was wounded and gassed, but never really criticized the futility of it all? Or my Somerset grandpa who, because of his deformed spine, was a stretcher-bearer there and, according to family lore, was changed forever by what he saw?
I knew this grandpa much better than the Welsh one, who died when I was young. He never spoke about his experiences; in fact, I only heard from my brother about how seriously he was affected. It was so profound that, a lay preacher before the war, he never returned to a chapel after it. His faith must have been considerably questioned.
I also remember clearly from my close associations with N. Ireland (my wife’s from the Falls Road) those who have been killed by the occupying forces there, the British army. There was the man up my wife’s street, shot dead because his exhaust backfired and many joy-riders executed because they drove through road-blocks. There was the innocent roadie of the well-known group Bananarama killed in west Belfast after a night out and a young boy shot dead because his paint-brush was mistaken for a gun! Worst of all , there was one of the most appalling atrocities carried out there in Dublin and Monaghan, perpetrated by the UVF, who could not have bombed and killed so many without close collusion from the SAS.
It is precisely because I have seen at first hand the terror deployed by the British army as an occupying power, that I cannot join in these celebrations of ‘our boys’.
Not only that, but my wife’s former brother-in-law was actually in the British army, even though he was a Catholic from the Ardoyne. Once, we visited his house in West Germany and stayed there a short while. I have never encountered such a violent society. Fights, wife-beatings and downright animosity to local people were widespread. Army life reflected the nature of that profession: these were men and women trained for violence, for killing. Whenever I hear bland talk of ‘heroes’, I think of one officer I talked to there who expressed great support for Hitler!
If remembrance is ever going to be meaningful, then it must include all the victims of war: soldiers on every side and above all, the innocents who had no choice in the matter. At present Remembrance Day is used as propaganda, suggesting that only the armed forces have suffered. We need fewer bugles and more Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’.
TARGET IN HER OWN HOME
She twitched and her arms shot up
into the air, because of the war.
At any sudden sound from a pan
or door slammed very loud
there was an explosion in her head.
She had known it for years:
evacuated from the shop in a scare,
the man shot dead because of the back-fire
of the exhaust of his car, the soldier
at her feet near her front door
who swivelled to face her, gun cocked.
It made no difference that no-one
actually called it by its name :
‘The Troubles’ sounded so domestic,
till she thought about road-blocks
and army with blacked-up faces
so easily driven through at night.
Her twitch wouldn’t go away.
It followed her across the sea,
in every room whatever her mood,
whatever the news, her jerking upward :
target in her own home.
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