Ordinary people doing extraodinary things

Article by Reverend Laurence Twaddle

My grandfather, Thomas Summerhill, won the Military Medal in the First World War.
Awarded for bravery in the field…
Amazing enough in itself.
Just an ordinary lad…who had no plans to be a hero!

But what is more amazing is that he never spoke much about his experiences.
What it was like in the Trenches,
the danger – the sheer unspeakable awfulness of it.

Nor did he ever speak about what it was he did to win the bravery award.
None of us knows.
He was a very humble hero.

Like so many of those who were remembered on  Remembrance Sunday.
Who went to war to defend the freedoms we enjoy today…
Across the world,
people will have seen them around during the week.
Old men bent at the bus-stop –
or collecting their books at the Library.
The humble heroes…of too many wars…
But surely not allowed to be the forgotten heroes.

On 11th July, 1943 – while serving on the merchant ship California, my father was torpedoed from the air – in mid –Atlantic.
An Italian dive- bomber sent his ship to the bottom of the sea.
Fire, explosions, oil slicks…death and destruction…unspeakable…

My father was rescued –
picked up by another ship in the convoy
and brought to safety.
If he hadn’t been - I wouldn’t be here writing these words!
There’s a humbling thought!
All my genes, possibilities, future,
tied into that moment.

Lots of his mates didn’t survive that attack.

Their wives waited in vain.
Their children went unborn.
Futures torn from their grasp.
the simple truth is –
We owe them.

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They were all such ordinary guys –
those brave soldiers we remember with such gratitude.

Like my father in law, Basil Stringer – who found himself uprooted from the Yorkshire mill where he worked,
and thrust into a world of danger and death –
risk and horror.
Nothing prepared them for it –
it just had to be done…
So, he saw those theatres of war –
the African Desert – Sicily – Italy – France- Germany.
We have a rack of medals he won.
And wore with deserved dignity…on Remembrance Sunday.
That ordinary bloke.
That extraordinary bloke.

All so that folk like us could live in freedom
and enjoy the inestimable luxury of
saying just what we wanted…living the life we wanted
The wonderful blessing of going to bed
without fear of the crunch of jackboots on the gravel
and the chilling heart-stopping knock at midnight.
They were ordinary men and women
doing quite extraordinary things…
We owe them.