WARTIME

The weather today has been really terrible.  Just rain and a fierce wind the whole time. And its been cold.  Went to Fitness Class this afternoon and got drenched.  Then Slimming Group this evening - drenched again.  However it was worth turning up to Slimming as I lost 3 pounds and was Slimmer Of The Week. Everyone who goes to Group brings something " Syn Free " for the Slimmer of the Week Basket.  This week it was a busy group so the basket was packed - see my Extra.

The Mono Monday theme today is " Rhymes with Time".  Thanks to laurie54  for hosting.   I chose the word Wartime.  And I have focused on my father in law George.  He seems to have had quite a life.  All I know about his wartime exploits  is from documents etc - he never discussed the war at all.

Please feel free to disregard the following if you want - it does go on a bit.  I just wanted to put it on record to accompany my blip.

Some of what I know about George ... he was born in 1905.  He was in the Metropolitan Police and rose to the rank of Sergeant.  Sometime in 1943 he decided to try and join the RAF. He was in a reserved occupation and didn't need to join up - and he was aged 38 so rather too old but at the time Bomber Command were suffering high casualties so they were replacing air crew with policemen.  He didn't get in straight away and had to do some training at home himself - such as learning the morse code etc to see if he would be suitable.. He did get accepted and trained  as a Flight Engineer.

He became part of the air crew in Lancaster Bombers.  According to his flight log he went on numerous missions over Germany in 1944 and 1945 - mainly near the River Rhine.  The last entry in his book was in February 1945. This was because his plane was shot down over France and he had to parachute to the ground.  He was badly injured including suffering multiple fractures of the spine.  He was returned to the UK to recuperate.  Fortunately he wasn't paralysed but he did suffer the after effects all his life.  He was medically unfit to rejoin the Met police so he joined the Ministry of Food and became an Enforcement Inspector in Brixton. At some point he was also part of the Royal Observer Corps in Leeds and he was also in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Then a stint with Securicor. Then he had a complete change of direction  - he bought drapers shops in Eastbourne, Melton Mowbray and Leeds.  The first time I met him was in around 1982 when he lived above his shop in Leeds. He died in 1998 .

He obviously didn't let his wartime disaster affect his life and did more than most.  My blip includes his photo, his medals - The 1939 - 1945 Star, The France and Germany Star, The Defence Medal and The War Medal 1939 - 1945 and his Caterpillar Club certificate. The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft .  The following is a poem found in the journal of a Prisoner Of War......

Little silk worm - so very small
You saved me from an awful fall
Tho you are such an ugly thing
I owe my life to your man made wing

Musical link  WAR - by Edwin Starr

Steps today - 14,065