It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they vapourised Syme, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Is there anything else on Radio 4 at the moment? George Orwell and Sylvia Plath seem to have taken over and I'm expecting one or both of them to be guest editor on Today sometime next week. Not a complaint of course apart from the time it's going to take to listen to it all once it's off the PVR and on a device somewhere.
I didn't know but my dad had this picture of my great-great uncle - Albert Farar Gatliff, a general in The Royal Marines and a bearer of The Unknown Warrior in 1920. I've been trying to find him in this film ...
... but the picture was taken 20 years previously. Dad also has his swagger stick.
However, none of this is as important as another discovery prompted by discussions with members of The Gatliff Trust who were at my aunt's funeral. They asked me if I knew what happened to my grandfather's brother - my great uncle. We knew he died in 1914 though his date of birth would have made him 15 at death, a very young age for any combatant. However a few fuzzy google queries actually turned up that he was a Royal Navy Cadet and he died during surgery at Dartmouth. So John Caulfeild Wolseley Gatliff has been belatedly added to the Commonwealth War Graves Commision list of casualties - one of the youngest ever.
My wife has pointed out almost every day for the last week that I have not blogged since September. Well here we are again. Sadly this hiatus has been because my wonderful aunt, Elizabeth Noel Gatliff, died on Boxing day. She was 86 and had a life of excitement and joy that most of us can only dream of. I'm posting this picture of her in the crowds on VE day which is how she should be remembered - with spirit and laughter. She was a nurse and health visitor for many years, working in Canada and Australia and visiting every part of the world without fear or anxiety. She did not see any divisions in the world, only people and believed that everyone could be better off basically by having a bit of respect and by giving up a bit of oneself to others. I am comforted that she died peacefully in the Horton Hospital in Banbury because she had campaigned with many other people to keep services from being moved from there to Oxford for the sake of saving a few pounds. I was touched and overwhelmed by the number of people who came to her funeral and I can only hope that I managed to convey the colour and excitement of her life in the tribute I wrote.
