Fear

My father Paul, born 11th July 1913 in an unknown type of plane at Bacton in Norfolk where the family farmed.

I am very bad at guessing ages of children (and policemen) but I guess the photo was taken after July 1918 as Wiki says:

"RAF Bacton is an RAF landing field, built to accommodate aircraft intercepting Zeppelin bombers during the First World War.
The only unit to use Bacton was a detachment of No. 219 Squadron RAF between 22 July 1918 and March 1919 with various aircraft."

As 219 Squadron only had two types of aircraft, it would appear Paul was in a Sopwith Camel fighter rather than the other type, Airco DH9 bomber

He was later to volunteer in WWII and after initial training in Luton and Northern Ireland, spent most of his time until 1946 serving in the Royal Indian Army in India and Burma.

Like so many who went through these wars, he never voluntarily talked about his experiences and I was brought up not to ask. I regret that now.

He did, however, say to the above photo that "he was trying very hard to look brave".

As far as I know, his father John was not called up as he was a farmer and I am not aware of any direct British relations who died in the Great War. My father was by far the youngest of 5 children and the eldest could easily have been called up but like the other four, they were all girls.

Just as my father didn't talk about the war, neither did my mother. Her father Georg, born in Bavaria would have been 24 at the outbreak of WWI in 1914. He was a practising doctor, so I suspect he was also spared the front line.

Both grandfathers died of health problems before the outbreak of WWII, Georg in 1933 shortly after being locked up for a while for defying NS orders and thereafter not being allowed to carry out his work as a doctor.
John died a year later.

Their silence was not because they wanted to forget, both my father and mother were active in the local British Legion. They just didn't want me to be burdened with the horrors. As I said above, I wish they had but fully understand their motives.