Lockdown Day 46 - A Time to Remember

VE Day 75, and disappointingly our street made no effort to acknowledge the event.  We'd been out on the tandem during the morning and saw a number of properties bedecked with red, white and blue bunting and seats and tables set out, though perhaps not as many as might have been had we not been dealing with the pandemic.

It was a time for reflection and the forget me nots in the garden are always an appropriate subject for such occasions.  

This is my father, in his new uniform at the beginning of the war.  I would guess he was in his late teens or early twenties when the photo was taken. He does look young.  If you compare it with this shot of him taken in 1945, you might draw the conclusion that war aged him.  

He would have been 100 years old later this month.  He acted as a spotter in the RAF in the Africa campaign.  Apparently, while his colour blindness excluded him from training as a pilot, the same condition meant that he could identify enemy placements even if camouflaged.

On a personal note it is also the 10th anniversary of the start of one of my favourite long distance walks, from Coast to Coast.  I've decided to start recording key dates where I have a pictorial record from the time before I started on Blipfoto (1st January 2012), probably on an anniversary of the original event.  While it will only be an occasional journal, one I originally started at the time of Mum's death, it seems appropriate to use it to record other events of significance.  

I wouldn't want to use this main journal as I have an uninterrupted record of posting from the start and don't want to increase the number of posts other than through new blips.