The Veteran

These photos are of my maternal grandfather, Charles Thomas Harris. He married at 19 and enlisted in the 16th Battalion, Rifle Brigade at the age of 20. He later served in ‘B’ Battalion, Machine Gun Corps, and was gassed at Ypres at the age of 22. He survived, but was sent from Base Hospital by ship to the UK, where he had an operation to remove one of his lungs because of the damage caused by the gas. 

He died at the age of 68, when I was 16, and I had no idea at the time about all he’d been through. How I wish now that I had asked him to tell me about his experiences of the war, but in those days most veterans didn’t want to talk about it.

I blipped a photo of a special commemorative Passchendaele 100 poppy badge in memory of my grandfather a year ago today here.

The Veteran

We came upon him sitting in the sun,
Blinded by war, and left. And past the fence
There came young soldiers from the Hand and Flower,
Asking advice of his experience.

And he said this, and that, and told them tales,
And all the nightmares of each empty head
Blew into air; then, hearing us beside,
 'Poor chaps, how'd they know what it's like?' he said.

And we stood there, and watched him as he sat,
Turning his sockets where they went away,
Until it came to one of us to ask
 'And you're — how old?'
 'Nineteen, the third of May.'

Margaret Postgate Cole 1893-1980